Havelock Vetinari
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Lord Havelock Vetinari is the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, the head of the fictional city state of Ankh-Morpork in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
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Early years
Lord Vetinari was born in the extremely powerful Vetinari family (a word play on the real life family of the Medici) and raised by his aunt, Lady Roberta Meserole. As a youth he enrolled in the Assassins' Guild which, apart from teaching its students how to kill other people for money, also gives them an excellent education. Lord Vetinari was particularly interested in the classical arts and (in blatant defiance of the Guild's conventions of style) camouflage, though he was failed in his stealth examination (his examiner felt he had used trickery, which of course was the case. The examiner did not realize that Vetinari had already arrived.) He endured the nickname of Dog-botherer; interestingly he later promoted the bullies of his youth. Vetinari graduated from the Guild with exceptional marks, and irony and sarcasm as his weapons of choice. In his late teens, Vetinari was involved in the Glorious 25th of May (Night Watch). He later journeyed to Überwald on what is known as the Grand Sneer – travels of the younger members of rich families to backward areas to see at first hand how inferior they are. (See also Grand Tour.) There he met the vampire Lady Margolotta. It is implied that the two had some kind of relationship. He taught her a lot of what she knows.
Rise to power
Lord Vetinari succeeded Mad Lord Snapcase, who had been as mad as his name suggests. One of Vetinari's earliest actions and a sample of his way of running the city was to legalize Guilds such as those of the Thieves or the "Seamstresses" (that is, the Prostitutes), which had been active but outlawed for years. Their leaders became esteemed members of society and their members insured and licensed. Vetinari also made it clear to them that he knew everything about them, right down to where their wives had their hair done and their children played. Therefore, the Guilds did what he asked of them, and eventually, lawlessness was not eliminated so much as organized. Nowadays, for a modest fee, an Ankh-Morpork citizen may walk the streets confident that he will not be mugged more than a few times per year. And that he'll get a receipt when he does.
Vetinari's golden rule
Lord Vetinari's genius political thinking and his running of the city can be summarised in his belief that what people wish for most is for things to stay the same; the Vetinari family motto is, after all, Si non confectus, non reficiat (If it ain't broke, don't fix it). This does not mean that there are absolutely no changes, however; things that don't work... get broken.
Staying in power
While he is quite as unpopular as his predecessors, unlike them Lord Vetinari is disturbingly sane and still alive. He has achieved this by ensuring that even though all power-wielding groups in the city dislike him, they dislike each other more. He also carefully arranges matters so that a reality which includes him as Patrician is slightly better than one which does not. The Assassins' Guild no longer accepts contracts on the Patrician - he is the only person besides Samuel Vimes to have been taken off the register.
He had the highest official price ever - AM$1 Million. The highest known price paid was AM$3 Million for the Hogfather.
Other reasons for the Patrician's continued rule is his mastery of diplomacy and manipulation of human nature, his distant and menacing air, his everpresent calmness and composure which makes other people ill at ease, his abilities as a listener (often people tell him things simply to fill his silence) and of course his very, very good skills as an Assassin. ("Mr. Slant had failed to tell the New Firm about a number of things, and one of them was that the old man moved like a snake" (The Truth))
Deposition and Restoration
Several attempts have been made on Vetinari's life or position. Shortly after his ascent to office, he was briefly turned into a lizard by a wizard under the influence of a Sourceror. He was deposed for a time in favour of a summoned dragon and locked up in his own dungeons, from which he escaped at his leisure (Guards! Guards!). He was shot in the leg with a gonne (sic) and now walks with an ebony cane, though only in public (Men at Arms). A year later, he was poisoned with arsenic (Feet of Clay).
During the brief war with Klatch, Vetinari surrendered unconditionally, resulting in his near-exile. However, when the island which was the cause of controversy sank into the ocean (again), all the terms of surrender were off and the Klatchian leader lost an extreme amount of face, which was Vetinari's plan all along. Therefore, Vetinari was congratulated instead of deposed and exiled (Jingo).
Some time later, Vetinari was framed for assault and again came a hair's breadth from deposition (The Truth).
Notable Events During Vetinari's Rule
Vetinari has seen Ankh-Morpork through many unusual events, including the appearance of a Sourceror, a dragon, a war (plus one near-Civil War) and an attempt to destroy the Discworld, as well as the metaphysical crises of Moving Pictures, superfluous life force and belief, Music With Rocks In (Soul Music) and one major temporal shatter.
Vetinari has encouraged the growth of the Guilds and public services. The Ankh-Morpork City Watch in particular has flourished. Ankh-Morpork has given birth to the first newspaper, while the AM-based Grand Trunk Clacks Company established the first efficient international communication service (The Fifth Elephant); more recently, he has pumped public money into revamping the postal service (Going Postal).
Appearance, habits and miscellaneous
Lord Vetinari, whose family crest is a plain sable (black) shield, is currently in his fifties. He is tall, thin and dresses all in dusty black. His appearance has been likened to that of a predatory flamingo, if one existed. He lives and works in the Patrician's Palace, which used to be the Royal Winter Palace. He sits on a plain wooden chair at the feet of the Golden Throne of Ankh (much like the Steward of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings) and accepts interviews in the Oblong Office (a reference to the White House's Oval Office).
He has never been described outright as sleeping (although the top contender for the right occurs in The Truth, when William de Worde looks in on him while he's unconscious), but presumably does so in a spartan chamber next to his office.
He has one known relative (Lady Roberta "Bobbi" Meserole, his aunt) who may come from Genua and now lives in Pseudopolis).
Strangely enough, Vetinari has no lust for power. The sole reason for him ruling the city is that he is fiercely loyal to it. He also has no exploitable vices, barring his intense dislike of mime to the extent of outlawing all practice of it within the city walls and subjecting perpetrators to being suspended upside down in a scorpion pit on the walls of which is the inverted notice "Learn the words".
He does keep a pet, a sixteen-year old terrier dog called Wuffles. It is said that Wuffles is the only living creature Lord Vetinari actually cares about. Wuffles has been described as very elderly in two books that take place many years apart; perhaps Vetinari's only quirk is to name all his dogs Wuffles. He also enjoys reading written music, because the idea of it being performed by people, with all the sweat and saliva involved, strikes him as distasteful.
Lord Vetinari also has a strange clock in his waiting-room. It ticks and tocks out of time and occasionally misses a tick or tock altogether, which has the effect of turning your brain "into a sort of porridge" (Feet of Clay).
Bibliography
Lord Vetinari makes featured appearances in the Discworld novels Sourcery, Guards! Guards!, Moving Pictures, Reaper Man, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, Interesting Times, Soul Music, The Fifth Elephant, The Truth, The Last Hero and Going Postal. Night Watch features him in his youth. In The Colour of Magic Rincewind is brought before "the Patrician" but it is not clear whether this Patrician is Vetinari or not.
Other Media
Lord Vetinari was played by Crawford Logan in the 1992 BBC Radio 4 adaption of Guards! Guards!. To many fans of the books, however, the character is firmly associated with Stephen Briggs, who has portayed him on the amateur stage and at numerous Discworld Events.
External links
- A Special Kind of Person (http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/vetinari/), a web site concerning Lord Vetinari.de:Patrizier von Ankh-Morpork