Carrot Ironfoundersson
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| Characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series |
|
| Character details | |
| Full name: | Carrot Ironfoundersson |
| Description: | A human brought up by dwarfs |
| Associations: | Ankh-Morpork City Watch |
| Location: | Ankh-Morpork |
| Story appearances | |
| First seen: | Guards! Guards! |
| Also in: | Men at Arms Feet of Clay Jingo The Fifth Elephant The Truth The Last Hero Night Watch Thud! |
| Other details | |
| Notes: | Boyfriend of Angua and possibly the heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork |
Carrot Ironfoundersson is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. He is a corporal in, and later becomes captain of, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. The 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".
Adopted by dwarfs after the deaths of his human parents, Carrot grew up in the mines, and was quite surprised the day he found out that he indeed was human. His adopted father thought the he had ought to go off to live with 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 miscreants 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.
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. (There is an anomalous case of Cockbill Street - in Feet of Clay, when Sam Vimes, reaching his breaking point in his inability to solve the poisoning of the Patrician (Havelock Vetinari), mentioned that Mildred Easy's grandmother and baby brother had died from an apparent poisoning, Carrot appeared to not know who they were. This is either an authorial slip or a subtle way of pointing out just how inoffensive and low-profile they were.) He is big on paperwork and organisation and always (often to the dismay of his "lady-friend", Corporal (later Sergeant) Angua Von Uberwald) 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. Truly, Carrot's simplicity is his cunning. He is not quick to jump to conclusions and doesn't like to disappoint those that he cares for.
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".
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 thus it isn't brought up often. 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 acknowledge 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 tells them", 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. And 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 a oath to the King, and that the King had not relieved them of it.
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).
