Constitutional monarchies · 8:10am May 9th, 2023
Yesterday, I had an extra day’s holiday, thanks to the King choosing this weekend to get crowned. This has caused all sorts of admin problems, as he decided to do so in the middle of a busy university term, but it meant I had a bit of time to write a short blog post. Apologies for not writing anything for the last two months. I have been busy doing various complicated, and mostly boring, particle physics things.
I find myself following the crowd, and feeling mostly indifferent about the coronation thing. I can’t fault the logic of my republican friends when they point out that having an unelected head of state is undemocratic. Yet, on the scale of current problems with the British constitution, fixing this one is not a high priority. Meanwhile, the royalists I know are (mostly) a nice bunch of people and it would be a shame to spoil their party. British royalists are a fandom. A little different to our own, but we have a lot in common. We both love following the latest adventures of our favourite characters and making creative tributes. We both like princesses. Royalists can occasionally feel, perhaps, a little creepy in the way they treat real humans the way we engage with fictional winged unicorns. They probably feel the same way about us.
Any history teacher will tell you that the monarchy has changed enormously over the years. Centuries ago, kings like Henry VIII abused their absolute power on a big scale. Following the civil war, we had a brief experiment with being a republic, before the monarchy was restored, but thereafter parliament always got the upper hand in any disagreements. Parliament generally liked kings and queens to just enjoy the royal lifestyle and not concern themselves with politics. Many did so, but some would seek ways to restore the prominence of the British monarchy.
Queen Victoria was an interesting example, as a female in a very patriarchal society, she was certainly expected to be just a ceremonial figurehead. Yet, in an era of political reform when other countries were ditching monarchs and becoming republics, she managed to strengthen her position by building a public role for her family as popular celebrities, supporting charities and the arts, and developing the modern idea of the British monarchy.
And what about Equestria? The role of royalty in Equestria has also changed a lot between the generations. In the time of Celestia, Luna, and Twilight Sparkle, being a princess was synonymous with being an alicorn. It came with extra magical super powers and possible immortality. While generally presented as being more about protecting their subjects than ruling over them, the ability to send anyone you don’t like to the moon does give you a fairly absolute degree of authority. We saw Princess Cadance and Shining Armor establish a slightly more conventional royal family, while dealing with Flurry Heart’s absolute powers.
In G5 Equestria, like many aspects of the new pony generation, Queen Haven’s role is different, and more like a modern queen in our world. We first meet her as a literal puppet ruler, lowered into her throne room on wires, and then arrested by her own guards for being a ‘phony pony full of baloney’. That all suggests that her powers are rather limited. Yet, it seems she is a savvy operator, and it wasn’t long before she was back on the throne, giving orders, and advancing the interests of her family,
Where will things go now? It looks like the tension between Zipp and her mother is a story arc that we will watch develop in the seasons ahead. And we now have the interesting development of her friendship with a certain unicorn. What will this mean for the future of the pegasus kingdom?
Meanwhile, despite lacking any royal title, Sunny Starscout is clearly the successor to Princess Twilight in other ways. And we have an evil alicorn pretender, claiming to be the rightful ruler of all Equestria. Interesting times ahead.
I feel that having a head of state separate from the head of government, who is capable of remaining mostly partisan to political whim by virtue of being unelected, and who can intervene in the worst circumstances but remains masterfully inactive 90% of the time, is preferable to any other system I can think of.
Tell Your Tale definitely builds on Haven in interesting ways, from laying claim to a wall of the Maretime Bay sheriff's office because it has a mural she likes to romancing Alphabittle, the closest thing Bridlewood has to a leader. She may be a media darling, but by all appearances, she's also establishing a cultural hegemony over the other tribes.
I like tw things about the ceremony.
the first was the scripted kid who asked Charles, What are you here for,
And that Charles had to be divested, in this case to plain clothes.
It used to be till they were naked in the eyes of God, as to try and remind them, they are merely human.
As for the guys complaining in protesters. they said peaceful protests, yet the leader is stodd thee with a Bull horn. you know, the ones that can cause distress over a large area just by the volume which you cant use your right to ignore just by turning away?
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Ghods, I wish you and Pineta were writing MYM!
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Well, if the two of us specifically were writing it, we'd have spent an episode having Izzy build a particle accelerator out of old PVC pipes and refrigerator magnets, then explain it while Pipp livestreams her hunt for the Hugs Boson.
Somewhere between Magic School Bus and MacGyver, really.
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Honestly, I'd watch the hell out of that!
Don't get started on the shipping wars.
Which option do you think was more likely: the guards were that incensed by the betrayal that the royals couldn't fly that they deposed their former boss or did the guards know all along and staged the arrest to maintain their own legitimacy in the eyes of the populace? Perhaps they staged the arrest with the begrudging consent of Queen Haven to play both sides in the court of public opinion. Does the furor subside and the populace becomes nostalgic for the old royal family? Restore the queen to the throne. Are the ponies out for blood? Let the Queen "escape" so she can fuck off to try her lot in Bridlewood or whatever. Or stage their preparations for regicide in such a manner that makes clear to all that they won't hesitate to remove any successor dynasty or democratically-elected leader by similar means. Perhaps they go full military junta: after all, the mob has become violent and deserves to be ruled by their civilized betters.
Even counting all of FiM, I find Zephyr Heights (at least everything we know of it before the start of MYM) to be the best canonical setting for courtly intrigue and political thrillers in all of MLP (second place being the story of how Celestia made her new home among the nobility of Canterlot after her old castle lay in ruins after ousting Nightmare Moon). My favorite alternate history for G5's reunification of Equestria involves Haven remaining ousted from Zephyr Heights due to a populace that still feels betrayed. However, the citizens of ZH put Zipp on the throne because she's the best no-strings-attached flier. When the delegates from the tribes of pony convene to form a formal governing coalition, Haven ends up becoming New Equestria's first Prime Minister (for life) by default because, as 5727354 said, she was the only pony with any experience at statecraft or even being a proper (figure) head of state. Such an Equestria would be like the government of Singapore or the Nixon administration: openly corrupt yet still somehow more capable of delivering small wins to the common pony (and bigger wins to those who pay them off) than those saddled with an obsession with transparency and good governance.
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Doubly so when the head of state is also an immortal sun goddess. I wonder if the immortality or the sun goddess helps her more in her role as head of state.
I am sorry to be so late to this blog; but somehow however, I missed it.
I have no idea how the writers will handle things; but in reality however, constitutional monarchies allow a link to the past, in an otherwise democracy. It is important however that the monarchy not not live off of the taxrevenue of the nation, both for the interest of the working poor and the interest of the monarchs keeping their heads:
In the late 18th century, England had a monarchy living off of rents from CrownLands (it still does). The crown got these lands by conquering, but that was a long time ago. The Monarchy actually pays taxes.
The French Monarchy lived directly off of the taxes of the poor. In 1789, a famine occurred:
The English poor could not blame the monarchy for making things worse, but French poor could. The French poor literally starved; while the monarchy fiested off of the taxrevenue from the poor. The Monarchy lots the heads of its members because of this.
CGPGrey (I almost wrote GPTGrey) is am American living in England. He noticed that many English dislike the Royalty because the falsely believe that the Royalty live off of taxes instead of contributing to taxes and points out that the Royalty draws tourists to the country (England received almost as many tourists as Disney World before Governor Ronald DeSantis (a Mussolini-Worshipping governor) ruined the State of Florida with his fascism. Here is the video CGPGrey made explaining that the monarchy does not live off of the taxes of the poor:
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They both reduce the odds of having to replace her, respectively due to time or assassination (since very few people are stupid enough to try to kill the only thing currently keeping their planet habitable).
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That video is not really correct. The crown estate is not the monarch's private property. If Britain became a republic then it would become state property, as it effectively already is, and as happened when Ireland became a republic.
Maybe we should build a replica of Window Castle in Florida and pay people to dress up as the King and Queen and go around shaking tourists hands.
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I hoped that the last pandemic should put an end to handshaking, but unfortunately however, handshaking makes a comeback.