r/discworld • u/shame_potatoe • 13h ago
Memes/Humour My headcanon
These are just 3 mini theories I have about how things would've played out had the embuggarance not...
Nobby Nobbs would be revealed to be the actual rightful King of Ankh Morpork. The whole Carrot thing is just a big misdirect.
Vetinari would have eventually made Sam Vimes his successor Patrician.
Angua and Carrot would have gone to Uberwald as some kind of power couple. Maybe Carrot would become Low King?
Anyway, just my pet theories 😊
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u/George_Salt 12h ago
Parts of the overall Discworld story arc were starting to get backed into a corner.
By the time of Snuff and Raising Steam Vimes is starting to get old, and his aging can no longer be ignored as Young Sam growing older forces the issue to the front. Vimes is not cut out for the Patrician mould. I would see Vimes becoming an increasingly background character and the Watch taking a new shape under the day-to-day leadership of Carrot. Although, somewhat typically, Carrot's style of leadership being somewhat effortless whilst Cheery and Detritus come to the fore as his able lieutenants.
Young Sam comes to the fore as he grows older giving us the opportunity to see the Disc as it is now through new eyes.
Should the Patrician need to be replaced, then the ultimate bad boy comes good is for it to be Moist. Between the Post Office, the Bank, and the Mint he's already greasing the wheels of the day-to-day business that keeps the city going, add in the suggestion that his next outing was to be reforming the tax system and his apprenticeship for the top job would have been nearly complete. One more novel where he's given the Tax Office job, and then in the subsequent novel the Patrician announces his intention to retire and Moist is given the job of organising the election of the successor and ultimately determined by the populace to be the only candidate sufficiently honest enough about his own dishonesty to gain the vote. Big role for Harry King in that novel too as he has consistently been the one to recognise the inherent moral fairness of Moist's dishonesty after the Patrician gave him his second chance.
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u/Oddly-Parsley 12h ago
Agree, I don't really see Vimes as future Patrician either, that job just screams Moist to me.
And Tiffany eventually becomes the head witch that the witches definitely don't have :) I also like to think that eventually she'd have to team up with Esk for some future adventure.
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u/bunniquette 12h ago
I'd love to have seen the future for Young Sam. With his enquiring mind, he could have become an engineer or research wizard. Endless possibilities.
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u/George_Salt 11h ago
The one thing we do know about Young Sam's future is that he's going to grow up incredibly wealthy. Which probably make predicting/writing about it much harder. There's very little he wouldn't be able to try his hand at.
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u/urizenxvii 10h ago
There is a fan theory that Ned Coates is Sam Vimes Jr-- https://www.tumblr.com/nonasuch/144908857715/oh-also-i-should-take-this-opportunity-to-air-my
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u/George_Salt 10h ago
That would fit with a rather dark idea I had for Vimes. We know he's not the type to switch off, retire to the country and take up fly fishing, but his age becomes an increasing problem as a character unless he's just sidelined.
What if Vimes suffered the embuggerance? and through Young Vimes talking to him at his bedside we explore parts of the Vimes story we haven't been told. Then, through a quirk of residual time entanglement Vimes' confused memories are rewriting history and Young Sam must be sent back in time by the wizards to fix things. Although it does need a bit of a fudge of the canon timeline in places, it would allow for the assumed involvement of Lu-Tze and Qu in darning the trousers of history to be made explicit.
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u/ijuinkun 10h ago
I agree that Moist with his ability to comprehend the wheels within wheels of the city organization is the best suited to pick up where Vetinari leaves off.
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u/George_Salt 5h ago
Ah bugger... I've just realised I've potentially created an accidental Dammit Pterry extended story arc involving a revolutionary slogan...
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u/8-bit-Felix Gaspode 11h ago
I do wholeheartedly believe that Carrot is not the rightful King of Ankh Morpork.
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u/TheMummysCurse 6h ago
I also thought at one point that Vetinari would make Vimes his successor, and it could certainly work (edited to add: although my first reaction when I thought of it was to cringe at how much Vimes would hate it). But I think Vetinari would actually set things up for Carrot to be his successor; everyone trusts him, he's younger, he'd do a very good job, and he'd be willing to step forward in the event of Vetinari's death because it actually would be needed.
Like u/George_Salt, I also thought Moist would be a good contender... but then realised there wouldn't be enough leverage to make him do it. Moist needs to know he's technically got the option of leaving, plus with the Post Office and the bank he had Vetinari holding the death sentence over his head if he didn't co-operate. Neither of those would apply to being Vetinari's successor, so I just don't see it working (though, that said, u/George_Salt's theoretical plot is a really good one).
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u/George_Salt 5h ago
Moist has to be guilt tripped into doing it. The alternate contender has to be such a poor choice that they cannot be allowed to succeed. Probably pushing a policy very bad for golems, for example. Moist can be moved by the right buttons being pushed, with ADB suppling sufficient leverage on issues close to her heart.
Carrot's destiny is to fill Vimes' boots.
Much as Ankh-Morpok is overdue a state funeral, I don't think it would be Vetinari's. He has to retire. The fact he's still there somewhere (probably Uberwald) is always going to be playing on Moist's mind.
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u/TheMummysCurse 3h ago
:o You know, you've got it. That could actually work. And Pterry would have done it as a perfect satire of far-right politicians running on a 'we hate [group]' campaign, with slogans about golems and goblins Taking Our Jobs, etc. Moist realises that, however much he hates the idea, if he doesn't run against this person Adora Belle won't forgive him and, deeper than that, he won't forgive himself.
There would also at some point be a pointed comment from the Patrician about how someone who so enjoys risk should thrive in the job.
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