Why was Shojo allowed to rule the city if they though he was insane?

[BisectedBrioche]

I mean the nobles would want him in power, but surely the SG or someone would want to make sure their ruler is sane?

[Haedrian]

Because if you have an army of Lawfully good paladins they won't try to kick you off the throne?

[BisectedBrioche]

They wouldn't try to kick the rightful ruler off the throne. Being insane would probably invalidate the legitimacy of someone's rule.

[Nazzo, the 102nd]

There is also heritage issues. Shojo's father was the ruler, then Shojo has the right to be the ruler.

And they don't have a prime minister. :smallbiggrin:

[Green Bean]

Shojo was the ruler because his father was the ruler, insanity or not. (however, I think it was an open secret that the nobles were really the ones calling the shots, so no one would be too worried about a royal decree involving the deification of marmalade or the like)

[fwiffo]

Surely, insanity is not a disqualification for being a ruler. In fact, it is more of a prerequisite.

[slayerx]

I mean the nobles would want him in power, but surely the SG or someone would want to make sure their ruler is sane?

It all comes down to the laws of Azure City...
The law dictates that the Shojo was the heir to the throne and thus the rightful ruler. Furthar more, being senile or insane in and of itself is not a crime. Being LAWFUL good, the paladins could not move agianst them no matter what. The only way the paladins could move agianst Shojo is if he commited a crime agaisnt the laws of the city, ofcourse what made matters harder is that he himself was making those same laws; so catching Shojo commiting a criminal act is quite slim...

One thing Hinjo may want to consider is making a new law stating that the ruler can be de-thorned if he is seen as "unfit to rule" (insane, stupid, evil, etc), forcing the next in line to take his place. That way, if he himself ever looses his sanity, he can be certain that the paladins will have the authority to remove him, even if he doesn't commit any crimes... afterall, he could still wind up being a hinderance to Azure city...

[Talya]

Fwiffo, you need the Spathi avatar back. It made me think you were a *happy camper* of a *silly cow* who wanted to join my *party.* Now you are just like the other *many bubbles* who are here *in the middle.* If you do not bring back the Spathi avatar, I may *frumble* and then we *dance* and you will be a *sad animal.*

[Khosan]

They wouldn't try to kick the rightful ruler off the throne. Being insane would probably invalidate the legitimacy of someone's rule.

I dunno. Some of the Roman emperors would appear to contradict that.

[fwiffo]

Fwiffo, you need the Spathi avatar back. It made me think you were a *happy camper* of a *silly cow* who wanted to join my *party.* Now you are just like the other *many bubbles* who are here *in the middle.* If you do not bring back the Spathi avatar, I may *frumble* and then we *dance* and you will be a *sad animal.*

New board software nerfed the avatars. When switchover occurred, it kept the old one in your profile, but as soon as you replaced it, it would not let you put it back in same way. Darn software!

*looks suspiciously at Talya* She looks like Syreen, but she talks like Orz. That can't be good. Maybe I better go and hide.

Oh, ok, ok... back on topic.


One thing Hinjo may want to consider is making a new law stating that the ruler can be de-thorned if he is seen as "unfit to rule" (insane, stupid, evil, etc), forcing the next in line to take his place.

You know, that system worked well for thousands of years. If it ain't broke, don't boop with it.

[Nevrmore]

I mean the nobles would want him in power, but surely the SG or someone would want to make sure their ruler is sane?
Because they knew a less-than-sane person would be very easy to manipulate.

[Mr Teufel]

The main trouble with declaring a ruler unfit due to insanity is who gets to judge the ruler's mental fitness. In most historical empires stating the ruler was insane would get you into a lot of trouble.

And how could you ensure the political neutrality of any person who might make this judgement?

[slayerx]

The main trouble with declaring a ruler unfit due to insanity is who gets to judge the ruler's mental fitness. In most historical empires stating the ruler was insane would get you into a lot of trouble.

And how could you ensure the political neutrality of any person who might make this judgement?
Simple, by summoning a being of Pure lawful good from the outer realms to act as judge

When the royalty is accused, a judge is summoned... the judge hears the case and rules... if the ruler is unfit, he is removed... if the ruler is fit to rule, then the complaigner is in deep trouble for making false accusations...

And the historical empires your thinking of weren't ones like azure city... the laws of Azure city do not throw poeple away for simply accusing the ruler of wrong doing

[Cifer]

It still remains that the paladins are not ruling the city. The nobles and the ruler do, this still being a feudal system. I'd guess the saphire guard has a don't-interfere-with-politics rule as the jedi council of the Old Republic had.

[SPoD]

Simple, by summoning a being of Pure lawful good from the outer realms to act as judge

For all we know, that actually happened.

Shojo: ...and from now on, Christmas will be known as Scruffysday!
Cleric: I summon a being of pure law and good!
BOPLAG: *poof!* Whassup?
Cleric: Is our Lord Shojo mentally fit to rule?
BOPLAG: Yes.
Cleric: Oh. Thanks.
BOPLAG: No prob. *poof!*
Cleric: Well, I guess we're stuck with him. Merry Scruffysday.

[Professor Tanhauser]

Also it wasn't like AC was suffering under shojo's reign, was it? No, as long as things were okey dokey then they let the harmless kook sit on the throne, after all he may have been nutty but his deciscions seeme dto work.

Plus, in ancient times the insane were thought to have a special link to the gods, because it was believed approaching the god's wisdom would make a moral man appear mad to other mortals.

[Selv]

England's gone all the way from monarchs who never learnt to speak the language, to one who spent their whole time living it up hawking and hunting in the south of France, to the outright talking-to-trees insane. I think the reason is mostly that no-one wants to be the one to tinker with a system that has generated 90% of our wars.

[TreesOfDeath]

He was given the title by blood right, and the nobles wanted a puppet

[Incendax]

Shojo holds the position by blood inheritence. As long as the paladins do not witness him disobeying the Lawful Good, they would not act against him no matter how many times they have to clean up Scruffy's feces.

Additionally, the Paladins kept shojo in power from those who would naysay his legitamacy on the grounds on insanity.
But that was okay because most of the nobles thought that Shojo was just a figurehead being manipulated by other nobles. Ergo, they did not attempt to stop Shojo and instead attempted to stop whatever noble they figured was doing the string pulling.

This left Shojo in a relatively safe position, albeit he had to often waste time to keep his cover up.

[Kaerou]

Welcome to medieval customs and rules.

Many monarchs and rulers over the ages have been insane. There was even one who thought he was made of glass.

None of them got kicked off because of it. Noble bloodlines and all that are more important to most in the medieval mindset than ability.

You have to stop thinking of things in a modern timeset to truly understand a medievalesque D&D setting.

[Roderick_BR]

Maybe he had ninja/lawyers? Or maybe the nobles thought it would be easier to manipulate him, without knowing that he was manipulating the nobles.

[Erloas]

I don't think Shojo was supposed to be as insane as he was supposed to be senile. He has probably been ruling AC for a long time now, and when he started he was probably acting perfectly normal. It was only after he saw the attempts at his life and how the political system works that he started "going senile." So hes been doing a good job at controlling the city and hes been doing it for a long while so there was no real drive to remove him.
He actually had less opposition as he became more senile because his opponents stopped seeing him as a threat and thought they could easily control him when the need came up.

On top of that, Shojo was smart and knew how things worked. Since it was all a ruse on his part he obviously knew it wasn't going to be the sort of thing that they would use to throw him out of power. If the trick wouldn't have worked he never would have done it in the first place.

It also doesn't look good to the populous if the remove him. That would show that the goverments way of ruling is broken and they would be much less likely to trust and follow the person that took his place. So since he wasn't causing any harm, and it really was only a handful of politicians and paladins (not the general populous) that had to deal with the senile old fool, it wasn't worth it politically to go through the trouble of removing him.

[Ralfarius]

I think all the main points have been covered already... A quick summary:
- He wasn't viewed as bag-of-gopher-swinging crazy. Just an old man who's mind was starting to slip. Safer to keep him on the throne and live with some eccentricity, rather than usurp his position and cause civil unrest.
- Paladins are honour-bound to allow their rightful leader retain his position, even if it's sometimes a hassle with his kitty-litter requests. He's not doing anything questionable (to their knowledge), so trying to dethrone the rightful ruler would be a rather unlawful act. Paladins aren't keen on committing unlawful acts, so I've heard.
- No noble in his/her right mind would want to sit on the throne and deal with daily ninja assassin death squads when (s)he could just manipulate a feeble-minded old man.
- Ignorant peasants are the same everywhere you go. The masses didn't get to see Shojo up close, let alone spend enough quality time with him to gain insight to his 'condition'. They probably figured he was the same old Shojo for the most part, rulin' it up in Azure City.

[slayerx]

For all we know, that actually happened.

Shojo: ...and from now on, Christmas will be known as Scruffysday!
Cleric: I summon a being of pure law and good!
BOPLAG: *poof!* Whassup?
Cleric: Is our Lord Shojo mentally fit to rule?
BOPLAG: Yes.
Cleric: Oh. Thanks.
BOPLAG: No prob. *poof!*
Cleric: Well, I guess we're stuck with him. Merry Scruffysday.

How do you figure that?
If the being of pure law and good does not know Shojo is only acting senile, then he can not answer yes to such a question without Shojo proving he is mentally fit to rule... in which he then exposes himself

however, if the being of law and good has divine knowledge that Shojo is indeed acting he could say yes, but when asked the reasoning behind such a decision (a judge does need to explain such things), he will expose Shojo as someone who is just lying... A beeing a lawful being, as opposed to choatic, he WOULD expose Shojo in said explaination

Either way, Shojo is either dethornd, or exposed for the lier that he is... thus the rule of a "senile" man comes to an end

[Maglor_Grubb]

It's simple, really:

Thomas Hobbes hasn't been born yet. Repeat this 10 times. There is no such thing as a social contract, as a people that are bound together and choose someone to rule them. No, it's the otherway around: there's someone ruling a lot of people and this causes them to be 1 people.

Another thing to note about medeavel kings: most of them are not the absolute rulers we have in our heads. Louis 14 is of a later era. Sure, there have been and most of them look like they have Absolute Power, but most of the time, power is balanced between factions, forming a systeem.

So either the ruler just owns the land and a country is a country simply because all the land happens to be owned by the same person, or power is balanced between a lot of factions, or you have an absolute monarch -> who will wage wars, since that's probably the only way of keeping the system going in your direction, as soon as things come to some sort of rest, you'll get a more balanced power.

Hmm, this is not a much about AC and Shojo, as it is about how people view mideavel-esque kingdoms in general, but my point is: what does being sane or insane have to with Shojo's right to rule? 'Ruler' is not some job you want the proper person for, nor is position. That's something your born into, because the gods created one to be a ruler, just like some are born as male and others as female.