Not really, but the only ones who usually come out in the books are the criminal mastermind types. I mean, the foppish rich guys usually have better things to do, wot?
Anyone else think he’s setting Vimes up to be the next Patrician?
blatantly - vimes as next patrician, probably with vetinari standing down rather than being killed off.
and vetinari is definitely the “benevolent dictator” although i think “pragmatic good” is probably a good way of describing him.
That is incredibly mean, nasty, and cruel. Vimes, the anti-power guy being put in power? It would make him miserable. Drive him nuts. Drive everyone else nuts. Horrible idea, all around.
What do you think, two books? Maybe three.
I was just going to say Lawful Evil. He does what needs to be done to keep him on top, and what needs to be done is to keep Ankh-Morpork prosperous and safe. Vetinari is evil, but he’s also too smart to be a tyrant. Tyrants get overthrown.
I found a quote by PTerry somewhere that runs on the lines of “The Patrician is, by any standards, a perfectly evil man, but he has one- in my mind- overriding good point, which is that he cares for the city, he cares for civilization. He thinks of the city as this great big clock full of little wheels which have to spin at the right speeds, and the one thing you don’t want is grit in the wheels. If there’s grit in the wheels, he will have it removed.”
Vetinari is good and evil and maybe a vampire.
I picture him looking like Ben Kingsley.
Vetinari may have been evil in some of the books, but his character in Night Watch reveals a subtle compassion, a genuine willingness to risk himself to help a stranger - and, of course, his rock-hard pragmatism.
Vetinari works for the greater good. He’d rather accomplish this with as little fuss as possible, but if he has to bend a few noses, he will.
And as mentioned above, the portrayal of Vetinari in Sourcery is rather off. Methinks the Vetinari in that book was just a generic “lord of the city” character, and not as fleshed out as what’s in the later works.
I picture him like John Cleese. Or maybe Eric Idle. A tall, skinny, rat-like bloke.
I’ve never really had a mental picture of him. He’s a rather plain looking man, though a snappy dresser.
If “Guards! Guards!” is the one in which he ends up in jail after the dragon basically takes over I agree that he will do whatever is the best for the city. In point of fact, it’s not even really about keeping him on top. If a better leader came along, I imagine Vetinari would probably step down and retire to a nice cottage with a very intricate garden.
Venrati is neither moral or immoral, he is amoral and that is the crucial difference.
IMHO, he represents the perfect ruler. Its not the ruler we think we want but its what we NEED.
I love Vetinari. I think Shalmanese has nailed it - he’s the ruler that people love to hate.
He also has one of the best Pratchett allusions ever. Vetinari. Medici. Hee.
Damn! And I read the APF, too! How could I have missed that?
I think that Vetinari could be very evil, but for the fact that he seems not to crave the power he wields. He uses his considerable mental faculties to keep the city on course (and occasionally mess with Vimes), but I don’t think he ever takes advantage of his power and talents to do the usual tyrant-y things, like mass slaughter or such. He really is the best man for the position.
He does like to promote Vimes at the end of each watchmen book, doesn’t he? With that in mind, I think a better punchline to that series of set-ups would be if Pratchett sets it up in such a way that the reader thinks Vimes is going to become Patrician… and then pulls the rug out from under us by leaving Vetinari in power, or demoting Vimes, or something.
Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? isn’t funny if you just keep saying banana over and over. You’ve got to subvert the expectations.
Lord Vetinari is above all things a practical ruler who does not let sentimentality or self-interest cloud his judgment, and as other people observed his chief interest is the protection of the order of Ankh-Morpork society. Despite Pterry’s quote about the Patrician being evil, I think that in Night Watch, he illustrated clearly the difference between a ruler who might use a certain amount of cruelty for the preservation of public safety (such as hanging mimes upside down over a scorpion pit across from a sign that reads, LEARN THE WORDS–a highly salutary measure IMO) and a genuinely evil, selfish ruler like Mad Lord Snapcase.
I’ve always seen Lord Vetinari as Lawful Evil, personally.
Lord Vetinari aside a moment, I think TP is pretty darn evil himself.
On a wet and boring day in Ireland I wrote to TP to tell him that Vetinari was my favorite character from Guards! Guards! and to ask if we’d be seeing any more of him. I wasn’t really expecting a reply, it was just something fun to do that day. He wrote back something along the lines of;
“Yes, Lord Vetinari will be in my next book - I’m planning on having him shot.”
That was it, one line. So until I got to read the next book /months later/ I had no idea whether he meant shot /dead/ or just shot. Aaaaahhh!
Evil, I tell you.
Please. It’s gotta be Alan Rickman. Maybe Gary Oldman, in a pinch.
If I may, I’d suggest that he is good precisely because he’s evil. Consider the alternatives: He could be good. But what does that get you? Pol Pot, Lenin, the FARC, Hitler, witch burnings, etc. People who want to do good generally want to do it to somebody. Vimes vs. Reg Shoe is the latest book, Night Watch, illustrates this, along with Vetinari’s outlook, perfectly. Consider Vime’s ruminations about all the produce, cattle, dairy, and goods that come into the city every day. No one could organize that. But that’s exactly what Reg wants to do–organize it and make it fair. But it will only do more harm than good!
Vetinari is the opposite of Reg. We never really see much indication that Vetinari is offended or alarmed by crime; he doesn’t seem to care that people are mugged and robbed. That certainly seems evil–to not care. But his not caring produces a good in that crime is kept to a “minimum” level (a certain amount is sanctioned), and most muggers don’t have to kill their witnesses/victims (in fact they have to give them receipts!). A good patrician would probably end up having a police state in an attempt to clean up The Shades. You know, the road to hell and good intentions and all that.
If evil is as evil does, then I’d have to say that Vetinari is evil and good. But what I like most about him is that for him to really enjoy music, he reads it. No point letting some musician get in the way. I can identify with that a little bit…
:eek:
Missed that one completely.:smack: . It is incredible how much you can get out of Discworld that you don’t see on first, second or even third reading.
Nah, they both froth at the mouth too much.
Somebody clue in a guy whose liberal education has been subverted by too much beer and Daylight Savings Time. Medici? APF?