But OK!!!!! consider for a moment: the Fleimkepa order!! Royal advisors, the council consisting of high priests, half or so of them based in the Capital. Sworn to servitude of the Flame. They are of course enormously powerful, intimately involved with the royal family, their tendrils every place they’ve got a tower of worship (with an eternal flame inside ofc). They legitimise the rule of the Head of State - Royal blood chosen by the Flame! They keep it going, and so they have a bit of an obsession with ROYAL OFFSPRING. It’s the king/queen’s duty to get to it. Let’s be wild and say that generally one kid ascends and holds the Flame and another becomes the Commander of Blood, one representing the guiding light of divine knowledge and the other the protection of the Commander. Though one kid can hold both roles too
The Fleimkepas have ENORMOUS power. They teach royal children: Titus. They have an ancient incredibly embedded patronage network and quite some land (economic power) everybody in the damn land is a follower of the Flame and their towers of worship are also the only schools around (light = knowledge). It is very hard to get lawmaking/enforcing done without their support. They definitely have the leverage to pressure Aden/Clarke. They could also technically declare that the current King hasn’t got the Flame anymore and ascend a different kid for example but they only do that in dire circumstances. They’re invested in the order of the realm. Seeing as Arkadia is probably a weaker kingdom, divorcing Aden and Clarke and sending her back wouldn’t seriously hurt Polis.
Would it be coolest to have the clans as the nobility or as surrounding kingdoms? The relative independence of the nobility and the loyalty they swear to the King seems very much a reflection of the state of the clans in canon. Needing to appease them and discipline them at the same time. Bloodlines! Your ancestry is very important. Triblood is the oldest and most loyal bloodline to the royal bloodline. They intermarry a lot too. Nia and trying to stage a coup with Ontari also fits into this. The Maunon could be the constant threat at the border and Arkadia…just a smaller kingdom that’s trying to strengthen diplomatic relations? Pfft. It would be tiny. Let’s consider it as though it contained all of the Ark’s people. Better. They might have a certain advantage that has allowed them to maintain independence. The lay of the land? Some feudal tech? (Lol?) Maybe the Maunon have set their sights on Arkadia and Polis and Arkadia came to an agreement to be allies.
MAYBE after Clarke sees the threat that the Fleimkepas pose to the alliance and her people and her position, she makes it her mission to limit their influence through running the court and manipulating networking and infiltrating. slytherin queen. Maybe she was first a little resented because she ‘snatched’ the heir but im not sure about that. She wraps everybody around her finger in the end though. Maybe Titus grows rather keen on getting rid of her actually. But once offspring has been produced...maybe Titus is not happy with the royal dynamics not at all. All this angst and misery and the Commander being too reckless at times and Aden being a little too progressive at protecting peasants, meddling in Fleimkepa affairs right back MAYBE.