LPF Week 12 - MacGuffin
Jan. 16th, 2019 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoHello children - it's been quite a while. I was starting to wonder if you'd gotten tired of listening to the ramblings of this crazy old man. Or maybe you'd all just been eaten by bears.
This is a story about a fool's errand. What is a "fool's errand," you ask? Well, it's like a wild goose chase, but for places that don't have geese. Although, the whole idea behind the expression is that you won't actually be able to catch said wild goose, so maybe it's a more appropriate saying for places that don't have wild geese to catch than for the places that do. What about places with neither geese nor fools? Trust me when I say that everyplace has fools.
Our story begins in a kingdom that existed long ago and far from here. This kingdom contained significantly more fools than wild geese, including one fool whose job it was explicitly to be a fool for the king, because back then leaders were more honest about appointing idiots to government jobs on purpose. In theory, it was the fool's job to be amusing, but I've always suspected that part of the reason to keep a fool around was to be sure there was always someone on hand wearing a hat that looked sillier than the king's, because most crowns are awful. They are heavy and cold and often sprinkled with gemstones, and it can be infuriating trying to have a conversation with someone who is constantly distracted by a shiny thing on your head.
Yet, in spite of how dreadful crowns are, people are forever trying to steal them - either literally, for their material value, or symbolically, when they are seizing rulership of a kingdom. Though in the latter case you tended to also literally end up with the physical crown, so that's another tricky expression for you.
The current king of this particular kingdom did not, in fact, have the physical crown of his predecessor, since it was literally stolen by someone else while he was symbolically stealing it. His closest advisors told him this was the reason that the general populace and the local nobility were so reluctant to accept his rule - because he lacked the true crown. In truth, people were far more upset that the king had seized power by murdering his cousin, and far less concerned that he lacked the proper hat for the job.
The king summoned the greatest heroes in the land and set them a quest to find and return the lost crown. The greatest heroes of the land didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for this quest - it was, after all, being set for them by a murderer, and heroes don't tend to be overly fond of murderers. The king knew this, and of course this was the other reason he wanted the heroes off questing for an ugly hat rather than hanging around his kingdom thinking about doing something annoying like avenging the former king.
The heroes grudgingly went off to look for the crown, and searched in all of the places you'd expect heroes to search for a stolen crown - places like dragon hoards, bandit lairs, and the broom cupboards of faeries with no actual interest in the crown but who might have stolen it just to be irritating. They slew many dragons, brought many bandits to justice, and spent a considerable amount of time turned into frogs by faeries who weren't too happy to find heroes rummaging in their broom cupboards, but they did not find the crown.
Meanwhile, the king had begun to consider the possibility that the heroes might find the crown and decide not to bring it back to him, but instead give it to his cousin's heir or some other inconvenient person with a plausible claim to it. That's the trouble with employing heroes when you're an evil king - they care more about doing things that are morally praiseworthy than helping you legitimize your murderous coup. So he sent out his finest evil minions to murder the heroes. Then he decided that he did still need to get the crown back, so he sent out some other evil minions to see if they could locate the crown.
The evil minions sent to look for the crown searched in all of the places you'd expect evil minions to search for a stolen crown - the homes of innocent villagers, the holy places of religions not endorsed by the local government, and of course the broom cupboards of faeries. They stole many valuables and persecuted many innocent people, and found an unusually large number of frogs in the faerie broom cupboards, but they did not find the crown.
The evil minions sent by the king to kill the heroes failed to accomplish their task, and in the course of their failure also alerted the heroes to the fact that the king was even more evil than they suspected.
Meanwhile, the king's closest advisors noticed that the kingdom was currently missing all of its best heroes and a considerable majority of the king's most trusted evil minions, and conveyed to their secret allies in a nearby rival nation that the country was practically defenseless, and now was their time to strike.
This meant that by the time the heroes returned with a fake crown to give to the former king's heir, the entire kingdom had already been conquered by the neighboring constitutional republic, and no authority or relevance was attached the crown anymore. The heroes, having been even temporarily employed by the previous evil government of the land, found themselves no longer welcome in the area and were sent into exile, and so they were not around to save the entire populace from being transformed into frogs by angry faeries just a few weeks later.
The lesson to be learned here is that governments are full of backstabbers and murderers. That, and the correct people to send looking for stolen objects are neither heroes nor evil minions, but insurance investigators. They would have long since discovered that the crown had been stolen by the king’s fool, who had hoped to give it to a goose, if only he had been able to catch one.
Now, all of you children should be getting home before your parents send people out to look for you. You know how I feel about unwelcome guests, and I just tidied my broom cupboard.
This is a story about a fool's errand. What is a "fool's errand," you ask? Well, it's like a wild goose chase, but for places that don't have geese. Although, the whole idea behind the expression is that you won't actually be able to catch said wild goose, so maybe it's a more appropriate saying for places that don't have wild geese to catch than for the places that do. What about places with neither geese nor fools? Trust me when I say that everyplace has fools.
Our story begins in a kingdom that existed long ago and far from here. This kingdom contained significantly more fools than wild geese, including one fool whose job it was explicitly to be a fool for the king, because back then leaders were more honest about appointing idiots to government jobs on purpose. In theory, it was the fool's job to be amusing, but I've always suspected that part of the reason to keep a fool around was to be sure there was always someone on hand wearing a hat that looked sillier than the king's, because most crowns are awful. They are heavy and cold and often sprinkled with gemstones, and it can be infuriating trying to have a conversation with someone who is constantly distracted by a shiny thing on your head.
Yet, in spite of how dreadful crowns are, people are forever trying to steal them - either literally, for their material value, or symbolically, when they are seizing rulership of a kingdom. Though in the latter case you tended to also literally end up with the physical crown, so that's another tricky expression for you.
The current king of this particular kingdom did not, in fact, have the physical crown of his predecessor, since it was literally stolen by someone else while he was symbolically stealing it. His closest advisors told him this was the reason that the general populace and the local nobility were so reluctant to accept his rule - because he lacked the true crown. In truth, people were far more upset that the king had seized power by murdering his cousin, and far less concerned that he lacked the proper hat for the job.
The king summoned the greatest heroes in the land and set them a quest to find and return the lost crown. The greatest heroes of the land didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for this quest - it was, after all, being set for them by a murderer, and heroes don't tend to be overly fond of murderers. The king knew this, and of course this was the other reason he wanted the heroes off questing for an ugly hat rather than hanging around his kingdom thinking about doing something annoying like avenging the former king.
The heroes grudgingly went off to look for the crown, and searched in all of the places you'd expect heroes to search for a stolen crown - places like dragon hoards, bandit lairs, and the broom cupboards of faeries with no actual interest in the crown but who might have stolen it just to be irritating. They slew many dragons, brought many bandits to justice, and spent a considerable amount of time turned into frogs by faeries who weren't too happy to find heroes rummaging in their broom cupboards, but they did not find the crown.
Meanwhile, the king had begun to consider the possibility that the heroes might find the crown and decide not to bring it back to him, but instead give it to his cousin's heir or some other inconvenient person with a plausible claim to it. That's the trouble with employing heroes when you're an evil king - they care more about doing things that are morally praiseworthy than helping you legitimize your murderous coup. So he sent out his finest evil minions to murder the heroes. Then he decided that he did still need to get the crown back, so he sent out some other evil minions to see if they could locate the crown.
The evil minions sent to look for the crown searched in all of the places you'd expect evil minions to search for a stolen crown - the homes of innocent villagers, the holy places of religions not endorsed by the local government, and of course the broom cupboards of faeries. They stole many valuables and persecuted many innocent people, and found an unusually large number of frogs in the faerie broom cupboards, but they did not find the crown.
The evil minions sent by the king to kill the heroes failed to accomplish their task, and in the course of their failure also alerted the heroes to the fact that the king was even more evil than they suspected.
Meanwhile, the king's closest advisors noticed that the kingdom was currently missing all of its best heroes and a considerable majority of the king's most trusted evil minions, and conveyed to their secret allies in a nearby rival nation that the country was practically defenseless, and now was their time to strike.
This meant that by the time the heroes returned with a fake crown to give to the former king's heir, the entire kingdom had already been conquered by the neighboring constitutional republic, and no authority or relevance was attached the crown anymore. The heroes, having been even temporarily employed by the previous evil government of the land, found themselves no longer welcome in the area and were sent into exile, and so they were not around to save the entire populace from being transformed into frogs by angry faeries just a few weeks later.
The lesson to be learned here is that governments are full of backstabbers and murderers. That, and the correct people to send looking for stolen objects are neither heroes nor evil minions, but insurance investigators. They would have long since discovered that the crown had been stolen by the king’s fool, who had hoped to give it to a goose, if only he had been able to catch one.
Now, all of you children should be getting home before your parents send people out to look for you. You know how I feel about unwelcome guests, and I just tidied my broom cupboard.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-19 09:25 pm (UTC)And perhaps they ARE. :O
no subject
Date: 2019-01-19 10:56 pm (UTC)