Fiction, particularly the genre kind, is usually about individuals making choices that matter in the world. The point of non-monarchies (whether liberal democracies or collectivist states) is that the system evens out the excesses of the individual.

If you’ve ever been involved in a democratic organization, even a party planning committee, you know what a grind it can be. Endless debates and compromise and power plays are enough to make anybody yearn for the supposed swift efficiency of autocracy. You want to be a hero instead of a bureaucrat, Jack Bauer instead of a paper-pushing, report-filing, meeting-taking drone.

Is there even room for heroism in a truly democratic society? Yes, but it takes different forms than the warrior-king archetype. I think of the guy on the ferry in “The Dark Knight”, who has a democratic mandate to push the button and kill hundreds of people in order to save himself and the other people on his boat. Yet, out of his own conscience, he refuses.

I also think of Joss Whedon’s “Serenity”, in which the hero is an admitted thief and pirate whose great accomplishment is to expose a covered-up mass murder.

That’s also why Kim Stanley Robinson’s novels are so refreshing. No scientist-warrior-king-saviors, just imperfect people stumbling around through lots of meetings and hard work.

I disagree quite strongly. Not that nostalgic fantasy doesn’t exist; of course it does. But I object to the (frequently reflexive) pairing of fantasy with nostalgia, because that word implies we’re all sitting around going, gee, weren’t things better and more magical back in the good ol’ medieval (or whatever) days? For one thing, it conveniently sweeps the entirety of urban fantasy under the rug, as if we don’t have a big sub-genre that’s all about the magical in the modern world.

I’ve ranted about the nostalgia thing before. I might add to my previous thoughts this other angle, which is that the vast majority of human existence has been “non-technological” (read: pre-industrial); I don’t see anything wrong with that being the majority of fantasy settings, either. Choosing to write about pre-industrial cultures doesn’t mean we have a sentimentalized longing for them — or for their governments.

I’ll stop rambling now. These are some very well-observed comments, and it was a pleasure reading them!

It’s mostly about a monarchy (actually, its about noble houses wresting for control of said monarchy), but he touches on other lands, councils, nomadic horse-lords, religious figureheads (I believe there is a culture that raises up a ceremonial prince regularly, then butchers him when the crops fail or a disaster strikes), and free cities that aren’t free at all.

If you do a monarchy right, it’s anything but simple.

Now that I’m trying to flesh things out in my first novel, I can see the wisdom in what you’ve written. I’ve already considered different types of governing power to my world, and hope to add tribal leaders, god-kings, and democratic councils to future stories as the characters travel and become more worldly.

Thanks for sharing.

The hero/villain aspect grows out of the individuality, I think. You can tell an interesting story within a more bureaucratic system, and even one that has an individual doing heroic (or villainous) things, but it can fall into the 24 trap — you end up with this outrageous character who somehow gets away with running roughshod over all the usual procedures.