Carrot Ironfoundersson

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Carrot Ironfoundersson is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. He starts his career in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch as a Lance Constable and later becomes a Captain. The Discworld Companion gives this description of the character:

Carrot Ironfoundersson is Captain of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch police force. Bulging with muscles, this two metre (six-foot-six-inch) dwarf (adopted) remains honest, good-natured, and honourable despite the city's best efforts.

His dwarfish name is Kzad-bhat, which, roughly translated, means "Head Banger", a logical nickname for a 6' 6" tall man living in a mine built by (and for) four foot tall dwarfs.

Fictional character history

Adopted by dwarfs after the deaths of his human parents, Carrot grew up in the mines, gaining his given name because of the stature he developed from all the hard work there—"six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders". He was quite surprised the day he found out that he was human. His adoptive father thought that he ought to go and live amongst humans, and found him a job with the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch under the misapprehension that they were respected and respectable (he didn't ask their captain, Sam Vimes).

Carrot joined the Night Watch while it was still only a small group of misfits running from evildoers rather than trying to subdue them (see Guards! Guards!). He initially had some difficulty with this attitude, as his "old-fashioned" view of justice led him to arrest the leader of the entirely legal Thieves' Guild on his first day. He since seems to have learned to understand the city a bit better. The city learned about him as quickly when he singlehandedly survived a fight against every miscreant in the Mended Drum tavern, including the then-splatter (like a Bouncer but harder) Detritus the troll.

Captain Carrot has made quite a name for himself, rapidly and seemingly effortlessly coming to know everything and everyone in the city by name and tax papers. He is big on paperwork and organization and always (often to the dismay of his "lady-friend", Corporal (later Sergeant) Angua von Überwald) takes time to see all sides of a story before getting involved wholeheartedly.

Carrot is often thought of as simple and nonthreatening, which is a very dangerous conclusion to come to if you are the unlucky person who disappoints this boy's honest nature. People think of Carrot as being simple, which he is, however their mistake is in confusing "simple" with "stupid". Carrot's simplicity is his cunning. One example of this is seen in Soul Music, which notes that Carrot has added some supplementary questions to the quiz machine in the Mended Drum, asking players who was responsible for certain recent crimes and frequently making arrests as a result.

Carrot is often quick to see the bright side of things. When Angua, a werewolf, tells him that her brother Andrei was stuck permanently in wolf form and was forced to live as a champion sheepdog, Carrot notes that at least he's a champion. Carrot has also promised Angua that, should she ever follow in her brother Wolfgang's murderous footsteps, he will be the one to stop her.

When Sam Vimes planned to retire after his marriage to Lady Sybil Ramkin, Carrot was made his successor to the position of Captain of the City Watch. He is not particularly skilled in comma placement and has a bit of trouble with the whole concept of "i before e." In the novels, he is considered "the Disc's most linear thinker". For instance, as part of a murder investigation, he interviews Death.

While it is in fact relatively common knowledge that Carrot is the true heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, he doesn't acknowledge it, and has even hidden evidence of his royal heritage. The Patrician, Havelock Vetinari, considers him useful for this reason as well as others, as it means that a revolution under the claim of being true heir is impossible, and that if anyone complains that only a king has the authority to do something he does, he can simply gesture or refer (obliquely) to Carrot. Carrot himself is never seen using his royal powers or publicly acknowledging his royal heritage. After learning of it in Men at Arms, he confides in Vetinari that he wants the people to obey the law because it's the law, not because "Captain Carrot is good at being obeyed", and that he is content with his job of ringing a bell and yelling that all's well "provided of course that all is well". Carrot does, on very rare occasions, hint at his royal powers to make things happen. In Jingo, Lord Vetinari gives Sam Vimes the title of Duke, something only a King can do, while Carrot is present - Vetinari goes so far as to say that he "had been reminded" that Vimes could have that title. In The Fifth Elephant, when faced with the defection of most members of the Watch, Carrot puts his royal sword on a desk in plain sight and reminds Watch members that they had taken an oath to the King, and that the King had not relieved them of it.

He owns a sword, one of the proofs of his kingship. It looks like an ordinary, even slightly rusty, weapon, but it is incredibly sharp and durable (exactly how it retains its incredible edge has never been explained, especially as after examination by a witch the weapon was declared to be quite the most unmagical sword she had ever seen. Presumably he sharpens it.). This is because, as Sergant Colon reasons in Guards! Guards!, one usually became king back then by killing one's enemies, and therefore wanted a sword that was neither shiny nor flashy but instead "bloody efficient at cutting things." It has, on separate occasions, sliced clean through another sword's blade and been thrust clean through a person and the pillar of solid rock behind him, then out the other side (this latter has also been seen as a mark of his kingship—and a play on the King Arthur legends—because, as Sergeant Colon put it, putting a sword into a stone should be considerably more difficult than getting one out of it).

Carrot can be seen as a stereotypical "perfect" policeman. Totally honest, law abiding, and determined to be friends with everyone and intent on enforcing the law. Although he himself does not realise it, his inherent "nobility" is such that "people" of all species can't help wanting to behave well in his presence. He has a "Gomer Pyle" attitude of loving everyone. Indeed, his love for everyone has caused distress for Angua, as she worried that his love toward her was equal to that he gives everyone and not special for her. While she is correct that he would place the welfare of the public above hers (and his own), when she was in danger he was prepared to travel to the rim of the Disc to save her. Carrot's attitude towards his relationship is considered particularly unusual. During Jingo, Angua is kidnapped on a Klatchian ship and the watch heads off in pursuit. Carrot does not, as the other men would expect, stand at the front of the ship fraught with worry but, sensibly, gets some sleep so he will be ready to rescue her when they catch up with the other ship. Although Sam Vimes and the ship's captain see the sense of this, they can't believe that someone in love could be so sensible.

In The Art of Discworld Pratchett says that Carrot has a bright future ahead of him "should Lord Vetinari not survive the next assassination attempt".

Carrot is also famous enough in the town of Ankh-Morpork that there are Carrot Ironfoundersson action figures in production, sought after by children (as seen in the novel Hogfather).

Terry Pratchett in The Art of Discworld has made a note that although most people envision Carrot as Arnold Schwarzenegger he is actually modeled after Liam Neeson. In the BBC Radio production of Guards! Guards! he was portrayed as speaking with a Welsh accent.

External links

• Discworld & Pratchett Wiki