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So…you DO know that I, as an ignorant American, have NO clue as to what a King does…or is called.
I’ve seen a bunch of you commenting on why I will use “My Lord” or “Sire” or “Your Highness” . Trying to figure out what the hierarchy is for Dreamland.
I have no clue.
I know a lot of you are from countries that have monarchies. So I’m open to hear how this is used in real life.
I’m just saying…I’m open to learning.
🙂
“Your Majesty” could also be used, if the individual is feeling extremely reverent.
heh … and now, go kiss, Alex. ^^ No, not Nastajia, but dastan. *ggg*
Besides, it’s “your majesty” iirc. I dunno for sure as Austria is no monarchy anymore.
I would say that if they have a King and Queen of the Elves, a King of Dwarves, etc. and then there’s a King of Dreamland that’s over them all, “My Lord” seems better, sounds fitting too and better than “Your Majesty”, which is the proper title (Her Majesty the Queen of England)
I absolutely adore this comic, a friend of mine checks every Friday… I have to check every day… it’s almost an addiction! <3 Well done! <3
It’s a good thing Nastajia understands Alex-speak. O:
Dastan: “Go and boil your bottom you son of a silly person”
Alex: “Huh?”
Dastan: “I blow my bubbles at you, so called Alex King, you and your silly Dreamland Kknnnnniggggggets”
Alex: “What a strange person”
As for proper addressing: I know the British way is, Your Majesty then sire/ma’am for king and queen. Princess and Prince is “Your Highness then sir/ma’am”
Since I’ve never met my Queen, and met her son, the crown-prince, only once in a private setting, I simply do not know.
And I do not care.
To me (and most of the folks living here), the royal family are just a bunch of people with “normal” jobs, their publicly most important job, is representing the Netherlands.
As such, they are in the focus of the yellow press, but their privacy is respected. And outside of official things, I would not address them as “Hoogheid”.
But I am okay with the Dreamland being rather informal. It is a dream, after all.
You may do it differently for each folk, reflecting how formal the people are.
For example: the merpeople might be rather informal, but reserved (for now), thus using “My Lord?” instead of “huh?”. Later on, the merpeople might just say “you”…
The dwarfes on the other hand might stay very reserved, and will always use “Sire”, “Your Highness”,….
I think “My liege” would be good to throw in there every once in a while. But I am a dumb American as well.
Your Majesty still works. And technically the proper term for a King who rules over other kings and queens, would actually be “High King” a reference that actually has historical connections to Ireland where in there is an actual list of High Kings of all of Ireland, the most recent of which was Edward the Bruce. Apparently the term also has connections with other area’s of the British Isles as well specifically in reference to the Celts.
Edit, that is of course assuming a feudal system of some sort. Barring a feudal system, Emperor may be appropriate, but I don’t think Emperor fits Dreamland.
A big list of proper forms of spoken and written address and introduction (they’re different? who knew?)
http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/OTHERREFERENCE/FORMSOFADDRESS/SpkWritFrmsAddr.html
Of course as a fantasy dream realm, that pretty much gives you free reign to make up your own traditions 🙂
There are all sorts of titles and rules and restrictions, but formalities aside they only serve to show your subservience. Grovel enough and the king will let you kiss his ring before you are beheaded for touching him.
Trust me, you’re better off without a monarchy…
“No we are not. We are of different orientation!”
Alex might need to read up on ye ol royal speak…. wait… alex and reading in the same sentence… Sure it’s possible, probable is a story for another time perhaps. 😀
And I’m not knocking you, Tharian, but we have to keep in mind that technically, technically, they were not called “High King.” “High King” is simply an English approximation of the same message.
Wikipedia claims that the term is “Rà na hÉireann.” If this is correct or not is a bit beside the point I’m trying to make; the point is, no Gaelic citizen of the region ever uttered the words “High King.”
And this line of thought extends to every single title from another language that we don’t quote exactly (I suppose quote phonetically, but I’ll leave this to linguists to argue over). Anything else is simply an approximation of the intended message in the original language.
Again, I’m (honestly) not knocking you. While I don’t speak the language, hÉireann seems to denote the specific region they ruled over and “RÔ denotes the ruling position itself, so “High King” is no more appropriate as a title than “King of All the Lands” or “Ruler of Ireland,” or what have you.
Which means…
Unless you want to quote it in the original language, the title can only be taken as far as a message. “King of Dreamland,” or simply “King” then works, if that’s what the established title in the land is.
As to addressing the individual (and I’m a “dumb American” as well, but watered down by being lil’ bit of a history nerd) everything you listed there would be fine to me. None of them are jarring from reading the story, none of them seem out of place. Arvamas’s suggestion bellow of “My Liege” also seems fine to me.
In fact, if you want to take this down a route such as Tharian suggested and use translations from other languages even, I think that’d be fine–even to the point of using “High King” as the term, or I suppose even the un-translated Gaelic title itself–but just keep in mind that that’s you being an author and designing your world, and it’s not being so-called correct since such terms are just approximations of the original meaning.
… Although I do like simply “King” myself. <.<
This link may help:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/ThecurrentRoyalFamily/GreetingamemberofTheRoyalFamily/Overview.aspx
I would think they might address Alex as ‘your majesty’ and the species and lesser kings as ‘highness’ or ‘my lord’ though some flexibility would be good. ‘My Liege’ should be reserved to refer to ones immediate superior; the king of merpeople, or Nastajia queen of the elves might refer to Alex as ‘my liege’, and lesser elvish nobility might refer to Nastajia as ‘my liege’ and Alex as ‘your majesty’. Alex when speaking formally to lower nobility~say Nastajia~might say ‘your highness’ or just refer to her as Queen Nastajia. Informally he may address them however he wishes, while lower nobility should be certain of his approval before adopting an informal mode of address.
Just personal opinion here, but if you are interested that is what I think.
It’s “Majesty”. “Your Majesty” when you’re talking /to/ the King, “His Majesty” when you’re talking /about/ the king. “Highness” is for princes and princesses, and there’s a bunch of other titles for other posts.
If you wanted to go really old school you could use “my liege” (considering the last human king known was Arthur I think this would be appropriate).Or for fun you could just make up a Dreamland way of saying it.
My Dreamiest? My Great Snorer? His Most Gracious Napper? =D
The Dreamland form of addressing monarchs should be “Yo Bro!” for Kings and “Hey Sis!” for Queens.
But more seriously, “my lord” is for nobility lower than Princes/Kings/Emperors. “Sire”, “my liege” and “your highness” should do. But of course, when your king asks you “we cool?”, you can safely go with the “yo bro” route.
not to be a nit picker or anything, but…where’s Nastajia’s left arm? it looks like it was supposed to be behind alex, like how she has her right arm extended behind Dastan.
I guess you could say that the mermaid tail…
*Puts on sunglasses*
Cost an arm and her legs.
YEEEEEAAAAAH!
Since we’ve introduced King Arthur in this story and it follows the theme of Arthur, Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake, then we should be using the language from that period.
In conversation mode (acknowledging, etc), it would be ‘My Lord’, in addressing it would be a form of ‘Your Majesty’, in a formal setting announcing His presence would be His full name and title/rank.
You did great with ‘My Lord’.
I think “My Lord” sounds just fine. Technically he hasn’t been crowned or anything yet right? Nastajia said it herself earlier in this chapter that there had been no coronation. His status is still kinda in a gray area, and “My Lord” is respectful to him (seeing how he could become King very soon, and did overthrown the ‘dictator’ for lack of a better term)
But I’m a silly US citizen also, LOL.
I would imagine she’s going more by her knowledge of him than understanding of what he’s saying. Alex really has problems grasping that using waking world vernacular in Dreamland doesn’t always work…
LOL!
“The Mighty R.E.M.”
Ha!
2 for 2 today!
Thank you all!
I totally forgot about “Your Majesty”.
The links are great. I’ll continue to try and incorporate more proper naming.
Welcome!
And thanks for reading (sorry for the addiction).
AHAHAHAHA! XD
I think Alex would be “majesty” and Staj would be “highness” and below Staj would be “lord” or “lady”.
Saying majesty over and over again would be boring, so “my king” and “sire” would be fine too. That’s just my uneducated opinion and i break my own rules when i’m writing.
Also, don’t the different races have their own laguages as well? you could skip the whole question entirely and make up your own titles per race.
The links should be enough, but usually form of address does indicate ranking in the English monarchy, so be careful. “Your Highness” is used for princes and princesses, “Your Majesty” for kings and queens, (although sometimes you see the abbreviation HRH, which means His/Her Royal Highness, which I *think* can also be used for kings & queens), “Your Grace” for dukes, and “Your Excellency” for Barons, Baronnesses, and Counts and Countesses. “Sir” and “Lady” are used for knights and dames, respectively.
Also: for some reason in the 3rd panel i really want Alex to go : U Mad?
The beauty of it is, since Dreamland is a large area with many different cultures and peoples, that as long as the honorific is consistent within a subgroup, you’re probably in the clear. The Merfolk may choose to say “My Lord”, another group may choose to say “Your Majesty”, still another, “My Liege”. I don’t think you need a specific for the whole of Dreamland. These people have been under the oppressive rule of a dictator for so long, they may be figuring the honorifics out for themselves at this point.
Nastajia really does need to take some time to teach poor Alex some ettiquite, though. I’m trying to imagine even Prince William saying “We Cool?”
LIKE!
Because you asked what a King does AND is called, Scott:
It depends on the time period and culture. In England today, the monarchy is not critical to government.
Because you’re proposed this as a more medieval setting where a monarchy would be a critical part of government, there are several things. A lot of it depends on how the government itself is structured. Because you reference King Arthur and seem to rolling with the European thing, fiefdom would be your most common government structure. There are different types of monarchies depending on the government structure, but I’m going to say this is probably traditional.
Generally, the King was the CEO and person who steered the ship. Their duties and expectations vary depending on the ruler itself, and the government. Lazy kings didn’t do much, and bad ones steered the ship into bad times. Generally, something that could be applied to Dreamland, the King ruled over a noble class, who were responsible for managing the peasants. The nobles would oversee the micromanaging of raising taxes, organizing labor, and infrastructure (as it were then). The King would manage the nobles, collect taxes, make financial decisions, dispense justice, and do lawmaking as they saw fit. Basically they did whatever they wanted. In Dreamland this could be applied to the King overseeing the respective rulers of each community.
In most monarchies and noble class ruling systems, there was a very tangible and often complex system of class. Peasants were dirt who were disposable labor and meat walls for war. Nobles were all about status, prestige, and who had connections with who.
In an older England, the King would basically sleep around a lot and kill people who didn’t like them and were stupid enough to say so. Also inbreeding. The intrigue and politics during medieval times would make Congress look like a bunch of n00bs. Maybe it’s because in those times, a single slip up meant death. Because the King could point at you because you looked at him wrong and you were dead. Probably why everyone treated kings with reverence. To their face.
In summary, Kings did what they wanted. Generally, their responsibilities were similar to government today (which is the reason why people have government): raising taxes, foreign policy, raising and maintaining an army, infrastructure, and not listening to the common folk and making everyone upset- oh wait. Whether they met those responsibilities or not is another question.
For the raging feminists who read these comments: Replace King with Queen before you guys even get started. Obviously, women messed it up and rocked it out in England.
I’m sorry if I went over painfully obvious stuff in that post, but you said you had no idea what they did which means I also don’t know how much you know about medieval forms of government, ruling systems, and monarchies in general. I would suggest if you do want to look at examples of great and horrible kings, and what they did and didn’t do, is swing by the library. There are dozens of books that can detail history, and many more that are overviews of fiefdoms and Kings and what they did and how they worked.
I say library because stone me now, but I don’t trust wikipedia. If you do trust wikipedia, and there is nothing wrong with that, I would simply Google this stuff (and hope that the collaborative sources didn’t eff something up or someone didn’t change facts for a giggle).
Can I put in a vote in favor of “His Most Gracious Napper”??? That would be the most awesome honorific EVER! 🙂
I LOVE that meme! 🙂
You know what I would love to see? Dastan eventually becoming a friend of Alex. You know, those friends that you get along great with. And if you don’t see them for a long time, you still pick up right where you left off. At least, I have a friend like that; she’s ornery and fun, and I love her to death. I get the feeling Dastan has the potential to be that for Alex.
I don’t know. Or maybe I’m just crazy.
Of course, I understand that, as one of the merfolk, he wouldn’t be as close to Alex as Kiwi and Paddington simply because he would have to stay in the sea. But that’s why I thought maybe he could be the kind of friend you don’t see very often, but you still manage to keep a friendship.
I’m sorry, I’m not sense, am I?
Indeed. “Now, shall we kiss?”
Lol I have 19 comics I read online weekly, but thid is one of the ones I seem to need more than want.
I think that as long as continuity of either individuals or the different races is kept (how they address the king) then that is what is important.
i.e. The rock giants may refer to him as Lord, dwarfs as Liege, Astorians as Your Majesty, centaurs as Sire…. or whatever. But consistency is the key.
Still think Alex is handling this well. He’s respectful and being himself at the same time.
I think you’ve been doing great, Scott.
Consider this, people have been learning to understand each other for millions of years. Who are we to say that original phrase does not in fact mean High King, just in a different language? I don’t know about you but I certainly did not study the celtic languages, a series of dialects that have fallen out of use beyond the area that they were considered the normal way of communicating since the 1200s, if my extremely rough estimate is even close. This said, the term High King may have been spoken by the celts, just in a different format than what us english speakers can understand with out studying the language.
His exceedingly gracious zzzzzzz…
Your Majesty (“Uwe Majesteit” in dutch) is in the Netherlands the most common formal form of adressing the reigning monarch (Queeen Beatrix) Your Highness (“Uwe Hoogheid” in dutch) is reserved for the rest of the royal family. I’m unsure how the partner of a monarch is adressed but that’s irrellevant for now.
I too don’t know much about how to address royalty and nobility other than what I’ve read in various books–but I do recall that before the High Middle Ages, the most common title to address the King of England (face to face) was “Your Grace”–only in the 12th century did they adopt “Your Majesty.”
And, of course, formal titles always depended on tradition. The British titles for Elizabeth II: “by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith” are established by law of Parliament (I presume), but “Defender of the Faith” was (ironically) granted by Pope Leo X not long before Henry VIII broke with the Pope–but kept the title. Other titles (“Duke of the Normans”, “Duke of Aquitaine”, “of the Church of England in Earth, under Jesus Christ, Supreme Head”, “King of France,” “Lord [later King] of Ireland”, “Empress of India”) came and went over the centuries.
Really, as long as you’re consistent, it doesn’t matter whcih one you use in a fantasy setting.
Where’ve I heard “Ard Rhi’ from? I’m fairly sure its what ‘High King’ translates from. I’ve played a bit with the SCA~ awesome group of historical buffs, and I read extensively. But yes, if you wish to have a tiered Monarchy, you can either go the Emperor, Kings route, or High King and regular kings route. “My Lord’ tends to be a generic for any titled person, I think.
Good ol’ Alex: he’s acting like a king but speaking like a young American. I so love that boy.
Anyone else love how Staj has to be the translator? XD
Panel 4 is comedy gold there. Poor befuddled Dastan… 🙂
Of course, if Arthur were a Roman noble of the late Imperial period, he might have a totally different office, such as Dux Bellorum, Along with this rank would go one of three titles: illustris (illustrious); speciabilis (worshipful); clarissimus (right honourable). (The first of these titles is the highest.)
In our terms, this is similar to the difference between “King” (office) and “Your Majesty (title or term of address).
Being from Denmark, I can tell a bit of what I know about royalty. The most common way to address the Queen today is as “Your Royal Highness” (His/Her Royal Highness). Also “Your Majesty” is widely used, for both genders. Our Queen’s prince is “Your Highness”. This also goes for their children, as heirs to the throne. Other members of family is “Highness”. What would correspond to the British Lords, Dukes and Counts, are “Your Excellency”. These titles are in text often shortened to “HRH”, “HH” or “HE”.
lol XD love dastan’s expression in this.
I love the look on Nastajia’s face as she translates in the 5th panel.
+1
I seem to remember something about a King and Queen together being addressed as Your Majesties. So I guess both the King and Queen will both be referred to as Your Majesty.
I guess a problem with this comes from a system like the Netherlands’ where the partner of a Queen does not get the rank of King. Or, more to the point, I don’t think you could correctly address Alex and Nastajia together as Your Majesties. While both of them might be addressed as Your Majestie (Nastajia by her subjects, the elves) they are of different rank still.
I remember a “Michael Ard Rhi” character in a book I read years ago, but I don’t remember much about it other than it was based (somewhat loosely) on Irish history and folklore, and Michael Ard Rhi was not the main character. He was the High King, but I’ve no idea whether that’s anything like a literal translation of the phrase.
Help any?
😉
Your thinking of the Landover series by Terry Brooks, and yes Michael Ard Rhi was the High King of Landover but I won’t say anymore about the story because I recommend people to read it as Terry Brooks is a great author in my opinion. 😀
Oh hey, a fellow Dutchie ^_^
I dont think hes straight, now pucker up buttercup