Political intrigue is a classic topic of fantasy novels. Who will betray who? Does the Queen’s servant know about the archduke’s plot to assassinate the second cousin of the third envoy sent to…. and so on and on. Novels that have politics take the forefront usually have a difficult time doing so. One outcome is that the intrigue becomes too hard to follow, with so many gears and inner workings of the court that only the author can fully keep track of them. Most of these types of stories are better suited for television, where you can at least assign faces to names so that their personalities and loyalties don’t get mixed up as easily. The other fate of fantasy-based intrigues is that they usually ditch the intrigue part and eventually focus entirely on the fantasy part. The court is overthrown, and the intrigue is usually revised as morally trivial in the face of bigger, more fantasy-esque issues, such as the rise of some Greater Evil than politics. Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Quest/Apprentice does this when Fitz is exiled from the court as Prince Regal takes over. Another famous case is Game of Thrones (a gold star in this subgenre) where the political drama of the first few books is ended by Cersei brutally killing her opponents, and the remaining living squabblers of the first few books must focus on the bigger issue of the Targaryen invasion, or the coming Night King.

With that in mind, The Goblin Emperor manages to pull off court drama as interesting without ever deviating from it. In this book, the fantasy part of the book is merely a setting and not a focus, with the spotlight being on the characters. Lore and worldbuilding is mostly irrelevant, something which usually pulls me away from the book itself. You would think (or, at least, I thought) that this meant I would be reading about petty squabbles between nobles. Instead, I read an incredibly heartwarming book about a Ned Stark of the political court – someone who legitimately wanted to do good but leveraged the court to do so.

Through and through, The Goblin Emperor is a feel-good book. Maia, the main character, is thrown into the position of emperor after his father and four older brothers are killed in an airship explosion. Lifted from peasantry, Maia manages to make allies in court simply by being a good and honest person. It’s like what I expected Game of Thrones to be like, until Ned’s head was suddenly removed from his body. Frequently Maia is given the option between the truthful difficulty and the convenient lie. He chooses honestly, always, and his choice of being honest always turns out right in the end. Maia manages to root out corruption in the court, build bridges with enemies, and help out the peasants all in the span of a year. It’s a stark contrast to the high volume of grimdark novels published in the last decade. I found myself expecting that at any moment it would all go wrong – Lord Chavar would finally manage to assassinate him, or his personal guards would betray him. I think the moment when I finally opened myself up to the unabashed hopefulness of the book was when Lord Chavar kidnaps Maia and prepares to kill him. As a final wish, Maia asks to see Idra, Chavar’s son, who would take the throne when Maia dies. Maia intends to come face-to-face with the person who would replace him and to give him advice. To everyone’s surprise, but Idra has no intentions of becoming emperor. Idra stalls long enough to Maia to be rescued, and rather than execute his family, Maia decides to simply exile Chavar, while personally take care of Idra and his siblings.

Now that Maia is in a position of power, he has both the ability and the right to punish those who would do him harm. When a member of his nohechadrei, his personal guard, betrays him, Maia chooses not to kill him. When Maia is betrayed by Chavar and others, he spares the children of the conspirators while exiling the people responsible. When Maia is given the choice of finally having his vengeance against Selethin, the man who frequently abused him as a child, he chooses mercy, even though Maia has every legal (and debatably moral) right to take his vengeance.

So were there any lessons this book? It’s a hopeful outlook on power and the responsibilities that come with it. It preaches that perhaps power doesn’t corrupt. Maybe there are truly good people. Maybe kindness doesn’t always have ulterior motives other than to build a more connected world. Maybe things will just get better if we just be better. With that, I’ll end on a quote from the book:

“Never trust a cynic. They justify their bad behavior by assuming everyone does it.”