I'd like to suggest a new heading quote from the trope namer himself:
"The way to retain power, I have always thought, is to ensure the absolute unthinkability of oneself not being there." - Lord Vetinari, 'Unseen Academicals'
I removed this description of early Imperial Roman politics which, while interesting, has nothing to do with the trope at hand.
- Gaius Octavianus/Octavian Caesar/Caesar Augustus (all the same man) also did this to spectacular effect some 2000 years prior. He pretty well wrote the book on becoming King without actually taking the title, by taking on his new name in honor of the previous dictator of the Roman empire and his adopted father, Julius Caesar. And every tsar, kaiser, and whatever foreign gibberish word for Emperor has followed his example. He did it by claiming damn near every ruling office there was, giving him a ridiculously Long Title in one fell swoop. The key ones were the imperium maius which gave him the right to overrule any provincial governor (making him de facto commander in chief of the legions) and the powers of the tribunate (giving him the right to veto any act of the government and making him immune to prosecution.) He also took some prestigious offices, such as princeps or president pro tempore of the senate, which was his favorite title, as well as the office of chief priest after its previous holder died of natural causes. To round it out, he quite often had himself made consul so that he could share this annual, two-man office with his favorites. The key thing was that all of these offices had existed under the Republic so he could claim that he just a regular Republican politician who happened to hold a load of different offices. (In point of fact there was no precedent for giving anyone other than an elected tribune the powers of the tribunate, but people tended not to bring that up.)
- It's also amusing how nowadays the title of Emperor is seen as being above the Kings, but back in the day Imperator had more the ring of "chief administrator" to it, and was used because the Romans loathed the concept of royalty. You can blame this on Diocletian, who styled himself as an almost Persian-style "King of Kings" and redefined the role of the emperor. Also, an example of this trope, considering even after retiring to go farm cabbages, he was eventually driven to reenter political life (for all the good it did him) when the chain of events eventually leading to Constantine the Great's ascension started up.
Raxis
Contents of previous discussion:
Peteman: I'm tempted to add to the picture caption: Besides Carrot? post a reply
Some Guy:This page has been renamed to Vetinari Job Security, in accordance with ancient, forgotten crowner results.
mythbuster: Yeah, how is this a paradox, anyway?
24.9.195.227: The description has shifted away from the meaning matching the trope name. Unappreciated Indispensible Man would actually fit the current trope description much better. Lord Vetinari is the tyrant of Ankh-Morpork, and basically everybody hates him and would love to see him kicked out, except their overall peace, stability, happiness, economic flow all depend on him and removing him would basically screw them all. This is actually demonstrated several times in the Discworld series. The Paradox is everybody hates the guy and wants him out, but everybody knows that kicking him out would be like permanently altering rain so poo and wee come down instead of water.
Edited by MoCellMan Searching for plausible mechanisms.
TRS discussion
that resulted in Vetinari Paradox being renamed to Vetinari Job Security.
I'm noticing several examples under Real Life that are very recent political stuff. Are these examples kosher, or should the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment be applied here?