Lord Vetinari

Lord Havelock Vetinari is the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, was born into the extremely powerful Vetinari family 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 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 Assassins' 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. 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. There he met the vampire Lady Margolotta. It is thought that the two had some kind of relationship. He taught her a lot of what she knows.

Becoming Patrician, Lord Vetinari succeeded Mad Lord Snapcase. 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 (the latter not being entirely what you might imagine), 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.

Lord Vetinari's genius in 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.

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.

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 and of course his very, very good skills as an Assassin.

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. He was shot in the leg with a gonne and now walks with an ebony cane, though only in public.

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.

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 a metaphysical crisis, superfluous life force and belief, Music With Rocks In 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; more recently, he has pumped public money into revamping the postal service.