How did the tsar secure such tight control over lune? was it always like this with previous tsars (assuming there were previous tsars)? lune seems to reflect, in some ways, societies under the influence of totalitarianism. it's interesting too that the emergence of the darkness was seemingly used by the tsar as a device to secure more power. boy do I have some conspiracy theories about the tsar. im like the Alex jones of this fic lemme tell you. (also chap 20 was AMAZING <3)
The Tsar and his team worked hard to develop a Cult of Personality that wasn’t really in place before he came along. It’s helped a great deal by the fact that those who are influenced by the mountain (which does include the Tsar) have their lifespans unusually lengthened. So he can sort of consistently maintain and strengthen this over many generations.
But in the beginning, it was mostly enforced with a lot of executions, a complete control of the media (there is no media that isn’t produced by the City of Lune under the Tsar’s watchful eye, or his team). Starting a printing press is an executable offense. No one even questions this anymore. (Well, Flitmouse does, and some others do). Dissenting posters are an executable offense (which we look at in the earlier chapters, when Jack sees some posters in an alley that are against the Tsar, and he wishes those people got sent to Asylums without a second thought).
It is treasonous to speak ill of the Tsar. ‘I don’t think he’s doing a good job of looking after us’ is reportable, and everyone is encouraged from a young age to report freely. While someone may not be executed for general negative statements, imprisonment and public floggings are a reasonable response. Jack not reporting Jamie is hugely transgressive, even though most readers see Jack as like, someone with zero agency. But within the constraints of how he was raised, he exercises elements of rebellion and agency a lot.
Knowledge is hard to access. There are no libraries where people can research an accurate history of Lune, and true literacy is discouraged, to keep people reading the history books etc. that they are given. Only the very upper classes have real access to both alphabets, so most of the lower classes think that the ‘sigils’ on say, Pitch’s coat, are magical symbols (and they are, they’re just also grounded in writing and literature).
Critical thinking is discouraged in school systems which are homogenised, instead, people are encouraged to think that the Tsar and his team will do the critical thinking for them, so that all they need to do is focus upon their jobs (which are often chosen for them, especially in the lower classes), and their families.
The Tsar has mythologised himself and elements of the Golden Warriors. Jack is used to seeing Pitch on coins or dollar notes, along with the Tsar. Jack is so used to propaganda posters that he often refers seeing the real thing back to seeing a propaganda poster (to give a sense of how fundamental this is to his reality - and everyone’s reality). And since the arts are discouraged, outside of the sartorial and anything that comes direct from the Palace, sometimes the brightest things the citizens see are the propaganda posters - showing brilliant colours, talking about hope or determination and so on.
I mean there’s a lot of other things too, but basically the core things you need to build a Cult of Personality that people believe in are: remove voting and democracy, get sole control of the media and the stories people tell each other, the ability to punish with freedom anyone who speaks against you. It really helps to have a common godhead (the Tsar) and a common enemy. In the real world, North Korea uses the USA and South Korea as a common enemy. In Lune, it’s the Darkness.
The Tsar’s system is not foolproof because people still think. But it’s a lot easier to remove a handful of dissenting individuals, than it is to raise free-thinking individuals with a capacity to vote and educate themselves with a variety of source material and realise they’re all against you. Best to just make sure they don’t really know how to be free-thinking, don’t even like the idea of democracy and are only educated insofar as they need to be for whatever labour they’re granted later.
So you’re dealing with more than one generation that doesn’t grow up with any media except Tsar-sanctioned media. They aren’t taught the word democracy, they don’t get a vote, they wouldn’t believe they had a right to one. The Tsar should choose anything that important! The Tsar is mythologised to the point of being almost a god to many. And everyone who thinks otherwise generally doesn’t talk about it. Jack is around quite a few people who don’t think highly of the Tsar, and they all have different ways of talking about it.
