History Awesome / NightWatchDiscworld

* At first it seems that the history has not changed. There are still seven graves and there are still lilacs. But when you think about it, you realise that in fact, Sam Vimes has succeeded in [[ScrewDestiny defeating history]]. He held the barricades until the morning and prevented bloodshed. His family, the Watch, Vetinari, and thecemetery are all the same, but the city might have a few hundred, perhaps even a few thousand, people more than before the storm - people who owe their lives to Sam Vimes.

* The whole book seems a great SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome for Vetinari. We see how much he’s changed the city, how positive those changes have been despite some questionable choices along the way (like empowering guilds instead of Watch), and probably the reason for these choices. And, most importantly we see that he does indeed have a heart (so doubles as a [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments heartwarming moment]]). {{Foreshadowed}} right in the beginning of the story where he wore a lilac in the original timeline as well.

** And even Snapcase points out how quickly and efficiently Limes brought the City to its knees, taking control of all the vital supply points and comfortably repelling all assaults with minimal casualties.

** And before that, when he stands up to, and then knocks out Rust, after the latter tries to have the Watch shoot at the people behind the barricade.

* Vetinari's "assassination" of Lord Winder. He walks into Lord Winder's birthday party, takes out two miniature crossbows, shoots the bodyguards with them, then pulls out a sword. Before he can actually use it on him though, Lord Winder dies of fright. All done in a crowded room full of witnesses, ''and Vetinari just walks out'' -- '''''with no one saying a word.'''''
** This becomes a neat bit of Fridge Brilliance when you notice that every previous scene had Vetinari talking about camouflage or demonstrating the correct usage there-of, only to prove in this scene that the perfect camouflage is not making people not ''see'' you, but making people not ''want'' to see you.
** Which means it's even more of a [=MoA=] for Vetinari's ''aunt'', who'd deftly arranged the crowd to ensure its convenient blindness, and to ensure that Winder had no allied left by the time Vetinari came to kill him.

* Reg Shoe. Though throughout the book he was a silly revolutionary (and in the entire series he was at best PluckyComicRelief), when he realizes that the revolution has failed, and the ones who fought are being killed by the ones they put in power he raises the flag and leads the attack against the secret police, refusing to fall over or stop fighting even after an enormous number of arrows have hit him, before he finally dies- to return as an equally revolutionary zombie.

** HeartwarmingInHindsight when you realize that Reg Shoe eventually joined the Watch, fulfilling his purpose to fight for the people. And he does it under Vimes.

** It's actually implied that he originally considered placing the item in one of those lockers, but when he found something far more damning inside he removed it to protect that man from far worse punishment. Putting the stolen item back was less because Vimes was incorruptible and more a display of how cunning he truly is-for the duration of that scene, the men who tried to frame him are reeling from uncertainty as each has his locker checked. In the end, they know that he’s aware of what they did, showed mercy on them, one realizes that his secret is exposed, and they know ''he knows they know that''. So now everybody knows where they stand.
* At first it seems that the history has not changed. There are still seven graves and there are still lilacs. But when you think about it, you realise that in fact, Sam Vimes has succeeded in [[ScrewDestiny defeating history]]. He held the barricades up till the morning and prevented bloodshed. His family, the Watch, Vetinari, cemetery are all the same, but city might have a few hundred, if not thousand, people more than before the storm - people who owe their lives to Sam Vimes.
** And that's only the people present at the barricades. How many of them, over the next thirty years or so, will now go on to have children?

** To reiterate, Vimes averts a riot in the making by opening the Watch House door, turning on all the lights, and sitting outside it amiably drinking a cup of cocoa, which completely short-circuits the mob's expectations. As the narration puts it, it's the first time in history a single man with a non-alcoholic beverage has been the subject of so much rapt attention. He then treats the one young man who tries to pick a fight with perfect courtesy and respecting, giving the other ample rope to hang himself and divert everyone's energy into helping out out with his subsequent injury.

** And even Snapcase points out how quickly and efficiently Vimes effectively brought the City to its knees, taking control of all the vital supply points and comfortably repelling all assaults with minimal casualties.

* Vetinari's "assassination" of Lord Winder. He actually walks into a party that Lord Winder is in, takes out two miniature crossbows, shoots the bodyguards with them, then pulls out a sword. Before he can actually use it on him though, Lord Winder dies of fright. This is being done in a crowded room full of people, ''and Vetinari just walks out'' -- '''''with no one saying a word.'''''
** This becomes a neat bit of Fridge Brilliance when you notice that every previous scene had Vetinari talking about camouflage or demonstrating the correct usage there-of, only to prove in this scene that the perfect camouflage is not making people not see you, but making people not ''want'' to see you.
** Which means it's even more of a [=MoA=] for Vetinari's ''aunt'', who'd deftly arranged the crowd to ensure its convenient blindness, and to ensure that Winder had no allies when Vetinari came to kill him.
** Let's rephrase: Vetinari walked into a crowded room in the middle of the palace, kills the most important man in the city (and his two bodyguards), and walks back out, all without being seen or leaving a mark on his target. Assassin legends rarely do as well.

* Vimes making it back to the present just in time to learn that his wife was having trouble in child birth. Vimes ran naked and bloody through the city to fetch the only competent Doctor of Ankh Morpork and save his wife and child. He brought Dr Lawn, evaded a misplaced bazooka/shotgun shot, sat for the very long child birth and managed to see his son. Only ''then'' did he collapse from exhaustion and injuries.

** And it's mentioned that just before they did that they'd raised his fee to 600,000 dollars, a number probably only second to Vetinari, who, let's be fair, was an assassin himself who mastered in poisons, and ''only failed Concealment and Stealth because his instructors could never find him and assumed him absent from their classes''.
** It gets better. In this book, we learn that the Assassins Guild has killed many of Ankh-Morpork's previous rulers for going too far. And Vetinari has not only survived, but was removed from the register because his death would do more harm than good.

** It's actually implied that he originally considered placing the item in one of those lockers, but when he found something far more damning inside he removed it to protect that man from far worse punishment. Putting the stolen item back was less because Vimes was incorruptible and more a display of how cunning he truly is-for the duration of that scene, the men who tried to frame him are reeling from uncertainty as each has his locker checked. In the end, they know that he is aware of what they did, showed mercy on them, one realizes that his secret is exposed, and they know ''he knows they know that''. So now everybody knows where they stand.

** This is made doubly awesome because he is then finally arrested by a younger version of himself. Whichever way you look, Vimes comes out on top.

* The whole book seems a great SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome for Vetinari. We see how much he has changed the city, how positive those changes have been despite some questionable choices along the way (like empowering guilds instead of Watch), and probably the reason for these choices. And, most importantly we see that he does indeed have a heart (so doubles as a [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments heartwarming moment]]). {{Foreshadowed}} right in the beginning of the story where he wore a lilac in the original timeline as well.

* Vimes' ''sheer channeled fury'' during the scouring of the house of pain[[note]]What history would call the revolutionaries' destruction of the Unmentionables' TortureCellar[[/note]] is terrifying and awesome to behold, especially when he catches the clerk who kept all the notes during the atrocities that took place there and dismantles his protestations that he's not a bad person because he only wrote things down and measured people[[note]]Captain Swing was a believer in craniometrics- the nonsensical belief that you can tell what someone is like by measuring their head and facial features, [[InsaneTrollLogic which was as good as proof to a madman like Swing]][[/note]] with a ''ferocious'' TheReasonYouSuckSpeech:

* The whole book seems a great SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome for Vetinari. We see how much he has changed the city, how positive those changes have been despite some questionable choices along the way (like empowering guilds instead of Watch), and probably the reason for these choices. And, most importantly we see that he does indeed have a heart (so doubles as a [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments heartwarming moment]]). {{Foreshadowed}} right in the beginning of the story where he wore lilac in the original timeline as well.

* At first it seems that the history has not changed. There are still seven graves and there is still lilac. But when you think about it, you realise that in fact, Sam Vimes has succeeded in [[ScrewDestiny defeating history]]. He held the barricades up till the morning and prevented bloodshed. His family, the Watch, Vetinari, cemetery are all the same, but city might have a few hundred, if not thousand, people more than before the storm - people who owe their lives to Sam Vimes.

* At first it seems that the history has not changed. There are still seven graves and there is still lilac. But when you think about it, you realise that in fact, Sam Vimes has succeeded in [[ScrewDestiny defeating history]]. He held the barricades up till the morning and prevented bloodshed. His family, Watch, Vetinari, cemetery are all the same, but city might have a few hundred, if not thousand, people more than before the storm - people who owe their lives to Sam Vimes.

--> [[spoiler: “I joined the fight. I snatched up a lilac bloom from a fallen man and, I have to say, held it in my mouth. I'd like to think I made some difference; I certainly killed four men, although I take no particular pride in that. They were thugs, bullies. No real skill."]]

** This is made doubly awesome because he is then finally arrested [[spoiler: by a younger version of himself. Whichever way you look, Vimes comes out on top]].

** [[spoiler:Bonus points for using the same technique at the very end in the graveyard, only letting himself be seen after Vimes arrests Carcer.]]

* Reg Shoe. Though throughout the book he was a silly revolutionary (and in the entire series he was at best PluckyComicRelief), when he realizes that [[spoiler: the revolution has failed, and the ones who fought are being killed by the ones they put in power]] he [[spoiler: raises the flag and leads the attack against the secret police, refusing to fall over or stop fighting even after an enormous number of arrows have hit him, before he finally dies- to return as an equally revolutionary zombie]].

* The fight between Swing and Vimes in the TortureCellar. Swing puts up a surprisingly good fight (an awesome moment from an otherwise reprehensible bastard of a man), but ultimately it's Vimes who walks away from the battle, killing Swing with his own steel-tipped ruler.

** To reiterate, Vimes averts a riot in the making by opening the Watch House door, turning on all the lights, and sitting outside it amiably drinking a cup of cocoa, which completely short-circuits the mob's expectations. As the narrator puts it, it's the first time in history a single man with a non-alcoholic beverage has been the subject of so much rapt attention. He then treats the one young man who tries to pick a fight with perfect courtesy and respecting, giving the other ample rope to hang himself and divert everyone's energy into helping out out with his subsequent injury.

* The Watch have never needed the crude and uncertain JackBauerInterrogationTechnique. They have the [[RatsInABox Ginger Beer Trick.]]

--> [[spoiler: “I joined the fight. I snatched up a lilac bloom from a fallen man and, I have to say, held it in my mouth. I'd like to think I made some difference; I certainly killed four men, although I take no particular pride in that. They were thugs, bullies. No real skill.]]

-->''"And what does daddy do at work all day, mister?'' ... You're all alone here. You have no friends here. You sat and took notes for a torturer, a bloody torturer! And I see a desk, [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique and it's got a desk drawer]], and if you ever, ''ever'' want to hold a pen again you'll tell me everything I want to know-"

* The end of the book deserves special mention when Vimes arrests Carcer (which is made awesome primarily because he manages not to murder him).

** It's actually implied that he originally considered placing the item in one of those lockers, but when he found something far more damning inside he removed it to protect that man from far worse punishment. Putting the stolen item back was less because Vimes was incorruptible and more a display of how cunning he truly is-for the duration of that scene, the men who tried to frame him are reeling from uncertainty as each has his locker checked. In the end, they know that he is aware of what they did, showed mercy on them, one realizes that his secret is exposed, and they aren't sure how he managed it in the first place-the only reason the safe was insecure was because by the elder Vimes's time, its combination was common knowledge within the watch house.