There was once a tiny little kingdom in the middle of nowhere. It was a lovely kingdom, once upon a time. Alas, a new emperor arrived, and although he appeared to be very good, in many things, he was sadly lacking in common sense.
There was once a tiny little kingdom in the middle of nowhere. It was a lovely kingdom, once upon a time. Alas, a new emperor arrived, and although he appeared to be very good, in many things, he was sadly lacking in common sense.
Among his many flaws, was his love for himself; in fact, this was almost an obsession.
At every (photo) opportunity, he would wax lyrical about himself, but unfortunately, there was more wax than lyric.
He loved the sound of his own voice, and lost no chance to make it heard on a wide variety of issues.
Unfortunately, in some of these, he was unqualified.
Perhaps his main downfall, was the people he surrounded himself with.
It seemed that he really enjoyed the company and counsel of sycophants (which is a big word for people who tell you what you want to hear).
Another way of describing them would be to call them something that rhymes with "grass pickers".
Sycophants sadly often rise to the top of organisations – they seem to gravitate to things like government, Zanu PF, the Nazi Party, Senior Management, and the Politburo, and therein lies their ability to wreak havoc.
They have an inbuilt sense of who is important (or good for their careers) and will cling leechlike to such characters, glibly rationalising it as support for a leadership type.
They cannot disagree with anything such a person says (it is simply not in their nature), and so they will help in perpetuating the wrong by their inaction.
But the majority of the people in the kingdom were wise wizards.
You see, the main business of the kingdom was magic – the kingdom transformed ignorance into knowledge quite magically – and these wise wizards started to grow tired of the lies and deception, and the smooth talk.
It was said that the emperor never lost an argument in the running of the state.
This was actually a poor thing to be proud of because in this kingdom, as losing an argument was regarded as importantly as winning one, because both were opportunities to synthesize the magic of knowledge – but apparently the poor emperor missed that.
At meetings of state, the emperor surrounded himself with powerful people who supported him blindly, and so in his mind he was always right – a dangerous position for any leader.
Among his court, he included two great teams of defenders – the Inhumans, and the Liars.
Of course, anyone who has had experiences with those, know exactly how dangerous they are.
The kingdom became a sad place, a place of weeping and moaning and unfairness (in other words, a corporate organisation) as opposed to a place of magic and delight (which it used to be).
Loyal subjects started to leave the kingdom, and eventually, in a fit of pique, it seems, so did the emperor.
It was really a sad state of affairs, but at least it afforded the kingdom the opportunity to shake of the old lethargy, pick itself up, and actively pursue magic once more…let's hope it does.
