Narnia headcanon: Royal romantic dalliances, political marriages, interspecies marriages, and incest

[snacky]

Let's talk about Narnia and all the politics that goes into marriage for the kings and queens! Do the royals of Narnia ever marry for love? Do they marry for alliances and power gains, to secure succession, and have lovers on the side? What about interspecies marriage? We know the first royal family in Narnia did that, but did that practice continue? And what about incest - did the royals ever turn to that to secure the throne, or as a power grab?

I love headcanon and worldbuilding, so please, share yours! Let's discuss in comments how you think it all worked!

ETA: Commentfic or snippets welcomed like woah. :D

Comments

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

THIS IS A PLACEHOLDER i will have feelings about this late probably tomorrow night when classes are over for the week

[metonomia.livejournal.com]

As some of you might have seen on twitter yesterday, I have been having Issues with ffnet and its NO INCEST thing.

Skirting any conversation of present-day issues, I think that incest is a completely plausible, logical, and emotionally tenable course for some if not all the Pevensies.

Point A: historical precedent, upon which subject I will defer to Bed for details of legality and practice, but which we can all easily agree was a thing, particularly among ruling families - and right up through early modern/modern times.

Point B: the state of Narnia, which is largely human-less just after the Winter, and in which there is major focus on the need for a human to be on the throne, coming both from Aslan and from Narnians themselves, as something they held onto throughout the Winter and (although I can certainly see there being parties who would see it as a problem, a curse, an injustice especially in the wake of Jadis) are canonically very much presented as believing in and upholding. Yeah, obviously by HHB there are many more humans in the Narnian court and there are other human royal families with marriagable prospects, but. This leads me to the next point.

Point C: emotional connection. As siblings thrust from one stressful situation in which they are largely alone to another similar, with the added insularity of suddenly being the four monarchs, the only humans for a time, etc etc - there is no doubt that they are going to cling to one another emotionally. And, away from English social mores (and we KNOW they forget England), I think it's super likely that in some cases that emotional attachment and affection would translate to sexual relationships as well.

Plus, I'm just sick of fic writers wanting to write the Pevensies as wholly insular, emotionally co-dependent, often paralyzed by their love for each other and needing to show it physically - but omfg no it can't be incest. Because newsflash: IT IS. YOU ARE ALL WRITING INCEST AND SAYING YOU'RE NOT DOESN'T MAKE IT NOT. I really just wish there would be more exploration of this side of the Pevensies' potential relationships without the assumed shaming and ridiculous rationalizations. You clearly want to write about Peter and Edmund cuddling each other to physically express their deep love for each other! Do it!

/soapbox

[cofax7]

If I get all realpolitick about this, I think that the Pevensies would have probably gone one of a couple of ways:

1. Multiple marriage alliances with kingdoms/nations sufficiently powerful to balance each other out. Which means not Calormen, in all likelihood: they're too big and powerful for any other alliances to match up with them. Marrying into the Calormen royal house would have been a disaster, and not solely on a personal or theological level. And eventually Archenland would have been crushed between the two powers.

But I could see them parceling out the opportunities: Peter marries a duke's daughter from Terebinthia, Susan marries the Earl of the Lone Islands, Lucy marries Corin (in all likelihood, and I think they'd get along like a house on fire once they got over the age difference), and so forth. Perhaps one of the alliances would be internal to Narnia--say, Edmund marrying a River-God's daughter or a Dryad, to show the royal family's commitment to Narnia.

The up side is obvious: multiple alliances, lots of trade, military support, opportunities for technology transfer, etc. The down side is the inevitable conflict about succession--even if the question is hammered out well in advance (a la Rthstewart's stories), it only takes one disgruntled set of in-laws, or an ambitious parent, for the whole thing to fall apart. They would have to be very careful about those alliances, and their individual choices.

2. No marriage alliances, just marriages, preferably to people without political power. The upside to this is you're more likely to get love matches and thus happy families. Also less chance of having a succession battle later fostered by inlaws. The down side is you're losing the political payoff, which is potentially substantial. And you still run the risk of a succession crisis at some point, if Edmund's kid thinks she is more competent than Peter's kid, etc etc. Spouses could be Human or not, depending on levels of squeamishness.

I think that this is the most canonical answer, frankly, including the possibility of non-Human partners.

3. No marriages, just sexual alliances. Consorts, in a word. No legal recognition of the relationship, but any children are acknowledged as heirs. This avoids some of the political dangers of the earlier options, but depends on a flexibility about sexual behavior that isn't necessarily shown to us in canon. No matter the level of sexual behavior common in middle-class English people of the 1930s, the truth is that it was still considered somewhat scandalous to bear children out of wedlock.

In addition, the lack of a religiously-sanctioned bond might give some to wonder if children of either Peter or Edmund were in fact their children. One might argue that only the girls' offspring could be depended upon to be eligible for the throne.

That is, if Narnian law even allows for such children to inherit.

This one, frankly, is a big mess, and fairly unlikely, but I wanted to mention it. It does avoid some of the political problems of the other options, but could raise new ones. I could see some future king of Archenland asserting that no bastard could inherit the throne and therefore it reverted to Prince Col's line...

Part 2!

[cofax7]

4. The incest option--well, it's physically out there. But the Pevensies have been raised as children together, in a very traditional social environment. The incest taboo would be very strong.

And politically, it strikes me as a weak maneuver. You marry siblings when you're so powerful that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks of your decision, or when the political cost of doing so is still lower than the potential benefit of consolidating the inheritance in one line.

I could see sibling-marriage working in a context where Narnia is really powerful, or with a populace whose opinion doesn't matter. And where the risks of marrying out are too great, and (for whatever reason) they can't marry down.

Downsides: without a tradition of sibling marriage, incest runs the risk of alienating not only the Narnians, but also any potential allies. Upsides: consolidates the lines of inheritance, but only for one generation, I suspect. (I can't see it carrying on for very long, given the genetic risks.) And like I said, I just don't think the Pevensies could overcome their upbringing sufficiently to do it--at least, not openly, which is what would be necessary to secure the inheritance.

... well, that was epic.

epic indeed

[pencildragon11.livejournal.com]

oh. my. this.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Oh, terrific! I love exploring worldbuilding, too. :) So...

Yes, surely interspecies marriage, as set by the first Narnian-born generation ("The boys married nymphs and the girls married woodgods and river-gods.") Which means that whoever was monarch after Frank and Helen was of mixed heritage, and so were all generations after them, though the Human component may have been boosted by incomers like the Telmarine pirates, and the Calormenes (whom I take to be Human). Which means in turn (doesn't it?) that the idea that Narnia must be ruled by a Human is loosely interpreted to equate to "having some Human heritage somewhere along the line". I think the interspecies relationships would only be limited by what is reasonably possible, physically, i.e. Humans and more-or-less humanoid, at least some of the time).

For sure marriages for love (and lust, in a very joyous springtime way) in the first centuries of Narnian history. Personal headcanon is that Narnia was bounding with vitality including sexuality in its early centuries, but that this ebbed later. (Reasons yet to be worked through!)

I think that there would have been variation in how relationships were contracted. During the Pevensies' lifetime, the old Scottish anvil marriage was still legal in Scotland and recognised in England -- no need for a church wedding! Peter and Susan, at least, would have been of an age to have read about such marriages in novels and history. They would also have known about the marriage and consequent abdication of Edward VIII -- so would have been very aware of the domestic political implications of marriage as well as international ramifications, I'd guess.

I don't myself think that the male primogeniture system would have been held to -- Frank was from a farming background, and in farming families, it's not the eldest male child who gets the farm, but the one who looks like holding it together best. (In English-speaking countries -- in France it is rigidly divided between all children.) And if they knew their Bible, they might have noted that it wasn't Saul's eldest son who became king after him, and not David's eldest son who became king next (and so on...). It's what's (who's) best for the country that counts.

(Personal head-canon -- there were plenty of Humans and near-Humans in Narnia before the Winter; hence no great problem finding consorts who would reinforce the Human element in the royal line. The Witch made a policy of driving them out,and (finally) exterminating them, precisely because of the Human link to monarchy. I'm guessing that lots of these came back fairly quickly, hence the Humans in HHB.)

[snitchnipped.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, so much to cover here.

In short, I'm choosing to go the route of not explaining things in my universe/head cannon. Tradition/rule will say they have to marry those of certain lineages for alliance and succession, but I'm not interested in arguing for or against these set ways within the story.

In my Big Bang from last year, I have it where it is expected of Susan (and others, but she's the first mainly out of convenience) to marry for political reasons. In my world, it's just an understood fact and challenging or even defining it is not the conflict I'm interested in writing about. I know I may be called out on that, but that's OK with me. I don't know, it's just not a topic I'm interested in exploring during the Golden Age.

Now, I may touch upon *why* it's that way within Narnia (the country) in a future story. Not dig too deep into it, but I was pretty close to writing a Frank and Helen Christmas story last month that would have explored the origins of their traditions of matrimony/lineage/succession, etc.

It's still all swirling up in my head, though...so maybe I'll have an answer next year at this time? We'll see!