As I've said before, these recurring tropes are what put me off a lot of heroic fantasy fiction. I much prefer flawed fantasy worlds that the author isn't presenting as an admirable ideal (eg Vance's Lyonesse) or even as outright satire (Gormenghast -- arguably).
I'd probably enjoy writing something that uses these tropes and turns them into something very negative. Arguably, that's exactly what GRRM did with GoT: he starts off with a fairly traditional fantasy world and then shows us how utterly horrific it is.
I could definitely work with the idea of former European royalty trying to overthrow the state and restore the monarchy - preferably some royal house that was deposed several centuries ago. I can see real potential in that story.
My father-in-law wrote a novel (this was about 25 years ago) in which a former Soviet state got in such a mess that they invited back the current heirs to their pre-WW2 monarchy, who turned out to be twin brothers who were pupils at an English public school. It was kind of fun, but mainly because he took a kind of Don Camillo approach in which neither side (the royalists and the communists) had all the answers.
The title was Comrade Majesty. I kept telling him it would make a great TV series, but scriptwriting was alien territory to him. I wish I'd kept a copy -- my brother-in-law collected all his papers when he died, so maybe the manuscript still exists somewhere.
You know I've never noticed any of that, and that bothers me. It means that it is subtly seeping into the subconscious of those of us who read this - not that I think slavery, killing people, misogyny, rule just because of bloodline are ok at all - but it does make me wonder what I've subconsciously consumed!!
As I've said before, these recurring tropes are what put me off a lot of heroic fantasy fiction. I much prefer flawed fantasy worlds that the author isn't presenting as an admirable ideal (eg Vance's Lyonesse) or even as outright satire (Gormenghast -- arguably).
I'd probably enjoy writing something that uses these tropes and turns them into something very negative. Arguably, that's exactly what GRRM did with GoT: he starts off with a fairly traditional fantasy world and then shows us how utterly horrific it is.
I could definitely work with the idea of former European royalty trying to overthrow the state and restore the monarchy - preferably some royal house that was deposed several centuries ago. I can see real potential in that story.
My father-in-law wrote a novel (this was about 25 years ago) in which a former Soviet state got in such a mess that they invited back the current heirs to their pre-WW2 monarchy, who turned out to be twin brothers who were pupils at an English public school. It was kind of fun, but mainly because he took a kind of Don Camillo approach in which neither side (the royalists and the communists) had all the answers.
I'd probably enjoy reading that, for all sorts of reasons.
The title was Comrade Majesty. I kept telling him it would make a great TV series, but scriptwriting was alien territory to him. I wish I'd kept a copy -- my brother-in-law collected all his papers when he died, so maybe the manuscript still exists somewhere.
Ahhh... not published, then?
No, sadly. He got into a holding pattern of endlessly tweaking the thing and never got around to submitting it.
You know I've never noticed any of that, and that bothers me. It means that it is subtly seeping into the subconscious of those of us who read this - not that I think slavery, killing people, misogyny, rule just because of bloodline are ok at all - but it does make me wonder what I've subconsciously consumed!!
Yeah, it was quite an eye-opener when I realized this.
Well thank you for resharing :)