• Dasus@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Just because the picture lacks quite a few pixels, I’m gonna leave this here for better legibility.

    Commander Vimes didn’t like the phrase ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’, believing the innocent had everything to fear, mostly from the guilty but in the longer term even more from those who say things like ‘The innocent have nothing to fear’.

    And I checked and the quote you remembered was from “Night Watch”, published in 2002.

    Everyone was guilty of something. Vimes knew that. Every copper knew that. That was how you maintained your authority.

    But luckily Vimes isn’t a fascist deep down, so it’s more referring to the general psyche and not actually implying everyone is officially criminal

    • OlPatchy2Eyes@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Thanks for finding that stuff! Yeah I suppose that “everyone was guilty of something” line just didn’t age well for me. You’re right that Vimes is certainly no fascist, especially given the other events in Night Watch.

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      not actually implying everyone is officially criminal

      It’s Ankh-Morpork, I think canonically only Carrot isn’t a criminal in that town

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Well I wouldn’t so far as to argue that, but I should like to make a few additions.

        First, I think Vimes is talking about guilt in general, not necessarily of being guilty of a crime, per se.

        Secondly, I think Carrot is canonically the only actually law abiding citizen, yeah, but… that would still leave at least Vetinari, who makes the rules, no?

        I wanted a quote from Vetinari here but there’s too many so here’s a couple. First, description, not a quote.

        “He didn’t administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.”

        And

        You see, the only thing the good people are good at is overthrowing the bad people. And you’re good at that, I’ll grant you. But the trouble is it’s the only thing you’re good at. One day it’s the ringing of the bells and the casting down of the evil tyrant, and the next it’s everyone sitting around complaining that ever since the tyrant was overthrown no one’s been taking out the trash. Because the bad people know how to plan. It’s part of the specification, you might say. Every evil tyrant has a plan to rule the world. The good people don’t seem to have the knack.

        One more for the road

        If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged

    • Gabe Bell@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 months ago

      Or, you know, click on the image, right click and say “Open in a new tab” (or just click on it again), then click on it a third time and it will open in a magnified form.

      Then you will be able to view it with as many pixels as you want.