There’s a typical fantasy scene you may have read or seen a few times, with the wise old king sitting on his throne offering words of advice and perhaps a blessing to a young hero. We may see it at the very beginning of a story, or it may come at the very end. It’s a scene reminiscent of the Arthur stories, and evokes a comforting ideal of authority, that it cares for us and is wise enough to use its power well. The popularity of such scenes may be due to the fact that the great majority of fantasy, particularly what we tend to think of as classic fantasy, is set in a faux European medieval world. That means a monarchy, usually, and because of the bedrock upon which modern fantasy is built (to a large extent The Lord of the Rings, itself based on the Arthur stories and English sagas, and similar stories), it also means the best possible government in the fantasy world is a good king.
For a variety of reasons, you won’t see that scene in a Calibran story, or at least not for a while. Fantasy as a whole has been moving away from the archetypal story of an unambiguously good king being opposed by an unambiguously bad one. That’s at least partly because it’s a story that’s hundreds if not thousands of years old, and has begun to show its age. But another, probably more interesting reason is that it’s a blinkered, romantic take on a much more complicated, questionable way of ruling. Our writers, however, have tried to take that old idea and put a little twist on it to keep it interesting.
The King is a Pretty Good Guy
If you could trust a king to rule for the general good, and make wise decisions, monarchy could actually work rather well. That’s probably why, despite the historical problems with it as a system of government, it stuck around for as long as it did and also why it still shows up in idealized fantasy worlds. Here’s where we, the Calibran team, take the classic fantasy idea of a good king and give it a little bit of a twist.
In the history of Calibran, there are a couple of events that define everything that came after. Before the Kingdom was founded, there were the Dragon Wars, when dragons fought each other over an ideological difference. One side thought that the mortal races, humans, dwarves, and so forth, were too dangerous to continue to exist. Those dragons did their best to wipe the mortals out, or at least destroy their centers of power and knowledge.
On the other side there were the dragons who thought the mortals had a right to exist. They thought dragons should act as guardians and guides, and share their wisdom. These two factions fought each other for centuries, with mortals playing the roles of victims, pawns, and spectators.
Eventually, the mortals became powerful enough that they could fight on their own behalf, which lead to the Battle of Farsalon. The human hero Johelm Belgrave organized a great confederation of the mortal races, killing the malign dragons, and winning freedom for the mortals. This was the first defining event.
The second came later, and was less dramatic but perhaps more important. Belgrave having died in the battle, his chief lieutenant and friend Aramnor was chosen to lead the confederation after the battle, becoming the first Dragon King. Having seen the sort of brutal rulers that had held power during the Dragon Wars, he knew that his successors could become tyrants as bad or worse. Aramnor sought, then, for a way to ensure good rulers would follow him.
In designing a fantasy kingdom, the writers had a number of advantages over people trying to construct a real world government, magic being perhaps the biggest. We had Aramnor consult with the greatest wizard in the history of Calibran, the elf Almorwen. Together, they conceived of a spell that would do what Aramnor wished. Almorwen assembled a council of wizards, sorcerers, and shamans to cast a spell that would find those with the potential to rule well, and mark them from birth with the seal of the king. Aramnor spent that time convincing the various peoples of Calibran that such a spell would work, and was in fact the kingdom’s only chance.
Both their tasks complete, the spell was cast, and the Marked system was founded. Those born Marked would have the potential to rule well and wisely, and for the benefit of the Kingdom as a whole. Anyone might be born Marked, from the highest born to the lowest, and so the throne would not just be passed from noble to noble.
More than that, to fulfill their potential and as a final proof of their worthiness, a Marked candidate would have to kill a dragon. Upon completing this quest, the previous king would peacefully yield his seat to the new. The system has brought hundreds of years of good rulers to Calibran. This is one fantasy monarchy that was designed, both by the writers and the inhabitants of the world, to be an idealized government.
The King is the Kingdom
The idea of a beneficent ruler being the best way to manage the difficult business of running a country is obviously based on the feudal system of government. That was sort of an ad-hoc system that evolved out of earlier strongman and warlord systems. In any case, monarchies had a lot of ways of justifying themselves, the most important probably being the Divine Right of Kings. And before Christianity became the big deal in Europe, there were also other ideas. For our purposes, we’re interested in the idea that the king and his country were mystically linked. A good king meant a happy kingdom, while a bad one would lead to sickness, war, and poverty.
This older idea is the basis for a lot of the shenanigans in the Arthurian legends, and the French romances that were later conflated with them. The Percival stories, with the wounded Fisher King reflecting his troubled kingdom, is the most obvious example, but there are others if you’re willing to look hard enough.
Going back, there is some good archeological and cultural evidence for this idea being an influential one. Irish and Scottish kings would symbolically marry their kingdoms as part of their coronation, and there’s evidence that many of the bog bodies that have been found were sacrifices meant to pay some price for a healthy kingdom. This is by no means an idea unique to Celtic Europe, but if you trace back the influences on most classic fantasy that’s where you tend to end up. The reality is, there’s probably some truth to this idea, though of a practical rather than mystical sort. The king was so essential to monarchist governments that his personality would determine much of what happened in the kingdom. A benevolent, kind king was more likely to make for a prosperous place to live. A venal, grasping king could make his kingdom as unpleasant as he was.
Fantasy is obviously not always historically accurate. There weren’t dragons or griffons at any point in history, and magic has always been, unfortunately, more a trick of the mind and sleight of hand. But fantasy often uses history as a jumping off point, so it can be helpful to take a look at what historical examples of fantasy tropes were like.
The King is a Jerk
The historical reality is that most kings were not wonderful people. Monarchy is, when looked at in the cold light of a modern perspective, an autocratic form of government, and of a particularly crushing kind. True monarchies depended on feudalism, which is both a system of government and an economic system. It required hundreds or thousands of people to live in abject poverty, performing back breaking labor to elevate a few lucky individuals into stupefying luxury. In order to maintain their positions of privilege, those favored were generally willing to go to any lengths, including mass murder.
Even the kings who were generally considered to be ‘good’ ruled for their own benefit and took huge advantage of their positions of power. To be fair, it was expected that they would do so. But that advantage could take the form of stealing money, corruption and nepotism, and abusing men, women, and children. By any other standard they would be accounted horrible human beings.
The closest modern analogue to a true monarchy is a warlord or strongman dictator in some small undeveloped country. If you want to get good look at what a monarchy and king was like historically, check out North Korea and Kim Jong Un. It’s a bit hard to be enthusiastic about fantasy monarchies with that in mind. That favorite fictional king would, in reality, most likely have been a bloody tyrant.
Democracy is so Great
The term ‘tyrant’ originated in Ancient Greece. It was not the loaded word back then that it is now. I don’t think this is actually true, but at one point I was told that tyrants were chosen in ancient Athens at times of emergency. Athens was a direct democracy, so most matters required that everyone eligible in the city vote on them. This was obviously a very inefficient method of making decisions, and at times when faster government reactions were required (or so a questionable source informed me), one man would be chosen to be in charge. That man was the Tyrant, and he held authority only as long as the emergency lasted. This idea got recycled into The Blue Dragon War, and the government of Kehlaktur.
Now, that might not be historically accurate, but it highlights a criticism of democratic systems. Democracy is great for a number of reasons. However, it can take a while for democratic governments to make decisions. Infighting can also throw up major roadblocks to meaningful change. As is often said, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.
Calibran’s king might be an idealized man or woman, but that’s not to say that Calibran is perfect, or perfectly safe. The King can only do so much. The orcish tribes chafe at their restrictions, dark elf assassins lurk in shadowed corners, and there are still evil men and monsters in the world. A government based on magic, of course, leaves itself open to tampering by magic-users. The people of Calibran have always required defenders, as has the kingdom itself. But thankfully, in a fantasy world, there is never a shortage of heroes.
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