If Dragons Then Royalty

[lea_hazel]

Royalty and nobility are one of the most common conceits of epic fantasy. Almost every fantasy novel takes place in a world comprised of a series of kingdoms, or similarly structured alternatives. Epic plotlines usually follow the royalty or at least high nobility of one or more of these kingdoms. This applies doubly when the protagonist is a commoner; gaining access to the higher echelons of society is part of their reward.

When I tried to think about fantasy novels (excluding contemporary, and even those have their vampire kings and fairy queens) that defy this convention, I thought first of A Wizard of Earthsea. I may be misremembering, since I read it in translation years ago, but I don't recall Ged or any of the other major characters being noble. A few other books came to mind, where characters sometimes deal with nobility but don't wind up discovered as the long-lost heirs to something, or receiving a noble title, or anything.

I can't think of many fantasies that don't take place in a royal hierarchy, though. For some people, the crowns and swords and other medieval trappings are a major part of fantasy's charm, but it's still a pretty diverse genre. Do people think non-monarchic systems are too much of a divergence for fantasy, or does it just not occur to them that there are other options? Like the title says: If dragons -- then monarchy?

Comments

[lea_hazel]

That's what I was thinking. Like, among the other pseudo-medieval-Europe trappings people write into their fantasy without thinking them through, there's "generic stew" and "generic sword" and "generic kingdom". I mean, political intrigue fantasy is pretty much a response to epic fantasy, but it still embraced the monarchy, maybe because of resentment towards all the unrealistically brave and magnanimous kings in epic fantasy. But then, why not have intrigue in a senate, or some other political structure? Religious political fantasy?

[manifesta]

political intrigue fantasy is pretty much a response to epic fantasy

As a side note, I've been thinking about this dichotomy and never connected the dots that way. This makes quite a bit of sense.

[lea_hazel]

Yeah, because in epic fantasy you have all the Arthurian derivatives, and Arthur himself is (I think?) derivative of King David. They're notorious for having every possible virtue, even when they contradict each other. Once you've studied political history for any length of time, high and noble kings who fight alongside their men and emerge as heroes start to really tick you off.

Think of Robin Hood. Yeah, John Plantagenet was a douche, but Richard went and got himself killed, and that's no way to be king. Granted, if I remember correctly, John was a conniving shit who did a lot of damage, but he makes a much better model of typical royalty than Richard. And in terms of producing offspring, he was... more like David.

[scifisentai]

Well, religion is a thorny and divisive concept anyway, so maybe writers are trying to avoid screwing up on a colossal scale by Getting It Wrong.

Maybe also lack of familiarity? Generic kingdoms and so on are familiar to a lot of people, but if you're not familiar with how a senate would work then the time it would take to research how they operate and so on might be more than the writer is willing to take on, especially if you're not sure how your potential audience is going to react to it.

[lea_hazel]

Which is weird. To me, the whole point of fantasy as a genre is that everything goes and you can make it up as you go along. Like, off the top of my head, I could invent a Council of Seven with representatives from the seven major social strata: the high priestess of the sun, the head of the goldsmiths' guild, etc. and then they gather to elect their chair once every seven years. It doesn't have to follow the exact structure of the British parliament, or anything.

[scifisentai]

True. But, playing Devil's Advocate here, as you've noted already the same concepts show up again and again, albeit in slightly different forms. That's what sells, so people write more of it and so on. It's self-perpetuating.

And hah, our parliament's a mess anyway. >.> It's probably the last structure you want to model a political system off.

[lea_hazel]

Messy is good for fiction. It's neat that presents a problem.

[scifisentai]

Hah, true. Neat leaves no room for conflict and pushing plot forward.

[krait]

Doesn't the same apply to generic kingdoms, though?

I don't actually have to do research on the various ranks, with their associated privileges, titles, and holdings, of the (frex) pre-Napoleon French Monarchy in order to write a fantasy novel set in a feudalistic world.

Off the top of my head I can invent a Golden King who reigns in the Kingdom of Szama; directly beneath him are 14 nobles of the next-to-kingship highest rank called Amyri; below the Amyri are the 124 Umri, who can hold property but not pass it on to an heir. Each Amyri is allowed 14 karysti, an armed vassal; each Umri may have 4 um-karysti. Only the Amryi are automatically included in the king's council; Umri must be individually selected by the king for councilorship, and on occasion a karysti who distinguishes him/herself extra-valiantly may be selected as well.

None of this is based on anything in real life except the utter basics of "there is a hierarchy with a king on top". I'm pretty sure no nation on Earth had non-gender-specific knight-analogues who could become a king's councilor?

For that matter, I could write the history of Britain, replace all the proper nouns with made-up ones, and then split the genders evenly... and it'd be enough to qualify my book as both "fantasy" and "making things up".

There are as many ways to "make it up as you go along" in a feudal system as there are in a democrat/republican system.