What alignment was he?

I can't think of anything he has done in the books that was actually evil.

>He fits fairly comfortably into Lawful Evil, actually.

No he doesn't.

Again, only autists, spergs, and simpletons think people and well written fictional characters can be so neatly categorized.

Vetinari doesn't fight the crime in Ankh-Morpork, he merely organized it and ensured that ultimately all crime bosses report to him in one way or another. This means that, ultimately, he is responsible for all crime that occurs within the city

Now I will grant you that I have only read the first three Discworld books, but the impression I got from Ankh-Morpork is that for the average citizen, it is not a nice place to live. It is dirty, corrupt, and frankly who cares if my mugger leaves me a receipt, I've still been mugged, and Vetinari's reign ensures that there isn't much I can do about that. The crime in Ankh-Morpork is as high as it ever was, including murder, extortion, and rather notably assassination.

And again, as the guy in charge, Vetinari is the one who could do something to try and make things better, but instead he's only made this more efficient and, in the process, ensured that he won't be removed from power. He wants things to be stable, not improved, and if "stable" is defined as "sometimes people will be hurt or killed", he does not appear to mind that.

If you incite a crowd to riot and then throw someone to them, you don't get to claim that there's no blood on your hands when the crowd tears the person apart. Likewise, you don't get to claim that you're not culpable for the actions of a mugger when you're the Patrician of the city and have ensured that that mugger is a licensed operator.

>I have only read the first three Discworld books

When you've read all the rest, get back to us.

Until then, you don't know shit and your opinion on the question is shit too.

If I had to give him an alignment (which is hard, because he doesn't really fit in the chart), I'd say Lawful Neutral; his actions and decisions usually go in the direction of the general good of the situation at hand, even if it will only pay off on the loong, long run, and only if the upcoming events allow for the advancement of good. But he himself is not good or evil; he's foremost practical and unemotional.
And Lawful not because he's bent to follow the law, but because HE IS THE LAW in Anhk-Morpork (whatever Vimes might have to say about that), and he wants his will to be done and followed (again, because he goes for the general good), and he plans to be The Law for a long time still.

Being this much of an asshat.

Does the description of Ankh-Morpork change significantly from how it was in Colour of Magick to how it appears in later books?

Pratchett significantly tones the corruption down. Early in the Guard books, Vimes has a huge problem with Assassins Guild being legal and it's treated like a legitimate issue to have, but in the later books it's handwaves away by saying that assassins are only employed by corrupt nobles to kill other corrupt nobles.
And exactly this happens pretty much to everything.

And the muggings?

Different user here, the muggings still happen but if I remember correctly the receipts serve as a tax write off based on the amount of money stolen.
So essentially you're paying a portion of your taxes early, and it's not like you can't fight off the mugger. People do that all the time, the issues arise when you kill the guy.

They may as well be tax collectors, or insurance. You only get mugged if you fail to pay not to be, and only up to a certain amount, and the thieves actively seek to punish any unlicensed thief dumb enough to steal from you.

It is also worth noting that the city evolves with the rest of the world as the Age of Heroes dies and fades away and the Age of Industry starts.

Like he'd be incompetent to leave evidence of that.

>Does the description of Ankh-Morpork change significantly from how it was in Colour of Magick to how it appears in later books?

While the presence and amount of crime & corruption doesn't change, many more details about that crime & corruption become known. Also, as the others have pointed out, the activities of Vetinari and others slowly subverts the "criminal" guilds into first becoming part of the establishment and then defending the establishment. The Thieves Guild, for example, becomes an "insurance agency" of sorts which charges people not to be robbed while also tracking down and killing any independent thieves.

Murder, theft, rape, robbery, and all the rest still occur but are primarily done by "independents" whom the Guilds primarily catch and punish or by the nobility/rich whom Vetinari and the Watch primarily catch and punish.

The main problem with Vetinari is that he thinks he's the single best person in the world for his job and thus the best course of action is to maintain himself in power for as long as possible and use all means necessary to crush his enemies.

And even though he's actually right, that still kind of makes him a selfish asshole.

So in discworld, the phrase "taxation is theft" is true in a literal sense? That's hilarious.

Taking a metaphor and making it a literal truth of the world is basically how the whole setting is written.

It's also worth noting that as "bad" as the city seems to be, it is the primary destination for immigration on Discworld.

In later books, for example, the dwarf king who is actually female, don't ask points out to reactionary rebels that more dwarfs live in Ankh-Morpork than in the traditional dwarf homeland and the same can be said of many other "ethnic" groups like trolls, goblins, etc.

>all means necessary to crush his enemies
Sometimes the necessary means is to step back and let his enemies crush themselves under the weight of his own job.

Well in CoM a significant portion burns down, and as says things evolve.

Vimes still has issues with it, but it becomes significantly harder for him to hate the noble class (which most assassins are) given that that's a group that includes his wife.
He still hates the Assassins Guild (consider the nature of the traps around his home - he needs security, but it doesn't have to be like THAT) on principal, but he's come around that he can't be angry or despairing about everything he hates, otherwise he'd be back in the bottle again

"suicide" is still widely recognised as a thing despite the vast, vast improvements to the Watch - it's mentioned in Unseen Academicals, iirc

Definitely more insurance-like.

>and frankly who cares if my mugger leaves me a receipt, I've still been mugged
Yeah and now you wont be mugged again all year because that would be illegal.

“...one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior.”
-Vetinari-

Trying to treat Discworld seriously is one small step worse than treating 40k seriously
When most of the content is for laughs you should not even try it

And this is why Pratchett shills incessantly for (((atheism))) whilst claiming to be morally superior
His latter books towards the end end of his life were so preachy and self-righteous as to be unreadable

your forgot with an undercurrent of extreme anger.

Didn't vetinari get where he was by being the best assassin in the assassin's guild by breaking the guild rules, back when it wasn't even a legal guild. That is not lawful alignment

Early Parody of Sword and Sorcery Pterry: Lawful Evil.
Later All Stories Parody Pterry: Unaligned.
Vetinari was originally supposed to be nothing more than a reason that the over the top parody of Lankhmar's criminal guilds were not crushed.

It was a legal guild. Most of the nobility were educated there.

In his defence the lowering of quality can be attributed to Alzheimer's.

Well, it's meant to be "taken seriously", just not literally. It's satire.

>Using neo-nazi symbolism
Ah, you're one of those, got it. Fuck off back to /pol/ please.

>Now I will grant you that I have only read the first three Discworld books

Why the fuck are you giving your opinion then you absolute nonce

You are aware there are like 40 books right?

Neutral Good when most of the books take place, probably. Likely Lawful Evil in the past, what with the being an assassin and all. Prefers to work within the power structure but doesn't shy away from working outside of it, cares about making Ankh Morpork stronger, willing to hurt people but only for the greater good.

That's an excellent quote and should be able to answer the OP's question to the satisfaction of all but the usual spergs.

Like any realist, Vetinari recognizes that life is cruel and that cruelty is sometimes required. Vetinari isn't unnecessarily cruel however. The only time I can think of where he lets his personal feelings control him in in his "persecution" of mimes - something which Pratchett obviously wrote for laughs. Even then, Vetinari doesn't kill the mimes out of hand.

Carrot's Father?

he is also cruel to people who uses metaphores, famously forcing the poet who said "the pen is mightier than the sword" to try and fight a swordsman using a pen.
Which humorously resulted in victory for the poet.

I must say that I approve of his inquisition against postmodern art though.

Yes and 40k is, among other things, satire and parody. Vetinari may be a satire of a general idea of a politician, but that doesn't mean that what he actually does should be taken at face value. Rather the opposite.

If he is any of the alignments, he is CN.

The problem both have is that they started out as shallow parodies, not satires. They both tried taking a turn into straight satire when it became clear that their parodies were either drying up, couldn't fit, or both, and both failed.

No. Low King in Uberwald.

Seated upon the Scone of Stone?

That's the one.

Ah yes. I am saddened we cannot look forward to the depths they will inspire the Dwarven people to sink to.

It's only a problem when autism tries to take it all seriously.

>famously forcing the poet who said "the pen is mightier than the sword" to try and fight a swordsman using a pen.
>Which humorously resulted in victory for the poet.
When was that?

By theme I'd guess The Truth?

Nah, this was back in I think early guardsman books, as an aside or footnote.

Not entirely. Both have problems that are caused by the move away, hence why Vetinari went from how could this not!Lankhmar even function with open criminals, or why 40K still has trappings of Heavy Metal like Vampire and Werewolf Space Marines. You can laugh at it if you know the original parody, but both the things that they were parodies of lost popularity, and went into "satire", with all the shit from tbe shallow parody left over and dragging down the over the top, but still within the realm of realism part of actual satire.

Again, the "problems" only exist if you take it at face value. Neither of the worlds actually exist, so none of it matters, none of it needs to make sense. Vetinari is not a real person, and can act in one way on one page and on a completely different way on another, and this is not because he changed his mind, it's just because it made for more lolz, or because it fit with however Pratchett was feeling, whatever he wanted to say, on the specific day when he wrote it. Nothing else.