But Corporal Carrot Ironfoundersson actually has more on-page time, and ends up ultimately as the hero of the tale. Vimes, of course, is the soul of the Watch, and man whose journey drives the plot and themes. First, there are two equivalent protagonists. There are a lot of interesting things about this book that make it a truly unique read. Will he accept himself as a man with more pairs of $50 dollar boots than he could wear in a hundred lifetimes? Is that the kind of man he wants to be? This article contains SPOILERS from this point forward. As Vimes climbs the social ladder via his impending marriage with Sybil, he ruminates on the impossibility of pulling oneself up by their, well, bootstraps, which he himself has circumvented by marrying into a much nicer pair of boots by sheer, dumb luck. It routinely goes viral around the internet, and it is also regularly discussed in lengthier articles and forums. No other quote could begin this book, if for no reason than it’s probably one of the most famous Pratchett-isms of all time. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness.” - Sam Vimes, Men At Arms! by Sir Terry Pratchett A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars.
A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances.
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
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