ThunderCats and Democracy

A new ThunderCats* series has started airing in the States. This reminded me of the fact that three of my favorite shows - ThunderCats, He-Man and She-Ra - all had magical sword-yielding princes as their heroes. As an adult, I'm not crazy about the idea of shows teaching kids that there are certain people who were born to lead, due to the fact that they were born to the right families.

I've read that the new ThunderCats show has changed a lot of the elements of the original. For instance, Lion-O is no longer a kid trapped in an adult's body. He's a teenager now. However, he is still the Lord of the ThunderCats, just because his father was king. The show is about him learning the leadership skills required of a man in his position.

If it were up to me, I'd change the storyline to something more democratic. I'd start the new show with Lion-O's father declaring the end of the Thunderan monarchy and a transition to a democratic republic. One aristocratic ThunderCat does not want to lose the privileges of power, and schemes to become king himself. However, he can't do it alone, so he calls the mutants, who do a bit of overkill. They destroy the planet, leaving the traitor without a kingdom.

Lion-O and his fellow ThunderCats flee to Third Earth, where he is not expected to become a leader, because of his father's wishes to end the monarchy. However, he still wants to learn leadership skills, because he'd like to earn the leadership position, rather than inherit it.

Wouldn't that be a better, more democratic and educational version?

* As you may have noticed, my logo includes the ThunderCats' Sword of Omens. No deep thought went into choosing the elements of the logo. If I remember my thought process, I wanted a pen and a sword, but since I knew that wasn't very original, I wanted the sword to be special. So, I thought of television shows I liked as a kid. I don't remember why I didn't use the sword from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, which inspired this blog's title. Perhaps it wasn't distinctive enough, so I chose another 80's favorite - ThunderCats.

Kings, Queens, Princes and Peers

The engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the "commoner", reminded me of how weird the United Kingdom is. On the one hand, it is the home of some of the greatest liberal thinkers in modern times. On the other, it has two of the most archaic institutions in the world - the monarchy and the peerage. As a citizen of two republics, I don't understand why Brits have no problem with their head of state being a hereditary position, rather than someone elected every few years by the people or by its representatives in parliament. I mean, Prince William will definitely be king, unless he dies before his father, even though he doesn't have too many accomplishments under his belt (I'm the same age as he is, and I dare to say I've accomplished more in my life than he has) - and he would've been king even with less.

Let's say the Brits are keeping the monarchy for old times' sake. Why the hell are they keeping the peerage? Most of Europe's remaining constitutional monarchies have done away with aristocracy a long time ago. Why are the people of the United Kingdom putting up with the fact that some men and women are born with the prefix "the honourable", rather than having to earn the honor? Even worse, how are they not bothered by the fact that they have one house of parliament, the House of Lords, that the general population has no say in its composition? Sure, it isn't as powerful as it used to be and can't veto legislation by the House of Commons, but they're still an unelected bunch of people with considerable legislative power.

Why the hell do I care? I'm not a citizen of the United Kingdom. Or should I say, "not Her Majesty's subject"?