kid's show logic and politics

[rhodanum]

The older I get, the less patience I have for Children’s Show Logic when it comes to politics. What I can suspend my sense of disbelief for where a simple adventure story is concerned (incompetent adults, children being Brave and Wise on account of their Youthful Innocence and fresh perspective, etc etc) absolutely does not work when it comes to any story that even remotely involves politics and statecraft.

Children and teenagers have no place anywhere near political power, not unless there’s something along the lines of a regency actually handling the business of ruling for them and training them for the moment they reach age of majority. The ‘Little Miss Dumbass of Duren’ scene (great commentary by 

theamazingsallyhogan) in The Dragon Prince, that so much of this fandom is going ga-ga over is, for me, a prime illustration of why you don’t allow children in power. Nothing but sassy quips and cheap, empty platitudes, with ‘stick our heads in the sand and hope the storm passes us over’ written all over them. There's also the matter of how much this scene props up the whole notion of 'The Divine Right of Kings', but I already touched upon this in my TDP politics meta post.

 

Part of me really wants future seasons to punish the Pentarchy for its inaction, but I’m not holding out much hope. At this point, this is a show I solely watch for my two-three favorites and their time on-screen and being able to write fucky fanfic featuring them.

Comments

[dragoness_e]

Caveat: I haven't seen this show. I did read your politics meta post.

For years, I just breezily inhaled the fantasy trope of "divine right of kings is real" that Tolkien's imitators inflicted on us (Tolkien himself was a conservative monarchist, but his fictional human kings had no divine "right"--their ancestors were blessed as a reward for their deeds against Morgoth, not for being somebody's son, and there were plenty of really bad kings.)

I think it was Eric Flint who made the point that there's nothing special about kings, and monarchies aren't automatically the best choice for pre-modern governments, which is why the government of Grantville in 1632, and later, the U.S.E., is a democracy, and why the good guy protagonists are seeding neighboring monarchies with Committees of Correspondence (revolutionary cells pushing for equal rights, among other things). Funny how it took a Trotskyist socialist to point out the obvious.

Ancient, medieval and renaissance cultures all had some republics and democracies here and there. It's not a modern concept, and there's no reason not to have fantasy republics. "Divine Right of Kings" is a trope that needs to die and be buried at the crossroads with a stake driven through its corpse--it was a bogus theory whipped up to politically justify Charles Martel getting the throne of France, and Western history freely ignored it when politically inconvenient. Sadly, fantasy authors apparently don't read Thomas Paine or history any more--there's nothing especially good about kings, and "divine right" is respected more in the breach. It never has stopped a victorious general from killing a weak king who was doing a bad job and establishing a new royal dynasty, even in cultures where the king was viewed as literally semi-divine, such as ancient Egypt and ancient China.

Did they ever explain why TDP does not have a Regency, or have the writers not heard of the concept?

[rhodanum]

Did they ever explain why TDP does not have a Regency, or have the writers not heard of the concept?

They made a great mess of it, is what they did. The concept of Regencies is very much shown to exist in-universe, but, funnily enough, it's never actually shown in use. The moment where we hear it mentioned by name involves one of the characters asking after the Regent of a particular kingdom and being introduced to the notion that there is no Regent actually in place and a ten year-old is, in fact, sitting on the throne and governing in her own name. Aforementioned ten year-old is written in a way that the showrunners supposedly saw as wise and mature beyond her years, but that just reads like a pile of snark and useless platitudes about peace and neutrality that won't help at all, with war all but inevitable.

The above example is irritating, but at least believable, to a degree -- there have been child-monarchs in history, ruling in their own name, due to unique political and social circumstances. Far more galling is the example where the rightful heir is missing, location utterly unknown, time of return utterly unknown... and no decision can be made without the seal of the King and no Regent will be appointed, because the most significant coalition on the royal council are apparently incapable of anything other than obstructionism, with no other goal. It's incredibly frustrating to watch and I don't know how the TDP writers will salvage the whole thing, without basically resorting to "a collection of useless lumps were appointed to the national ruling body, whoops!"

Agreed on "the divine right of kings" needing a very solid kick right off a cliff. TDP leaning into it leaves a bad taste in my mouth and makes me wonder if we'll actually see a subversion of the relatively pro-crowned-heads stance it's been taking so far. There is a promising aspect, with three of the Pentarchy monarchs shown to be various shades of spineless, effectively treating the coming war as something that can be ignored if they hunker down and kicking the ball of responsibility from one to the other, until it lands in the lap of the aforementioned ten year-old Queen. Lovely.

[captaincassidy]

Do you have some examples where politics in these sorts of shows are done well? I like to thing Avatar: The Last Airbender did it quite well (with many people training the kids throughout the journey), but I'd be interested to hear more. I actually really like politics in stories/cartoons.

On the flip side, what do you think did it the worst?

[dragoness_e]

Well, Transfomers G1 cartoon was pretty awful. According to that show, apparently the mayor of a large city has the legal power to unilaterally banish an alien race from the entire planet. No need to consult with the State Department or anything like that!

[captaincassidy]

dfskjfskdhkhsffshkjdksdfhj omfg for real? gd

[dragoness_e]

The episode in question is Megatron's Master Plan, Part 1. (Part 2 is almost as silly)

[captaincassidy]

After asking my friend who watched it-- holy HELL that's silly.

(Is there really a Decepticon Day, too???)

[dragoness_e]

Yes? It was part of Megatron's "good guy" front.

[rhodanum]

ATLA did it quite well and it goes far deeper than merely the people teaching the main cast. Ba Sing Se is a blend of surface freedom and deep, blood-curdling repression that's instantly familiar to anyone who ever experienced totalitarianism or who had loved ones who loved under repressive police-states (there's a very good reason "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" resonated so deeply and became a real-world phrase when mocking the machinations of totalitarianism in our reality). On the other end, the Fire Nation's parallels to Imperial Japan have also been discussed in detail.

As for who did it the worst? TDP is pretty high up there, given how often I complain about its utterly nonsensical politics, but at least it made an attempt to portray something. I reserve a special contempt for canons such as South Park that coast by on the basis of cynicism which posits that deeply caring about anything makes you a loser worthy of being a subject of mockery.