Discussion. How to depict nobility and royalty?

[jacintolopeztr95]

First, hoy do you depict them, if you do it at all? And why?

[Crusoe]

Well... I mean... How I would depict the nobility would first and foremost depend on the society? Is the society hierarchical or egalitarian? What is the power the nobility has on the society or are they only figure heads?

[Iris-Grimoire]

Research, research, research. Especially if you want late medieval ages or earlier; they're the ones that have the most history recorded since they were the richest, so there's plenty of resources! If you want to create your own though, it's still good to look up existing ones, and find what makes your story more interesting and have possible logistics and political issues already figured out (or not, which sometimes is the point).

[DasIstWunderblyat]

You need to decide what kind of royalty you want to depict and do your research.

Example:

[Inspector_Spinda]

i think they're asking people with royalty in their own stories how they personally chose to portray royalty

[Jenny-Toons]

The only story I have with any outward nobility is my ongoing Webtoon comic Belief. About a family that goes against a Nameless God to stop her reign of terror.

Overall, how I depict their status is mostly based on the clothes they wear, the temple they use to worship an old God, and their importance to the story:

A combination of Greek mythology, African forklore, and some cosmic horror elements -- I generally keep overall structure and actual status of their nobility vague. Mostly because that's not the point of the story (and also because diving into any structure wouldn't have added to the story). Instead, I focused heavily on the name of the nobles:

The Borne Family.

A lot of the stories I've read that had interesting royalty dynamics always focused on the names of the families (be it because they're famous, notorious, disgraced, etc). So I like to have names carry the weight. It's one thing to have fancy clothes and beautiful houses to show royalty. But I personally feel having a name, especially a surname, that carries weight and has history to it adds some charm.

[Rhonder]

My main cast features 2 nobles, and a total of 4 members from their 2 families have been seen so far. One is the Chanka family, with the current Lord Chanka and his son Adoro:

The other is the Lorian family, with Jaegen and his older brother (unnamed):

Aesthetically, I just try to make sure they look cohesive, family-to-family, and not dressed in cheap-looking clothing. Jaegen has the most casual look of the bunch to-date, but he's also estranged from his family so... that's somewhat to be expected, I guess

As far as mannerisms go, I like to have them act more proper (or pompous, in the case of Jaegen's older bro) than their commoner peers. Adoro is a careful thinker, and generally gives off a responsible air. Jaegen is more try-hard due to his small stature and shaky family status, he often tries to use big, smart-sounding words, make proper and big gestures, & etc.

Other than those sorts of subtle things though, they're not that much different than their non-noble companions in my story. This has them all as adventurers on a journey so especially while interacting with one another and not in public, their individual traits rather than their noble status usually shine through more.

[Legendofgenii]

I’m just making it up, but I do watch a lot of documentaries and period dramas about English Royal family/history. I Google things if I get stuck.

My story has a medieval setting and the protagonist has royal blood (Prince in hiding), but had a poor/rural upbringing - so he won’t act like your typical noble/royal once he’s crowned (to the annoyance of his mentor).

He knows a lot of cow jokes.

[indagold]

My story is suppose to be more a modern democracy but some of it takes place in a sovereign nation where royalty and wealthy elites visit to donate money for upkeep and trick people into serfdom...I mean embrace their culture yo

Rubania is one character that appears sparsely through out who is trying to relate to the commoners and further cements her world view that they aren't as sophisticated as her when none of them even care what or who she is.

She's so disconnected with the world that her pet is a massive chonker.

Gods within the story serve kind of a similar role. Disconnected with the everyday man and are beyond trying to figure things out after eons of doing the same thing over and over again.

[jacintolopeztr95]

The best kind, in my opinion

[Eiranyx]

In my story, Its depicted if they have a crest which signifies that they belongs to that specific family or organization. In my story's case ,usually a crest is given by the royal house and grants a specific family a title(usually it happens when that specific family or person has done something remarkable/ made a major contribution for the kingdom) here are some example:

This is Siran's(the main character) carriage:

As you can see there's no crest, but Siran is also noble which means that while he belongs to higher class, his family doesn't really stand above them in any way because he doesn't have a 'title' but they are still respected, just think of it as someone who is respected because that family is also contributing to the kingdom through their 'specialties' (which is in this case, Siran's family deals with trade of jewelries)

And here is Leonel's (the Main lead) carriage:

As you can see there's a crest on it which means that he has a title --- in this case Leonel's title is a Duke
It also means that he even aren't related to the monarch/royal family has done something remarkable to be able to be given that title (which in my world's case there's only two with that case ^^)

Also if you noticed the crest design has something in common but varies: a flower, a shield and a sword
(in which the swords differ on each ranks).
when I'm designing the crest, personally chose flowers because of their symbolism, like for example in Leonel's case the Moon flower (I'll leave you to google that symbolism though if you want its a potential spoiler) and the sword is a rapier ^^

Anyways that's all for now, actually there's a lot of hidden details on my webtoon, I intentionally left it there so that if some observant readers noticed it they may figure out the clues that I left themselves ^^

[jacintolopeztr95]

That's something extremely interesting.

[KhanSpring]

It depends on what situations they are in.
If they are among other nobles - I try to present them as proud of their names and while they do show respect to others, they rarely think of them as equals.
When they think of the people they rule over - many of them take responsibilities, they know they have to. That's why their ancestors became nobles. However, they know that they also have to show who is in power.
When they are with people close enough or on their own - regular people. Because that's what they are, just like me and you. Regular people, with emotions and worries over trivial things.
(I don't know if it makes sense ).

[surenlicious]

There are many ways to depict royalty. For my novel Jade Kingdoms I've made various designs to represent my nobels and royalty. As I use species of my own design, forging their culture and tradition gives me absolute freedom without fully removing the highborn aspects to them. The colour green is important to them as it stands for longevity and life, a bit of a wink to their millennia-long lifespan.

For example, my royal family wear black attire with gleams with the light formed by their emotion magics. They once used humanity as their template and while posing as humans and mimicking their society, they are in fact parts of a being that once gifted the Senteint Mind to the flesh.

[Neverseen]

I mean, usually just as normal people. History gives us enough good and bad ones that I assume most were a little stuck up but not too crazy. In my story there are only like three, two are chill and one is crazy.

[DiegoPalacios]

Depending of the culture and setting, nobles may have better access to education and knowledge. This aspect can be reflected in the way a noble speaks, walks and the topics they talk about. It can also have a cultural influence, maybe in your story, nobility may have customs that are expected to them, be it manners on the table, a code of honor, or even unspoken expectations of keeping composure all the time. If you wanna portray a realisitic nobility, research is your best friend.

Also, nobles are people just like anyone else. Some may be kind, others may be selfish,some may be clever, and others just foolish. This background can lead to an interesting perspective in many different ways.

[oshirockingham]

Well, I'm a descendant of a Javanese noble. And it's pretty much normal.
I don't think there's any difference between a noble and a commoner, except maybe the noble family got more serious about teaching manners to their kids. (which IMO, useless, since most people has no manner here, these days)
But I think it all depends on the era your story sets at.

[darthmongoose]

It's fairly easy for me to know what it's like to have royalty around because I live in a constitutional monarchy under Queen Elizabeth II. But of course, Monarchy is different in my comic because it's more like a role a person can take on with a magic sword that mostly involves being leader of the knights (but does come with a sweet castle and some political clout).

I find a lot of webcomic depictions of Royalty tend to be a bit....off? Like the most common issue is that the royals never seem to do anything. They just hang around all day wearing fancy formal clothes as if a person with supreme executive power supposedly appointed by God wouldn't be in demand. Being king or queen is effectively like being the CEO of a country; you have to make appearances at events, go to meetings, be there to formalise decisions etc... but there's also a military aspect to it. The monarch of England is the head of state, the head of the church and the head of the armed forces, and it's traditional for members of the royal bloodline to serve in the armed forces when they're young. As a teenage princess, Elizabeth II served in the Auxiliary services during WW2 as a driver and mechanic, for example.
Part of the reason Queen Liz has maintained pretty solid popularity in this country is that she works hard and doesn't abuse her power. Technically she has the power to refuse to let a democratically elected prime minister take office, or to veto any law being passed that she doesn't like, but she's never used these. She's very stoic and reliable, and only in her 90s has started passing off duties of appearing at state events to her kids and grandkids.
So yeah... these airheaded royals who just spend all their time at parties but are still popular with the public somehow feel very unrealistic, and in reality, upper and middle class people concerned for the country's future would almost certainly start manoeuvring to remove such a person, and galvanise the peasants to join in if they needed to (most revolutions are not started by peasants... side eyes at how Americans talk about their revolutionary war). France lost its monarchy because their rulers did stupid crap like dissolving parliament and spending all their time having extravagant parties in a huge party house instead of actually acting as head of state. You have to act like the head or you lose your.... yeah.

The other thing often missing when people depict a european style monarchy without proper research, is the weight of history. The royal family is steeped in ancient traditions, heirlooms and symbolism to the point there are literal "royalty experts" that give commentary on the context during events like the royal wedding on TV. They have all sorts of rules about what are "traditional names" for kids who are in line for the throne, usually Charles, George, Henry or Edward, there's loads of symbolism to the different jewellery the Queen owns, who it used to belong to or who is was a gift from, and there are very old rules about how to properly address people (for example, you must always call the queen "ma'am" and never turn your back to her).

So when depicting a King and his knights in Errant, I look to how the royal family is treated in modern day Britain. Wills & Kate are kind of like celebrities, like a rockstar or actor, but there's also this element of fairytale or ancient grandeur to them and these ancient traditions too, and this awkward mix because there's politics in there too. Urien is aiming to be the "cool, modern monarch", but he also plays into that "handsome prince" fairytale image... not totally unlike Prince Harry.