The most damning flaw in The Watch trailer

The first time I saw the trailer for The Watch, the TV show now described as "based on" Sir Pterry's books and rapidly becoming the most unpopular adaption in SFF before it is even aired, I simply asked the person posting it why they posted something that didn't exist.

Being stupid, I relented from this policy at a later date.

At this point - and mildly hypocritically as I'm writing a whole damn article about it - I'd suggest to my fellow Discworld fans that this adaption is given up for dead and we cease to talk about it. We get to cease annoying ourselves; those who are interested get to cease being annoyed by us; and the less oxygen we give it, the more likely it is to fail. I know some of us are still holding out hope and don't want it to fail but I don't think that's particularly rational, unless they are interested in it in its own right and can divorce it from all idea of Discworld and Ankh-Morpork. When you get home from the shops and discover you picked up a package saying milk chocolate rather than dark chocolate, you don't open it up in the hope it might be dark chocolate after all. We've seen the packaging for The Watch and unless they're so incredibly incompetent they can't advertise their own show correctly, we know what's inside.

I do however want to point to one brief moment that convinced me this show really is beyond all redemption as a Discworld show. We've all known it'll look utterly different from a Discworld show, with a number of character changes, but that didn't mean it couldn't get Discworld on the inside. If one can be a witch with an apple-corer rather than a runic knife, then you can have Discworld with a bunch of changes.

But consider this exchange from the trailer:

Not-Vetinari: "Vimes. You will officially cease to pursue any further inquiry."

Not-Vimes: "Is this one of those situations where you want me to do the exact opposite of what you just told me to do?"

Not-Vetinari: "I don't know Vimes. Is it?"

Now. All Discworld fans know that Vetinari does frequently forbid Vimes from doing something precisely because Vetinari wants Vimes to look into it as fully as possible. This is made most clear in Men-At-Arms, after Vimes' first wall punching:

"The last thing you needed was some Watchman blundering around upsetting things, like a loose…a loose…a loose siege catapult.

Normally.

Vimes seemed in a suitable emotional state. With any luck, the orders would have the desired effect…"

However, the point of this technique is it works because Vimes doesn't know about it. The point is that Vimes fumes and gets angry, and then goes after the case with a mix of righteous anger, slight fearful knowledge that he needs results if he's disobeying direct orders, and more righteous anger.

The fact that Vimes doesn't really fully grasp Vetinari's methods - he starts getting an inkling in Jingo, the series' fourth book, and by Thud, the series' seventh, he recognises when he's been upsetting Vetinari because of something 'that felt like one of his games' - is central to Vimes' character. He's simply not that bright - a fact pointed out a few times - with his qualities as a detective being sheer bloody-minded determination fueled by anger. As Vetinari notes in Guards!Guards!, he needs Vimes and that anger as a tool, and doesn't want to tinker with it too much.

As for Vetinari's character, it is vital to his that he hardly ever acknowledges his manipulation. If challenged he acts shocked, he denies, he changes the subject, finds a weak point to ensure the subject of the manipulation accepts the manipulation. 

I've searched through the books trying to find such an open admission. Maybe I missed it, but I can't. If it happens, it's very late stage Vimes. The closest I can find is this in Thud!

“And it’ll also be to your personal satisfaction?” said Vetinari sharply.

“Is this a trick question, sir?”

“Well done, well done,” said Vetinari softly.

Therefore, to have an exchange in which the two openly acknowledge Vetinari's habit of deliberately winding him up, is to take a surface understanding of a thing but completely depart from actual understanding. It's like when an elderly relative hears you like computer games, so they buy you a game for a platform you don't have.

And to put such a departure from the heart and soul of the book at the centre of a trailer for the TV show adaption is as clear an announcement as possible that the adaption does not get it. There will not be dark chocolate in the milk chocolate box. To entertain any further hope at this point is just self-torture. And all of us interested in a Discworld adaption, but not some loose thing that's really quite different, should move on.