MOST Worldbuilders Get This WRONG
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Now I want someone to write a courtroom drama about a dragon taking legal action against a human for stealing from its hoard.
Honestly, not a bad idea.
It's like The People Under the Stairs, where they just hoard tens of thousands of dollars in their basement in a massive pile. If it weren't for all the other horrible crimes they committed, they easily could have sued all those people in the neighborhood for taking the money at the end.
Larry Correia's MHI series touches on this actually. Owen meets a dragon, and says that if he notifies anyone about his existence the dragon would notify his legal team to sue him for breech. Owen quips that he would prefer to face assassins.
I'm sure that happened at some point in Shadowrun lol
"Your honor, I would like to open my allegation by saying that I only took what was rightfully given to me by oral contract while the dragon and I were having intercourse and that I was only repossessing wealth that had been taken by force by said dragon, following the well established procedures of Redistribution By Adventuring (RBA) and ensuring that all standards were followed"
*Steel Van Sant, Esq., valedictorian of the Eternal Words Academy*
This video. This video right here. This is why I love this dudes content. Imagine having to deal with a really contentious divorce case in fucking middle-earth or some shit. This is why we need you Burger. Thanks dude.
His weaponized childhood has provided the rest of us with greatness.
I mean, this is how liberal democracies work. It's pretty close to how most bureaucratised states work.
I doubt there are many states in Middle Earth that would work like this.
Gondor, maybe.
"Spanish inquisition had a 3% conviction rate"
Certainly didn't expect that. But then, I suppose nobody does.
The church gets a bad rap because of the Protestant movement. Just a lot of Propaganda.
The Spanish Inquisition setting up the foundations for modern jurisprudence is also an unexpected fact
@@Fankas2000 A 3% conviction rate sounds to me like they were arresting and interrogating a lot of people for no good reason
@@screamingcactus1753 Yeah, of course, because people did their best to make their "enemies" to be investigated by the Inquisition.
Regardless of Protestants and shitty history movies might try to tell you, the Inquisition was essentially a system for internal self-regulation of Christian practices.
The Inquisition main targets were heretics, not others.
Sure, the Spanish Inquisition in particular was persecuting a lot of people for actually practicing other religions as well, but the main point of interest remained heretics.
Why? Because heretics were *inside* the system of power and religion.
Nobody cared about what a couple of jews or """"Witches"""" might do, but an heretic preacher persuading people into his Christian sect? Yeah that guy could get people to listen to him.
Just google Florence and Savonarola.
Additionally, witch trials were like 99.999% a Protestant thing.
To begin with, Catholicism itself didn't support the existence of witches as a fact. Paganism or such folklore traditions might get some flack by the most aggressive Inquisitors, but they didn't believe they were actually launchings spells and curses.
Why? Because believing in witches implies believing that something that's not God can have supernatural powers on Earth. And that's as heretic as it gets.
Those puritans burning women were, by Catholics Inquisitors standards, more problematic and heretical than most heretics. They were *seriously* pushing the idea that Satan had any physical influence in the real world and that God allowed him to do so. Which is absurdly un-Christisn.
The maximum a Christian should believe possible for Satan is to tempt into sinning, if they actually believe Satan is even an active thing
"You could call him John..."
*Readers of 'The Locked Tomb' series grinning.*
Johd my beloathed
22:13
I am now imagining Geralt of Rivia reading out loud the conviction of an angry, mythological monster who is grumpily sitting at the courtroom chair. That's cool.
Why are so many fantasy civilizations just absolute, unchallenged monarchies?
It makes sense when the monarch is so incredibly powerful that going against him/her is the same as inviting a nuke to your front yard. It makes less sense when there is a powerful aristocracy though.
Because most writers are not historians and have a simple modern view of history where the king is this monolithic power that had absolute say in everything. In reality monarchies, even in the height of their power, had their own system of checks and balances that was forged and reinforced by tradition and custom. Of course that is hard to capture even by writers who understand history...so they just go for the simple all powerful monarch.
I really love the system that they have in final fantasy 14, where it's a mix of representatives from the most prominent trading factions split with the monarchy and together they decide policy instead of either or systems
I remember Orson Scott Card's solution to interspecies adjudication in the Ender series. In the book, there were 3 races living on a planet. It was determined that in the event of an interspecies issue, the problem would be adjudicated by the uninvolved species because each species viewed different issues differently. There were the Hive Queens, there were the Pequinioes, and humanity.
Lmao "the Inquisition didn't hunt witches! ...they hunted heretics!"
I jest, great video! Really helpful reminder, as I am worldbuilding!
So what you're trying to do is have people at least address the judicial in their worlds, and provided a smorgasbord of examples of what has been/is being used.
I for one, appreciate this effort. You've given me ideas on how to structure a state that I'm world building myself outside of "I appeal to Caesar". I find the idea of a mixture between common and civil law, quite appealing. Common law for local/state, while civil law perhaps for federal/national. Thanks Burger!
1:47 I hate how relatable this is.
The one time something like this brought me out of a movie was when in "Fantastic Beasts I" Grindelwald pretending to be the equivalent of a police officer ordered the execution of Newt and Tina and other officials just go and carry it out.
Well, in that case it wouldn't have surprised me if those underlings that Grindelwald had were low key imperiused or Grindelwald sympathizers.
Most fantasy settings have magic and an element of the supernatural. Thus religion is usually seen as real.
The nobility gets it's authority directly from the religion in some form and the law is essentially theocratic. The judge is the priest, cas he can unironicly ask whatever is god on the context for advice or even use magic to get out a conclusion.
For example in DND a cleric of paladin is both a legal and religious authority enforcing the code of whatever deity they serve.
Not any Paladin or Cleric, but a Paladin or Cleric of JUSTICE.
You had me at "We live in a society."
On a real note, I haven't ever really had to "deal" with the "law" in a lot of my campaigns, but maybe that's been a fundamental flaw, too. Video brings up some really cool points I'd never thought about! Good shit, my man!
Could you do something like this video for taxation systems? I'm working on a campaign that involves the party being hired to follow a new tax assessor after a "tragedy" wiped out all of a med-large empire's tax professionals. You tend to have points I like to incorporate
I think, if I wrote a generic fantasy or sci-fi story, and then dropped the contents of this video, at a rate of a single sentence per dozen pages, it would be considered the most quintessential legal hybrid literature ever written, studied in schools for the next five thousand years.
Okay now I’m thinking about a constitutional lawyer who gets Isekai’d into a fantasy world that has a shit legal system, then slowly turns it into a utopia, which then turns back to shit, so that people will read it. Gotta reinforce that echo of pointlessness.
I'm aware it's been 2 years, but this reminds me of The Twelve Kingdoms or Juuni Kokuki.
I'm really starting to like that sock he keeps on his microphone. It takes up as much screen time as him.
I actually have the legal system being a HUGE plot point in my own book. The artificial prototype organism MC was activated by, and under the jurisdiction of the Defense Department, due to the fact that the Standardized Military Justice Code doesn't have the loop-holes and infrastructure to render a service member a non-sapient due to the fact that the SMJC requires an actual wrongdoing for any rights revocation to occur, and even then has to follow the constitutional amendment of no cruel and unusual punishment. And since she's not a foreigner in a specific foreign service program, that means, she has to be recognized as a citizen legally.
The Science Department on the other hand, does NOT have these requirements, since she can actually be classified as a non-citizen lifeform or as a research asset under their rules, hence why she's in the Navy and not being raised by scientist teams, since her creator "has concerns over the rudimentary ethics compliance in that that department." ethics concerns, which, due tot he structure of her being a lab experiment for a science facility, rather than a service member with experimental technologies under testing, are not anywhere near as enforceable, as opposed to an institution where in order for a demonstrably sapient lifeform to be legally required to comply with military orders, has to be an official member of the military, and therefore a legal citizen.
That's really cool actually
i really hope you keep the candy bar wrapper as a set piece for future videos. It's acting was outstanding!
6:41 tribunal does not come from the word three, but from the word tribune
From general thought, the judicial system doesn't interpret the rules, it plays them. It's a playground where the rules are implemented and played out
Hey mate, I thought it might interest you, I think "tribunal" comes from tribune and tribe from the roman legal system, because they represented the tribes of rome as a division of the roman people (originally it also comes from being "three of"). I might be wrong, but just throwing it out there.
This is why I love Glorantha. It's probably the best example of worldbuilding laws I've seen to date. Take for instance King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages. In those games it's almost essential to have a lawspeaker (lawyer, basically) on your ring/cicle (council of advisors), because most of the events in the game will invariably relate to Heortling law (Lore stuff, if you wanna know more just look up the games on TH-cam, there's ton of playthroughs) somehow. The worldbuilding of the laws is so believable, that there comes a point in the game where you start understanding it enough to be able to easily guess what the correct way to go about any legal stuff is.
Seriously, its pretty much the golden standard, at least when it comes to "primitive" law systems. In terms of terminology, I think it would probably be Customary law.
I've been hoping to find a video like this for SO LONG! I was not looking forward to doing a lot of directionless research. Thank you!
Underrated TH-camr honestly
Just found your stuff. I’d skipped over you a few times because I prefer a different visual approach but now I’m watching every video twice.
This is exactly what I need
Algorithm working as intended today it seems
America's Coming Weimar Moment by Three Arrows is a really great pairing for this video tbh. really wonderful breakdown, burgerkrieg!
Ok so hear me out... a government in dnd has zone of truth.. and you know when they fail the save.. so just keep it on them until they fail the save. And say resisting the spell is contempt of court.
Modify memory to make a 'witness' believe they saw something...
@randomnoobfan2542 horrifyingly enough that kind of thing has been done in the real world. It's not like actual brainwashing as far as I'm aware, but memory is actually a lot more malleable than you may think at first. Sometimes, witnesses are lead to believe that a specific person is the perpetrator by little bits of reinforcement by law enforcement and they unknowingly shape their memory to be more in line with what they are being suggested towards. The brain isn't perfect especially after experiencing a traumatic event
I love this guy's voice. And the things he explains. I feel like I'm learning so much.
You are brilliant. This video really went above and beyond. Thank you.
I’m no legal or historical expert, but how long have the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government been explicitly separate? I’m not saying the US, or England, or France invented the model, but those are the sections of world history where the labels were first introduced to me in public school. Was it even that way as recently as the feudal era?
The branches are useful as labels for what groups are responsible. The king in say an absolute monarchy would theoretically be all of the branches in one man, but even in that case he can't be responsible for judging every case in the kingdom because that alone would take up too much of his time and he would also need a group of people to actually enforce the laws he creates. He can't be multiple places at once after all. While he is the head of all 3 branches (perhaps the trunk if you will), he wouldn't have the time to fulfill all three roles at once. A chief of a village could probably manage to be all 3 of those things at once since he has much less space and people to oversee. The branches just describe the functions of parts of governments. You can't really have a functioning society without someone who makes the rules, someone who enforces them and someone who judges if the rules are interpreted correctly. Those 3 roles could also be everyone in the society's responsibility, but you can see how that could be messy and highly biased too. Sorry for the drunken ramble dog. Hope you're having a good day!
Roman Empire was still a thing though, we call it "Byzantine Empire"*1 now*2 but it was called and considered the Roman Empire back then.
However the Empress was a woman and she refused to marry Charlemagne, so to give her a finger, bring back the Roman Empire to western/central Europe and in turn make it recognise the pope they made a Holy Roman Empire.
Of course it's more complicated than that but the dream was in no way the determining factor, just an excuse for the Christian populace.
*1 (that term didn't even exist back then, was made up by German historian (no conflicts of interests...) to help clarify what part and time of the Roman Empire is spoken about)
*2 (in the west, but in many places such as eastern and SE Europe they still call it Roman Empire or Eastern Roman Empire)
Fuck yeah, whiteboard! I was already happy to see this video, which was as good as I expected, and the whiteboard was an excellent addition.
The Valdemar Herald series is this in spades. The Heralds are traveling judges and investigators,
Eeyup. This video can be summarized as "Legal Systems, like History and Politics, is fucking complicated, as it should be."
26:30 best sequence of words ever uttered in English
I run Burning Wheel. It has the perfect social system for courtroom battles. If you're wanting to play a legal game Duel of Wits is exactly what you see in a courtroom. 10/10 no water level.
Brother, THANK YOU for this video. I already knew about 90% of it, but the trivia about the English "totally not common law" and religious law gave me an actual epiphany on how I want to make historical vestiges be apparent in the legal system of the "totally not Holy Roman Empire" that I'm building.
10:01 Who are you wizard, with your words and trickery?
I was not expecting this video to help me study for uni, but hey, it's more fun this way!
Medieval people didn't believe in seperation of powers the way Montesque suggested. That came much later.
Montesquieu's theory isn't ONLY about how we should divide powers, it was also an observation on how power tends to be divided, even in old societies (medieval Europe, for example). So, although they didn't actively try to achieve Montesquieu's model they did have some degree of separation (enough to justify the use of the use of the term "branches" like he did in the video).
This video reminded me of HPatPoA, where everyone just unironically, and without batting an eyelash, says that Sirius Black was carted off to Azkaban without a trial. My first thought was "You wot m8?" followed by, "How do these characters all not live in absolute existential dread that they might be carted off to Azkaban without a trial and everyone around them will unironically and without batting an eyelash, speak of it like it were nothing?"
This video was a pleasant surprise.
Burger, can we please get more of that whiteboard action in your other videos as well?
fiction is not our reality. :) lawyers are boring. i support Vampire Count Judges eating the naughty naughty worlds and levelling up to level Infinity. :)
Something I've noticed after reading various EULA's, tax forms, and some other bylaws is that the law: (1) is a very large pile of really simple things that make sense; (2) sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. There's also a lot of stuff that gets passed and never repealed nor enforced. Things like intentionally mispronouncing "Arkansas" in Arkansas, or whistling underwater, or sleeping on refrigerators, outside, after 8 o'clock PM. Legal systems don't stay perfect for long, and having one that barely works is usually more interesting than having one that works very well.
I have to say, I do love those specific laws where you realise there's a story behind them. The fridge one sounds fascinating.
Yeah, that's a gap. Especially since the judiciary is the branch that players interact with. But the three branches are much more recent.
So in a synarchic imperial government I imagine the oligarchic council along with the imperial council would have the executive power. The legislative would be the emperor and empress. As for the judicial… would this be the judges or courtiers I think what they are called? They advise the emperor and empress at least in court right? So like a lawyer?
Historically these divide comes from 18th century. Most of the time - and still a lot of countries today - have completely messed up systems with contradicting and overlapping powers, where it's unclear what to do and a constant struggle who does what. Even questions like "who is the police force in this area" were still completely unclear in nazi Germany for example. Most of history there were parliaments without any real power. So if in a fictional world everything makes sense, that's how you know it's fictional ;)
It's the same with made up languages. If they are logical and without totally confusing exceptions for every single rule of grammar, you know there are not real.
This is a great and extremely well made video I knew alot of this, but it didn’t fail to entertain.
If you want a rich, interesting government/legal system, the merchant republic of Venice.
Brilliant video!
Yes more worldbuilding content
"fuck over the peasants" Dam, I couldn't swallow my coffee.
Bi-cameral legislature Mr. Teacher, Sir
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition to actually be lenient.
I wrote a scene a while back in the earlier chapters of my pirate fantasy story where the council of the Pirate Republic were interrogating the main character with a gem. This gem has the magical property of delivering extreme amounts of pain for telling the truth. The Pirate republic's logic being people lie to get the easy way out. So if you stay telling the truth then... well you're very impressive. This wasn't a trial for a crime or anything. He just.... washed up. Now i am watching this video and thinking about people taking the stand as their face contorts in pain.
This helped, by both giving me fuel and taking the pressure off
ALL HAIL JOHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 22:30
Sounds like the primary vulnerability towards totalitarianism in my sci-fi setting should lie in the personal opinions of the judges, as these influence their interpretation of the letter of the law.
Dude... I came for Vampire, got over myconians and I now am listening to your law history. What subject aren´t you knowledgeable about? Please, do something, ANYTHING on cooking, I´m sure it would be great.
You forgot the part where you relitigate the entire case because the judge reached a decision, but then the presiding deity rejected the sacrifice of bull testicles they were offered for their assent. (I haven't finished watching the video, but most people forget this part.)
Oh, fuck, you actually kind of remembered that part.
Yay for the whiteboard!
actually common was inspired by sharia law as john wanted to become a sultan of the abbaside caliphate at a certain point after his excommunication by the pope and adjuscated according was part of that legal system so he instituted and was sucessfull so they kept it and it evolved into common law
Nah. The legal system works how I say it does.
I've seen enough anime where chaotic political turmoil is present enough that I could overlook the largely braindead western media I do end up consuming.
Thanks.
Well then I’ll try to consider this
as a lawyer: this wasnt bad at all! however, what you described is a pretty modern legal system, a feudal society wouldnt necessarily have anything like the clear separation of legislative, adjuducating and executive branches, just the manor lord..
This was awesome, but the joke at 43:16 made my day xD
Check out Tom Holt's Devices and Desires, very cool and belivable legal and overall worldbuilding
You should become a lawyer my friend
22:00 this sounds like the American bicameralism but in that case either body can originate the law so I assume you are referring to British bicameralism
22:01 is that not the US congress?
26:30 I'm gonna need some context for that 😅
He says it's video of him eating a chocolate bar, but Burger being German I think we can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that it was not actually chocolate and in fact was really...well, he's German so you know...
Is it legal to give us piss all printer ink for a high price and have our printers stop working if we're out of printer ink? Yes. Is it right? Well... that's subjective but I'd argue no.
Now is it legal to say there are 11.5ml of ink in a catridge and when opened there is enough ink to coat the sides of the cartridge and two sponges in the cartridge in a space that occupies 11.5ml? No, that's false advertisement.
The court determines what is legal and what is not, not what is right and what is wrong.
Maaan! I really want to create a legal system, And mostly lawyers forma VtM
Have someone read experimental log of crazy lich
Hmmm. Interesting stuff.
That's actually a very accurate way of putting things in perspective.
I am curious though how would it happen in parliamentary or semi-presidential system in which you have both a Prime-Minister (Chief of the executive) and a President (which is a supreme repressentative in diplomatic matters as well as chief of the army)? Does this change the dynamic?
Isn't that Russia?
@@IchHassePasswoerter Not just Russia, Romania is the Semi-Presidential example I was thinking of, Where you have a president and prime minister separately, the president elected by the people, parliament elected by the people, and prime minister nominated by the president and confirmed by the parliament.
As for the Parliamentary system (Germany), parliament is elected by the people but the president is elected by the parliament, I don't know who nominates the chancellor (prime minister) though.
John the allmighty, allseeing, allknowing ✨️ 🙏
... Huh?
This is a great video pls get more views
The separation of these 3 "powers" is very much modern. In europe, the king, duke, count, etc all held legislative, judicial and executive power at once. In one hand. There was no separation. The entire reason for why it got separated is because some peeps during the french revolution though that they would be able to avoid corruption this way. SPOILER: It didn't.
And if we are speaking about the roles of kings, it is a purely european idea that the king and the pope existed as 2 separate positions. Or rather christian. Across the globe (and europe) the leader of the group was not just their leader in secular matters, but also their spiritual leader. So depending on your world and the stage of development it is in, you need to be aware of just how much of the laws are just "customs" (which tend to align with the moral standards of the people) and how much of them are modern laws, wherein a lot of room is left for amoral behaviour, because people bought the lawwriters and had them write laws in such a way that they got a lot of leaveway. It's why in older times adulterers got punished and today they don't.