Then there’s the punchline to said narrative: the golden throne of Ankh-Morpork is rotting from within. It looks pefectly fine from afar, glistening and tempting enough to motivate the villain with nostalgia and glamour. But pageantry does not define a state. What Vetinari clears up in that final scene is that the feeble wooden foundations of the throne symbollize the lack of sustenance that a fairy tale kingship would entail. Carrot would not be an able ruler to the city, nevermind a ruler as able as Vetinari himself is.

I think this is a parallel with the way british democracy works and, I assume, Terry’s own feelings about it. Ankh-Morpork and Britain are both easily able to shed dipshit prime ministers and do so regularly. Ask Charles to do some actual governing and the country will collapse in 4 years - mostly because the way things are people don’t actually have to confront the shittiness of the royal family. They can latch onto the royals to little consequence. Likewise, the way things are in Ankh-Morpork means that people can wax poetically about the throne because there’s nobody sitting on it. Ankh-Morpork is not a monarchy, but it still has a nobility of sorts, a class system and the throne still sits upon the city, bereft of a king but still standing as a symbol of history. If Carrot sits on the throne it could quite literally fall apart and that symbollizes what’s ahead for Ankh then.

I always say Britain should abolish the royal family but not the monarchy. Let a LizzieGPT ‘rule’ eternally and nationalize the palaces. Win-win.