Fantasy lit and its obsession with the monarchy

[IronParrot]

Think about it.

It's always the princes... always the princesses... the kings, the queens.

Is there a reason why fantasy literature so often revolves around medieval politics, and stretches them into a more stereotypical extent where the fair maiden is always the daughter of a royal house, and is all perfect and everything, and the hero always tries to win her heart? Or the fact that the prince is always so... princely? I mean, you rarely see a "Squire Charming" or a bold knight who fights for the heart of a peasant girl...

And even LOTR isn't free of this.

So, why does royalty play such a great role in fantasy?

[IronParrot]

Oh no, it's the twin thread bug again. It's showed up on my board before too.

The threads aren't double-posted. They're linked to the same page, and if you post on one, the count goes up on both.

Let me try something that could possibly lead to the destruction of my earlier post... a little trick...

[IronParrot]

Ah, it's fixed. Stand down red alert.

[Finduilas]

I've noticed this too. I think tha Lacky has managed to break the stereotype though with her Valdemar books.

[emilsson]

Most of the fantasy I´ve read seems to set in a time which is like the early Middle Ages. Therefore I think it becomes natural to let the plot centre around royalties.

One exception that comes to mind is RA Salvatore and his Echoes of the Fourth Magic and The Demon Wars trilogy where the heroes are common people and no prince or princess.

[bmilder]

Well, these stories often deal with "great events" that change the course of the history of countries and the world. Thus, it makes sense for the leader of that country to figure prominently in the story if his nation is being changed drastically.

[IronParrot]

The presence of kings and queens, etc. can be understood, for the reasons you guys gave.

But what bugs me is... how come the fairest maiden in all the land is always of royal blood? And that conversely, whoever's of royal blood is the fairest maiden in all the land?

Admit it... even in Tolkien this is the case - and Tolkien's the real imaginative one, relative to other authors. Arwen, Galadriel, etc...

[emilsson]

I wonder if this is some form of archetypal motif appearing, I think that is likely in regards to Tolkien because he seems to have been aware of them.

I find that women, especially if they are a fair maiden, tend to be symbols. Perhaps they stand as a reward the hero gains when he completes his quest. They could also be seen as representing some form of higher knowledge or life itself.

[juntel]

Usually same reason as why most TV series are about rich people (Dynasty, Dallas, etc...).

"Lives of the Rich and Famous".

[arynetrek]

most royal characters are symbols - the handsome prince, representign all that is good & male & strong; the fair queen, all that is mysteriously beautiful & loved to the point of worship; even the deposed young prince/abandoned royal infant/princess-in-disguise, unpredictability, fate, & a return to justice. if these symbols get overused, teh story just doesn't work - too many archetypes make a story far too predictable. but if they get twisted or changed in some way, the symbols make the story better, in my opinion.

in LotR, Eowyn certainly doesn't act teh part of the fluffy princess - sitting at home, pampering herself, & quietly making eyes at the handsome prince - but she does act the part of the ideal prince - riding out to war despite her advisors' objections, fighting bravely in battle & saving her country despite teh cost to herself. & although she does fall for the handsome prince, she never does catch him - they part, he marries his true love & she marries a friend.

another twist i really enjoyed was in steven brust's Jhereg series. i've notied that almost no one here's read them (shame on y'all!) so here's the story - Vlad, an assassin from the opressed minority, buys his way into a House (Houses play a big part in the characters' identities). through various devious deeds, he climbs higher in this house until, in exchange for snitching on numerous criminals & pretty much singlehandedly saving the government of his land, he's awarded huge amounts of cash & a royal title. but although Vlad attains royalty & financial security, strong powers upset by his actions force him to leave his home, wife & friends, & go into exile in order to save his life. Vlad, in 25-30 years or so, goes from little peasant boy to working-class to royalty to an exile. & in the wilderness & small towns he travels to, his title & wealth mean nothing, because if he wants to remain alive he cannot take advantage of them at all.

aryne *

[jedi master princess]

a fantasy lit prof of mine told me that tolkein was purposely trying to creat a mythological and cultural background for the english people. he (tolkein i mean) realized that all the cultures in the world had a rich historical and mythological background and england didn't (since it was settled by tribes and clans from other places). that was a major reason for his writing lotr. thus, a lot of the elements in lotr exist because he was trying to tie in his story with current english culture. royalty is an obvious connection, the old gods in lotr are modeled after biblical stories, and we are supposed to be living in the fourth age. :)

arynetrek has some pretty neat points about the royalty being symbolism and stuff. it's very apparent in stuff like lotr and memory, sorrow, and thorn. i do have to say though...fantasy is all about the "what if" and the "is it possible." i for one like reading about princes and princesses cuz i wish i were one. :) it's the element of make-believe in fantasy.

[dunedain lady]

I agree with the symbolism idea for monarchy. Also, in the state of war that most fantasy novels seem to be written in, a monarchy works the best, because then you don't get caught up in unnessessary politics. I do wonder, however, why you don't ever see a princess who is not the fairest maiden in the land. Even Eowyn, who was not your steryotypical bubblehead, was said to have great beauty. Why can't you have a princess with a lovely personality? THough I suppose that you couln't have an intelligent damsel in distress, because she'd have the sense to get out of whatever sort of distress she was in without the help of "Prince Charming.":lol: Has anyone read the "Dealingl with Dragons" books? They tend to parody traditional fantasy and fairy tales in very clever ways, especially the traditional steryotypes. They are really for maybe age 8-12, but they are still wonderful books, and older people can get more of the puns.

[Film Hobbit]

The fairest maiden in the land is of royal blood because even though there may be a peasant who is prettier, she is probably so covered in mud no one can tell anyway.

[IronParrot]

What about Buttercup?

[Shadows of Fate]

According to Nietchze, who wrote "Birth of Tragedy" as sort of an analysis of Greek literature, the higher up the person is, the more tragic the fall. If you stick a noble prince or king in your story as the hero, then not only would defeat be terrible for him (noble princes and kings are always supposed to win, and they have a lot to lose), but it would be terrible for everybody who depends upon him winning (say Aragorn. If he hadn't triumphed, not only would all his aspirations have been crushed, but so would have Gondor). Now if you have a peasant as your hero, he's got like two cows and an acre of wheat depending on him, right? Of course there are ways to make a peasant a hero. Lay fate on him or some task (Frodo), but it's easier to use royalty. As for all of them being beautiful, that (in my humble opinion) is to make them even that much better than the rest of us, so that we'd mourn all the more at their loss. Face it. We love beauty. We love royalty. We hate to see them die (Princess Diana, JFK). On a different note, I, too, feel focusing on monarchies and such has grown stale but that tends to have more to do with the staleness of the authors and their stories than the actual concept. Look at the good stuff (including the Greek and Roman, King Arthur, etc.). They never grow stale.

[Fat middle]

hmmm, i hate it when i just can say "right!"...

right!! ;)

and welcome to Entmoot, Shadows :)

[Film Hobbit]

Personally I could care less about royalty and still don't understand why so many American women sit around in love with Diana and who she was when she never did anything for them, wasn't really that good of a moral example (adultery anyone?), and the British royalty has aboslutely 0 to do with America anyway. It makes sense for the British to be upset, she was their princess, but the american fascination with a rich adulterous amazes me. Diana wasn't really that bad of a person, by all accounts she was fairly nice, did a lot of charity work, etc, but she is hardly a saint or a rolemodel, especially for a society so against monarchys like America.

JFK on the other hand was not royalty and was mourned because he was the leader of the country. The only people who sit around and obsess about the Kennedys and think of them as royalty are housewives who sit around and have to much time on their hands... cooincidentally these are the people who are most likely to be all weepy over Diana to.

The point being that generally most Americans don't have this fascination with "royalty" as the entire foundation upon which the country was built was that of opposing a Monarchical system of government.

[Elanor]

This is a pretty interesting topic. I'm trying to think of exceptions...

The Dark is Rising (Susan Cooper): even though King Arthur is involved, the main characters are normal people.

The Westmark Trilogy (Lloyd Alexander): The main character is this revolutionary weirdo, and the princess, who isn't exactly beautiful, !SPOILER! decides at the end to make the country a republic.

Madeleine L'Engle books: I don't see any royalty. Do you? Ok, there is the whole Prince Madoc thing, but it's not the main story.

Oz: Ok, there is royalty, and Ozma is one of the main characters, but most of them are abnormal strange creatures...

Redwall: No royalty. Some monarch-type leaders (Cluny, Lords of Salamandastron), but mostly just cute little mice doing good deeds.


Not too many that I can come up with right now! And I disagree about Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books--plenty of royalty in them! (though I've only read a little bit)

[Salli Canaliya]

I find it interesting that so many people consider most fantasy to be royalty driven. I have generally found that princes and princesses as main characters are the exception. I would say that the typical fantasy story involves a hero who is a nobody, and who does great things. Not that he doesn't usually turn out to be some kind of royalty, but.

As a side note, it does make some sense for royalty to be at least a little better looking than everyone else. For one thing, how many kings, given the choice, aren't going to pick a gorgeous wife? It stands to reason that the kids would be good looking.

A lot of authors these days seem to go out of their way to talk mostly about "ordinary" people. Not that we usually believe that our hero or heroine is ordinary, because they never are.

I could go on, but I think I'll save more for later, and talk about some books.

Yes, there is certainly a lot of royalty involved in Valdemar, but Mercedes Lackey tends not to use typical stereotypes, and I think that was the point. Or maybe not. But it's a thought.

Nevermind, I'm not going to list books. I'd be here all night. Maybe later.

[SarahStar]

I don't think it's an obsession with royalty so much as an obsession with power. I could elaborate but it's 1 o'clock in the morning where I live. ::yawn::

Someone (I should go back and check, but it's 1 am, remember) questioned American women's interest in Princess Diana. I think perhaps this is at least partially because in America we have no princesses. We don't even have royalty. We don't even have an aristocracy. (Well, ok, maybe we do, but not in the "traditional" sense.) The very idea of a princess fascinates us. To Americans, royalty is literally something out of stories and legends! (This might even explain why some American fantasy writers deal with royalty a lot; it could also explain why some don't deal with royalty at all!)

[Ensor]

Arthur is one of the most important symbols in Britain, and he was a king who was linked to the land. If the land was dying, so was Arthur. He needed the Grail.

He was the ultimate figure of kingship, wasn't he? Maybe this kind of precursor is then unconsciously repeated in the fantasy format?

Okay, maybe I'm wrong, but for a moment, I thought I had touched on a much deeper and far more philosophical vein...then it disappeared!

Phil

[Elanor]

A lot of this "obsession" has to do with the predilection of fantasy novels to focus around Medieval situations. The typical witches, sorcerers, dragons, and such, and all the superstitions that existed in medieval times. I'm not talking about the hero so much as the setting. Even when the hero is a nobody, in many fantasy novels everything takes place in a country ruled by a monarch, where there are warriors (who use medieval weapons), magic-workers (Sorcerers, witches, etc. who usually fit the medieval superstition), minstrels, scholars, peasants, etc. I sometimes get frustrated when I read about some "kingdom", like Valdemar, where they have all this "high-tech" magic, but they haven't even discovered gunpowder, so they still use bows and arrows! (yet they have discovered birth-control pills and modern plumbing :rolleyes: ) I mean, it seems to be a rule that they can't be any more advanced than the medieval period scientifically, because after that everyone stopped believing in witchcraft and dragons and such. Well, of course an industrial revolution would interfere with heroic quests...

One interesting exception I have noticed is The Ancient One, by Thomas A. Barron, which takes place in a modern Oregon forest, and takes the heroine back in time to a Native American legend, where there is some monarchy, but it's certainly not a medieval realm.

[SarahStar]

In that case, I suspect that you would love Anne McCaffrey.

How could anyone possibly not love a book with dragons and flamethrowers?!?

[easterlinge]

In the old days, kings and royalty are pretty much the only folk who could afford high quality weapons and have the time to use them. The rest of the people stayed on the land, miserably like Russian serfs, or happily like, err... I can't think of any happy peasants. (uphold the class struggle!! establish the dictatorship of the proletariat!! down with the bourgeousie (did I spell that right?)!!)

So royalty can afford adventuring, have the weapons, and have the time. I can't remember the last time I had an adventure; I'll end up like a Baggins. I mean before Gandalf came along.

Say, Bilbo Baggins wasn't royalty was he?

[Niffiwan]

Frodo and Bilbo were neither royalty nor peasants.
Not royalty because the Shire had no royalty.
And not peasants because they had so much money that they didn't really need to grow their food, although they still chose to.

You guys should read "The Dragon and the George" ( www.amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com) ) if you want something very unconventional; the hero is a human trapped in the body of a dragon in another time-period by a scientific accident at a college where he used to work.

[easterlinge]

that sounds like a movie I once saw: "Flight of Dragons".