The Beginnings of Tudor Theory
Then this afternoon while I was trying (fruitlessly) to find semi-decent articles to support my ideas with, I started thinking about the royal family in Northern Warriors, particularly Alexia, Dmitri, and Caroline. Their misfortunes, I think, are typical of what I see in a lot of historical and fictional royalty. Right off the bat in Chapter 1, they are forced to watch their father's execution. After being rescued from their imprisonment, their mother goes into exile. In their service to the Opposition, they are hardly treated like royalty and rarely spend time together. In fact, they hardly feel like a family anymore, which I am sure Alexia wonders about on more than one occasion.
So once Revunia is liberated and they are reunited, what is their family life going to be like? What is Brittany Stevens going to find when she sees them together?
So far, it's looking like things are going to be better, but there are still a few sore spots that redemption from responsibility and captivity are going to remedy.
“Is Revunia a nice place, then, when there isn't war and all that
going on?” Brittany asked them.
“Of course it is,” said Dmitri.
“It gets horribly cold in winter,” said Alexia.
“Well, not as cold as some places,” Caroline corrected her.
“There are perks to living right on the ocean—milder winters, for
one. But the sea port's only open half the year because it gets icy
in the winter, so it feels dead because there isn't as much to do and
there aren't as many visitors.”
“But we get good snow up here,” Alexia told Brittany. “One
winter we made a huge ice fort inside the castle courtyard—remember
that?”
“I sure do,” said Dmitri. “And I remember Papa wearing that big
old bearskin coat of his and looking like a bear himself.”
“Let's not talk about Papa,” said Caroline suddenly. Dmitri and
Alexia's merriment subsided.
Notice the sudden change in the mood.
Their father is dead, killed in the name of power and political revenge. The three children miss him terribly, and there is a big gap in their lives without him. The members of their family who take smaller roles in the story also feel this gap: their mother, for instance, will never remarry.
For the record, I am not from a dysfunctional or broken family, and neither is Brittany, although we both have friends who live in those circumstances. But I've read a lot about how noble and royal families tend to break apart under political pressure. I elaborate on the Tudors in this post:
Royal Pains, Family Pains
Another example from Shakespeare, of course, is how this happens in the house of York in Richard III. Richard kills his own brother and his two nephews so he can take the throne for himself. Such a thing can seem acceptable in the power politics of a royal court, but when you look at the Yorkists as a family, how can you justify that? Shakespeare's audience were largely ordinary people living ordinary lives, and they were no doubt appalled by the cruelty shown by members of royal families TO EACH OTHER. In Northern Warriors, for instance, the Opposition is betrayed--and Dmitri is almost captured and killed by the goblins--by a member of the royal family, Nikolas Morhanat, who was once married to Dmitri's deceased older sister. Although Nikolas, Dmitri, and Dmitri's sisters were not close, there was still an expectation that Nikolas would have fulfilled his familial obligations to them. In fact, Nikolas betrays them because he believes they have obligations to him that they have not fulfilled.
And even if they aren't killing each other, royal families are often the victims of other people's desires for power. Another famous royal family, that of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, were prisoners in their own palace and later in Siberia after his abdication and then executed--nay, butchered--by the Bolshiveks. And of course, in Northern Warriors, the children's father, Grand Prince Orlando, is executed on the orders of members of his own government that have overthrown him and allowed foreigners to invade Revunia.
Such is the plight of royal families. But what about ordinary families that fall victim to divorce, abuse, and other misfortunes? Haven't they earned our sympathy, too?
So that's my analysis of my mostly-written novel. Royal families are just like ours and are prey to the same dissolution, but with the added woes of extreme political estrangement and death.
