As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Fridge Brilliance
Fridge Brilliance:- Vetinari actually started most of the conspiracies dedicated to his own overthrow, so he could keep tabs on them and sabotage their efforts as needed. He also has spies monitoring the Guilds, the nobility, the criminal community, and anyone else of influence. The only reason the Elucidated Brethren's plot manages to hold together long enough to cause trouble is that the Supreme Master deliberately recruits its membership from the least important people in the city: low-grade, workaday craftsmen and laborers, whom even Vetinari hadn't thought it necessary to spy on.
- Also, they're utterly incompetent; the only reason they managed anything was that the Supreme Master had to practically push them along. No doubt there are plenty of other conspiracies going on in Ankh-Morpok, but if they're about as effective as this one, Vetinari wouldn't need to bother.
- Re-read the Brethrens' complaints about being "oppressed", and notice how they sound like henpecked husbands who are always being nagged at by women in their lives. Small wonder, that the dragon they summoned to terrorize the city turned out to be female.
- Going off of that, it's also possible that Wonse contributed his view of his feared boss, Lord Vetinari. Like Vetinari, the dragon creates an image of being impossible to replace, so citizens start jockeying for power amongst themselves instead of uniting to overthrow her.
- The fact that the events of this book lead to Vimes's marriage to Sybil makes sense if you look at it in the context of her dragon-keeping hobby. It’s stated that female dragons tend to be larger than their male counterparts, and Sybil is a large woman compared to the skinny and less-impressive Vimes. Thus, the pairing would make perfect sense to any of her dragons...
- A few times in the book, it's mentioned that the Standard Hero Reward for killing a dragon is marrying the ruler's daughter and getting half the kingdom. How does Vimes end up in later books? Married to one of the highest-bred aristocrats in the city, and thereby owning half the land in it.
- Not to mention that Errol, the swamp dragon that ultimately fights the great dragon to a standstill via sonic boom, marries the dragon. As another hero, wedding royalty is his reward!
- When the Brethren first summon the dragon, the items they use include an anti-crocodile charm and an "altar ornament", which the leader doesn't ask about. A few pages later, it's mentioned that there's an altar ornament missing from the Crocodile God's shrine. A few pages later still, one of the Brethren is mauled by a wild crocodile out of nowhere... in Ankh-Morpork, a city that doesn't have crocodiles living in its main river. Divine retribution. - Anderling
- This one's a double, the brother in question had contributed an amulet that prevents alligator attacks. Which he only needed because he robbed the crocodile god.
- Actually, it's a triple; the brother in question bought the amulet for three dollars; later, after being mauled, another brother has put down a contribution of three dollars in the name of the Supreme Grand Master towards a get-well-soon gift.
- This one's a double, the brother in question had contributed an amulet that prevents alligator attacks. Which he only needed because he robbed the crocodile god.
- The discussion between the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night concerning the sword in the stone myth: the True King the legends tell you to search for is the person that pulls the sword out of the stone... but when you think about it, the True King you should really be looking for is really the one that put the sword into the stone in the first place. In Men at Arms, immediately after it is revealed that Captain Carrot is the True King of Ankh-Morpork, he does both. — Vebyast
- After reading Guards! Guards! probably five times, I finally realised that, near the start, Brother Plasterer talks about an old prophecy: "Yea, the king will come bringing Law and Justice, and know nothing but the Truth, and Protect and Serve the People with his Sword." Then Carrot shows up and is revealed to be the true king, but he doesn't want to rule. Instead he brings Law and Justice, knows nothing but the Truth and Protects and Serves the People with his Sword by staying a regular watchman. He also becomes involved with Angua, daughter of one of the ruling parties of a foreign nation, Uberwald. I.e., a princess. In Feet of Clay, Dragon King of Arms' objection to her is simply that she's a werewolf, not that she's insufficiently noble.
- The end of the book says that noble dragons spawn from the mind, and reflect the summoner's personality; that's why Twoflower's dragon is huge and noble, and Wonse's dragon is greedy and bullying. Errol's a swamp dragon rather than a noble one, but he was in a way 'made' by the Watch. They adopted him and turned him into a small, scrappy thing that looks like it's given up, but fights well above his weight class until the end... much like the Watch itself.
- Ankh-Mopork demands and receives a new king who eats its subjects, much like King Stork in the ancient fable of The Frogs Who Desired A King. Which means the more King Log-like Vetinari is figuratively correct when he takes the dragon tracks for those of a "wading bird."
- Doubles as Genius Bonus: when lady Ramkin touches Errol, she isn't burned by heat, she gets a frostbite. This foreshadows to readers versed in rocketry what's going to happen: Errol converted his insides into cryogenic rocket fuel tanks!
- Vetinari states that he looks down on any ruler who puts their trust in secret passages and the like, yet is seen (or rather, not seen) using them himself at the climax. Vetinari is also the kind of person who never discards anything if he can possibly find a use for it, and previous rulers, given everything we've heard about Winder, Snapcase, and others, were no doubt very much the kind of men who would put their faith in secret passages.
- Not to mention that he certainly understands how appearing out of nowhere adds to his mystique.
Fridge Horror:
- While Wonse undergoes a severe Sanity Slippage thanks to serving as the Dragon's underling, his final maneuver of summoning a second dragon has chilling elements of sanity to it:
- I've Come Too Far: as he crosses a line by trying to get people to accept a human-eating dragon as ruler, there's no way humans will forgive him, so to bring back another dragon is his only chance of safety and survival.
- Taking You with Me: all his dreams were wrecked, and so he's going to bring down the same fate on his own town.
