two things

[bedlamsbard]

* I don't even know what it says about my state of mind that I'm currently concerned what the chances are that LB-era Narnia (pre-conquest) had some form of assembly or parliament or congress or something of the type. I know there's the Council of Lords in PC; I wouldn't be surprised if something of the sort had stuck around during Caspian's era -- not necessarily the old Telmarine lords, but perhaps some of the younger, more progressive ones, as well as the prominent Narnians like Glenstorm and Trumpkin. A Council of Lords -- the Small Council? Something like that -- would probably not be elected, but now I'm wondering if the Narnians had some form of representative government. It doesn't seem completely mad, even by the old Narnian system (Golden Age; I doubt there's any kind of House of Representative or House of Commons, but I'm fairly certain that the Narnians had no problem voicing complaints or requests to the Pevensies) or the Telmarine system, and I can kind of see the Pevensies and the Narnians pushing the concept on Caspian, given the circumstances. Thoughts?

* I've been hunting down good A Song of Ice and Fire art and all I can say is "Look! It's Peta!" More or less -- blue eyes, with a tabard over the armor, and with Rhindon, of course -- but that's more or less what Peta looks like in my head. Slightly softer face -- for a younger Peta, I mean. But even the tilt of the head -- Peta's a little more arrogant than Peter is, or at least a little more outspoken about it.

ETA: ...possibly this is just an excuse to rail about how civilization leads to big government, and big government leads to taxes, and some other stuff! And urbanization and industrialization! And a certain feeling of nostalgia for the simpler days of yore, and my Victorianism class is really showing here, isn't it?

Comments

[aella_irene]

In Spain, and in England under Mary I, they had a big Council, and a small, Inner Council. Possibly the Council of Lords is the big one, taking in people with sinecures as well as people doing actual jobs, but the King's Council includes people who aren't Lords, but do work for the government.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Why do I have the horrible feeling that this is some kind of big, complicated government? This is what happens when civilization kicks in! You get big government! Lots of taxes! Urbanization and industrialization! No wonder they're looking back to the kings and queens of old and the feudal system, it's just what the Victorians did. (Hi, the class I was thinking about this in? My Victorianism class, where we're currently reading John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy and On Liberty. Some of it comes out of Machiavelli's The Prince. Not as much.)

I...think I may have complicated the matter by randomly throwing out names and titles in Dust 11. *frowns*

...this is going to involve me doing some serious googling at some point in time. Joy.

[aella_irene]

Okay: in the reign of Elizabeth I, the Privy Council was made up of the Lord Chamberlain, who ran the household, supervised appointments, and controlled access to the Privy Chamber, the Vice Chamberlain, who helped, the Lord Treasurer, who was responsible for keeping England solvent, administering ordinary revenues, and keeping government expenditure within limits, the Keeper of the Great Seal, which was an honorary position, the Comptroller of the Household, who was the Household Accountant, the Lord High Admiral, who was in charge of the Navy, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whose duties included raising militias and adjudicating in cases of murder, burglaries and felonies, and the Secretary of State.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Okay. So that's someone to take care of the money, the country, the military, the justice system, and then some internal stuff, yes?

There are two positions that have come up in Dust so far: Lord Provost, who's the head of the Provost's Guard -- basically the city police of Cair Paravel, although I'm wondering if during non-conquest times the Guard might have also been the equivalent of the FBI (I...don't know the British equivalent) -- and mayor of Cair Paravel (which may be an elected position in non-conquest times? It's definitely appointed now, but the two names named are both of nobles).

[aella_irene]

The mayor would probably not be part of the Council. The Lord Provost probably would- one of the Secretaries of State was Sir Francis Walsingham, who was in charge of the Intelligenciers. (What does the FBI do, precisely? The equivalent might be MI-5, or it might be the police...)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

That's what I was thinking, but then again, Cair Paravel is about the only major city in Narnia, so all the traders go through there...eh, I don't know.

The FBI investigates domestic terrorism (or foreign terrorism on American soil), anything that crosses state lines, some domestic crime (Wikipedia says white collar crime and violent crime, and I know the FBI does kidnappings and bank robberies, as well as some other stuff like drugs and fraud, although some of this comes under the jurisdiction of a few other agencies), and counter-espionage. And some other stuff. Sometimes organized crime.

Not counterfeiting, though. The Secret Service does that.

Hi, we are the United States of America, and we are confusing.

[aella_irene]

MI-5 do counter-espionage, the police do everything else, (they're counter-terrorism, and they were the ones called in when the MOD scientist, Dr. David Kelly, went missing. Actually they appear to have been called before he went missing, but I won't bore you with conspiracy theories...). Because we don't have states like you do, cross-county crimes, as far as I am aware, mean that there is lots of argument about jurisdiction between the police of the two counties.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

We have extremely strict laws about when a case becomes federal -- there have been court cases, and the only reason I know this is because it came up in my Gov class. But then again we've got city police (like the LAPD or the NYPD), county sheriff's departments, and state police, which sometimes cooperate and I really have no idea when something falls under which one's jurisdiction, and then it gets federal. Which usually falls to the FBI, but depending on the content, may go to one of our other fun and exciting federal agencies. Like the DEA.