The latter, I suspect. Remember the Ed McBain parody at the beginning? Vimes is drunk in the gutter…
“The city wasa, wasa, wasa wossname. Thing. Woman. Thass what it was. Woman. Roaring, ancient, centuries old. Strung you along, let you fall in thingy, love, with her, then kicked you inna, inna, thingy, in your mouth. Tongue. Tonsils. Teeth. That’s what it, she, did. She wasa . . . Thing, you know, lady dog. Puppy. Hen. Bitch. And then you hated her and, and just when you thought you’d got her, it, out of your, your, whatever, then she opened her great booming rotten heart to you, caught you off bal, bal, bal, thing. Ance. Yeah. Thassit. Never knew where you stood. Lay. Only thing you were sure of, you couldn’t let her go. Because, because she was yours, all you had, even in her gutters…”
Running to catch up but still miles behind! Ah, and thus began the Watch series and all of its legion bastard offspring. I absoluletly loathe the way the series has developed as a permanent mirror-held-up-to-modern-reality that it has, and I’ve come close to giving up TP a few times now because of it. Vimes and the way he develops into the big chief of AM grates on me endlessly, and I get so fucking bored of his oh so wise salt of the earth but still highly intelligent ways. The scene in Nightwatch where he’s boning up on slang from the past made me want to throw the book across the room!
Anyway, more of that particular rant in later threads where the Vimes-monster really starts to come into its own. G!G! is a novel that has improved with me aging, as I’m much more aware of the subtleties of the story - again I was quite young when I started reading the novels and I started them fairly close to when they were first released, so I was only about 11 when I read G!G! for the first time. It’s definitely better now although it’s still far from one of my favourite books. I agree that the take on the dog trainer stereotype is asbolutely masterful, and Sybil is definitely a character I like as well (even if she did marry that twerp). Nobby and Fred Colon I also have a bit of a soft spot for, although I think PT destruct-tested the superlative metaphor with Nobby being so vile he’s barely human (he all but practically has people mistaking him for a pool of amino acids in later novels and you really start to wonder just how bad a character can be, especially when standing next to people like Foul Ole Ron).
Carrot is a goodun and yes, the literal version is definitely better. Whilst G!G! makes very clear why Carrot will never show himself for who he really is or “take his rightful place” (as the imposter does and to absolutely zero effect) you do kind of see him as a bit of an “unexploded storyline” wandering around. I’m sure PT will no doubt revisit him when he’s feeling particularly Republican (maybe when the Queen snuffs it as his special way of sticking two fingers up).