Kingship (final exam) [reformatted]

This is the body of the final exam that I turned in  for the grad-level Lewis and Tolkien course I took at Mythgard this past semester.  (For this post, I have omitted the endnotes and Works Cited.)  We had just over a week to start the exam; once we started, we could choose one of two randomly selected topics and had to submit a 1,000 to 1,500 word paper within 24 hours.  I met the word limit only by moving cool stuff into the endnotes.  This particular paper took me 14 hours to write, with few breaks. But it will likely take you no more than 14 minutes to read. Enjoy!

Kingship

Both Tolkien and Lewis portray kingship as a proper form of governance in their fiction, but their focus is rather different.  Lewis emphasizes the obligations and burdens of kingship, and suggests that as long as those constraints are observed, traditional monarchy is an ideal form of government.  Tolkien, by contrast, places little editorial emphasis on the need for kingly obedience, and does not seem to single out monarchy as a preferred form of government.  

In both Narnia and Middle Earth, the propriety of kingship is shown, in part, by use of the term “king” to describe the relationship between creator and creation.  In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (“LWW”), Mr. Beaver repeatedly describes Aslan (the creator of Narnia) as the King (LWW 78-80), and stresses that Aslan “isn’t safe. But he’s good.  He’s the King, I tell you” (LWW 80).   Similarly, in Tolkien’s mythology, Arda is referred to as a kingdom, and Manwë (one of the principal co-creators of Arda) is identified as Arda’s rightful king (Silmarillion, ch. 7).  

Lewis goes farther than that, however; in the works we have studied this semester, he depicts no system of government other than monarchy.¹  Glome is a kingdom (Till We Have Faces, part I ch. 1), as are Narnia and Archenland (Magician’s Nephew, ch. 15), and the first inhabitants of Perelandra are a King and Queen (Perelandra 65-66).  Moreover, in Narnia, kingship is presented as the highest and best form of government.  This is most explicit in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, where Lewis expresses a clear preference for traditional kingship (as opposed to a republican form of government or the constitutional monarchy of modern Britain).  The narrator expresses a hope that King Arthur will “c[o]me back to Britain, ... the sooner the better” (Voyage, ch. 1).  When Caspian sees that the Lone Islands have descended into corruption and the immorality of the slave trade, he says “I think we have had enough of governors” and appoints Lord Bern as Duke of the Lone Islands (ch. 4).  In fact, only the  unredeemed Eustace objects to kings; he writes that “E[dmund] is buttering up C[aspian] as everyone does here.  They call him a King.  I said I was a Republican....” (ch. 2).²  Readers are clearly invited to take the opposite view.  

In The Hobbit, by contrast, Tolkien presents a variety of governmental systems, and monarchies are not singled out as more beneficial than the others.³  For example, the humans of Lake-town are ruled by a Master who is “elected ... from among the old and wise” and appears to have the assistance of a council (Hobbit, ch. 10, 14).  In Smaug’s era, the Master is greedy and self-seeking, but he is soon replaced by a far “wiser” man under whose leadership the town grows increasingly prosperous (ch. 19).⁴  By contrast, the Elvenking is somewhat capricious and easily angered.  He tells the dwarves, far too late, that “[i]t is a crime to wander in my realm without leave” (ch. 9), and unfairly blames them for “pursu[ing] and troubl[ing]” his people in the forest without heeding the dwarves’ defense (ch. 9).  The Elvenking finally throws them in prison indefinitely without due process of law (ch. 9).  And yet although he is in some ways unfair and capricious, the Elvenking is not cruel; he has the dwarves unbound, “for they were ragged and weary,” and orders that they be given food and drink (ch. 9).  Similarly, the Elvenking “ha[s] pity” on the Lake-men (ch. 14) when Bard requests help, even “though they had no claim but friendship on him” (ch. 15).  Thus, neither system of government -- king or elected leader -- appears to have a claim of inherent moral superiority in Middle Earth.   

In both Middle Earth and Narnia, the authors distinguish between rightful kings and would-be usurpers, and the distinctions shed further light on the nature of kingship.  We see the hallmarks of a usurper quite clearly in LWW when Edmund imagines that the Witch will make him King of Narnia.  Edmund rapidly moves away from thinking of the useful public works he could undertake, such as “mak[ing] some decent roads,” to fantasize about fulfilling his own wishes (Lion 91).  He focuses on pleasures, such as “what sort of palace he would have and how many cars and all about his private cinema,” and also imagines how he might be able to use his power vindictively against the Beavers and Peter (LWW 91).   In other words, unlike a true king (such as the King he eventually will become under Aslan), Edmund is self-centered and greedy.⁵  Likewise, we also see from the failings of good Narnian kings that kingship requires self-restraint, that is, subordination of the king’s personal wishes to the greater good of his subjects.  Thus, a king may not “please [him]self with adventures as if [he] were a private person” (Voyage, ch. 16).  The one time Caspian loses his temper and acts in a selfish and vindictive manner, he soon returns, chastened, to apologize after he has a vision of Aslan’s disapproval (Voyage, ch. 16).  In fact, the end of Narnia is set into motion through the rashness of a Narnian king.  Tirian is so enraged at the murder of a Dryad that he and Jewel set off by themselves to avenge her, in disregard of wiser counsel that even “three are too few to meet” any armed rebels who may be present (Last Battle 22).  It is true that a king must not put his personal safety as his primary or exclusive consideration, as it is his duty to be “first in the charge and the last in the retreat” (Magician’s Nephew, ch. 11).  However, a king also must not needlessly expose himself to danger in a misguided quixotic quest as if he were a private person.  Yet Tirian “will not wait the tenth part of a second” before setting out (Last Battle 22).  In his anger, Tirian cannot see “how foolish it [i]s for the two of them to go on alone” without waiting for the 50 supporters he has requested to be sent after him, and “much evil” comes of this rashness (Last Battle 25).  

In Middle Earth, Melkor is the great usurper.  He “covet[s]” Arda, and boldly stakes his claim to it: “This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself!” (Ainulindalë 68).  Manwë promptly musters up spirits to rout Melkor, and declares that “This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here no less than thou” (Ainulindalë 69).  Oddly, Manwë’s reasoning would seem, at first, to preclude Manwë from kingship of Arda just as readily as Melkor.  Surely the designation of any single Vala as “King” necessarily means the exclusion of others, and thus a lessening of the recognition of others’ labor.⁶  However, as Flieger has noted, “[d]esire to possess is the cardinal temptation in Tolkien’s cosmology, and possessiveness is the great transgression” (Flieger 109).  Thus, the key  is Melkor’s “covet[ing]” of Arda (Ainulindalë 68), that is, his desire to assert dominion over Arda to the exclusion of all others who played a role in its creation.⁷  A significant counter-example, outside of Middle Earth, is the King of Faerie in “Smith of Wootton Major.”  Although Alf’s motivations remain mysterious, he shows great generosity throughout his stay in the village.  He accepts the lowly position of Prentice to the Master Cook, allowing the incompetent, vain and lazy Nokes to take full credit for Alf’s skill (Smith 252, 275).  Plus, he chooses to share elven grace with two children of the village (Smith and Tim) by conferring the fay-star on them (271).⁸  Alf honors the village and Smith with his presence for several decades, without recognition or any apparent recompense, even though he claims he “ha[s] been repaid” (271).  

Although neither author is “ashamed of the ‘escape’ of archaism: of preferring ... not only elves, but knights and kings” (On Fairy-stories 379), their focus differs.  Lewis depicts kings who, when acting rightly, put the good of the kingdom ahead of their own desires.  A king who does so is a source of moral authority and is entitled to obedience from his subjects.  His subjects’ loyalty is not merely unthinking; they must resist when, Odysseus-like, their king heeds the siren call of ill-considered private adventures.  Tolkien depicts kings who, much like their own subjects and just as much as other types of leaders, are tempted by possessiveness.  If Tolkien’s kings differ from others in the struggle against possessiveness, it is only that the temptation -- and the potential fall -- is greater.  Tolkien ultimately comes across as less interested in kingship per se as a comparative system of government, and more in the struggle between good and evil in the heart of each created being.