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Post by CharlesX on May 7, 2023 12:01:50 GMT
In case anyone else is interested in the role of the monarchy in FF..
FF seems at once to cast Kings and Lords as privileged, arrogant, disdainful and sometimes unwise, a semi-satirical role that is easy to do in a commercial series, and again not unexpecedly sometimes has YOU in the role of nobility or defending an Island. We've mentioned Epic Pooh elsewhere and while Tolkien definitely has his defenders I think escapist fantasy tends to push notions of reformation rather than revolution, and constant themes about filthy Orcs and graceful Elves don't exactly help. There are a few FFs where you can play an Elf, but none in which you play a female (perhaps we should have had a woman's day thread, right?) or person of colour. Almost all FF has you play a stereotyped 'good person' of some sort (there were more nuanced FFs in the pipeline before FF was cancelled in the '90s). Ian Livingstone forces a conversation with Lord Azzur in Asassins Of Allansia ("How many pendants do you have?" would have made masses more sense than "Tell me, how many pendants do you have?" "If you answer?" which is a bit elitise even if Lord Azzur remains one of the best characters). I would like a well-written adventure with Lord Azzur, never knowing whether to trust the peasants who hate him or the arrogant swine himself. I sympathize quite a bit with FFs such a Crimson Tide and House Of Hell where YOU are a nobody instead of someone from High Society. Of course this all a bit coloured because most FF was written in the '80s or mid '90s at best, anti-monarchist sentiment is only more common in today's digital, woke world.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 7, 2023 18:41:38 GMT
Potentially interesting to categorise which heroes start the poshest. Often it's ambiguous as you are simply a seasoned adventurer, and whilst that's an unlikeable career path for the noble born it's not impossible. Off the top of my head, Masks of Mayhem has you as the king, whilst Fangs of Fury has you as a no-ranking soldier. The third assistant rabbit-skinner's heritage matters more than their job in LS's other book CoM. Since it was mentioned, TCT contrasts with the related BVP in terms of your standing at birth. There are a few FFs where you can play an Elf, but none in which you play a female (perhaps we should have had a woman's day thread, right?) or person of colour. I thought the majority of FF books were at least theoretically unisex. Didn't this come up in a discussion not so long ago? I recall Dave Morris saying that when he was involved with writing a gamebook (only one of those FF of course) he reminded people to change things like "Stop him!" to "Stop the thief!" or whatever. In the AFF Dungeoneer at least one of the pre-rolled characters was female. Likewise for the Wizard edition of House of Hell (I'm just mentioning books I know about/have to hand). I'm reminded that there was a thread entitled "Pictures of You" on TUFFF. Did I repost it on here or not? It was about which ones of the books actually showed the adventurer or part of them. It was mentioned on there that some US reprints had explicitly depicted a blonde, blue-eyed male to depict the hero, which seemed regrettable. |
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 7, 2023 19:53:33 GMT
I think you could probably write a paper about the way aristocracy is portrayed in Fighting Fantasy, fantasy literature in general, and what it tells us about attitudes to aristocracy at the times they were written. In fact, there's probably several papers to be written. Personally, I don't think the needs of plot should be ignored. Some plots require corrupt aristocracy, some require at least superficially honourable aristocracy. However, I don't think Fighting Fantasy deals particularly with the consequences of feudal society, if it even contains a feudal system. Titan appears to mostly revolve around a modern capitalist system. This probably isn't a good way for medieval fantasy to go, but interactive literature is different.
Because there's less opportunity for detail and subtext in interactive literature, it relies a lot on instantly recognisable archetypes. Less nuance can be explored in a book the size of a novel when any reading of it could be as long as a short story.
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Post by tyrion on May 7, 2023 21:40:51 GMT
There's king gillibran, and the king of salamonis, both of which are close together. So the term king probably doesn't mean much, as in dark ages Britain with kings all over the place.
If there are kings, presumably there are barons, but apart from baron sukumvit I can't recall any. Is there a feudal system in place? I don't remember meeting any actual peasants in allansia, everyone just wanders around as they please.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 7, 2023 22:14:40 GMT
There's king gillibran, and the king of salamonis, both of which are close together. So the term king probably doesn't mean much, as in dark ages Britain with kings all over the place. If there are kings, presumably there are barons, but apart from baron sukumvit I can't recall any. Is there a feudal system in place? I don't remember meeting any actual peasants in allansia, everyone just wanders around as they please. Exactly! I get the authors weren't aiming for authenticity, but titles seem arbitrary in Titan. I'm surprised characters like Lord Azzur didn't just style themselves as kings. |
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Post by evilwizard on May 9, 2023 20:48:01 GMT
Of course this all a bit coloured because most FF was written in the '80s or mid '90s at best, anti-monarchist sentiment is only more common in today's digital, woke world.
It was equally as common in the 80s and 90s for various reasons |
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Post by Pete Byrdie on May 9, 2023 21:18:41 GMT
Of course this all a bit coloured because most FF was written in the '80s or mid '90s at best, anti-monarchist sentiment is only more common in today's digital, woke world.
It was equally as common in the 80s and 90s for various reasons Honestly, I'd need to read some serious studies to measure this. My intuition from memory (and intuition is absolutely the enemy of reason and serious research, all the more so because it often masquerades as reason) is that post-1970s Britain was more polarised, and anti-monarchy views were more prevalent. But I doubt that barely touches the nuances of reality. |
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 10, 2023 0:48:15 GMT
It was equally as common in the 80s and 90s for various reasons Honestly, I'd need to read some serious studies to measure this. My intuition from memory (and intuition is absolutely the enemy of reason and serious research, all the more so because it often masquerades as reason) is that post-1970s Britain was more polarised, and anti-monarchy views were more prevalent. But I doubt that barely touches the nuances of reality. Stopping short maybe of serious studies, here are a couple of Guardian articles. The first one in particular tries to refer back a long way.
"We can track rather more of the reign if we switch to a better off/worse off without the royals question, of the sort used in our survey on Thursday. Ipsos Mori asked that question throughout the 1980s and 1990s and, as fairytale weddings gave way to the divorces of Charles and Andrew, there was a steady swing away from the steadfast royalist "worse off" vote to a position of indifference. The "indifferents" fleetingly overtook the "worse offs" in the Queen's "annus horribilis" of 1992 (when flames at Windsor Castle followed rows about her tax-exempt status) and then again just before Diana's death. But in neither case did the hardline "better off without them" vote get enough traction to get beyond a fifth. In both cases, the royalists soon bounced back to a modest lead, even if they never quite got back to the scores of about 70% they had enjoyed in the mid-1980s."
(A common theme across the two of course is that Charles is not as popular as the Queen was.)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 10, 2023 2:48:52 GMT
Steering back to the topic in hand, when we're talking about kings and poshness there's a difference between a king who is the only one in a society above the rest, and a whole class on the other.
If we think about dwarves – usually seen as more working class than e.g. elves – it seems entirely natural that they might have a king. Someone has to be in charge after all, whether you call them 'king' or 'chief'. The idea of dwarf nobles seems a bit odder. Would dwarves tolerate an indolent, land-owning, snobby class? If not, what are they like? (Naturally this hasn't stopped some fantasy writers.)
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Post by CharlesX on May 11, 2023 8:17:12 GMT
There's king gillibran, and the king of salamonis, both of which are close together. So the term king probably doesn't mean much, as in dark ages Britain with kings all over the place. If there are kings, presumably there are barons, but apart from baron sukumvit I can't recall any. Is there a feudal system in place? I don't remember meeting any actual peasants in allansia, everyone just wanders around as they please. Exactly! I get the authors weren't aiming for authenticity, but titles seem arbitrary in Titan. I'm surprised characters like Lord Azzur didn't just style themselves as kings. Offhand, I can recall the word peasant definitely being used in Citadel Of Chaos (by Balthus Dire), although even that might only be old Dire being arrogant, I don't doubt there are other uses (I think it might be in Asassins Of Allansia by Lord Azzur as well). Over 50% of those whom you meet seem to fit Bonaparte's definition of Britain - "a nation of (middle-class) shopkeepers". |
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