#I'm usamerican and therefore loyalty to a monarchy is just not in my DNA....... so... take this for what it's worth LOLOL

[alifeasvivid]

I know the "nation-tans aren't their governments" conversation mostly comes up in relation to America (at least as far as I've seen but I've got an obvious bias here about what's on my dash)... but I wanna point out another character where I think we really fell down on this even more...

England.

I see way more depictions of England with the royals (not just modern day, but often) than I see him with "common" people... and the fact that fanon has decided that he's wholly pro-monarchy is a huge missed opportunity. If there is more content where he's not, please let me know, because I really want to see it.

I know most English people like the monarchy and would not want to abolish it or anything, but that's not really what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about England. Arthur Kirkland. A being who has lived over a thousand years and remembers each one of them, perhaps can still hear their voices in his head.

We depict England as a punk even more often than showing him with the kings and queens, yet ignore the fact that punk rock was just about as anti-monarchy as you can get and a lot of their music was explicitly political.

I'm NOT saying there aren't a lot of very compelling ideas around him being close to the monarchy, particularly Elizabeth I (the whole married to England thing) and Victoria (I think she channeled and fed into a lot of intense feelings he was having at the time) BUT the history of the English(British) monarchy is messy--just like the history of everything else--and not every monarch was a great leader and to think that England would just unquestioningly dote on and/or favor the royal family just shows an insufficient use of imagination in an otherwise very imaginative fandom, imo (and I've been this way too). His relationships to that seat of power and who holds it at any given time could be so much more complex.

I know it's cozy to think of him playing with little royal children or romantic to imagine him having an intense love for Elizabeth I... and I agree with that. But I think we could do more, if only just to see what comes out of it.

*Disclaimer again that this is based on what I have seen in fandom, which is not everything, and if more content like this exists, I would very much like to see it.