Related, the weird pervasive nostalgia for monarchy is one of the reasons I never really got much into the fantasy genre. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my favorite fantasy works tend to be ones that either don’t revolve around monarchs or cast them as the villains.
This is one of the things I liked about ASOIAF. The books are pretty clear that even if you’re a good person individually, the only outcome of participating in the brutal and unequal system of feudal exploitation is violence and misery - but towards the end the TV show kinda forgets that that’s a major theme and decides that some of the characters are GOOD nobles and others are BAD nobles and you get to see the GOOD nobles kill the BAD ones and get a happy ending.
From JRR Tolkien to Robert Jordan there’s always some excuse for the monarchy apologia. The later even described himself as a libertarian monarchist whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. I love the books but god damn stfu
:snipes-hesitation: sorry twink link
