President of the Rings – politics and fantasy

Just so you know: there’s politics in my fantasy world, because there’s politics everywhere.

To which you might well reply:
“We’re overrun with politics now; can’t we have a break please? I like my fantasy to make me feel better not worse!”

Sorry, fantasy is the real world now. However, politics doesn’t have to be all bad – honest

The politics in Widergard (Wider-earth, gedit?) is different, not just because it was the elves that introduced democracy when they returned from Overseas, but because Widergard is a modern(ish) world with many different races. You know, the usual suspects: men, elves, dwarfs, goblin, trolls etc, who all now have to get on together.

That’s what politics is all about after all, isn’t it? Getting on together – or at least it should be.

You think we have problems here? Just imagine trying to draft a Race Relations Act when there are six different races? Well, seven if you count the Pix, but nobody really does – which is strange as they are some of the oldest inhabitants of all these fantasy worlds.

They don’t get a lot of press the Pix – I think writers worry about them bringing down the tone.

OK, so where you have democracy, you have parties, and some of those parties can be extreme parties. Some of these extreme parties can get pretty fussy about who they let into their parties.

We all know these types of parties don’t we?

They were something we had thought blissfully relegated to our past, but they seem to be making a comeback. We don’t want to go to those parties do we?

The folk in some of these parties get worked up about things like the importance of blond hair and blue eyes and even pointy ears. Most of these parties enjoy their colour-coded uniforms, clever symbols and patronising attitudes to the ‘lower’ races.

And just because there is a tongue pressed firmly in cheek, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a serious side too. And I don’t see hwy fantasy shouldn’t to that too.

I mean, you can’t pretend that that you haven’t meet an elf that wasn’t just a little bit like that?

And as for some of the other types, I ask you?! After all, not all Dark Lords are fallen angels. Why not a President of the Rings?