Let the Great-great-grandparents lead – Chapter 7, Epilogue 08

So here’s the man…cat…mancat…person…the person who has summoned K’ip through the emergency paging system: the leader of the hidden Eni’lef village, the Elder.

Since this is a fantasy story, the fact that he’s the rightful leader can be readily concluded from the fact that he doesn’t look evil. Asking him for any sort of democratic legitimization for his status, or any question about a separation of powers, or a constitution guaranteeing fundamental rights, or anything like that would be considered highly inappropriate in the context of fantasy fiction. Skeletor’s claim to rulership over Eternia might be, technically, no less moot than unelected* King Randor’s, but the guy’s got a friggin’ skull for a head – Randor is ruggedly handsome, so he’s obviously the rightful ruler. Case closed, by the generally accepted fantasy standards.

And this guy here, even if he could stand to gain a pound or two, doesn’t quite have a skull for a head, and looks adequately benevolent. We can thus simply assume that his status as elder/leader is generally supported by the villagers, without any need for a ballot. Even if it’s only founded on his advanced age, and likely inherited family status, neither of which we’d generally accept as legitimate grounds to claim leadership in our day and age. But it would only unnecessarily complicate matters if we imposed our own standards on fantasy kingdoms. (That we increasingly seem to treat some real-life places by the same standards is a different matter, but let’s not get into that…)

The Elder goes on to immediately disperse any potential doubts about the legitimacy of his leadership status even further, by commenting on the drawbacks of the paging system – and saying exactly what I had already said. Being of my opinion is a clear sign of high intelligence and leadership potential, wouldn’t you agree?

Speaking of those drawbacks, a new one emerges today: K’ip takes a nap immediately after finishing…uh,…his acknowledgment of the call. That effect probably can’t really be avoided with cat-likes, but if experience is any guide, it the effects should wear off before too long.

More on Mon…uh, Thursday.

* I’m ignoring the 2002 reboot here, of course, where there was admittedly some progress in that regard.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.