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Originally Posted by issybird
I think it persisted through the Great War and only ended with the end of the Romanov, Hohenzollern and Hapsburg dynasties, and Orczy herself was born under the Hapsburg dynasty. [...]
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Yes, that's pretty much how the timing seems to me, too. The Great War marked the end of a lot of things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
I've also been thinking about the notion of leadership, as I thought the League had unpleasant undertones of a Fascist organization, or perhaps a religious cult, as I read it. In Dazrin's interesting link, the distinction is made between loyalty to a person and loyalty because of rank, with the implication that the first is better. I'm not so sure; we know where blind obedience to a charismatic leader can end up. As for military hierarchy, obeying orders is what soldiers do of necessity, but at least it doesn't involve giving over their minds. They can think what they like, so long as they do as they're told.
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Well, living in a country that rejected monarchy quite some time ago, you're almost obliged to look at it that way.
One of the big issues with having a charismatic leader is the inherent limit - quite literally, the lifespan of such leadership. Beyond that I think it's harder to be definite.
Even democracies very often end up being about the popularity of the leadership rather than any thoughtful assessment of the principles. The military, too, have their charismatic leaders. Of course, in most of these examples they are not absolute leaders, most can be overruled in one way or another. I'd also say that this one brief book doesn't give much evidence that the 19 had given over their minds (at least, no more than we readers did by accepting any of this as possible), only their trust.
And from the other side, we recently had a spate of quotes about patriotism on the quotes thread - most highlighting that this form of loyalty is often quite mindless. (Indeed, apparently "patriot" was one a derogatory or ironic term, so we may be on our way to coming full circle.) But the point being that it's just as possible to have mindless faith/loyalty in an abstract concept as in a personality.
Yes, I do think charismatic individuals can be dangerous, but we humans seem built to respond to them - even, or especially, in literature; we do like to have heroes.