I wrote about this before: https://criticalresist.substack.com/p/retrofitting-capitalism-onto-the
tl dr yes it’s on purpose, but not necessarily consciously. In the present day these stories exalt values that are compatible with 21st century capitalism. The King is rich, and the Knight is (mostly) free – to travel, to act, etc. Both have agency. Serfs and other “lower-class” characters are often only represented in the background, and the cliché is kind of that they’re “dumb” because if you don’t go to college you’ll end up picking vegetables.
Back in Victorian times they preferred their medieval stories to talk about duty and loyalty… to the capitalist employer.
Imo: Reactionaries always admire the barbarism that the rulers were capable of in feudal times and the trope of “everything will get better with the right leader in place” appeals to the idealism of liberals.
They do it because it’s easy. No need to explain your setting for 50 pages if all you need to say is that there is a king and high houses and that the protagonist belongs to one. That way we can get to the non-stakes of such a story faster, where it’s 90% self insert wish fulfillment and 10% problems that the protagonist can easily solve.
They do it because it’s easy. No need to explain your setting for 50 pages
Laughs in Ascendance of a Bookworm.
It’s by far the most realist depiction of it that I have seen in media, there are differences to reality as it is a work of fiction:
spoiler
there is magic and only the nobles have it which cements their power
but the whole noble society does work on the basis of exploiting those underneath them (including among nobles) while still strenghening noble society against everyone else. And although nobles do have much better material conditions than everyone else nobility isn’t viewed as good or romanticized.
I am not saying there aren’t good examples of this. But we both know 99% of stories that involve monarchy tropes do it to get to the power fantasy in the shortest possible amount of time. And those also almost universally have an adventurers guild, a walled city with no fields or other visible way to get food around it and an inspect/analysis skill and slavery…
I know they work for a pittance (I think), but I find it cool how in Japan amateur writers and mangaka can get discovered and their stories published on paper and distributed around the world. Doesn’t really seem to happen in the West, the best you can hope for is to self-publish at your cost.
When they adapt older stories there was often a monarch involved. Then they start using the adaptations as inspiration for what they make next. Like how sci fi often has space monarchs as it spun out from pulp fantasy.
Also that absolute monarchy is a pretty simple system to wrangle for storytelling, a lot harder to keep a limited scope in a parliamentary system for example.
The stain on the politics of One Piece imo.
Sack all the reinstating of “good” monarchs and centre the revolutionary army more pls.
I mean, Japan is a monarchy so it might have to do with that, but anyway, my types of animes contain more anarchy than that.
Besides, a lot of fictional settings use and make stories about kings and other royals in Middle Ages and stuff, I mean The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit are the most popular ones, but I don’t actually mind it at all in fictional settings if the story is entirely fictional and not based on history in any capacity, besides Dracula of course since we love him irl here in Balkans.
we stopped having kings (at least some of us) fairly recently, and up until then, this type of shit was directly useful propaganda for the ruling class.
One advantage is that it can let the writer play out some revolutionary themes. It’s safe. Can’t really explore that in a modern setting.
Japan is a monarchy
Bourgeois ideology
I wouldn’t read so much intent into it, it’s simply that monarchy and nobility have been at the core of the creation of cultural texts until very recently and the tropes are a comfortable common ground for media.
Most “classics” or famous books used as inspiration from before the 20th century are either about nobility or have them in the context in some way.
There’s also a lot of “decadent king” or (specifically in Japanese anime) “Christianity bad” tropes, so I wouldn’t say it’s all glorification.
Though don’t get me started on the whole “rightful ruler good king” plot beat that happens in so many otherwise good stories, like Fire Emblem.
Plenty of comrades have good answers to the actual question, I have an idea as to why English language literature can’t seem to leave them behind.
In the tradition of literature in many parts of the world (I want to say canon but I’m not sure that’s the right word) certain change took place not organically as time went on, but as the preeminent artists made conscious decisions on a certain direction. Sometimes genres were defined by the works of a few writers from a decade or two. Sometimes a couple famous poets started using a certain scheme and wrote on certain themes. I’m not saying this from a great man perspective, if the works of Asimov, Herbert or Le Guin has been published 50 years prior they’d have found no audience. I’m merely using the artist as a shorthand for the people and those who managed to reach them at the right time.
I believe the fascination with monarchies and especially the unconscious connection between pre-modern times and monarchies can only fade in the absence of a class that takes advantage of the divine rule of kings and with a bunch of artists willing to do away with the old preconceptions, to write about historical settings with modern societies, i.e. real democracies. The reactionary in the walls of my mind is softly rebelling against the concept, but I don’t think there’s anything preventing this eventuality. After all, 99% of medieval stories don’t make use of our explore the feudal economic model their setting implies, meaning as long at the audience isn’t hostile, they wouldn’t question the potential anachronism deeply. After all, how many Tolkien fans actually investigate the modes of production?
This is something that surprised me when I saw Chinese television for the first time. The sheer number of shows dealing with drama in some imperial court was mind-blowing to me. Personally, I would have thought that they would have tried to make tv shows that were more in the direction of promoting a collective understanding. So focussing on monarchs and their drama seemed very paradoxical to me in that respect. Although I have to say that I haven’t watched a single one of these shows. So perhaps revolutionary ideals are ultimately conveyed, but I can’t confirm that. And the question is: does it necessarily have to? Not every single piece of media has to be completely based. In the end, what I can at least imagine, is that these Chinese shows I’m talking about here will be quite a bit different from our shows about royals.
Liberals can only comfortably recognise the inner workings of class society only when it is not their own class society.
How are the isekai and fantasy writers going to do court intrigue and race wars set in modern times without setting off some real spicy conversations or drama?
Like just look at attack on titan. Shit turned into fascism real quick and it wasn’t even set that close to our time.
Can you imagine if someone wrote a story about a race/nations war in modern America then gave different races/nations different genetic super powers? And the plot line of the story was for the protagonist to re-instate the legitimately elected president who got couped by a nefarious bastard?
I mean, if you did such a story right, it would be hella interesting, but that is not the kind of story any but courageous and experienced writers could manage.
And before you say something about replacing race war with class war, liberals conceive of history as being the history of races and nations. Switching to a modern setting will just make most liberals start writing mien kampf.
