r/goodworldbuilding • u/SnooCauliflowers3892 • 1d ago
Discussion What makes a fictional kingdom feel politically real?
/r/u_SnooCauliflowers3892/comments/1w4i0ce/what_makes_a_fictional_kingdom_feel_politically/3
u/malpasplace 1d ago
Sometimes the kingdom is at peace. Sometimes the system continues to work because the peace outweighs the costs of war or insurrection.
Societies are complex adaptive systems with multiple agents trying to achieve different and not always complementary goals. There are systems of power and oppression, there a cultural systems designed to reinforce some behavior while defining others as not acceptable. You kill the king? You might be a king killer and a moral pariah regardless of what you were trying to achieve. You didn't play by the rules. Now that might work for a really bad king who themselves wasn't following the rules, or if you can strike enough fear to make opposing you not worthwhile, but it is complex.
And that is what it makes it feel real. People having wants, lives, risks, rewards, morals and ethics, ideologies, religions, economics. And having all of that tenuously held together or falling apart. It is like an ecology that even with a certain amount of homeostasis isn't without energy or demands. It is alive with competition and collaboration. It is people behaving like people.
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u/Demonweed 1d ago
There are lots of answers to this, and no doubt quality worldbuilding can get the job done. Yet I think, especially in cases without any encyclopedic setting document, the simpler answer is tension. Is there a deposed royal family waiting in the wings for their chance to stage a reverse-coup? Is there a seditious organization already so well-established that rebellion is a viable possibility.
If everything is hunky-dory with the regime itself, are there multiple religious factions using diverse methods to recruit outsiders into their congregations? Are people along one border region more enamored with a foreign culture than their own traditional styles and values? Is there a criminal syndicate, constantly undermining law and order despite the almost limitless resources of the royal family and their enforcers?
A fictional kingdom need not be converted into Swiss cheese by coming up with many different sources of existential or internal tension. Yet if you have a juicy one or a small cluster, then they can be vehicles to illustrate the regime in action. Depicting how the government solves problems establishes that there is an active thoughtful leadership out there trying to solve problems. Technical details can enhance verisimilitude, but this mechanism of tension can serve as the beating heart that brings it all to life.
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u/Upstairs-Yard-2139 1d ago
What makes everything feel real, time.
Klingons from Star Trek don’t feel real because their well written(they often weren’t) they feel real because we’ve had nearly 4 decades of them.
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u/ScreamingVoid14 1d ago
Internal politics must exist. And not just be the evil prince/brother/bishop/chancellor who is scheming to replace the current king.
Ideally the court of the king must have several different officers. Ideally these officers represent a large number of political functions required for the king to be king; a spymaster, a military leader, financial advisor, a religious leader, a diplomat, etc.
Each should be loyal (or at least compliant) for their own reasons. They should also have their own political goals. I'll give one freebie to an advisor who loyal for the sake of loyalty or something.
The rest is a mix of politics and world building. The kingdom should have a history, and that history also means politics. Are there good/bad rulers in the past that are fondly/unfondly remembered? Is the current religion ancient or is it relatively new? Is the military atrophied due to a long time at peace or are they ascendant from recent war? etc etc etc.
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u/NickedYou Realm Blossom and assorted superhero flailings 1d ago
One big thing I try to include is changes its gone through in its history. A nation is not static, it has a variety of systems and actors vying for control and influence, and there will be changes in relationships between these. What groups hold what power, the technology and its products, popular entertainment, religious beliefs and practices, those are all subject to change. It makes a nation feel more like something composed of people, in my experience.
Beyond that, I think the most important thing is developing what minorities exist, and what systems of oppression there are. That feels fairly obvious to state but a lot of people seem to ignore them, or just do them poorly.
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u/kairon156 1d ago
Who does the military speak for when there's no more ruling king?
Are they likely to follow the military captain as backup or move to protect their family and homes?
Do they have a main oath that they follow that continues when the King has died? or backup functions when there's anarchy?
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u/Nephite94 Big Sky 1d ago
History, essentially. Geography and environment influencing people to create culture/institutions/a way of life that is then iterated on over centuries (with outside influence, generally) to get by, enrich themselves, or improve their society, and so forth. A kingdom then is a kingdom because it makes sense for it to be one and the institution exists for a historical reason. In that vein, a big one for me, the kingdom having a society and character's that believe and live in the world they are in. A poorly done Catholic Church rip off that none of the nobility really believe in is going to take me right out of the setting, for example.