4th Street 2012: Divine Right Kings
Aaand...now that I have a little bit of time again, I should wrap up my 2012 4th Street Fantasy notes! These are my panel notes. I don't transcribe the panel, I just write down the bits that caught my attention. Some of these notes are thoughts the panel inspired, not things the panel actually discussed. I don't attribute because I can never remember who said what!
These are from the "But That's Another Panel" panel, which turned out to be about why we like divine right kings in fantasy (upon hearing this, Phil made the counter-argument that we don't, or at least we haven't recently).
In fantasy, consider divine right kings as personifications of powerful forces--gods, weather, failed crops, plague etc.--that humans cannot control or see. A king? Him, they can see. They can talk to. They can, if necessary, kill.
Or do we have kings just because we want to play with knights and swords? Does that mean that having kings is laziness on our part?
If you want one person to have the power to significantly change the world, a divine-right king or someone close to him is a good choice.
Also implies that God has a hand in things, and that "everything will work out all right in the end."
Etymology side-note: "lord" originally meant loaf-giver, and "lady" meant loaf-maker. Generosity is one of the things that marks a king.
Is a divine mandate good because if bad things happen you can say, "The mandate was clearly withdrawn; time to kill the king!"
Think about what tropes you're using, why they came into existence, what need/function they fill, and how to fulfill/subvert that function. Do not confuse roles things play in fiction with the roles they play in real life, but be aware of the differences as a thing to play with.
I will close my notes about 4th Street with tentacles, but the rest of my posts can be found here.
These are from the "But That's Another Panel" panel, which turned out to be about why we like divine right kings in fantasy (upon hearing this, Phil made the counter-argument that we don't, or at least we haven't recently).
In fantasy, consider divine right kings as personifications of powerful forces--gods, weather, failed crops, plague etc.--that humans cannot control or see. A king? Him, they can see. They can talk to. They can, if necessary, kill.
Or do we have kings just because we want to play with knights and swords? Does that mean that having kings is laziness on our part?
If you want one person to have the power to significantly change the world, a divine-right king or someone close to him is a good choice.
Also implies that God has a hand in things, and that "everything will work out all right in the end."
Etymology side-note: "lord" originally meant loaf-giver, and "lady" meant loaf-maker. Generosity is one of the things that marks a king.
Is a divine mandate good because if bad things happen you can say, "The mandate was clearly withdrawn; time to kill the king!"
Think about what tropes you're using, why they came into existence, what need/function they fill, and how to fulfill/subvert that function. Do not confuse roles things play in fiction with the roles they play in real life, but be aware of the differences as a thing to play with.
I will close my notes about 4th Street with tentacles, but the rest of my posts can be found here.