![]() ![]() ![]() Pratchett had already started using Vimes as a moral compass for the series, giving us a fundamentally decent man who’s also not flawless or perfect. But instead, thanks to the presence of Commander Sam Vimes, it becomes something richer. That’s a lot going on, and it would be easy to let this become a fantasy political thriller, albeit one with a lot of great characters. That means, though, that The Fifth Elephant has one of the more ambitious plots of any Watch book to date, involving a crowning of a new Dwarf king, the theft of an iconic and powerful object, and the manipulations of a prominent werewolf family. If Vimes has always been used as a way of observing and commenting on human nature and how people treat each other, then it makes sense for Pratchett to start looking at how nations interact with each other as well. So really, The Fifth Elephant moving the focus to international relations is the next logical step for the series. It was a series that allowed Pratchett to use Ankh-Morpork as a way of exploring society and national tendencies, from xenophobia to militarism to race relations. It was a new organization, one filled with a slew of memorable and beloved characters – Sam Vimes, Detritus, Carrot, Angua, Fred, Nobby – and one that was changing the face of Ankh-Morpork. By the time Terry Pratchett wrote The Fifth Elephant, we were starting to make our peace with the new role of the City Watch in the Discworld series. ![]()
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