Havelock Vetinari Ward

It's like this. On Roundworld, the cliché for lunacy involving delusions of grandeur involves an afflicted person getting so obsessed with the life and actions of a great and remarkeable human being, that they sink through degrees of identification with that person to the point where all idea of the Self is lost. That person then becomes, at least in their own mind, the famous person with whom they identify. The usual default identity is, at least in the eyes of humourists, Napoleon Bonaparte, who if the humourists are to be believed is replicated many, many, times over in the wards of mental hospitals around the world. (Although psychiatric science is at a loss to explain why, if a physically short meglomaniac dictator who very nearly conquered the whole of Europe, and who came unstuck in the snowy steppes of Russia, is such a desirable person for a lunatic to want to become, then why aren't modern psychiatric wards full of people with toothbrush moustaches claiming to be Adolf Hitler?)

An alternative default identity is of course Jesus Christ: popular reasoning has it that if not the political delusion of Bonaparte, the sufferer will inevitably manifest a Messianic delusion.

On the Disc there are quite probably very good reasons why adopting the persona of a God, or His representative manifestation among humanity, is not a long-term strategy for even the most deluded lunatic: it is very possible the real deity is likely to turn up during visiting hours and say "But yeah, can you do THIS?", while tossing a casually aimed thunderbolt. Even on the Disc, nobody is that insane.

This only leaves the political identity to be assumed, and the Free Hospital in Ankh-Morpork now has its Havelock Vetinari Ward, where a collection of motley unfortunates are detained for their own security, all suffering from the delusion that they are the Patrician and ruler of the city. Specially selected staff humour their affliction, and the massed Vetinaris seem happy enough in each others' company,even co-operating to the extent of having eyebrow-raising competitions. The most notable recent admission is Cosmo Lavish, who, we are happy to say, has now finally mastered the Eyebrow, to the popular acclaim of knowledgeable critics on the Ward. Cosmo is happy now his claim to rulership of the city has finally been acknowledged...