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Thought on what the Two Meanings of Snuff the title refers to:
Well, first, obviously, it refers to snuffing out life. It's a watch book for Brutha's sake. Secondly, it refers to snuff as in snuff cocaine. It's a book about drug wars mayhaps?
Methodia Rascal's chicken will return.
Chickens on a boat. That is all.
The whole thing was a Secret Test of Character...
...and Vimes failed.
Spoilers ahoy.
It's seemed for a while that Vetinari is grooming a successor. Or rather, a group of potential successors. People like Vimes and Moist are therefore put in positions where they have to deal with the sort of complicated conditions a Patrician deals with daily, to see how they react. Here, Vimes had to deal with a crime that was not a crime. A clearly unjust situation where no actual crime has been committed. Vimes performed admirably to a point, even getting it declared a crime...but could not accept that within the confines of the law, Gravid Rust had not actually done anything wrong at the time. He wanted Vimes to go that extra mile and punish the wicked who were outside the bounds of the law, while still punishing those who were well within it in the legal manner.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Vimes was unable to accept this, and thus Gravid Rust got off with a mere exile and a fine. Vetinari tied up that loose end his own way, the way he hoped Vimes would have originally, and he mentally checked Vimes off the list of potential successors.
The next Watch book will feature Harry Dread
Pratchett mentioned in the interview with Gaiman, that he has some ideas for a book about Harry Dread, the Evil Overlord that appears in The Last Hero. Well, now we have Vimes with his Summoning Dark "symbiote", and we have Vimes with his Beast, the part of him that sometimes just wants to beat the bad guys to death, but that he always manages to keep at bay. At some point, Harry Dread is going to notice this lethal combination, perhaps he will be looking for the Summoning Dark in an attempt to improve his evil lord status, or to restore The Code which he will perceive as having disappeared from the world, and will discover where the Summoning Dark is. Then he will realize that what he actually has to do is free Vimes from the Summoning Dark, or perhaps the Summoning Dark from Vimes, because in the current state the combination is a ticking time bomb that would create a villain who exists in complete opposite of The Code. -Just imagine what kind of villain Vimes would make, and shiver- At the end, Harry Dread will end up saving Vimes, and in the process will realize that The Code remains, only in a more complex nuanced way.
Goblins are short lived creatures
Basically the only person who would employ Goblins before the events of Snuff was Harry King, who is not horribly old. A Goblin great grandmother has spent her life here. On the same note, a major plot point is the fact that they had a high attrition rate, which considering the fact that they survived as long as they did suggests that they have a replacement rate to match. Sam Vime's speculation of age was simply a guess from someone who frankly did not know much about Goblins. Even under optimum conditions, Goblins are lucky if they live to see multiple decades.
Nobby Nobbs has a goblin somewhere in his family tree.
In terms of physical description there's quite a bit in common with him and the goblins, and his attitude could often be considered that of an unhygienic, crude scavenger with surprising Hidden Depths, as well.
Stinky is a bogeyman.
He's an Anthropomorphic Personification of humans' childhood goblin-fears, which is why he made reference to young Vimes' having looked at his picture in a book. Like the original bogeyman from Hogfather, he eventually got interested in mortals, but in his case it's the mortal goblins he resembles, not the mortal children whose belief called him into being, whom he finds intriguing and wants to protect.
Stratford is Carcer's son.
While he's not the only Complete Monster villain to bear a strong resemblance to Carcer, he's probably the most similar, in actions and in other characters' descriptions—arguably to the point of being a full Expy. Maybe that's just random coincidence, or maybe it's the Theory of Narrative Causality...or maybe it's just In the Blood. Stratford isn't from Ankh-Morpork, but that doesn't really refute anything: he could've been born there and left sometime before Snuff happened, or Carcer could've grown up in the country and only come to A-M shortly before Night Watch, or possibly the Missing Mom left A-M to keep up a Stigmatic Pregnancy Euphemism. And since we don't know how old Carcer was in Night Watchand six years later Stratford is only in his early twenties, it's absolutely mathematically plausible.
Wilikins is an Assassin.
One of the rare smart ones who doesn't draw attention to himself.
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