What does a ruler do upon being publically disrespected?

I am struggling with a scene I'm writing. In it, the ruler of a city is receiving a foreign delegation, with an audience consisting of just about everyone who's anyone in the city. And the delegates disrespect him completely. They interrupt. They start talking among themselves and ignore him. They show smirking condescension. They behave, all in all, with a complete lack of diplomacy, or even mannners.

How should the ruler react? Obviously he can't let this stand. He can't give people the idea that insulting him is permissible - he'd look weak and embolden his enemies. But just having him bellow "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" also feels wrong. These are, after all, important people, with powerful allies.

What's the middle ground here? How should he try to force things back to how they are supposed to go? He's not supposed to be the deftest political operator, but he can't be entirely incompetent either, or he wouldn't have survived this far.

Grateful for any suggestions or insights.

 

Mmm. Possibly.

Yeah. It's complicated. The simple explanation is, "they're idiots." They're the leaders of a reclusive faction that's never had to negotiate with anyone before, and whose internal culture is, well, extremely toxic. The reason why they're here in the first place is because someone a great deal smarter than they are is using them as a pawn - and from her perspective, putting the ruler in a no-win situation is entirely a good thing, and if the delegates end up tortured to death, that's no skin off her nose either.

But as far as the uncouth delegates are concerned, well... they pretty much think that they are in one of those stories where the Gary Stue hero blithely mouths off to the people in power and the people in power just stand there sputtering helplessly while everyone else swoons over how manfully outspoken he is. They are supposed to be quite wrong about that, but that raises the question: what would, realistically, happen to one of those Gary Stue heroes?

True. I think he'd go to the "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" option fairly quickly, because like I said, he's not much for subtlety. But I feel like he should take at least a few stabs at salvaging the situation first.

 

Let's put it this way - in real life, when these things happened in front of powerful rulers like Genghis Khan or the Emperor of China, the envoys were sent home missing important parts of their anatomy. However, when the British Ambassador refused to kowtow before the Qing Emperor, the emperor pretty much had to sit there and bear it, because he knew that mistreating the ambassador meant unleashing the full might of the Royal Navy's guns against him. Of course, the ambassador still preserved a facade of courtesy. He was British, after all. If he'd been French, well...

It all depends on the relative power of the ruler to those he's receiving, and whether he's prepared to go to war, because if the other ruler is stronger than he is, they aren't going to tolerate their envoys being put to death.

 

Hmm. True. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it seems like he needs to make an example of them, or he'll look weak - and then his enemies will pounce. I may need to speed up the conversation a bit, have him reach the point of "guards, seize them!" earlier. Maybe even show that he should have gone there right away, but that he was paralysed by sheer disbelief for some critical moments. That could work.

Thanks.

 

Perhaps he doesn't put them to death. Just some public humiliation - having their heads shaved and paraded through the streets before being literally kicked out of the city. Or a flogging, or being put in stocks.

 

Well like all relationships, it's about compromise. He needs to feel respected and they feel like they have a powerful force behind them so they think they can disrespect him. There are no believable ways for both parties to come out unscathed. Or is there?

The point is for the emperor to outwardly exude an air of extreme power to his population and for the foreign delegate to feel that they have gotten a concession out of him. So I think mostly he needs to get them to a point of near death and still let them get away somehow, while letting them know it was his own mercy that let them get away.

So maybe he instantly places them in a dungeon and tortures them, but then immediately exposes the plan of the lady who had put them in this no win play (maybe tell them that the lady abandoned them even though he offered to release them for a price). After that, he let's them escape. This then places them as a potential thorn on that ladies backside and he takes no political losses.

But this sort of planning and foresight would make him VERY clever and devious. If he's as arrogant as you said he wouldn't hesitate to take the rash decision. The power of an authotarian depends on the fear of his populace. If he ever appears weak, he has enemies outside and within that would take him down. So for self preservation he'd take the gamble to take a fight.

 

It doesn't have to be too drastic. He might announce that he's sorry, but something extremely important has come up that he must attend to, and he's going to leave his second in command or someone even lower in charge here, and he just walks out with most of his close compadres in tow.

Or he severely lowers the level of respect he's showing them. Off the top of my head, maybe he has them ushered into a room where there aren't enough chairs for all of them and just waves an offhand apology, etc. While they're speaking to him he keeps looking down or away, whispering to the person next to him etc. After one of them has said something disrespectful he seems not to have heard at all and responds as if they've said something completely different. But I think the best response would be to leave and let them deal with low-level lackeys.

 

I don't know if that would work in most scenarios. The lackeys would have their own tolerance for disrespect, they would have the same level of arrogance as the foreigners. Specifically if they feel disrespected.

At some point blood would be drawn. It's just a question of how decisive the emperor has to be so that his loyal followers don't lose confidence in him. Or how smart he is that he's never placed in a situation like that.

 

A clever ruler would anticipate their behaviour and have a counter ready.

<envoys are disrespectful>
<messenger comes in, whispers in ruler's ear>
Ruler: "Gentlemen, it seems we have a problem. I have it on reliable authority that you were seen in the pleasure quarters last night. I believe you are both married to relatives of <envoys' own ruler>. Should word get back, I cannot imagine your august ruler will be very pleased."
Envoys: "But we weren't there, there is no proof!"
Ruler: "The lady is in possession of a certain item with your personal seal. How else would she have gotten it unless you gave it to her? Now, gentlemen, shall we proceed on a more equitable basis?"

 

I agree. Sounds like a cool twist.

 

IRL we have things like diplomatic immunity so you can't just execute an accredited diplomat from another country, no matter how big an idiot they are. About the worst you can do is kick them out of your country. But it sounds like this is a different sort of situation, between groups that don't have de jure equality the way two nation-states in our world do. So, as others have said, one big factor would be the power relationship between the two groups, ie who can get away with what.

"The forms must be obeyed", as Frank Herbert says so many times in Dune, so it depends a bit on what your forms are. If it would be customary for the emperor to summarily execute anyone who disrespected him, and if these foreigners aren't from a group powerful enough to do anything about it, then maybe that's the way to go. But it may also be the case that the emperor wants to preserve the appearance that nothing bad at all has happened, that everything is going exactly as it is supposed to, that he is serene and above it all, in which case he might just wave it off. That is its own way of demonstrating that you're in charge, too.

I'm also just worried about the emperor's staff assistant who set up this meeting. People like emperors have giant staffs precisely to protect them from getting into embarrassing situations like this. And they are much easier to punish. That's the first person going home missing an appendage, IMHO.

 

I'd suggest to try looking at this from an absolutely reversed perspective.
Which is to say:- the character's reaction to being disrespected is the only element of this with any interest value. And if this is unknown, it can't be written at all.

As fantasy writers there is a temptation to think that a storyworld event (in this case a diplomatic meeting between two places that don't exist) matters. But I suggest this is backwards: the conference only matters to the reader in terms of what it reveals about characters, and if the conference doesn't reveal anything, consider dumping the whole conference.

This can seem very destructive: because if that logic is followed to its conclusion, perhaps more plot-fluff unravels and falls away, and when only the character remains perhaps it becomes clear he shouldn't be a ruler at all. "We write what we know" is another principle - and if we aren't international diplomats, our descriptions of diplomacy in any fantastic world are likely to be wanting.

Research into (e.g.) 13th Century courts might get a short, painful scene out of the way for the sake of the plot, but I felt the emphasis of the posts is very strongly on the fantasy elements and could be more on the character. Because it's who they are that determines their reaction, and if the OP truly knows the character, it's always possible to pull some invented fantasy-custom out of the hat. It's hard to say for certain, but I couldn't detect anything in the description of this ruler that would let me guess what he'd say or do in the situation - and this might make the question unanswerable. Is the plot giving him sufficient arbitrary choices:- of course a king can't suffer an insult. That's just a factor of him being a king, the job the author's given him - but what about him being himself?

Ideally, I think the problems that arise in plot should have their roots in characters: "would my character do x or y...or something else?" or "my character would do this, but that challenges my intended plot structure." When this last question arises, that's the clue that the story is starting to become interesting - and I'd always throw the intended plot in the bin at this point and try and write the story the characters want to be in.

A character who is a king or queen is perhaps exposed to the harshest reader-scrutiny, because there are fewer dei ex machina they can hide behind.

If the pov character wasn't the king, but the wine-pourer, he'd get through this scene much easier:- he can stop giving wine to the delegates from Yakyakistan because the king says so. The wine-pourer is somewhat shielded from any weaknesses in the storyworld. But royal characters can only be checked by (to the reader) more abstract things:- customs, gods, ghosts. If there is any detail lacking in the selves, the personhoods, we give royal characters, IMO there is far less for them to hide behind.

 

Normally I would agree, but I think in this particular scene there is another dimension to it. Politics exists everywhere, no matter how absolute a dictatorship. Especially in a highly public setting, even an emperor has expectations that they have to live up to--they have a very narrowly constrained set of options simply because of the position they are in. There is an entire system behind them, they're perhaps the most visible element of it, but it's the whole system (of bureaucrats and followers, but also of norms, traditions, etc.) that they rely on, and which they can't cross or defy because it's the source of their power, legitimacy, etc. That is why I think the expectations of that system--the forms, as I put it above--will be more important in determining how this character will act in this particular scene. Powerful people get to be very good at quashing their own personalities in order to do what they think is best suited to the role they are playing, because that is how they stay in power.

Put another way, I think it's rather safe to assume that an emperor will act in a very conservative, status quo way. Or you may say, that is their character for all intents and purposes. If it wasn't, they wouldn't be emperor.

Now they may have an internal monologue going about how boring or pointless they think this all is, how much they wish they could grab the guard's pike and impale all these idiots, fantasizing about their mistress back in the Lotus Pavilion etc. One could make that the focus of the scene, if you wanted to get some character beats in. But in terms of visible actions I don't see much leeway.

Great My Little Pony reference, I say on behalf of my six-year-old daughter.

 

Are you trying to describe Emmanuel Macron?

If you're looking for examples of how rulers cope with perceived snubs look at the media coverage of just about every world leaders and/or trade summit. This Prime Minister 'angrily' cornered that President, the Chancellor of Thing had to mediate a behind the scenes make-up session between the Grand Duke of Wherever and the Ayatollah of Whatever. The Finance Minister of Lord Only Knows held a surprise press conference without consulting the Commissioner of the United Federation of Disunited Dominions.

 

Of course the fact that it's an emperor makes it immediately very different from the kind of free democratic governments we're familiar with today. An emperor is a powerful monarch who rules over his subjects, rather than obeying their will. They expect to be obeyed and to be treated with dignity and respect.

The situation reminds me of the archetypal idea of the disregarded or disrespected one of great power, which is the core of many fairy tales and folk tales. The most familiar one to us today is Sleeping Beauty.

There are variations on it—in many the disregarded old witch has been living in a tower alone for decades and the rest of the kingdom has either forgotten about her or just assumes she wants no part of court ritual anymore, so she isn't invited to the... whatever it was, I forget. Was it a big party when the Princess was born? Something like that. A royal baby shower. In some versions there are only 12 golden plates, so 12 dignitaries are invited to the palace, omitting the 13th. But in every version the omitted or forgotten one shows up in the midst of the festivities and makes a big dramatic entrance, spewing out angry words and putting a curse on the newborn princess that on her 18th birthday she'll prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deathlike sleep trance, often along with the entire kingdom, for centuries.

Usually there was no prince who kisses her to awaken her, it was just a certain period of time and then the curse will lift. The deathlike spell represents something like the entire kingdom becoming inert, powerless, perhaps trapped in backwards traditions or policies so it becomes unimportant and ineffectual. Or for an individual it would mean a long period of inactivity where nothing seems to go right and no progress is made. A lengthy period of regression or of being frozen psychologically. Depression maybe—something like that.

I haven't really studied into it any deeper, what kinds of real-world historical events it might represent. I believe there was a version where princes tried to get through the wall of thorns to free the princess and the kingdom, but none could, and Prince Charming (not sure he was actually called that) was just the one who happened to show up as the period was ending—the thorns beginning to wither away and the spell already lifting.

Folk tales and fairy tales are totally archetypal stories, whittled down to the bare essence. That's why they're told so briefly, all telling and all summary rather than any detailed showing. The names tend to be types rather than individuals. But if you think your way through them and try to reason out what they mean, you can often come up with all kinds of good ideas. Starting from the archetypal is a good way to go.

And there's doubtless a meaning behind the fact that both princess and witch are female. It points to feminine traits rather than masculine ones. But of course those traits exist in men as well as in women, just as masculine traits exist in women too. It means it refers to some feminine aspect of a person, and/or of a kingdom (a society as a whole I suppose).

But the story presented in this thread is different right from the beginning—it's the other emperor who is offering offense, by sending an unqualified delegation of disrespectful underlings rather than go himself or send a qualified and respectful delegate. It's like throwing a shoe at a president's head.

 

It took me a while to find this, but here's a page from the Aarne-Thompson-Uther fairy tale index showing tales of type 410—tales of the Sleeping Beauty type. You just need to scroll down, looking at the index numbers in the column on the left side until you reach 410. It's a good ways down.

The index is an amazing tool for learning about folk tales and fairy tales. But this doesn't seem to function the way it's supposed to. Last time I looked at it each title was a link to the full tale itself. Here just the names of them are listed. It was much better when you could read each version and compare and contrast. Must look into this.

 

Ok here we go—this page has links to the full tales.

The emperor in the above story is equivalent to Maleficent in the Sleeping Beauty tale, a disrespected but powerful being. How could he cause the other kingdom to fall into a deep sleep? Maybe something like an embargo that causes that other country to become powerless. More to the point though, how could he do something similar to the other emperor, who disrespected him so severely?

This is just off the top of my head, think about it some more and you might come up with much better ideas.

 

I think Robert has got the crux of the issue right. It's about form. The emperor has to quash any perceived slight against him.

Also @evild4ve was right that you have to think about the value of the scene as being something that reveals the personality of the character. So maybe quashing the delegate has to be something he has to do while in form. At least, give a reasonable level of strong personality to circumvent the scenario (intelligence, cunning and foresight).

But I'm wary of any scenario where the emperor tolerates any slight. I don't think the scenario would ever develope like that because it would mean that it was a formality of disrespect. Where the diplomatic meeting is held after losing a war so he's going to be humiliated regardless.

But you said they were naive rubes, so you could play into that idea and turncoat them as I said earlier.

 

Haha, if I was that emperor, I would just stand up and leave along with my court.
Let the foreigners stand completely alone in the room and nobody come and lead them to accommodations or something like that.
Then I would send a footman to deliver a note telling them I would receive them tomorrow at 10.

 

I'd pull the cord that opens the trapdoor to drop them into my piranha pond.

 

Lel.

Actually you gave me a great idea!

When they start to deride him, he just starts to manically laugh and his whole court and the foreigners become confused. Then the ruler can just pretend that he has poisoned them. This causes them to become a blubbering mess and beg for their lives. Then he tells them they were never poisoned but they need to mind their manners because it could easily happen.

 

One thing i can see the ruler do is to be sassy back but using subtly that don't directly disrespect the envoys. He could role with what they're saying then laugh out loud quieting the whole room. Then saying something like "i just remembered about a joke of dogs barking so loud their tongues were cut off and they were neutered bcuz of blah blah"
Then have the envoys look offended "are tou calling us dogs?!"
And the ruler would reply " i did no such thing. I just remembered about the last time dogs were barking. Do not dare to put words in my mouth....blah blah"

Does that help? Sassy but subtle

 

I think this is the crux -- does the visiting delegation represent a more powerful governmental entity, or a less powerful entity? Does the ruler NEED anything the delegation's entity has to offer, or can he tell them to sod off with impunity?

 

The answer in this case is that the group the delegation represents is not known to pose a threat in its own right, but has friends within the city who'd make a fuss if they were punished. That's why I thought the ruler guy would tread lightly. But, having gotten some other people's perspective here, I have concluded that making a few more local enemies is almost certainly less harmful than the loss of face in tolerating the disrespect. So now I've written the scene up with the ruler guy being dumbstruck for a few moments, then demanding to know who they think they're dealing with, then starting to call for his guards (he gets interrupted, but that's another story). I think that's what fits the situation the best.

Some people have suggested more subtle approaches, but while he's not exactly stupid, I don't think he'd be capable of pulling those off. There are other characters in the story who might have, had they been in his place, mind you - I'll keep them in mind for the next time I need inspiration for how a super-smooth political operator thinks.