I am Swedish, and we unfortunately also have our monarchy still...
Ah, yes, you do. That said, yours seems reasonably benign and non-interfering with the democratic process, at least from the outside? It must very different from within, though!
But they might in fact be for the divine and hereditary right of kings. From what I've read, I think a common argument for the landed gentry and nobility went like this: that it's very important to them to pass on their estates to their sons, that in fact to them, the family going on could be more important than individual members of the family. And the hereditary succession of the kings is this same thing writ large.
Yeah, I agree a lot of the popular thinking would be tied up in land ownership and hereditary succession, and being able to own property and pass it to your heirs is an important (and, IMO, mostly positive -- my subject is law, so I'm predisposed to think this!) feature of civilisation as a whole. But the right to govern* isn't the same as the right to own land (I mean, people aren't chattel, and have rights themselves!), and you'd imagine sensible, compassionate protagonists like your Flight of the Heron OTP would appreciate this ;)
* I appreciate that the argument regarding the divine right of kings is more complicated than this, but I've always thought it boiled down to: royalty is predisposed by God (or hereditary genetics) to be just better at governing than the common man, and therefore they're the best person for the job. Albeit, as you say, folks like smugglers or rival countries would likely indeed support one king or other, not out of purist reasons, but out of convenience and politics!
Re: Les Mis, I am probably too deeply immersed in my current fandom to tackle it right now. But if/when I do, I actually think sewer systems sound interesting.
Haha, you will definitely fit right into the fandom! +rolls out welcome mat
no subject
Ah, yes, you do. That said, yours seems reasonably benign and non-interfering with the democratic process, at least from the outside? It must very different from within, though!
But they might in fact be for the divine and hereditary right of kings. From what I've read, I think a common argument for the landed gentry and nobility went like this: that it's very important to them to pass on their estates to their sons, that in fact to them, the family going on could be more important than individual members of the family. And the hereditary succession of the kings is this same thing writ large.
Yeah, I agree a lot of the popular thinking would be tied up in land ownership and hereditary succession, and being able to own property and pass it to your heirs is an important (and, IMO, mostly positive -- my subject is law, so I'm predisposed to think this!) feature of civilisation as a whole. But the right to govern* isn't the same as the right to own land (I mean, people aren't chattel, and have rights themselves!), and you'd imagine sensible, compassionate protagonists like your Flight of the Heron OTP would appreciate this ;)
* I appreciate that the argument regarding the divine right of kings is more complicated than this, but I've always thought it boiled down to: royalty is predisposed by God (or hereditary genetics) to be just better at governing than the common man, and therefore they're the best person for the job. Albeit, as you say, folks like smugglers or rival countries would likely indeed support one king or other, not out of purist reasons, but out of convenience and politics!
Re: Les Mis, I am probably too deeply immersed in my current fandom to tackle it right now. But if/when I do, I actually think sewer systems sound interesting.
Haha, you will definitely fit right into the fandom! +rolls out welcome mat