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Jan. 24th, 2014 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo one of the panels I attended at Arisia was a panel on kings and class and aristocracy in fantasy. It was probably one of my favorite panels overall, and the panelists all had extremely interesting things to say, but one thing that I was hoping for that didn't really happen was any kind of discussion of the fantasy that does buck the trend and go full-on republican.
...well, okay, a lot of people brought up Terry Pratchett, but the fact that no one could think of anything besides Discworld is PRETTY TELLING, I think. And while Ankh-Morpork isn't monarchist, it's hella dictatorial, so we're setting Discworld aside for now, officially, as of this sentence.
Anyway, later that daygenarti and sandrylene and I sat down and started making a list, and this is what we came up with:
- Lloyd Alexander's Westmark books
- Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night/Fly Trap and Gullstruck Island
- China Mieville's Bas Lag books
- Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist
- N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon, but then SPOILER ALERT they get the monarchy back at the end of the sequel, so ....
- Diana Wynne Jones' Dalemark books ... sort of ....? This is really a stretch, because for all its proletarian impulses and critique of aristocracy, The Crown of Dalemark does conclude pretty emphatically with "HERE IS THE NEW DIVINELY ORDAINED MONARCH." My only justification is that if I remember correctly Dalemark does become a constitutional republic by Maewen's time, but I might just be making that up.
- Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms also, sort of, which is even MORE of a stretch because the entire SERIES is about divinely ordained kings, it's just that it's also a really well done critique of the system ... but it's not like they can get rid of the divinely ordained kings ... yeah, as much as I love it Twelve Kingdoms shouldn't really be on here. This is how desperate we were.
There is also a subset of republican/revolutionary fantasy, which is the books where instead of revolting against kings everyone just straight up revolts against the gods:
- Philip Pullman's Golden Compass
- Anne Ursu's Cronus Chronicles, which ruined me a little for the Rick Riordan books by setting up a world in which Greek gods were real and had authority over humanity and then taking it to its logical conclusion of "AND THAT WOULD BE THE ACTUAL WORST, LET'S FIX THAT"
- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens, kind of
And ... that's it? That's all we could think of. But that can't possibly be it it. Help! What are some other republican/revolutionary fantasies?
("What about stuff like the Hunger Games?" said Gen. "YA dystopia doesn't count," I said, "because it's not fantasy, it's sci-fi, and it's working off a different set of tropes." And then we argued about that for a bit, but the end result is I'm ruling out stuff like the Hunger Games. Revolution against an oppressive regime is absolutely a staple of the YA dystopia paradigm, but I think that's a different conversation.
We are also none of us all that well versed in urban fantasy, but someone on the panel pointed out, quite rightly, that like 60% of urban fantasy involves some kind of fairy court that is totally aristocratic/monarchical, and I'm pretty sure that the other 40% involves some kind of strictly hierarchical werewolf or vampire social structure with an alpha werewolf/vampire king/etc. That said, if anyone has an example of a book in which someone LEADS THE REVOLUTION against the monarchical urban fantasy fairies/hierarchical werewolves, please do feel free to throw it into the pot!)
I am also one hundred percent sure I am not the first person to discuss this topic on the Internet, so if anybody has links to other posts/lists along these lines, that would also be great.
...well, okay, a lot of people brought up Terry Pratchett, but the fact that no one could think of anything besides Discworld is PRETTY TELLING, I think. And while Ankh-Morpork isn't monarchist, it's hella dictatorial, so we're setting Discworld aside for now, officially, as of this sentence.
Anyway, later that day
genarti and sandrylene and I sat down and started making a list, and this is what we came up with:- Lloyd Alexander's Westmark books
- Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night/Fly Trap and Gullstruck Island
- China Mieville's Bas Lag books
- Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist
- N.K. Jemisin's The Killing Moon, but then SPOILER ALERT they get the monarchy back at the end of the sequel, so ....
- Diana Wynne Jones' Dalemark books ... sort of ....? This is really a stretch, because for all its proletarian impulses and critique of aristocracy, The Crown of Dalemark does conclude pretty emphatically with "HERE IS THE NEW DIVINELY ORDAINED MONARCH." My only justification is that if I remember correctly Dalemark does become a constitutional republic by Maewen's time, but I might just be making that up.
- Fuyumi Ono's Twelve Kingdoms also, sort of, which is even MORE of a stretch because the entire SERIES is about divinely ordained kings, it's just that it's also a really well done critique of the system ... but it's not like they can get rid of the divinely ordained kings ... yeah, as much as I love it Twelve Kingdoms shouldn't really be on here. This is how desperate we were.
There is also a subset of republican/revolutionary fantasy, which is the books where instead of revolting against kings everyone just straight up revolts against the gods:
- Philip Pullman's Golden Compass
- Anne Ursu's Cronus Chronicles, which ruined me a little for the Rick Riordan books by setting up a world in which Greek gods were real and had authority over humanity and then taking it to its logical conclusion of "AND THAT WOULD BE THE ACTUAL WORST, LET'S FIX THAT"
- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens, kind of
And ... that's it? That's all we could think of. But that can't possibly be it it. Help! What are some other republican/revolutionary fantasies?
("What about stuff like the Hunger Games?" said Gen. "YA dystopia doesn't count," I said, "because it's not fantasy, it's sci-fi, and it's working off a different set of tropes." And then we argued about that for a bit, but the end result is I'm ruling out stuff like the Hunger Games. Revolution against an oppressive regime is absolutely a staple of the YA dystopia paradigm, but I think that's a different conversation.
We are also none of us all that well versed in urban fantasy, but someone on the panel pointed out, quite rightly, that like 60% of urban fantasy involves some kind of fairy court that is totally aristocratic/monarchical, and I'm pretty sure that the other 40% involves some kind of strictly hierarchical werewolf or vampire social structure with an alpha werewolf/vampire king/etc. That said, if anyone has an example of a book in which someone LEADS THE REVOLUTION against the monarchical urban fantasy fairies/hierarchical werewolves, please do feel free to throw it into the pot!)
I am also one hundred percent sure I am not the first person to discuss this topic on the Internet, so if anybody has links to other posts/lists along these lines, that would also be great.
