Unsustainibility in Fantasy Monarchies

Kjbartolotta

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Some of us are inordinately fond of monarchies. I can't seem to write anything without one. But overall, it's a bad system of government, and having an benevolent or reform-minded monarch on the throne may not be enough to fix it.

https://medium.com/@RealDorianDawes/ethics-in-world-building-monarchies-8131ad8528f8

Within fantasy fiction, particularly traditional “high fantasy” settings, the most common system of government is that of the monarchy. This is understandable, as much of western fantasy fiction borrows heavily from western European history where monarchies have been equally as prevalent. The familiarity of the monarchy and its wide-usage means less work has to be done in order to understand how it works in your fictional society. Most readers have at least have enough pop-cultural understanding to gain an easy frame of reference into your story.

Therein of course lies the issue with this sort of escapist narrative, of framing inherently conservative ideals of hierarchies and autocratic rule because they are free of complication. They are not free of complication, not by a long-shot, and they are certainly not ideal. Real-world monarchies have a bloody history of mass inequality, poverty, imperialism, and genocide. We retain the vision of a good monarch as a relic of propaganda of days gone past, preserved repeatedly through our own fiction. I’ve discussed previously how the ideology of the divine right of kings frequently shows itself in fantasy stories.

An under-discussed flaw in these stories is how much strain centralized authority puts on a single leader’s head.

And so on. It's a good article, I have no plans to stop writing about kings, queens, and enlightened despots. But it certainly affects the way I thing about these forms of government, and what I might be saying without realizing it.
 
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Richard White

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Yet, Kingdoms (and their equivalent) have run from the earliest known governments all the way through the present day.

No specific form of government yet created has no warts.

Even the "Greek Democracies" had wars, inequality, slavery, etc. etc. etc.

Sounds like this person is goring a favorite ox again
 

Brightdreamer

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... and yet, sometimes, the story you want to tell isn't about the bloody intricacies of realistic monarchies, and more about the dragons and the faeries and other stuff, with the monarchy in the background, possibly in a deliberately idealized world that managed to get a monarchy "right".

I get that the author is upset at how many of these things tend to be glossed over in the "average" fantasy monarchies (if such a term can be applied to fantasy - especially lately, seems like we're getting a lot more variety, and a lot more addressing of some of those political and systemic problems), which could make for good plot points if nothing else, but must one always delve into deep politics in any story including a monarchy? That's like expecting every contemporary story to put on the brakes and discuss modern governmental inequalities and woes - which would really put a damper on the average romance, for one thing, as it's hard to see how Brad could seduce Barbara with an infodump about election propaganda perpetuating age-old racial schisms.
 

lilyWhite

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I feel like the article shoots itself in the foot with its own example of Trails in the Sky. The argument the article makes is that, even if you had a benevolent ruler, malevolent forces would depose of that ruler. So in the case of Trails in the Sky (from how the article describes it), malevolent forces attempt to depose of the benevolent ruler...and so good people support and defend the good ruler from the would-be tyrant.

You could make the argument with any form of government in a work of fiction that the happiness of the people is entirely reliant on the people in power not being awful, and then make the cynical interpretation that power inevitably corrupts or that good people are deposed by wicked people in any form of government.
 

Aggy B.

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For me this falls into the same category of "But historically women/LGBTQ/PoC...."

If you can imagine a world with dragons and fairies then why is it so damn hard to posit a different system of government than what we had in real life? Does it sometimes feel like unnecessary world-building work? Sure. But every choice we make in telling a story does indicate a certain mindset. (That doesn't mean don't ever write about monarchies, but maybe put a little more thought into the idea that they were an extension of theocracies. That they forcefully consolidated power with the few. And then consider how that plays out in your world, whether it's in the background or not.)

I think the point here is to think a little harder about the ingrained things we taken as natural and "just the way things are". To consider how much of what we write is actually restricted by what we "know" - no matter how many centaurs and elves we put into the story.
 

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I think the most important question is... "How does this serve the story?"

Are you telling a politically charged story because you have an axe to grind? Go nuts, swing that axe.

Are you telling a fairy-tale story with a focus on something where politics would kill the vibe (like an idealistic romance), and you want to put a crown on Prince Charming's head because Happily Ever After and Tinkerbell's sparkles? I don't think wanting to do this is necessarily inappropriate either.

Or behind door #3, you can bend/subvert/set fire to familiar tropes, or explore ambiguous places with grey vs. grey morality. If you want to include a monarchy, it doesn't HAVE to be either painful fairy tale idealism, or Rage Against the Machine's tour through medieval Europe (as the article seems to suggest).

I do think it's important to ask yourself WHY you want to include a certain trope and what is its purpose (also as the article seems to suggest). Unconscious use of tropes that amount to kicking a dead horse is boring.

There is a time and a place for everything. You can be clever with new stuff or clever with old stuff. What does your story need? (The answer is: something clever.) Sometimes I get bored building entire new worlds from scratch (SIGH, the pains of being Authorgod) and just want to mangle an old one.

Xoxo,
Blackcat, Mangler of Kingdoms
 

Kjbartolotta

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Dang, folks! Writing a clickbaity thread title is a sure-fire way to get a discussion going. :evil

Yet, Kingdoms (and their equivalent) have run from the earliest known governments all the way through the present day.

No specific form of government yet created has no warts.

Even the "Greek Democracies" had wars, inequality, slavery, etc. etc. etc.

Sounds like this person is goring a favorite ox again

Certainly, but for a system that lasted ten thousand some-odd years, most are dead and gone. Only Saudi Arabia, Brunei, and a few others function like traditional monarchies (or absolute ones, to make the distinction). I can't think of many people that would want to go back to that. The whole 'monarchy is the most stable system of government' argument doesn't hold up for me, because taken case by case, monarchies are anything but stable. Maybe monarchy just suits a certain level of development, whether it is a sustainable system or not.

... and yet, sometimes, the story you want to tell isn't about the bloody intricacies of realistic monarchies, and more about the dragons and the faeries and other stuff, with the monarchy in the background, possibly in a deliberately idealized world that managed to get a monarchy "right".

I get that the author is upset at how many of these things tend to be glossed over in the "average" fantasy monarchies (if such a term can be applied to fantasy - especially lately, seems like we're getting a lot more variety, and a lot more addressing of some of those political and systemic problems), which could make for good plot points if nothing else, but must one always delve into deep politics in any story including a monarchy? That's like expecting every contemporary story to put on the brakes and discuss modern governmental inequalities and woes - which would really put a damper on the average romance, for one thing, as it's hard to see how Brad could seduce Barbara with an infodump about election propaganda perpetuating age-old racial schisms.

No, I don't think I have any arguments here. Not sure that a deep politics dive is required every time every time you want to depict a non-idealized monarchy, but it's also tedious to impose that as a requirement.

You could make the argument with any form of government in a work of fiction that the happiness of the people is entirely reliant on the people in power not being awful, and then make the cynical interpretation that power inevitably corrupts or that good people are deposed by wicked people in any form of government.

Hmm. I'm not entirely sure that *is* a cynical argument. Perhaps just the nature of power. YMMV. But I think it's worth being said that there may be a difference between corruption and concentration of power/suppression of dissent. Look at Catherine the Great. But again, I'm not the kind of person who thinks depicting a 'good' monarchy, especially in fantasy, is a bad thing.

For me this falls into the same category of "But historically women/LGBTQ/PoC...."

If you can imagine a world with dragons and fairies then why is it so damn hard to posit a different system of government than what we had in real life? Does it sometimes feel like unnecessary world-building work? Sure. But every choice we make in telling a story does indicate a certain mindset. (That doesn't mean don't ever write about monarchies, but maybe put a little more thought into the idea that they were an extension of theocracies. That they forcefully consolidated power with the few. And then consider how that plays out in your world, whether it's in the background or not.)

I think the point here is to think a little harder about the ingrained things we taken as natural and "just the way things are". To consider how much of what we write is actually restricted by what we "know" - no matter how many centaurs and elves we put into the story.

Well put. Whatever the article faults are, this is a point worth making. When I am king, you will be spared (because I am a kind and enlightened monarch). (That sounded insanely dorky)

I think the most important question is... "How does this serve the story?"

Are you telling a politically charged story because you have an axe to grind? Go nuts, swing that axe.

Are you telling a fairy-tale story with a focus on something where politics would kill the vibe (like an idealistic romance), and you want to put a crown on Prince Charming's head because Happily Ever After and Tinkerbell's sparkles? I don't think wanting to do this is necessarily inappropriate either.

Or behind door #3, you can bend/subvert/set fire to familiar tropes, or explore ambiguous places with grey vs. grey morality. If you want to include a monarchy, it doesn't HAVE to be either painful fairy tale idealism, or Rage Against the Machine's tour through medieval Europe (as the article seems to suggest).

I do think it's important to ask yourself WHY you want to include a certain trope and what is its purpose (also as the article seems to suggest). Unconscious use of tropes that amount to kicking a dead horse is boring.

(emphasis mine)

There is a time and a place for everything. You can be clever with new stuff or clever with old stuff. What does your story need? (The answer is: something clever.) Sometimes I get bored building entire new worlds from scratch (SIGH, the pains of being Authorgod) and just want to mangle an old one.

Xoxo,
Blackcat, Mangler of Kingdoms

Right? You can do what you want. Nuthin' wrong with thinking about ​why.
 
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Jason

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Yet, Kingdoms (and their equivalent) have run from the earliest known governments all the way through the present day.

No specific form of government yet created has no warts.

Even the "Greek Democracies" had wars, inequality, slavery, etc. etc. etc.

Sounds like this person is goring a favorite ox again

Fair point, and toward those ends...wasn't it Winston Churchill that was quoted as saying “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

I think the most important question is... "How does this serve the story?"

Are you telling a politically charged story because you have an axe to grind? Go nuts, swing that axe.

Are you telling a fairy-tale story with a focus on something where politics would kill the vibe (like an idealistic romance), and you want to put a crown on Prince Charming's head because Happily Ever After and Tinkerbell's sparkles? I don't think wanting to do this is necessarily inappropriate either.

Or behind door #3, you can bend/subvert/set fire to familiar tropes, or explore ambiguous places with grey vs. grey morality. If you want to include a monarchy, it doesn't HAVE to be either painful fairy tale idealism, or Rage Against the Machine's tour through medieval Europe (as the article seems to suggest).

I do think it's important to ask yourself WHY you want to include a certain trope and what is its purpose (also as the article seems to suggest). Unconscious use of tropes that amount to kicking a dead horse is boring.

There is a time and a place for everything. You can be clever with new stuff or clever with old stuff. What does your story need? (The answer is: something clever.) Sometimes I get bored building entire new worlds from scratch (SIGH, the pains of being Authorgod) and just want to mangle an old one.

Xoxo,
Blackcat, Mangler of Kingdoms

I really like your thoughts here - and to add to it... while I didn't get too far into reading GOT before other things sidetracked me (though I will get back to them come hell or high water), wasn't that kind of what made it good initially? He went with Door #3 that kind of toyed with the grays of political mechanisms at play in monarchies and in the world of magic. The mixture of the evil nature of humankind in the world of politics (especially in monarchies and the rights to the throne) and magical interventions has seemed to captivate an entire culture of those inclined toward fantasy tropes. I would think that it's partly because he put a new twist on classic tropes, no?

Spoiler Alert here for the select few that may not have read any GOT or seen the TV series yet...:

Good king dies and bad evil son steps in, chasing good son off to far lands to build his own army before they all clash again with the assistance of magical dragons and the like? (Please, don't tell me more - assuming the dragons do come into play...I only got through the 2nd book - or was it the 3rd? - so far...)
 

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GoT talk but keeping it to Book 1 and no plot twists.

Brathareon isn't even all that good of a king. He was well liked. But he's blind when it comes to politics and he's driven the kingdom deep into debt with his taste for revelry. He doesn't care much for the business of ruling, he would rather leave it up to his Hand.

As twists go, all I can say is you have barely scratched the surface. But the burdens and trials of rulers do continue to drive the series. And there is very little glossing over.
 
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blackcat777

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I can't think of many people that would want to go back to that.

This sentiment just gave me the random thought, as I'm currently on a Victorian literature bender: no way in HELL would I ever want to live in Victorian times, but the era produced some fascinating works, due to its social constraints, repression, and inequality. There is value in examining the flaws and limitations of a time period.

For me this falls into the same category of "But historically women/LGBTQ/PoC...."

I think it's important for an author to self-examine and avoid traps of unconsciousness associated with this. However (and I know, Aggy, you weren't saying anything about this, I'm simply adding to the thought), I don't think a blinkered worldview should be verboten by default if the author can execute the setting in such a way that it invokes questions about its own validity.

I really like your thoughts here - and to add to it... while I didn't get too far into reading GOT before other things sidetracked me (though I will get back to them come hell or high water), wasn't that kind of what made it good initially? He went with Door #3 that kind of toyed with the grays of political mechanisms at play in monarchies and in the world of magic. The mixture of the evil nature of humankind in the world of politics (especially in monarchies and the rights to the throne) and magical interventions has seemed to captivate an entire culture of those inclined toward fantasy tropes. I would think that it's partly because he put a new twist on classic tropes, no?

I was really hoping the deodorant was strong enough to keep my black cloud of grimdark from wafting through the forum. :evil Oh well.

I want to add that I don't think grit or idealism are at odds with each other, or one is necessarily better than the other. I think it's like yin and yang, you need a bit of one to make the other compelling. The problem with Legolas's hair is that it is just so shiny. ;) And along with perfect kings uniting all the warring kingdoms, princesses who never fart, etc., people were bound to find the reverse of that interesting. But too much grit can fail if the reader ceases to care - someone, somewhere, has to have a touch of something redeeming.

A Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a quick, cute read that makes some salient points about the shortcomings of fantasy tropes, kings and castles, etc.
 

Kjbartolotta

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This sentiment just gave me the random thought, as I'm currently on a Victorian literature bender: no way in HELL would I ever want to live in Victorian times, but the era produced some fascinating works, due to the social constraints, repression, and inequality of the era. There is value in examining the flaws and limitations of a time period.

And there's so much to be gained from that! I can think of plenty of virtues that existed in the past that I want to go back to, and all the ways I admire the folks who came before me. But idealizing the past doesn't appeal to me. And I do wonder if the way the past is idealized in fantasy distorts our real world understanding of it. How many people expect Medieval Europe to be a monoculture, because fantastical versions of it often are?

I was really hoping the deodorant was strong enough to keep my black cloud of grimdark from wafting through the forum. :evil Oh well.

People have differing opinions of grimdark, and I think that's awesome. I would hope that the argument that 'monarchies are bad' is not perceived as 'fantasy needs to be nasty and evil because people suck'. Because I would not agree with that.

But I like grimdark. So sue me!

I want to add that I don't think grit or idealism are at odds with each other, or one is necessarily better than the other.

If I got a tattoo, it would say 'Gritty Idealism'. I don't understand the idea of one type of a story or another.

A Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a quick, cute read that makes some salient points about the shortcomings of fantasy tropes, kings and castles, etc.

Love her! Was gonna mention it and Dark Lord of Derkholm, but didn't know where I was going with it.

GoT talk but keeping it to Book 1 and no plot twists.

Oh, yeah, I don't know if the OP has any say in the matters, but if you guys wanna thread derail with GoT talk, I would be totally ok with it. :Thumbs:
 
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Jason

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GoT talk but keeping it to Book 1 and no plot twists.

Brathareon isn't even all that good of a king. He was well liked. But he's blind when it comes to politics and he's driven the kingdom deep into debt with his taste for revelry. He doesn't care much for the business of ruling, he would rather leave it up to his Hand.

As twists go, all I can say is you have barely scratched the surface. But the burdens and trials of rulers do continue to drive the series. And there is very little glossing over.

...
Oh, yeah, I don't know if the OP has any say in the matters, but if you guys wanna thread derail with GoT talk, I would be totally ok with it. :Thumbs:...

No, no, GOD no, otherwise I gotta stop following the thread - I'm plugging my ears! Instead, use this thread for GoT chat w/ spoilers! :)

Oh yeah, and when I did a search for the Official GoT thread w/ spoilers, also found this one which kind of speaks to the angle I unwittingly brought in to this thread:

https://absolutewrite.com/forums/sh...vel-Mean-Different-Things-to-Different-People
 
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benbenberi

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Monarchy is often attractive in a fictional context because it provides a fundamentally simple structure of authority. Power is concentrated in a single person. Conflicts of power and political struggles can also be identified with individuals. A handful of named characters (nobles, ministers, priests, what have you) can stand in for the whole government, administration, & supporting functions. This is very convenient for a narrative.

It also provides a very convenient shorthand and a set of widely-understood tropes that can be very handy to reference in a work where the main story is NOT on the nature of political structures and government. (This can also lead to a work filled with unexamined assumptions and clichés, if the writer isn't being careful.)

Non-monarchies, on the other hand, are messy. Complicated. Hard to summarize. Often irreducible to the small number of moving parts a story can allow in the background without it becoming a major focus of attention. And even when it is a major focus of attention, difficult to reduce to clear narrative through-lines with a manageable number of players and motives. Herding cats is nothing to it! Journalists struggle with this problem every day and usually fail.
 

themindstream

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Yeah, no, I have no intention of turning this into a GoT thread. But GoT does fit the bill of portraying non-idealized monarchies in great detail and in many forms. Idealisim does not always carry the day. Benevolent rulers have to put up with crap from antagonistic subordinates. Benevolent rulers may have to resort to harsh measures to deal with those antagonistic subordinates. Compromises are made in the name of political expediency. The common folk suffer when the high and mighty fight in power plays.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Yeah, no, I have no intention of turning this into a GoT thread.

Well, poo.

Idealisim does not always carry the day. Benevolent rulers have to put up with crap from antagonistic subordinates. Benevolent rulers may have to resort to harsh measures to deal with those antagonistic subordinates. Compromises are made in the name of political expediency. The common folk suffer when the high and mighty fight in power plays.

Well said. I think it's worth mentioning that for all of GRRM's insane cynical grimdark (and I am respectful of people who take issue with that, but think it can be a little overstated), the series never quite becomes a treatise on how ALL monarchy is bad and how ALL power corrupts. It's stated frequently that not all the Targaryens were bad, plenty were quite good actually and even many of the flawed ones ruled decently. Daenerys has some dangerous qualities, but she's never really set up as someone meant to become evil or corrupted. I'd roll with her any day, though I still hope Podrick gets the Iron Throne in book seven.

So he's cutting against the point he's often pegged as making, which I appreciate.
 
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Curlz

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Dang, folks! Writing a clickbaity thread title is a sure-fire way to get a discussion going. :evil
The whole 'monarchy is the most stable system of government' argument doesn't hold up for me, because taken case by case, monarchies are anything but stable.
Taken case by case, mermaids can't exist. Or talking teapots, flying carpets and magic rings. You can have a similar thread for any fantasy thing: "Mermaids and Why They Suck" is of exactly the same clickbaity value. Do you think the king and queen in "Shrek" terrorised the population? There are a lot of lovable monarchies in fantasy stories, which don't have anything to do with the real world. The answer to your question is always: the author is to blame. The author would be the only reason why a fantasy monarchy, or anything else in the book, sucked.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Taken case by case, mermaids can't exist. Or talking teapots, flying carpets and magic rings. You can have a similar thread for any fantasy thing: "Mermaids and Why They Suck" is of exactly the same clickbaity value. Do you think the king and queen in "Shrek" terrorised the population? There are a lot of lovable monarchies in fantasy stories, which don't have anything to do with the real world. The answer to your question is always: the author is to blame. The author would be the only reason why a fantasy monarchy, or anything else in the book, sucked.

Respectfully disagree, and it was not my intention to start an 'anything can suck' thread. But I do not think faeries and magic teapots have the same problematic elements when depicted carelessly.
 

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Great article and discussion here. I love monarchies just as much as the next person, and I'd totally be down to see more politically charged fantasy that hits on some of the questions the article raised (burden of power, colonialism, cultural diffusion, etc). As others have mentioned, this article seems to be more about building awareness and examining the unconscious narrative the use of monarchies could tell.
 

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I am all for using archetypes to re-examine power structures, religion, colonialism, etc. My complaint is more with the "But it has to be a monarchy because that's what existed at that time in real life" crowd when they have other fantastical elements in it. (Now, things like the Jackaroo series by Cynthia Voight did a good job with examining the power structures in a low fantasy (no otherworldly elements at all, if I remember correctly, but obviously a secondary world) setting and it was clearly purposeful. Lloyd Alexander did a bit of that with his Beggar Queen series too - secondary world, vaguely French Revolution oriented.)

I just get frustrated when folks plug in all sorts of world-changing elements but use a monarchy by default. Yes, it is a convenient hack for writing about governments, but it is a political opinion and repeating it ad nauseaem without touching on the immediate and severe flaws inherent in the system is damaging.

One of the novels I finished up last year has a type of democratic government that has taken the place (over several hundred years) of a monarchy/theocracy styled government. It required a lot more thought into how a number of scenes played out because much of it is dependent on expressing the varied desires of a group. (I also cheated and only lightly touched on how representatives are chosen. But there's also hints of lifelong appointments and the subsequent abuse of power or scheming to achieve such an appointment.) But part of the story conflict has to do with the complication that comes with the diversification of power, particularly when those who make the decisions are not the ones to enforce it. And the temptation by someone who has the physical power to control everything to force everyone else into agreement.

It's definitely a point of conflict and that's great (if frustrating) when building a story. It's the unexamined use of the monarchy as default (especially in fantasy settings where things can and are so drastically different) that really bugs me these days.
 

Kjbartolotta

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Said it better than I could.

My basic grievance with fantasy monarchies is that it's a system of government we simply don't believe in any more. I mean, we all like QE2 and the bicycle monarchs, but (making a huge assumption here), monarchy is simply a type of rule we don't believe in any more. You can't force that genie back in the bottle. If you want to write about a form of government based on the divine right of kings, and have your heroes selflessly devoted to that cause, that's great. I've sure spent a lot of time on this. But that will put your characters at odds with modern day views, and I think it's something worth acknowledging. Or, if you're actually pro-monarchist, that's fine too. I disagree, but there's a lot of bad forms of government right now and I'm open to options. Saying 'no, this does not need to be examined' leads to problems, we all know there are other 'we don't need X or Y in fantasy' discussions that lead down dark, dark avenues. Also, what monarchy was ever the same as any other one? My annoyance with fantasy monarchy is that they tend to be based on a lot of presuppositions that have no grounding IRL. And that's fine, but maybe worth being aware of.

I dunno, it's not a political ax to grind for me so much as an opportunity for more depth. More characters, more conflict, more interior discussions of right and wrong. And none of that exists on a sliding scale of gritty-to-idealistic to me, nor do I want every fantasy novel to be GoT. Some days, I could even do with less of that.

I was gonna post a completely separate article from the Rocketpunk Manifesto about why monarchy is useful as a storytelling tool. What other government could drop a young, inexperienced, but fundamentally good-hearted MC right in the center of power, and leave them to scrap it out and fix everything, overcoming exceptional odds? But, gah, no more articles.
 
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Dave.C.Robinson

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This reminds me of a novel I wrote. Originally I intended to do a simple Galactic Empire story about a lost heir and the restoration of the monarchy. By the time I reached the end of the novel it was about how a monarchy was a really bad idea as a form of government on an interstellar scale.
 

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My basic grievance with fantasy monarchies is that it's a system of government we simply don't believe in any more. I mean, we all like QE2 and the bicycle monarchs, but (making a huge assumption here), monarchy is simply a type of rule we don't believe in any more. You can't force that genie back in the bottle. If you want to write about a form of government based on the divine right of kings, and have your heroes selflessly devoted to that cause, that's great. I've sure spent a lot of time on this. But that will put your characters at odds with modern day views, and I think it's something worth acknowledging.

This is what drives me crazy about so much YA science fiction and fantasy. There are princes, princesses, balls, pretty dresses, and the protagonists never question any of it.
 

Roxxsmom

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The thing that the authors of "A Tough Guide to Fantasyland" and online ranters (about the unrealistic nature of many fantasy tropes) like Limyaael, seem to be missing is that many people don't love certain fantasy tropes because they're realistic portrayals of how monarchies, or life in general, really were in a bygone era, but because they're fun, or aesthetically pleasing to us, or because they push various emotional buttons we have. They represent places some readers wish to escape to mentally, even if they could never exist in the real world. Even if we'd really hate it if they did exist in the real world.

Not that some assertions by realists of how unrelentingly grim and dark life really was in earlier time periods are 100% true either.

I get the frustration that can occur when a writer gets something one is knowledgeable or feel pretty passionately about wrong. If a work is billed as realistic historical fiction, or hard science fiction, or some other genre/subgenre that is supposed to be well-researched, it can be especially annoying. But a lot of fantasy and SF are simply meant to be a backdrop for escapist dreams that aren't meant to be examined under a magnifying lens. Mocking people for liking the tropes they like, or trying to convince them that these tropes are silly or inaccurate, feels a bit mean. What if the naysayer does succeed in spoiling it for the person in question? They have taken something away from someone else that gave them a great deal of pleasure. Where is the benefit in that? What is the true motive here? To feel good and superior by making someone else feel bad or ashamed?
 
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SillyLittleTwit

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My basic grievance with fantasy monarchies is that it's a system of government we simply don't believe in any more.

Until one realises that the US and French Presidents are basically elected monarchs (literally in the case of the French one, since he's also co-prince of Andorra), and that the US President has more power than any British monarch since Charles I. Then there are the hereditary monarchs in all but name: Syria and North Korea.

I think people are getting too caught up in the crown and ermine robe aspect of monarchy - unless you are dealing with a constitutional monarch (and let's face it, who writes about them, except as window-dressing?), monarchy for our purposes is really political power being concentrated into one pair of hands, whether or not there's a crown involved. And that is very modern.

Also, that divine right of kings thing was a very late development. Medieval monarchs had to deal with powerful nobilities, the Church and its privileges, etc.
 

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I get the frustration that can occur when a writer gets something one is knowledgeable or feel pretty passionately about wrong. If a work is billed as realistic historical fiction, or hard science fiction, or some other genre/subgenre that is supposed to be well-researched, it can be especially annoying. But a lot of fantasy and SF are simply meant to be a backdrop for escapist dreams that aren't meant to be examined under a magnifying lens. Mocking people for liking the tropes they like, or trying to convince them that these tropes are silly or inaccurate, feels a bit mean. What if the naysayer does succeed in spoiling it for the person in question? They have taken something away from someone else that gave them a great deal of pleasure. Where is the benefit in that? What is the true motive here? To feel good and superior by making someone else feel bad or ashamed?

True enough, and I'll admit to being irresponsible here if a tone of moral superiority slipped in here (it probably happened at some point). What I'm finding here is that this is turning out to be be a divisive topic, and well it should be, as there are points worth defending on both sides. I liked what BlackCat said

I think it's important for an author to self-examine and avoid traps of unconsciousness associated with this. However (and I know, Aggy, you weren't saying anything about this, I'm simply adding to the thought), I don't think a blinkered worldview should be verboten by default if the author can execute the setting in such a way that it invokes questions about its own validity.

And I would agree, with that the acknowledgment, for me, there is not point in picking apart a 'blinkered worldview' to death or having the anarchists out explaining to King Arthur that 'I didn't vote for you'.

Until one realises that the US and French Presidents are basically elected monarchs (literally in the case of the French one, since he's also co-prince of Andorra), and that the US President has more power than any British monarch since Charles I. Then there are the hereditary monarchs in all but name: Syria and North Korea.

I think people are getting too caught up in the crown and ermine robe aspect of monarchy - unless you are dealing with a constitutional monarch (and let's face it, who writes about them, except as window-dressing?), monarchy for our purposes is really political power being concentrated into one pair of hands, whether or not there's a crown involved. And that is very modern.

Also, that divine right of kings thing was a very late development. Medieval monarchs had to deal with powerful nobilities, the Church and its privileges, etc.

Actually, I'd like to let that point stand as well. I would argue that I meant the broader belief as kingship as divine or holy, and the rule of the monarchy somehow blessed (which I would say is a key difference between monarchical and non-monarchical systems), but the divine right of kings as a coherent concept does indeed come very late.
 
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