food for thought: why don’t hetalia personifications rule?
they are portrayed as advisers and diplomats with limited political impact, but are the personifications not the perfect rulers themselves?
they embody all the people, all the culture, all the history of a nation. they are the most democratic rulers the masses could possibly hope for. why haven’t the nations risen up to the task of being kings and queens to replace the imperfect and petty mortal human rulers? why have they rejected their rightful position among the ancient city gods and surrendered control over history? what nation is driven by lust for conquest and desire for power yet has not seized the most obvious means for securing it–from the very heart of government?
they are the great hobbesian leviathan themselves. they are the perfect prince. i wonder what would happen if they seized the throne.
Sh IT i was
like three weeks ago thinking about this.
OK
0.) I went back and added this section after i wrote all the other ones buckle up we’re going Back in Time.
Once upon a time when a lot of the great ancient civilizations were theocratic city states with way less people to manage… maybe they did. China, Egypt, and Babylonia among others have a foundation mythology that presupposes that their earliest rulers were immortal, or otherwise not entirely human. And these same civilizations love a good story where somebody sits on the throne for too long and finally becomes corrupt and gets overthrown.
1.) It’s a Dangerous Gamble that is Overriden by Self Preservation
Nations want to survive. We see that they will go to incredible and morally ambiguous lengths to ensure they survive and are not victimized by their rivals. But! I think they also fear their people a lot of the time, especially since the will of the individual can interfere with the will of the majority or the commons. Whether or not they’d be venerated depends entirely on the cultural lens they are filtered through; once we move past the age of theocratic polytheistic societies, they’d probably be seen more as witches or other such freaks of nature. And it’s not as though they can smite revolutionaries with a wave of the hand; all they have on their side is youth, resilience, and regeneration. Ergo, they’re still vulnerable and death may not be the worst fate that faces them if they cross the wrong people. I think the prospect of a literal eternity of torture, imprisonment, or solitary confinement would be enough to dissuade anyone from taking such a huge risk in revealing themselves. Like that Twilight Zone episode!
2.) Everyone Would Hate Them and It Would be a Shitshow
Given that nations are representations of a group identity rather than a discrete unit of land, this is especially true for multi-ethnic countries. It’s basically asking to incite ethnic and sectarian violence on a social level, which leads right back to point 1. Nations are absolutely terrified of anarchy, and the possibility of causing it is enough of a fear to make ruling oneself a taboo.
3.) They Don’t Feel Like They Can
Nations are implicitly at the mercy of people and systems. They can never escape politics, economics, revolution or popular changes in sentiment because those things seep into their emotional and physical well-being no matter where they are. In an autocratic system, perhaps seizing power for themselves might seem like a great way to take matters into their own hands but… well, the problem is they’ve all seen how it goes. They know how volatile absolute power can be, how it can create rifts and revolutions. They know that even well-regarded leaders had factions and people who hated them and plotted against them. And furthermore, the closer we get to the modern day, the more the idea of an eternal leader is anathema to people who value the ability to choose their leaders. Since nations generally seem to care what their people it stands to reason that they’d hesitate to (and possibly physically couldn’t) disregard what they want.
4.) Maybe Ruling Just Fucking Sucks
Fielding endless complaints, thwarting insurrection, and being personally held responsible for the well-being of millions? God knows a lot of them are not up to the job, and maybe they know well enough to know that they don’t want it for the rest of eternity.
good content good content this is exactly what i wanted to talk about i just thought you fell asleep so i made a post about it
i think it’s really interesting because there would definitely be certain nations that would be more ambitious and crave the power of being direct rulers because of the ideal of glory and the physical power but at the same time the risk is high and may not be worth it since, like you said, they are immortal but not immune to physical pain and violence and do not ultimately control the masses, only represent them. i really want to explore certain nations battling with temptation to seize power though–especially empires crumbling from incompetent rulers when there is so little to lose and so much popular support to gain if suddenly there is a coup and a new, charming, powerful, and desperate new leader replaces the old. it’s a precarious balance of ego + belief in one’s own competence to rule as an immortal personification with vast inhuman knowledge and experience versus fear of coups and pain and being hated by their own people and doubts about whether or not this would be just–all of which seem to come from the more human and individual facet that every nation has.
i think ultimately, it’s down to nationhood/representative inhuman nature of personifications battling it out with the individual and human aspect they have, like their own personalities and experiences and relationships.
there’s so much potential for them to be good rulers because logically it would make sense given who they are but theory never works quite like expected in practice and fear + need for self-preservation ultimately trump everything else.
