Le portrait d'un tyran : Havelock Vétérini dans le Disque-Monde de Terry Pratchett

Abstract

Focusing on Pratchett’s lavish depiction of an alternate universe, the paper underscores parallels between its imaginary, all-powerful ruler, Veterini, and some actual Renaissance counterparts. More significantly, Veterini appears to embody Macchiavelli’s Prince (with a dash of Hobbes). Thus counter-factual reality allows a philosophical, theoretic character to come to life and effectively exert power, another instance of the political use of uchronia. The relation between counterfactual and factual seems embodied by the art of “stealth chess” which Veterini excels at, where an additional space outside the checkers (the “Slurks”) allows the player to move his pawn in an unplottable way.