The Discworld Thread

Thing is, Pratchett loves playing with the hero tropes, and the perception people have of them, and how people and facts are shaped by these perceptions. Vetinari is a Big Good, or, at the very least, a Reasonable Authority Figure, but he does his best to be viewed as a successful Bond villain. And he does not hesitate to act like one when needed, although most of the time the threat is enough. Finally, he is presented as an antagonist in some of the stories where he appears.
(it occurs to me as I'm writing this that he's really not so different from Granny Weatherwax - then again, Good Is Not Nice is another favourite trope of Pratchett's).

Exactly!

Pratchet took the Bond Villain cliche and trued it into a character who *looks* like a a Bond Villain but *isn't.* Vetinari does his best to be seen as a Bond Villain but he's actually a Reasonable Authority Figure going on Big Good.

And yet he's listed on *Villain* tropes. And Jerek Laz call him "a Bond Villain who read the Evil Overlord List, and part of that is appearing benign". when he's the exact opposite.

That's what I don't get.

The way I see it, Vetinari does not hesitate to act like a Villain when needed. Given that most of his efforts are focused on having people think of him like a terrifying tyrant, I guess most of the time his reputation is enough, but there is probably the occasional idiot who wants to call his bluff from time to time.
We already know that Vetinari routinely spies on about everybody. Then there are the dark clerks, who seem more like his own special corps of assassins (probably far more efficient and ruthless), and seem to be there to occasionally make sure that people "disappear".

I checked the Anti-Villain page: it says that it is someone who had a good or noble goal, but reaches it through evil means. Spying on people, sometimes having them killed (or blackmailed) for the greater good kinda fits with "evil means".

The problem is that I don't think the books ever make clear what in Vetinari's reputation is due to actual things he did (or ordered to do), his own propaganda, or rumours having taken a life of their own (and which he's more than happy to avoid disproving). Unlike Granny Weatherwax, Vetinari is never the main character of a story, and we never get to know precisely what is in his head and what he actually did compared to the rumours. So we are never sure whether his Bond villain cover has to be taken as face value (making him a variation of an Anti-Villain) or if it's an elaborate propaganda (making him something of an Anti Hero With Bad Publicity, and a Magnificent Bastard to boot).

edited 20th Jul '17 12:22:11 PM by C105

There is also the question of whether you consider being a dictator itself evil means, or does that qualify less when it's a setting where absolute monarchy rather than democracy is to be expected?

If Vetinari is cited among villain tropes, it's not about him being an actual villain, but having his persona built around the image of an evil overlord or callous dictator. (Both diegetically and extra-diegetically.)

If he's not actually a Vilain but has a Villain persona, well, Terror Hero is a thing. And Terror Hero is also cited as Anti-Hero and Good Is Not Nice.

Considering that the *people* of Ankh-Morpork think democracy is a joke, I don't think that can be held against him. He's not *denying* them democracy.

Then what's the difference between Anti-Villain and Anti-hero? Both Well intended Extremist and Pragmatic Hero are described as someone who does Dirty Business for a good cause because they believe Ends Justify Means.

What if The Extremist Is Right? Ankh-Morpork *works*. It didn't before Vetinari. He took something dysfunctional and made it functional. Isn't making the world a better place the mark of a hero?

I'm not arguing he's an *Ideal* Hero, just that he isn't a *Villain*.

Well, Anti-Villain and Anti-Hero do overlap at the end of their respective sliding scales. There comes a point where a character achieving good results through bad (or at least unscrupulous) means can be viewed either as a hero or a villain, depending on your point of view and, it has to be said, how bad said means are. As I said, we never get to know whether Vetinari's Bond villain image is the result of a very effective propaganda or due to his actual deeds. I still argue that actually having people killed, tortured or indefinitely imprisoned (Leonard da Quirm does not count) would definitely make him as an Anti-Villain, simply by definition of the term. He is also an Anti-Hero because that his city still works rather well, or at least better than under other rulers.

edited 28th Jul '17 5:48:58 AM by C105

You say kill, torture and indefinitely imprisoned? We know he killed Winder and Carcer's men, but pardoned Moist. We know the dungeons are refurbished into his personal bunker. We know kitten torture doesn't involve actual harm. Mimes can change job or move town.

Yes, he has Dark Clerks. And every country has intelligence/counter intelligence/black ops. So? He never uses them maliciously, or even for expedience. He's pissed at Moist for even *implying* he had an inconvenient old lady killed.

He doesn't spy on everyone because that's both impossible and a waste of time. He starts groups against himself to catch would-be conspirators. Given that he was shot and poisoned and that both was traced back to *actual* villains, he's justified.

If Anti-Hero vs Anti-Villain is a point of perspective, how's this for perspective:

"Mother and children dining on mother and children. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, it is up to us to be his moral superior."

That's not a villain.

On the other hand, heroes rarely, in my experience, kidnap mimes off the streets and chain them up in a scorpion pit with "Learn the words" painted on the wall.

A true unspoken (unsung) hero might. The hero Ankh-Morpork deserves, maybe.^footnote Meaning that perhaps there's a reason why the modern-day equivalent of mimes are human statues confined to subways and licensed busking zones, as opposed to the bolder street mimes of days gone by. Gone are the days of mimes who would follow unassuming innocents around in the street, mimicking their walks and stealing their hats, and maybe we have the Vetinaris of the world to thank for it.

Exactly. Vetinari is not the first dark, intimidating anti-hero.

Dark Is Not Evil + Good Is Not Soft + Terror Hero =/= Evil Overlord, Pragmatic Villain etc.

"Kidnap"

Where did you get kidnapping from? He outlawed the practice of miming - anyone found doing it would be *arrested*. This is what I'm talking about - people who see Vetinari as a villain do so based on stuff they've made up, not anything from the books, and often directly *opposite* of what's in the books.

So far, all counter arguments boiled down to "A hero wouldn't do X".

Well, a hero who follows virtue ethics wouldn't, but one who follows utilitarian ethics would, depending on the circumstances. "Adheres to a personal code, which isn't necessary the one you'd expect" is a line from the Pragmatic *Hero* page.

I just can't square the idea of someone who determined to be more moral than a cruel/uncaring god; who opposes anything from embezzlement to genocide; who indulges in nothing but a job well done; and who's made his corner of the world a better place - to be any kind of Villain.

Does not compute.

Uh, okay, I guess I'd like in on the record that my last post was a joke? I thought that was pretty clear, but I guess not.

Rounding up people for being mimes is a pretty blatant abuse of power. It's also a joke, but it's there to make Vetinari look sinister, albeit in a playful way that still preserves sympathy for the character. This isn't some binary thing where him having villainous traits means he can't also have heroic ones— the whole point of Vetinari is one of scope, the villain of every story being the hero of their own, and in Vetinari's case the character who is deliberately setting himself up as the villain of an entire city actually being pretty much the only man who could keep all those plates spinning at once. Sometimes somebody needs to be the bad guy, or at least be willing to be painted with that brush, is the basic idea— in a city as broken as the Ankh-Morpork we arrive in, sometimes the right thing is going to look an awful lot like the wrong one, and whether you believe he managed to do that while keeping his hands clean or if he ordered a few throats cut along the way— the man is a former assassin who keeps former assassin in his employ— is a decision for the reader. That there's some ambiguity over his moral status is somewhat the point, I'd say— politicians make hard decisions and don't necessarily get the luxury of a clean conscience as a general rule, and Vetinari's no different. Better, in some ways, since he's so effective. Benefits of being a fictional character.

He's ultimately one of the good guys as far as the books are concerned, but whether or not he's a hero comes down to personal taste, I think.

edited 1st Sep '17 10:27:19 PM by Unsung

Mate, I don't think Vetinari's evil or anything, but when you find yourself defending the morality of chucking people in the scorpion pit for practicing the art of mime, it might be time to step back from the discussion a bit.

He gets away with doing that because it's restricted to a footnote joke so we don't have to take it seriously. If he actually did it on camera we'd have to empathize with the poor mimes and suddenly he's a monster who's going down by the end of the book. Whether he backs up his inexplicable vendetta with the force of his authority as a tyrant is irrelevant. Plenty of Discworld villains have been rulers.

Relax dude, I think nobody here really disagrees with your point, but the way you're getting increasingly hung up on that one thing to the point of Single-Issue Wonk is beconing pretty annoying and not making people agree with you more,

Agreed. I like Vetinari as a character. I do think he is basically a competent Bond Villain - but with the key difference in that he ISN'T evil per se. He is, as i said, a pragmatist and, for want of a better word, a Patriot - everything he does, is for Ankh Morpork. However, he is also a survivor - he knows of the City to survive, he must as well, until it runs itself, essentially.

And he has read the list - hence why he doesn't laugh, is thoughtful and doesn't indulge in pettiness. The Evil Overlord List is, basically, a guide on how to not be the cruel evil. half of it is about showing expedience and justifiable mercy.

Anyway, we know that, to begin with, in Vetinari's arc of development (Which Pratchtt freely admitted he amended over time) the patrician wasn't QUITE as omniscient as he later becomes. My only problem with him as a character is that he is perhaps a bit too all knowing? But luckily, there are enough ensemble characters around that carry the plot so he doesn't appear as a deus ex machina and is instead just an instigator.

We also know he nailed an artist to the Brass Bridge by her ear after he viewed her artwork (Admittedly, she goes on to exhibit said ear as another piece of artwork) - so again... potentially benevolent?

I'm hung up on this because I was born in a country very much like Ankh Morpork, and Discworld reads like history. We had a Snapcase and a Keel, and then a Vetinari.

And then he died and carbon-copies of the actual villains from the books all got together - and *won*. And people keep voting for lord de Worde sr based on "traditional values" and look back on Vetinari as an Evil Overlord, even tho back then we had the least poverty and were most influential in world politics.

I'm like young Vetinari - disillusioned with everyone but unable to stop caring.

"My family. My land. My world. How dare you destroy them because they are mine! I have a duty!"

To do what?

"Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf!"

How? Keel stepped up for the people and played fair, and the wolf ate him first - that's no good. De Worde jr tried to get the people to stand up for themselves and they sided with the wolf - that doesn't work either. Only one who made a difference was Vetinari, but he's seen as a villain.

He's seen as complicated, which he is, which the situation is. Sometimes somebody needs to be the villain, sometimes the city is just that bad...but not always. Treating Vetinari as an unqualified hero means ignoring the surrounding context that justifies his actions, actions which would hardly be heroic if the state of things were not already so dire.

Ideally the point of leaders like Vetinari for the crisis to eventually end, working toward a time when they're no longer needed, so that Caesar can step down. You have to be vigilant against backsliding, sure, but manufacturing crisis after crisis so that you always need a tyrant at the helm is hardly the ideal outcome. Ankh-Morpork is made into a considerably better and brighter place over the course of the books. It takes time to make the world better and vigilance to keep it that way, but there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that the hero of one day can be the villain of the next. People are complicated.

edited 15th Aug '17 8:13:33 AM by Unsung

As it sort of relates to Discworld (being a Terry Pratchett book) I thought I would cross post this here from the TV Series thread.

Tennant and Sheen to star in Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens

Tennant should be good but I am unsure about Sheen as Aziraphale.

And I understand that he is a brilliant character. But he was envisioned (originally at least) by Pratchett as a COMPETENT evil overlord. Or a pastiche of one to an extend (Having a wheezing dog instead of a white cat etc)

However, as with all things he has become a lot more complex and a lot more nuanced. Is he unambiguously good? Hell no. But is he evil? A more complex question. I'd classify him as Lawful Neutral, as far as anything goes on those sorts of scales. His prime motivator is the City. He is sentimental, and he isn't unnecessarily cruel. So I will agree he isn't evil. But he isn't a hero, not in the common use of the term.

It's why he's a fascinating character. His whole thing in Jingo where he says "men marched there, Vimes. And men marched back. And how glorious the battles would have been." - he knows romantic patriotism gets you no where -understanding things DOES.

He's a pragmatist and that is what makes him effective. He's also a good example of why Carrot would be a TERRIBLE ruler for Ankh Morpork - he would be far too righteous for the place and instead serves the place better by being an actual servant (As Carrot correctly points out TO the Patrician)

He's also a character who serves the purpose of one of Pratchett's irritations with Democracy - and that yes, in an ideal world, a good ruler is the really focused, intelligent, almost omniscient one whose sole ambition is the continuity of the state, not his own aggrandisement. It's why we love Vetinari.

By the time of Guards! Guards (which was when he started getting properly characterised, wasn't it?) he might have been sinister and manipulative, and not necessarily on the side of the heroes, but he wasn't a 'villain'.

Finished Hogfather. Possibly one of the best Discworld books yet. Even more than in Reaper Man, I really like Death's character here. Spurred me to reread the other Death books before this one.

People often cite Hogfather as their favourite Discworld book. It's not one of my favourites, but I can definitely see why it has so many fans. Among the Death books, it stands out. I think Thief of Time is probably the only Death book that, for me, is better than Hogfather.

Since I'm here, I might as well write about this if someone hasn't seen it yet: before his death, Pratchett had asked his assistant to crush his hard drive, containing his unpublished books, with a steamroller. That wish, which perhaps wasn't meant to be taken literally (he probably just meant that it should be destroyed), has been fulfilled - the assistant made the arrangements and an actual steamroller did drive over the hard drive and crush it. There's something very beautiful about that.

Yeah, sounds like Pratchett.

Yep, Pratchett alright! Such an appropriate way to cap off the man's work. Honestly, I'm sad but it was his wish.

Aww. On the one hand, good for them for respecting the man's last request. I'm sure we all have notes that were never meant to see the light of day, drafts we were always going to throw away, and angry letters we never meant to send. But I am sad that we won't have that last bit of insight into Pterry himself. Though maybe his friends and family will have more to say at some point.

As for Hogfather— Death, Susan, the Wizards, monsters, gods and the power of belief— the book combined a ton of my favourite Discworld things into one novel, and that makes it hard not to like. Plus Teatime was maybe my favourite Discworld villain as a kid.

I'd probably put Small Gods in the top spot, but it's stiff competition. Hogfather came out in a long stretch of very good books.