One thing that is fascinating (to YHB, at least) about the Victorian and Edwardian children’s fantasists is that they are working in a fairy-tale tradition that is very heavily invested in the monarchy, and many of the writers are opposed to the monarchy. This plays out in interesting ways among the socialists and radicals (such as Oscar Wilde and E. Nesbit and um, I’m thinking) and in different interesting ways among the tories and loyalists (such as Lewis Carroll and Rudyard Kipling), but it’s an interesting backdrop in all of it. American writers, too, have to deal with the traditions—princesses, castles, grand viziers, bad baronets, the whole shtick—and not only are they pretty nearly all anti-monarchists, but they are living in a world without baronets and they grew up without baronets themselves.
So, they have some choices. They can give up the baronets and write about modern no-nonsense American fairies, they can go ahead and buy into the baronets and live with the whole tory shtick, or they can subvert the paradigm. Yay! Subvert the paradigm! Yay!
Excuse me.
So. L. Frank Baum chooses the third (and best!) of these options, most of the time. Oh, in his Great Book he chooses the first option, and writes about fairy scarecrows and tin men and wizard/aerialists, but later on he makes excellent mock of monarchies and monarchists, in part by making Dorothy and Trot and Betsy into Princesses in gingham.
The best part of Queen Zixi of Ix, for YHB, is that stuff. King Bud is chosen to be King of Noland because he’s the forty-somethingth person in through the city gate. He does a fine job anyway, mostly by ignoring his counselors (Tallydab, Tellydeb, Tillydib, Tollydob and Tullydub, five marvelous imbeciles and fumferators). He sits in judgement on his subjects, and screws up royally (as they say). He allows his kingdom to be overrun with monsters. He spends the Royal Treasury on dolls and toy boats. Now, he’s a good kid, and becomes a good king, because it’s a fairy story, but I think the point is unmistakable.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
As a member of the SCA, I have an interesting perspective on monarchy. Many of my friends interact with a culture that reveres (although in no binding way) a monarchy. Our local group is part of a barony, and the current baronage are interested, participatory, and compassionate. The last several monarchs (all the monarchs I’ve personally interacted with) have also been decent folk.
But, as essentially an anarchist/free-market socialist/populist (in other words, I would prefer absolute freedom tempered by an ethical populace, but failing that, I’ll take free market socialism, or failing that, I’m a populist), I have serious philosophical issues with monarchy qua system.
Even weirder is the way monarchs are chosen, to wit: right of arms. So, basically, if you can beat people with sticks really well, you can be King. Your chosen consort gets to be Queen. Yay for her. Almost never (I can’t think of a single example) does the Queen get elevated herself, taking along a gentle soul as her King.
What’s really weird, though, is that when the Pageantry works, it’s really cool. At court, when the king is a good speaker, and the awards or other business are deserved and such, it can be quite moving.
But I can’t get over the fact that this guy is basically calling the shots ’cause he managed to whack that guy over the head with a stick.
It’s tempting to take up arms just to get to that throne myself one day and abdicate to Nancy or something. But not that tempting. Never did like fighting much. Nope.
peace
Matt
PS You may have noticed that this is only faintly related to what Vardibidian is talking about in his post. Sorry about that, didn’t really have a point. Nope.
No, I think that’s exactly what I was talking about, or at least pretty strongly connected to it. I mean, your focus is on the combat, rather than on the heredity, but essentially, we are none of us monarchists anymore, and yet we can’t really get the monarchy out of our culture. Now, at this point, monarchy is so unthreatening that we can play at it without the heavy clouds that must have been over play like that in the age of Victoria and Wilhelm. But still, it makes some of us uneasy.
Thanks,
Yeah, a subpoint that I was trying to make is some of us seem very badly to want the trappings of monarchy even so.
Of course, I was incapable of making either point very well, so thanks for the help 😉
peace
Matt