...that the young Vetinari of Nightwatch leaves the city after The Glorious Revolution, now under the rule of Snapcase. He is sponsored by Lady Meserole to go on The Grand Sneer and (along with whatever Roberta wants) and probably at this point ends up going through Uberwald and cementing a relationship with Lady Margalota.
Meanwhile the city becomes increasingly 'Snapcased', as it had been 'Windered'. As discontent rises, Vetinari prepares to answer the question that 'the power behind the stool beside the throne'
1 are going to end up asking. i.e. "Who can we possibly get to front our power? Which fool can we get to put his backside on the stool, so that none of us risk putting our heads on the block?"
To this end, Vetinari bulks up (and/or wears padded clothing) to look like ideal type of spoiled noble who can be easily manipulated with parties and a handy tray of crystallised jellyfish. Behind the scenes, he ensures that he is the 'obvious' choice, hiding his true intentions. Which is to do to his sponsors the same as he also will do to the likes of the higher-up Thieves Guild officials: Tell them that he knows where they live, and that he knows where their wives and children live. Tell them that there will be no problems, and please don't let him detain them.
Between his ascension, some time before TCOM, he'll start to transform himself. It starts off as "Hail the New Chief, Same as the Old Chief" (or, to others, "...another useful stooge!"), and that's the general impression he gives Rincewind in TCOM. He's apparently still hosting 'parties' in Mort (not that I'm sure he'll ever stop, but they'll serve a different purpose). By G!G!, though, he has doubtless started to cement his
general status as "better than all the alternatives" (dragon kings/queens aside, but even that's easily-enough dealt with, what with the trained/magical rats and the unusual locks on the cell door, etc) and he's prepared to deal for most circumstances, and to deftly out-manoeuvre most of the rest. He's probably slimmed down
2/lost most of the fat-suit by the time of Sourcery (not on my shelves, at the moment, so I can't double-check!), using his iron will and developing political influence to maintain his continuity.
1 Ok, forgive the poetic licence. The throne
is in use prior to the 'matured' Vetinari.
2 It's little more than a side-note, but Vetinari has a possibly relevant recipe for Bread And Water, designed to specifically to counteract the threat of his food being poisoned (see Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, from which the following is summarised or outright copied), which starts off quite complicated, regarding enough dough to make three loaves of bread, baked under supervision by at least two reliable employees, selecing one of the loaves and... various things involving pausing to check for negative reactions from the household staff tasked to lick all unselected plates and drink from various alternate flagons of water... but then boils down to the following three 'simple' instructions:
- Arrange the politics of the country over a period of years so that poisoning you will be more trouble than it is worth and interfere with the private ambitions of too many people just at the moment.
- Make sure that there are among the city's civil service some unpredictable men who will consider your poisoning a personal insult against them, and generally cause a lot of fuss.
- Then eat what you please.
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Topic: Nitpicks that Ruined Movies (Read 138566 times)