Fantasy governments

As we get ever deeper into this seemingly unending election season, it’s hard not to think about governments. I’ve already done a post about the future of government, covering science fiction, but what about the past? What does government look like in a fantasy world?

Many works, when they think about it at all, default to the “feudalism-lite” model of D&D and video games. I call it “lite” because, while it does bear some of the hallmarks of medieval European feudalism—the hierarchical structure, the figurehead monarchy—it lacks the deeper roots of feudalism. Rarely will you see kings asserting their divine right to rule, for instance. The lower classes are given much more freedom, especially of movement, than they had historically.

In essence, fantasy feudalism is more like the later days, when the system was breaking down. After the Black Death wiped out so much of Europe’s population, those who survived effectively became that much wealthier. They did begin to gain some of the freedoms that Dark Age serfs lacked, simply because they knew that the labor vacuum made them more valuable. It’s in this era that we also see the rise of the merchant republics in Italy and the stirrings of absolutist monarchy in France, and this is when the idea of class warfare truly begins.

From a storytelling point of view, that’s a good compromise. Before the plague, it was much harder for people to rise above their station. After, they had a bit more upward mobility. It still wasn’t quite the free-for-all of much fantasy, where random peasants address the king with familiarity and candor, but we can make allowances for dramatic effect.

But the world of fantasy gives us so much more. With a little bit of worldbuilding work, we no longer have to settle for the stripped-down version of late feudalism popular in sword-and-sorcery fiction. If we put some thought into it, we can do better.

Low fantasy

It’s popular to divide fantasy into “low” and “high”, largely based on the amount and power of magic available to the world. Game of Thrones and the books that spawned it are, in this system, low fantasy (though getting higher with each volume or season). Something like the Dragonlance series, by contrast, has lots of powerful wizardry, so it’s classified as high fantasy. Since low fantasy is closer to our world, we’ll start with it.

Most systems of governing in a low fantasy world will resemble ours quite closely, as those worlds are very similar to our own. Monarchies are thousands of years old in our world, and those seem to be the most common everywhere, so they’ll be well-represented. Republics, of the Roman style, are rarer; if they exist in a fantasy realm, they should have a good backstory to explain why. Finally, as much as we uphold it as an ideal, democracy is historically highly uncommon on the national level. In older ages, it breaks down as populations grow; it’s entirely possible for an early democracy to evolve into a republic as people decide that voting on everything is a waste of time.

Each of these major types of government covers a broad range of political theory. Monarchies can be absolutist or dictatorial, with a king or emperor ruling with an iron fist, or they can be parliamentary, as England became in the 13th century. A republic can be full of partisan bickering, even in medieval times, and it has a clear path to a parliamentary system, simply by electing a leader from the representative body.

But fantasy also gives us the opportunity to explore other methods of government, those that didn’t gain purchase in our Western societies for whatever reason. Some might not have been possible for us, either given the evolutionary history of European culture or the limitations of the medieval world. So let’s take a look, shall we?

Socialism is a hot topic right now, no matter where you are in the Western Hemisphere. Definitions differ, but the general idea is a state where everyone contributes to the populace as a whole. It’s usually highly centralized, enforcing a redistribution of wealth from rich to poor (a welfare state, in other words), and offering numerous public services.

In earlier times, public and social services seem to have always existed on some scale, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility to have a socialist state. Producing it from a monarchy might be unlikely, but republics can do it. Socialism does appear more likely to come about early in the development of a civilization, at the tribal or village level. After all, it’s easier to redistribute wealth when there’s not that much of it, and sharing—socialism is just institutionalized sharing—is as old as humanity.

Communism, on the other hand, is the product of 19th century political thinking. The original idea, basically, was to empower the working classes at the expense of the educated, noble, or otherwise privileged. That didn’t work, and just about every communist state in our world has either turned into a dictatorship or oligarchy (USSR, China) or grown towards capitalism (Vietnam). Medieval-era fantasy likely won’t have the chance to try, unless they have some bright thinkers to come up with the notion in the first place.

Theocracy is, literally, rule by religion. We’ve seen a few attempts at a theocratic state throughout history. Papal Rome might be considered one, at least when it wasn’t just a regular autocracy that happened to be ruled by the Pope. The followers of Muhammed after his death tried to implement a government based on their scriptural writings. And, of course, many of today’s terrorist groups claim to want the same. Nobody’s really succeeded for any length of time, though, except maybe the repressive, authoritarian regimes in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

For fantasy, it’s entirely possible to have a theocracy. (High fantasy has it even easier, since you can have the gods themselves intervene, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.) At its core, theocracy isn’t that much more than a monarchy ruled by a religious leader. Its code of laws will be scripture. But theocracies are highly conservative by their very nature, and they don’t exactly tend to be breeding grounds for new advances in any field other than, well, theology. For that reason, fantasy theocracies might work best as a “bad guy” government.

High fantasy

With the addition of magic and the divine, high fantasy opens up a few more options for government, some that we cannot emulate in our world. That does mean it’s harder for an author to imagine how they would work, but they’re great for making a place truly exotic.

First, as noted above, theocracy gets a boost from being in high fantasy. This direct theocracy, as I’ll call it, is one where divine beings directly interfere with the workings of a state that follows them. At the far end, it degenerates into an absolute dictatorship, one controlled by a tyrannical deity, probably something far more horrific than anything ISIS could do. But there is a place for a less-awful direct theocracy, especially in a polytheistic culture. In a way, that one could conceivably turn into a kind of theocratic republic, where party lines are drawn based on which god’s teachings you follow.

The idea of a government run by magical means is probably as old as fantasy itself. This thaumatocracy can take many forms. Rule by the adept is a subset of oligarchy, roughly equivalent to republics where only landowners could be elected as representatives. Using magic itself to rule or otherwise control the populace edges closer to socialism or even communism. And if magic can in any way be used for warfare, then there’s also the potential for a strong practitioner to rise to autocracy. So this one is highly sensitive to conditions, and which outcome you get will depend on history.

If magic (sorcerous, divine, or whatever) can contact or summon the dead, then there’s the chance that a government based on this could form. It’s even got a name: thanatocracy, rule by the dead. The Inca are said to have believed that their deceased rulers could continue to influence the living; thanatocracy is the logical extension of that to a world where they really can. By its very nature, this would be a very conservative state, probably one founded by a culture practicing ancestor worship. There’s the potential for an oligarchy to form, if talking to the dead is a skill available only to a cabal of priests or wizards. But the nature of the afterlife will also play a big role, as will the number of dead consulted for questions of government.

Slight modifications

In a few cases, it’s not the type of government that’s unrealistic or ahistorical, but some defining quality of it. The following are a few subsets of governments that have the possibility of existing in fantasy:

• Matriarchy is one of the most popular. Traditionally in most societies with inherited power, the right to rule passes down through the male line first. There are very good biological, sociological, and historical reasons for this, but fantasy cultures don’t have to follow our rules. It’s easy to envision, for instance, a matriarchal monarchy, one ruled by a queen who is succeeded by her eldest daughter. You likely want to have some reason why the men weren’t in power; perhaps this is a non-human race, like D&D’s drow.

• Meritocracy is a high ideal of a lot of thinkers. Its goal is that rule goes to those most qualified, probably as determined through some sort of examination. China tried something like this, but it was never as successful as it could have been, because the political machinery needed to start a meritocracy is easy to “break”. Like a radioactive element, meritocracy decays into bureaucracy. Those in power adjust the qualifications so they stay in power. But maybe a fantasy culture could break that cycle.

• The junta or other forms of military dictatorship can readily be adapted to a fantasy setting. We have all too many examples, both in the real world and in fiction, but there’s always space for new ideas. Militaries tend to come to power when they overthrow a legitimate government, so there is a ready-made source of conflict. And it doesn’t take much for them to break into factions, each led by a warlord who thinks he has sole right to rule.

Keep thinking

I’m sure you can come up with other ideas. An earlier post goes into a bit more detail about creating your own governments. Extrapolating to a fantasy world is fairly straightforward. Remember that a government, as with any part of society, is rarely created from scratch. It has a history, even if you never write it. The more outlandish it is, the better chance you’ll need to defend it at some point. So, for those “crazier” governments, think a little more about how they came about. Usually, you can find something that’ll works.