Different Types of Fantasy Government

 I have sent more letters in the past month than I would have expected. I need to get more stamps though…

It is likely that I will not have a Saturday Note next week--I’ll be a bit busy.

The idea of doing another ‘fantasy based on this historical setting would look like this’ Notes, with Italian Renaissance and colonial Caribbean being the ones that were at the top of my list. I thought I should read Stravaganza before that Renaissance one though.

The last Expanse book comes out soon! 

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Fantasy Forms of Government That Would Be Cool

I was thinking of Saturday Note ideas, and I think maybe I’ve done something like this before, but I’m low on topic ideas and I’m having a stressful week. So this!

You’ll notice that in fantasy, there’s a tendency to do one kind of government: that’s monarchy. Usually a very simple idea of monarchy, based less on history and more on fairy tales of what monarchy was like. And that’s not bad! But even the deconstructions don’t seem to get that there are different ways to do government other than ‘fairy tale monarchy’ and ‘modern day representative government.’ Or dictatorship. I guess that’s a popular trope to use too. 

But not all historical governments were like this! And I think fantasy, by its nature being fantasy, could do a lot better than that. They could show a lot more variety here.

Two (or More!) Kings

You know ancient Sparta had two kings? That always confuses me. They also didn’t have absolute power, as they had to run things by the ephors and other bodies of citizens rather than getting to do whatever they wanted regarding any subject.

Actually Narnia in its Golden Age had four monarchs. I guess we keep forgetting that.

And I’m curious to see if a fantasy author can do something interesting with more than one king in a country. Do they split up the country geographically? Do they have a rivalry (probably)? Do they actually get along very well (unlikely but would make an interesting and unique dynamic)? Does one of them do administration and another one does military matters? Is kingship hereditary or is it elected somehow from a pool of candidates?

Representative Government

Alright this covers a very large number of government types, but I rarely see parliaments or something like the Estates General in fantasy fiction. Sometimes I see a senate, I guess. But that’s something we can do a lot with? People seem to think that if you take away the aristocratic titles that it eliminates the drama of people in power or a ruling class, but, uh--[waves at government in the US]

And there’s this notion that a republic or a democracy is inherently less likely to be incorrupt, or less corrupt, than a monarchy or dictatorship, and so there’s less to be milked out there for drama. Which plainly isn’t true? Part of the reason that the Roman Empire rose up was because the Republic was hopefully inept at cleaning up its own messes due to corruption and civil wars every decade or so.

Have characters be in the representative body! Have them deal with the problems of trying to get a law passed through it! Or the hoops you have to jump through to make something as straightforward as war happen! Or show how fragile that type of government can be.

Wizard King/Queen

Alright obviously plenty of villains are sorcerer kings but what if they weren’t the villains? I’m not saying they’re going to be all good--I think having that much power will not be a great thing for anyone’s emotional stability. But something I think about sometimes is how Saruman in Lord of the Rings is trying to set himself up as a wizard king, and what would that even look like?

Would a wizard king have a court of a bunch of other wizard aristocrats? Would a wizard king value knowledge of magic over noble bloodlines? Or does he outlaw other magicians to make sure he’s the one guy in power? How much magic does he use in his everyday life?

Loose Confederation of Differently-Run States Under One King

The Earth Kingdom in Avatar: The Last Airbender actually has this, which apparently confuses some people because again, their understanding of monarchies is based entirely off of half-remembered fairy tales. It’s a Plot Point in the fourth season of Legend of Korra that Kuvira is reforming them all into a single state under one dictator rather than the loose confederation with their own way of doing things, isn’t it? We didn’t forget this?

And I like this idea of a country in a fantasy world that has several different “states” or provinces or whatever that are all under the same government, but have vastly different cultures and styles of doing things? So one of them has a king, another has a senate, or another has a council, and one is a theocracy or whatever. And trying to get them to all agree on something can take forever.

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King Raven & the English Monarchy

 What’s this? I actually came up with the Saturday Note topic on Monday??? SORCERY!

The last two days of the week have been DOOZIES, and I’m hoping going to YALLFest this weekend will be the healing balm that will make it all okay. The rest of this month is going to kick into high gear, and I can’t promise more Saturday Notes. I don’t know what’s going to happen! Probably one more though. We’ll see.

Oh fudge this is going to kill my word count for the month, isn’t it? And my Christamas shopping….

I finished King Raven though! I personally think it’s Stephen Lawhead at his best.

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King Raven & Royal Power

So Stephen Lawhead, an American Christian author who moved to the UK and became obsessed with Celtic Christianity and pre-Christian mythology/folklore. And he wrote a series about Robin Hood, in which he made him Welsh and set it in the reign of William II because Reasons. (Okay, he does explain it and I think it makes sense but I’m someone who is not a historian or expert or scholar of any sort so I couldn’t say whether or not it’s actually convincing.)

And something I’ve been thinking about ever since finishing the second book, Scarlett, is that Lawhead has a different view of the King of England than a lot of mainstream takes on Robin Hood. To be clear, it’s also a different king--William Rufus rather than Richard the Lionheart. But still, I think there’s something interesting here. Most Robin Hood stories are about restoring the rightful king, and once Richard gets back, or back when he was king (in stories in which his restoration is impossible) everything was much better. An odd take for a story featuring an outlaw, but there you go.

Part of this is because King Richard I has a very popular image in the English-speaking world to this day. Yeah, there are some people who look at him more critically, but overall, opinion of him is pretty good. Outside of the English-speaking world, I don’t quite know for sure--the Arn the Knight Templar trilogy has a whole schtick where the main character declares that the world will know him as an oathbreaker and murderer after the massacre in Acre, but I don’t know if that’s actually how he’s viewed in that book series’s home country.

King Raven does not have a great view of kings in general. Which is not quite what I think most people would expect if I was talking about a historical fiction trilogy with explicit Christian leanings. I don’t think it’s too out there--after all, the Bible is not very kind to kings in general, something a lot of hardcore traditional Catholics seem to forget. When Israel is demanding to get a king like all the other countries, God explicitly tells Samuel to remind them that kings will take all their best stuff and could very well turn out to be a tyrant, as many of them turn out to be.

Lawhead’s books don’t demonize William Rufus, but they also don’t make him out to be that great of a guy? The ending of the last novel has them making their peace with him (after spending like a week filling his knights with arrows), and Bran swears fealty to him, but it’s not because they realize he’s the divinely-appointed ruler of Britain. It’s because that’s the best way they decide to end bloodshed, and William’s got other things he needs to do. Basically, he’s tired of it, and Bran wants an end to the war.

The previous book has another instance in which they help William II by revealing to him the conspiracy against him among his own aristocrats, and use it to try to get the throne of Elfael back. And the characters actually seriously consider siding with William’s enemies. Ultimately they side with William not because they owe loyalty to the throne or English/Norman monarchy, but because they think he’s more likely to be in their corner because of their bargaining chip of information. It’s not out of love, it’s just because William is more likely to get them what they need.

Obviously this is heavily influenced by the characters all being Welsh. Yeah, of COURSE they’re not going to preach about the virtues of the King of England, because the only reason there is a King of England is because of people repeatedly coming in and conquering them. Their attitude is of a people suffering under the colonialism of the Norman warrior aristocracy, after suffering under the colonialism of the Saxon warrior aristocracy. It’s not their king, it’s the king of their oppressors. Their relationship needs a lot more work if it’s going to get anything close to love or patriotism.

Although to be fair other kings aren’t necessarily portrayed that well either. Bran’s father isn’t an evil man, but he’s explicitly distant and he tends to try to use force or stubbornness against any annoyance that pops up around him, which Angharad points out to Bran. King Gruffud (who was a real guy, I just found out???) isn’t evil either, but upon being freed by Bran to get help for Elfael, turns around and says he can’t do that because it’s too much work, even AFTER promising to do anything Bran needs for him. He shows up at the end, basically after he’s convinced that they can win by other folks. And Merian’s father is a good king to his people, mostly, but he bends very easily to the Normans, and he’s happy to send his daughter off to live with a baron who is definitely creepily into her against said daughter’s objections.

Lawhead doesn’t hate kings, obviously--look at his other books and I think that becomes clear. But I find it amusing that a openly Christian author has a much more cynical view of kingship and medieval politics than you’d expect, definitely more so than most mainstream Robin Hood depictions. And I think it’s a more realistic take? And one that, in today’s conversations about colonialism, feels better (though by no means perfect) because it highlights the injustice of the system all the while recognizing the need to work within it.

Or something?

I don’t know, I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.

Maybe the point is that you’re supposed to go into the woods, dress like a bird, and jump on people until you get your house back.

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On Mythological Accuracy

 Hallo! I have had a weird week. When I’m typing this I still haven’t put up all of the pictures from last weekend, but those shall hopefully go up shortly. I have not updated the Book Diary in a few days because I’m currently reading the second-to-last Wheel of Time, which is great fun! I’m also currently watching both Maya and the Three on Netflix and Gravity Falls on Disney+ and those are fun! The former of which is part of what made me think about this Saturday Note idea.

I might see Dune this weekend? That might be cool. I don’t know when I’d see Eternals, but while I like the premise, see my recent Note on Black Widow to see the thought process I’m having regarding that movie.

Maybe I've talked about this before but too bad!

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On Mythological Accuracy in Fiction

I sometimes think about this article written by one of my colleagues on ImpishIdea, back when I had colleagues on ImpishIdea. The thrust of it is that urban fantasy authors often mix up mythologies, get the originals wrong, all in trying to make it fit within patterns of mythology and fantasy creatures established by pop culture, which is itself mostly drawn from European folklore in general and English folklore in specific.

Or in short, calling fantastical creatures that aren’t from European folklore ‘fairies’ is bad because that’s not what other people would have called them.

And at the time I remember thinking it was a good article, and I think it does bring up good points. But I also think that it misses that A) in fiction, you should be able to do what you want with your underlying mythology, and B) the kind of people who just sit and call fiction inaccurate to real life are really annoying to hang out with. There’s not nothing to this school of criticism, especially when an author is claiming to stick to real life or act as if he or she is doing a ton of research when clearly this person has not--Dan Brown comes to mind. And when the author is claiming to try to represent to your different mythologies in a way clearly meant to reflect some level of accuracy, when it doesn’t--like in Angelopolis or in Tiger’s Curse--then yeah, go ahead and make these criticisms.

But this seems to be mostly “You need to be 100% accurate to the original mythologies if you’re going to use them!” and that’s… not that great a take. Because calling non-European extra-human creatures from folklore ‘fairies’ is actually not a bad thing--it gives a point of reference to readers. The idea of “other folk”, or a human-like species that lives alongside humanity out in the wilderness somewhere, and has magic or a connection to nature that we don’t, is a very common idea throughout human history. And no, they weren’t always called ‘fairies’ but it’s a good enough descriptor and gives audiences an idea of what we’re talking about even if they don’t understand the other cultures involved.

The Onyx Court series by Marie Brennan is about a faerie court nestled under London at different points in history, and one of the books set during the 1700’s has them get a visitor from the Middle East, a djinni. And he is described as a faerie, albeit a foreign one which they don’t understand very well. No, a djinni was not described as a fairy in the stories, because the culture it comes from doesn’t have that word, but it fits a similar role in the mythology and folklore that I don’t think that term is unjustified there.

[There’s actually his whole amusing thing because the English/British fae are all hurt by overt symbols of faith and religion, and they’re absolutely baffled by this djinni who is a devoutly religious Muslim down to his name.]

Likewise, I also remember for Aliette de Bodard’s Obsidian & Blood trilogy, she wrote a series of blog posts describing Nahuatl culture and religion to help make the series more accessible, and when talking about the religion followed by the people of the Aztec Triple Alliance, she describes the different gods. And someone called her out in the comments pointing out that it’s not exactly an accurate way to portray the way the people in question thought of their religion. The author agreed, but pointed out that it’s a difficult thing to accurately convey to people from mostly European-influenced culture, and this is also pointed out in the author’s notes in the books themselves. This historical supernatural murder mystery’s going to be a lot harder to tell and make interesting if we have to introduce a completely foreign way of understanding divinity to the audience.

I’m also currently watching Maya and the Three which is inspired by mostly Mesoamerican culture, and many of the deities depicted are named after beings from Aztec and Mayan mythology. Some of which are used in wildly different ways from the original stories. The main villain is Lord Mictlan, the god of war, and if you know Nahuatl mythology you’ll know that Mictlan is the name of the underworld, not a particular deity. Gutierrez did the same thing with Xibalba in Book of Life.

And I don’t care because this is a series aimed at young people that isn’t meant to teach you about Mesoamerican mythology as much as tell an interesting story with a Mesoamerican basis to it. It doesn’t have to be accurate to the myths.

“But how would you feel if they did that to your culture/religion?!”

My dude. Have you seen a horror movie in the past forty years? Most of them display an understanding of Catholicism that might be gained from scanning Wikipedia articles and half-remembered Catholic school classes. I remember there’s a Tumblr blog (notbecauseofvictories, if you’re curious) that refers to Christianity as used in fiction like Supernatural to be “McNugget Christianity”; that is to say, mashed up and processed to make a treat, but not as fulfilling as the real chicken, or even really all that close when you look at the finished product.

Thai isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate it when fiction using mythology is accurate to the myths. The Lighting Thief still has a very special place in my heart because it is one of the first pieces of fiction about Greek mythology that I remember using Hades as a character and not making him into a stand-in for Satan. Instead he’s as he was in the myths--the lord of the underworld, and not someone you want to cross, but by no means evil, and he’s more than a little stressed about all the pressure he has in running a kingdom. And Riordan’s Greek mythology books, while not always 100% accurate, show an understanding of the myths that you rarely ever see in even adult fiction. Riordan has linked to Theoi on his website quite a lot, so he knows his stuff, and just takes liberties for the fiction, or to make the story more superheroic.

But not everyone has to do this. Especially when we’re talking about mythologies that are not as well-documented as the Greco-Roman one is. Neil Gaiman has admitted he extrapolated a lot for his use of Slavic mythology in American Gods, and today a large chunk of what we see there isn’t believed by scholars, but it makes a good story so we let it slide.

Story! That is important above almost all else! Above mythological accuracy to be sure. Again, if you’re stupid and trying to tell the audience that you’ve totally done your homework when you clearly haven’t, that’s a problem. Even then, that can be maybe excused if the story’s still good. If you’re using mythology, telling the story, and making it comprehensible to the audience, is much more important than whether or not you tell each myth accurately. Obviously be respectful of other cultures, but if you’re not 100% accurate I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

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