As someone who studies kingship and the idea of rulers to my fellow scholars who also study this stuff: why this incessant and persistent twee woobification of kings and queens?
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Replying to @AdmiralHip
I think as much as medievalists like to critique pop culture/ fantasy representations of the medieval, a lot of us still first came to medieval studies because of our investment in these representations, which can't be separated from their glorification of royalty/aristocracy.
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Replying to @byjennytan @AdmiralHip
I was once in a seminar where half the grad students admitted that they became medievalists because of Tolkien. And a lot about the field itself (no doubt b/c of its white supremacist/imperialist history) encourages this & the overidentification btwn scholar and obj of study.
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Replying to @byjennytan @AdmiralHip
I've been trying to think my way around what a non-monarchist fantasy would look like recently. It's, uh, challenging. The genre is really closely interwoven with the "exiled prince brought up as a farmer" trope
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Replying to @HalstedMedieval @AdmiralHip
Yes! even in examples that subvert tropes and/or depict royalty/aristocracy as the bad guys, it doesn't change the fact that the pop medieval/fantasy aesthetic is descended from literary genres (epic and romance) whose ideological function was to prop up the ruling classes
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Replying to @byjennytan @HalstedMedieval
This is a really good point and is honestly very relatable. I still enjoy the mystique of the fantasy imagined medieval period to an extent. Finding reimaginings that don’t centre royalty is hard.
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And as much as I have issues with it, the Witcher is I guess a good example of “medieval” fantasy that has main characters and protagonists that are commoners but at the same time still give into the destiny and rulership thing.
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Replying to @AdmiralHip @byjennytan
yeah even those that subvert the destiny tropes don't... really do that good a job of it? like there's usually still ~destiny~ it's just that something goes wrong/it's perverted somehow. idk i'd love to see a fantasy where someone realizes that all the destiny shit is a lie
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Me too. I get it, destiny is mysterious and romantic to an extent. But yeah, destiny needs to be chucked I think, when it comes to social status and ruling.
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Replying to @AdmiralHip @byjennytan
especially all that creepy "it's in your blood" stuff, which is just like a sneeze away from straight fascism
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