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]

Yes. Most European countries had at least some form of representative government, even if it was limited and barely called upon. The English Parliament was one of the more powerful ones- it might be more like the Estates General in France, which were made up of representatives of the nobility, the Church, and the merchants/artisans, and were called only when the Crown was weak. Or the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire... Italy didn't have one until the 19th Century, but it was lots of small kingdoms instead of one large one, Germany the same.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking there must be, at least of some kind, because the Narnians would have been really outspoken at least at the beginning of Caspian's reign, and the Pevensies would have pushed something through, and the Telmarines probably have a tradition of one kind or another. But it's hard to guess off historical examples, since what I know the most about is the U.S. system and the Athenian system, and I know next to nothing about Europe. (I know a little about the Venetian Republic, and by that, I mean, "I read The Shadow of the Lion (http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Lion-Mercedes-Lackey/dp/0743471474/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236615690&sr=8-1)," which hardly qualifies.)

Huh. I could see Narnia at some point in time -- probably not during the Second Telmarine Age, but who knows -- being down with the radical democracy, or the aseembly system. Hmm.

[aella_irene]

As far as the UK goes, there were two houses, the House of Lords had more power than the Commons, and was made up, as the name suggests, of the Lords. And if the Telmarines were originally Spanish, then they had the Corteses. So, if they have a Parliament, it probably has property and nobility qualifications, and Caspian's Council may share members, but would be a seperate body. They would probably have the power to vote on laws, but they could just be a talking shop. In England, Parliament votes, and the monarch ratifies.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I'm just trying to figure out what it would have been during Tirian's time -- I probably could make a fairly strong case for Tirian as the king having less real power and more figurative power (I mean, though, almost certainly commander in chief of the military, and my American bias is showing, and possibly head of the church? Maybe?) and most of the government being run by the councils/houses/whatever oh my god. Like, I could see some of the power in the country having drifted away from the monarch and into the hands of the people, which of course has been subsequently taken away by the Calormenes, because seriously, they want none of this nonsense!

It's probably not even that big of a deal, just one of those little things that I must know immediately.

[aella_irene]

And he'd probably have the power to refuse to ratify laws, but, like the Queen, wouldn't ever actually do it. Because if the Queen refuses to ratify, then, as our politics teacher put it, its "Bye-bye Queenie-baby". And Head of the Church would make sense. (As an aside, if there is a two party system, there will almost certainly be a Prime Minister. A two-party system with a Government and an Opposition, that is.)

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they'd have a two-party system, though? Because I remember from my AP Gov class that that's kind of a weird development in the U.S. (and the UK, I believe, but I only took U.S. Gov), so there might be multiple parties. I think I'm leaning towards something similar to the Athenian Assembly just because that's what I know more about than anything else, because it kind of makes sense that Narnia would be fine with everyone (well, all Narnian citizens, anyway, which might raise some interesting questions about what it takes to get Narnian citizenship -- one Narnian parent? Two Narnian parents? Born on Narnian soil? A citizenship test? Just live in Narnia for a certain amount of time and pay taxes?) having a vote, and then it increases the idea that the Narnians would be pissed with the Calormenes, although they certainly don't need anymore reason for that...

...court system. What's the court system going to be like? Wait, I think I talked about this already somewhere -- no, apparently not, it's just that Dust 11 drops a lot of names, titles, and positions.

[aella_irene]

The UK has two major parties, and several smaller ones, whose MPs come in under "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition." It would be different if there was a hung parliament, but there is not. I think there would still be a PM equivalent, if only to convey the wishes of the Assembly to the King.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yes, probably (unless the king is required to be at the Assembly? Although that seems odd. Hmm). Appointed or elected, I wonder? Probably elected.

The Council of Lords (or whatever) is probably appointed, unless there's a difference between that and the King's Council, which I'm going to assume includes people like the Lord Provost, some kind of attorney general, head of the treasury, that sort of thing, and that's almost definitely appointed. Oh, God, I don't need to know this except that I do.

[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.

[muridae-x.livejournal.com]

The Privy Council is a good model to work on, if you want to keep it relatively small scale. Something else you might want to Google is the Star Chamber - which seems to me to be oozing with potential as a model for Calormene corruption of Narnian government.

Narnia, even in the LB days, never really feels big enough to me to need a big government. I envisage it as having something that evolves out of a hybrid of the council of Lords that we see in PC, and informal gatherings like the meeting at the Dancing Lawn. I can quite see the Dancing Lawn as regional government in action.

[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.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cool. I'm not sure how much any of this is actually going to come up, if any -- I think the Pevensies' reaction is probably likely to be something along the lines of, "Why did you have to do THIS?" but that's their reaction to everything.

Right, but I think they might have formalized it in Caspian's day, if only because otherwise the Telmarines may not take them seriously. But by Dustverse LB Narnia's much more complicated, because it's got the nobles and the class system and the urbanization and so-forth.