I'm a bit miffed at the younger members of the dynasty being the grand dukes and duchesses, since I remember my Anastasia The Royal Diaries book telling me that the reason the czar's children had the title was because prince(ss) seemed overly common and not dignified enough. Hmmph.
It’s actually an inheritance from medieval times. The premier prince of Russia was called a grand prince (velikiy knyaz, ‘grand duke’ is actually an Anglo-French mistranslation), as he was the first among the ruling princes of the Rurikid dynasty. Later the title multiplied, with the grand princes of Moscow ending up on top and assuming the title of Emperor (Tsar). Grand prince(ss) became the title of the other members of the Imperial dynasty. By the late 19th century this meant that there were lots of grand princes and princesses, and Tsar Alexander III enacted a dynastic law in 1886 limiting the title to children of the Tsar and his patrilineal grandchildren. This meant the other grand princes and princesses were demoted and fobbed off with the title of prince or princess ‘of the imperial blood’.
It may be that somebody at BioWare read about this and simply turned the titles around, with the ‘direct relatives’ of the Emperor becoming princes and princesses, and grand duke for ‘former’ princes and princesses. Not clear what ‘direct relatives’ means in this context, but I would suggest it means first-degree relatives like children and siblings. Second-degree relatives might then end up as mere grand dukes. So a prince might be reduced to grand duke in his old age, after the death of his Imperial parent and sibling and the accession of a niece or nephew.
It’s also stated in WoT that the title of grand duke isn’t hereditary, which might mean that after two generations members of the ruling dynasty are reduced to the status of mere nobility.
What I remember about the title Grand Duke in Orlais is that the title is apparently given to lines of royal blood that are no longer directly related to the Emperor (Presumably that means distant cousins like Gaspard). I'm not entirely sure what that means in practice, but I'm reasonably certain it means Celene had a much better claim than he did, being the daughter of a prince.
It’s not ‘lines’, but ‘former princes and princesses…no longer directly related to the Emperor’. It’s also non-hereditary (see above). ‘directly related’ is pretty vague, but it may mean that there is no longer a first-degree relationship with the Emperor or Empress.
As for Celene’s father being a Prince, I took a look at the Dragon Age wiki and it now has two different entries for Celene, the original Codex entry one and another partly based on The Masked Empire, WoT etc.
The codex entry, TME and the WoT Orlesian title info do seem to contradict each other. Azarhal suggested Weekes simply made a mistake that was overlooked and that may be so. It could also be a retcon.
I haven’t read the Masked Empire (no interest in franchise novels, sorry), but if I look at the entries I get the suspicion that the worldbuilding team never developed or finalized the information necessary to get a clear picture. No clearly spelled-out succession system, no dynastic family tree etc. That makes it very easy to make errors or inadvertently retcon things. For instance, Gaspard is Celine’s cousin, but it isn’t clear whether Gaspard’s mother is the sister of Celine’s father or the sister of her mother. It doesn’t appear the name of Celine’s mother is known, same applies to Gaspard’s parents. This is actually pretty basic stuff if you want to write a story of dynastic intrigue and politics; it’s the reason why so many historical novels, and some fantasy novels, come with family trees and even a glossary.
Try making a family tree of the Orlesian and Ferelden ruling dynasties; you basically can’t, outside a few known family relationships. I’m not a fan per se of genealogies (let’s face it, by themselves they’re pretty boring), and it’s not always necessary to have very extensive ones, but they do serve as ‘skeletal frameworks’ for the history of a dynasty, its individual rulers and the lands they ruled.
pfft the dutch... anyway we could always go the antivan route and assassinate all competitors to the throne till someone good is left
Your insight and positive contribution are much appreciated!
Retour en haut
