As of his latest promotion, his full name and title is stated as being "His Grace, His Excellency, The 1st Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes".

His rise from drunk policeman to respected member of the aristocracy, and the simultaneous growth and development of the Watch under his command, have together been one of the major threads of the Discworld series.

[3] It has been suggested that Sam is a descendant of Suffer-Not-Injustice "Old Stoneface" Vimes, the Watch Commander who instigated the rebellion against, and subsequently beheaded, Lorenzo the Kind, the last king of the city, a sadistic torturer described as "very fond of children."

This insult to Vimes' sense of justice, together with his being naturally knurd (the opposite of being drunk, where one is stripped of all the illusions that make life bearable) and other events (it has been claimed he was "brung low by a woman", which is an interpretation of the anthropomorphisation of the city, Morporkia), led towards heavy drinking.

The whole series of events forced Vimes to sober-up long enough to uncover who was responsible for summoning the Dragon, after which the changes in his personal life led to him coming off of the drink and switching to smoking cigars, and occasionally, taking snuff.

it is revealed that some of her family's possessions are still stored in the attic of the building – in this instance they retrieved a copy of Methodia Rascal's Koom Valley painting, made by Sybil as a child, after the original is stolen.

As part of an equal-opportunities drive required by the Patrician, the Watch under Vimes eventually took on extra staff in the form of a werewolf, a dwarf and a troll (and later a gargoyle, a gnome, a golem, an Igor, a zombie, and a vampire).

In his expanding international and diplomatic role, Vimes appreciates the fact that police officers from Sto Lat to Genua have been trained to salute him, and remain in unofficial contact across the Disc.

[4] An incorruptible idealist with deep beliefs in justice and an abiding love of his city, he is also a committed cynic whose knowledge of human nature constantly reminds him how far off those ideals are.

Initially, Vimes is jokingly described as only fond of rural dwarfs and wizards, the former who only commit crimes underground and away from him and the latter ironically sharing his respectful distaste for using magic irresponsibly.

In addition, Vimes' office at Pseudopolis Yard has "everything that his ingenuity could devise", including sharp ornamental railings, "which are pretty, and make the house look nice, but are, above all, spiky."

Whenever he thwarts an Assassin in an attempt, he usually lets them go after taking their share of the payment for his inhumation (which he then donates to the 'Watch Widows and Orphans Fund', or to the 'Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick, Abused or Abandoned Dragons'), and subjecting them to a little humiliation.

"REVIEW: "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett (no spoilers) This, along with the Discworld habit of pushing any theory as hard as it goes, appears to have culminated in Vimes' psyche creating its own 'internal policeman' to "Guard the Guardsmen", (cf.

In Men at Arms, he temporarily gains possession of the Gonne, a malevolent firearm which drives him to violence, but he restrains the urge to "make things right", enough to eventually let it go without seriously hurting anyone.

In Feet of Clay, Corporal Nobby Nobbs refuses the position of King of Ankh-Morpork, primarily due to the fear of incurring Vimes's general wrath and hatred of royalty.

Both of those factors, and a near-Death experience that forced him to miss his 6:00pm story-time with his son, culminate in Vimes snapping, temporarily losing control to "the Beast", and single-handedly storming the deep-downers responsible, all the while roaring out the lines to Where's My Cow?

As he is about to massacre the now-defenceless deep-downers, Vimes hesitates thanks to "the Watchman" in his head and begins to struggle with himself, which buys enough time for Sergeant Angua to arrive at the scene and force him down.

Revealed in the events of Thud!, after years of night-time patrols, Vimes' mindscape is described as the city of Ankh-Morpork-itself, streets and all, in the dead of night, whilst the rains are bucketing down over your head.

While the Summoning Dark had trespassed into his mind, needing a host in order to track down the Deep-Downer Dwarves, would try to enter through one of the doors that opened when Vimes became angry, only to be pulled away at every time.

Lady Sybil is a remarkably patient woman; she spent nearly the entirety of The Fifth Elephant attempting to inform her increasingly distracted husband that she was pregnant with their first child.

Sybil bears this divided loyalty with some grace; nearly every Watch novel concludes with Sam making some form of amends to his neglected wife, either a delayed honeymoon, or simply time alone with their new baby.

Vimes' involvement in preventing a pointless war with Klatch in the novel Jingo led to his being once more rewarded with an unwanted title, in this case, Duke of Ankh.

His role as Duke of Ankh largely involves diplomacy (his visit to Überwald in The Fifth Elephant for example), and his rough and ready upbringing has given him an obliquely effective approach to this field.

For instance, he once threatened to personally send an opposing diplomat "home in an ambulance" for parading his troops near Ankh-Morpork borders, an act that caused the man to order an immediate withdrawal so drastic that Havelock Vetinari remarked "they were nearly in the next country over."

Despite having competent subordinates, including Captains Carrot and Angua and Sergeant Detritus, Vimes finds it difficult to delegate, and is frustrated by the fact that the growth of the Watch has left him with less and less time for actual boots-on-the-pavement policing.

His birth was difficult, and Vimes paid Doctor "Mossy" Lawn a large sum of money in gratitude for saving Sybil's and the baby's lives.

He is a secondary character in The Truth and Monstrous Regiment and has cameos in The Last Hero, Going Postal, Making Money, Unseen Academicals, I Shall Wear Midnight and Raising Steam.

Vimes is played by Richard Dormer in the live-action television series The Watch, "inspired by Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' novels", rather than being a straight adaptation of specific stories.

[20] Discussing Pratchett's legacy in The Guardian, Andrew Brown wrote that Vimes "may be the most fully realised decent man in modern literature,"[21] while the Hollywood Reporter has described him as "Inspector Morse-meets-Humphrey Bogart-esque".

[23] In episode 3.4 "Coda" of the TV series Endeavour, Inspector Fred Thursday states that his old mentor was "Sergeant Vimes, Cable Street".