Talk:Wuffles

Wuffles' Age

So I've been looking at Wuffles' age, and I think I've found an inconsistancy in the books. Reading Sourcery (with his first appearance), it states:

... [Vetinari] did have a small and exceedingly elderly wire-haired terrier called Wuffles that smelled badly and wheezed at people. It was said to be the only thing in the entire world he truly cared about.

...the dog Wuffles, who had been teleported along with his master, had waddled painfully across the floor and was peering short-sightedly at the wizard's boots.

Rincewind felt a slight pressure on his foot. Wuffles, who was extremely slow on the uptake, had fastened his toothless gums on the toe of Rincewind's boot and was giving it a vicious suck.

And yet - if my timeline calculations based on the wiki, and the reference to Wuffles being 16 in The Truth are correct, there are 16 years between Sourcery (UU 1974) and The Truth (UU 1990). It would surely, therefore, be impossible for Wuffles to be elderly during Sourcery, even though he's described as such in canon. In fact, he'd be a pup. If he really were elderly during Sourcery, he'd be surely downright ancient in dog years by the time of The Truth (which given the variables in some characters life timers or magical influences etc, might still be possible).

I don't see this mentioned on the wiki page, but thought it should be mentioned somewhere.

(Personally - and this is just my head canon - I link this in as a sort-of indicator for roughly when Vetinari came to power. I'm aware it's commonly said he's meant to be Patrician during CoM, but Sourcery is his first named appearance, and there seems a fair bit going on around that time: Vetinari named and definitely in power (but perhaps in a new and thus potentially more tenuous position), sourcerer afoot, Wuffles likely born and acquired by Vetinari hereabouts ...) --Verity (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Wuffles being called "exceedingly elderly" in Sourcery, we can't suppose the original lasted anything like another sixteen years, so we have to accept the suggestion (posited here somewhere that I can't find) that he was replaced by a similar a similar beast given the same name. I'm not a pet person myself and even my wife has not cloned her cats, but I believe people do this sort of thing. The Timeline is a regular aggravation; there is no prize for finding an inconsistency. - -Old Dickens (talk) 02:21, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Wuffles' name

I've also been checking out the etymology. Might seem basic, but "to wuffle" means to sniff or snort. When it comes to sniffing, that seems a sort of apt name for a dog. And there I was wondering if it was because he made a wuffling sound instead of full on woofing sound at times. (which still might be possible, I guess, since some equate it to the nicker of a horse). The urban dictionary also relates it to acts of affection (non-romantic etc), a casual way to say "love" and "the sound kitties and bunnies make".

All rather sweet really. Makes me wonder if this is an example of the trope "pet the dog" to deliberatly subvert Vetinari's darker reputation, or whether it's a genuine example of his softer side which might be more hinted at then fully seen (especially since we later have Mr. Fusspot, who if I remember right is described as a good judge of character, ending up with Vetinari...) --Verity (talk) 00:00, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I kind of think everybody in the world has completely missed the entire joke that is Havelock Vetinari. He is the most humane, enlightened and ethical ruler ever invented, and people actually have no reason to fear him the way they do. But they do fear him irrationally because of his title and not his person. To me, that is a funny joke. --Lias Bluestone (talk) 05:14, 17 August 2018 (UTC)