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Citizen’s Complaints About Their Rulers & Leaders


by pikachu315111

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Every civilization needs a ruler or leader to bring people together and make the final, tough decisions. Neopia is filled with rulers and leaders such as kings, princesses, mayors, and governors. Most if not all the current rulers and leaders are revered by his or her people. However not everyone may look upon their ruler or leader with high regards. Whether they had been personally wronged, feel they aren’t fit to rule, or just don’t like them, every ruler and leader has a group of citizens who have complaints about them. Often ignored, I decided to see what they have to say so I put an ad in the Neopian Times asking for their complaints. I get plenty of responses yet so little time and space, so I looked through for the most interesting complaint per ruler and leader. It’s time for their voices to heard in:

Citizen’s Complaints About Their Rulers & Leaders

As requested, all citizens have had their names withheld,

instead they will be going by a pseudonym.

Altador Ruler: King Altador

Citizen’s Complaint: “I could make a whole list of complaints for every Council member, but I’ll just stick to the king as you asked. Now it’s not like I have anything against King Altador, he’s a good king and I’ve worked for worse, believe me. But the old Lupe can get too sentimental beyond reason. You remember the Darkest Faerie used to have a statue in the Hall of Heroes, right? Well the statue is gone, and boy was that a mess to clean up, but its pedestal is still here. Well a lot of Altadorians have bad memories of the Darkest Faerie and some don’t like that anything of hers is still in Altador. Every so often I’d come into the Hall of Heroes early morning to find SOME PUNKS HAD SNUCK IN AND GRAFFITIED ALL OVER THE PEDESTAL! And just guess WHO has to clean it! I sent in a request time and time again to just remove the pedestal, but each time I’m turned down as the king holds sentimental value in the pedestal. It’s not that I don’t understand why, but he’s letting his feelings get in the way of resolving this problem. I think it’s about time we removed the pedestal, it’ll help him be able to move on and save money on cleaning supplies.”

Mopping Mad

Brightvale Ruler: King Hagan

Citizen’s Complaint: “When it comes to wisely ruling Brightvale there’s not much to complain about King Hagan the Wise. But when it comes to paying for that wisdom does my wallet begin to cry. I’m an alumnus of Brightvale University, having graduated top of my class and with honors, and currently working within BU as a research aide. My experience in BU was great, but I do feel it does everything it can to run up your student loan bill. The campus was built far enough away from nearby towns that you need to rent a dorm, new editions of text books for all classes are released every semester with no option to rent books, and the dress code is so strict you’re almost forced to buy a new wardrobe from the university’s store. The only place where I don’t feel I’ve been taken for every NP I had was the cafeteria, and I don’t think my stomach has forgiven them for that. I understand that, compared to other kingdoms such as Meridell, that Brightvale must be quite expensive to keep maintained. But I feel better budgeting would be a wiser investment than trying to squeeze every last bit of NP from students of their highest university. Reducing the cost doesn’t mean they’ll be letting riffraff into our halls, rather I believe it’ll open the doors to intellectuals who normally couldn’t afford to attend or reduce the amount of drop outs from fear of owing too much NP. It also would be a nice, small relief to those who are currently and have previously attended.”

Seeking Reduction

Darigan Citadel Ruler: Lord Darigan

Citizen’s Complaint: “Lord Darigan has worked very hard to renovate the Citadel, trying to recapture its former glory before Meridell stole the Golden Orb. And for the most part he’s done a good job, cleaning up the streets and refurbishing buildings. But there’s one place he missed if not outright ignoring: the dungeons. Sure, normally no one would visit a kingdom’s dungeon, but the Citadel’s dungeon has something that others don’t: a stupendous game hosted by a magnificent dungeon master (who’s overdue for a raise for having to deal with the persistent whining and ramblings of the inmates, or so I heard). Surely this means the dungeon deserves some renovations, like a few more wall lamps, some art, and a secret room to give that poor dungeon master someplace to escape the inmates moaning. I think the town square can do without another water fountain if it means we can get some clean water down here- I mean down there.”

Irritated & Puzzled

Faerieland Ruler: Queen Fyora

Citizen’s Complaint: “Oh so much to complain about, but so little time. Queenie has done a lot to complain about, but out of all of them I think we can all agree that her advocacy of Neopiazation has overreached her Faerieland nationalism. Simply put, Faerieland needs to focus on Faerieland, at least until we can get our city floating again. That means we should be promoting what Faerieland has to offer compared to what other lands can scrape together. Now I can understand Fyora wanting to promote our sisters living in other lands, but when we have, say, Jhudora’s Bluff Dark Faerie Quests in Faerieland than why are we also promoting other similar quests like Illusen’s in far off Meridell? It’s tough to do, but our abroad sisters chose to leave Faerieland so they should expect that when Faerieland is having tough times they won’t be getting any support from home.”

Dark Rules, Earth Drools

Krawk Island Leader: Governor Gavril McGill

Citizen’s Complaint: “Ay, you want complaints on ‘King’ McGill, as many of us Krawk Islanders call ‘im, do ye? Oh, ev’ryone on Krawk Island got complaints, but my complaint is comin’ from a bit of a ‘unique’ perspective. Now I can admit I ain’t no law abidin’ citizen; I’d argue I’m a true blue pirate, as blue as the sea. Judge if ye want, but I had smuggled in many of rare artifacts some of ye readers may own so we be partners in crime by the eye of the law. Though that gets to my problem, before McGill we kept our black market business on Scurvy Island and let Krawk Island be a sort of neutral zone. But when McGill dubbed himself governor he’d been pushing his boundaries over onto Scurvy Island, tryin’ to tell us scurvy pirates what to do! Scurvy Island was formed so we could do business without law interference, but if McGill keeps on pushin’ then there’s no reason we shouldn’t start setting up shop on Krawk Island. ‘Course we pirates don’t want to do it, most of us keeps our stuff there, but if McGill keeps pokin’ his snout where it doesn’t belong we’re goin’ to shove it back to his face.”

Scurvy Pirate

Sakhmet Ruler: Princess Amira

Citizen’s Complaint: “I may not be an ordinary citizen, but Iif you want the inside dirt on Amira than I’m your gal. I live in the Sakhmet palace, you can say I’m a royal servant (at least it feels like Amira treats me like one sometimes), and Amira’s daily habits would make your head feel like it’s in a middle of a Scarabug swarm. But let’s focus on one which affects everyone in Sakhmet: when other royals visit. It feels like the whole city is setting up a theater performance; decorations are strategically placed, paths are cleaned, sand piles are packed down, merchants are given orders on how to act and what to say, and that’s not going into the chaos that goes on in the palace. It’s the worst when Princess Lunara of Shenkuu visits, Amira and her have gotten into a rivalry about who has the more beautiful kingdom. Amira REALLY goes all out than, placing performers on every street corner and loaning merchants higher quality goods to sell (which she takes back once Lunara leaves, though if they can sell Lunara something they’re allowed to keep a cut of the profit so Amira isn’t completely shallow). Though it does make me wonder, does Shenkuu go through the same headache when sis- I mean, Amira visits?”

Spare Heir

Qasala Ruler: King Jazan

Citizen’s Complaint: “I’ll come right out and say it, Jazan is too high-strung. I’m a close friend, though still a citizen (admittedly not of Qasala, but you never specified the citizen needed to be from the same land as the ruler), and the guy just can’t take a joke. Like one time I swapped a portrait of him and Nabile with a portrait of myself and he flipped. Though I kind of knew he would do that so I kind of left a false trail leading into the Qasalan sewers. Good times, though I still feel a slight pinch of pain when I sit down from Nabile’s overblown revenge trap. Though this is about Jazan (and I don’t want to incur Nabile’s wrath), and I have a plan to help him. You see, I know a little secret about Jazan: he likes Babaas. A total Babaa fanatic, plays Math Nightmares every day, and totally not allergic to their wool. So all of you should send him any Babaa or Babaa items you have or find to him! It’ll certainly change his dour attitude, I’ll guarantee you that.”

Lovable Rogue

Maraqua Ruler: King Kelpbeard

Citizen’s Complaint: “I hope you don’t mind criticism from a former Maraquan citizen. You don’t hear much about Kelpbeard as you do the other rulers; I suppose that makes him a good king, right? Well I guess he is as long as you’re the one he’s listening too. Kelpbeard has a tendency to make snap decisions if pressured, it’s how old Maraqua ended up paying pirates for protection and later destroyed. Pirates came and pressured Kelpbeard to pay them and he did. Maraquan citizens pressured him to tell the pirates off, he did, and then old Maraqua was destroyed. Don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way; I probably would have also supported the choice of not paying the pirates anymore. But Kelpbeard didn’t put any strategy in what he said; he just told them to leave and didn’t expect them to retaliate. And today he’s still doing it. Surface dwellers were responsible for destroying old Maraqua? No more surface dwellers. Someone is cursed with disastrous visions and scaring citizens? Better banish them. Your previous decrees proved to be ineffective and incorrect? Reverse them with an insincere apology. And yet some are surprised when those affected decide not to stay in Maraqua. *sighs*

Banished Sister

Meridell Ruler: King Skarl

Citizen’s Complaint: “You want complaints about Fat King Skarl? I got your complaints right here! I’m a farmer from Meriville Farms and can tell you all the woes that bloated buffoon had done to us! How about we start with his Juppie Tax, which is just a legal way of him stealing from us. None of it goes to supporting our crops, not even our famous Giant Juppie, Ol’ Jessie. In fact the few rare times Skarl gets off his throne he had come down to Ol’ Jessie. But not to guess her height as you usually do, instead he always tries to eat her! And when we tell him no he just runs back to his castle crying saying he’ll send in his knights to take it, but he never does. Then he orders everyone in the kingdom to try and tell him jokes even though he wouldn’t know one if he ate it. But when he does rarely laugh at a not funny joke you have to endure his bad breath, as if he wasn’t smelly enough! I’ve heard multiple times his knights tried overthrowing him, but he had poorly trained them so they always fail and he’s too lazy to jail or replace them. I wish we were ruled by Lord Darigan, the Darigans are so much better than us in every way. Well, I gotta get back to farming my Juppies now, they won’t pick themselves off the trees.”

Totally A Meridelligan

Moltara Leader: Mayor or Moltara

Citizen’s Complaint: “I work with at mayor’s office and one duty of my job is approving contracts between us and businesses we hire for projects and maintenance. I have to make sure that the names being written on the contract are the names of the Neopians who signed it. It is why this job is frustrating and I’m writing you this letter: the Mayor of Moltara doesn’t give his name. He signs everything ‘Mayor of Moltara’, even for informal parcels! Don’t confuse my frustration of this aspect of my job for the entirety of the job. I quite like my job and the Mayor is a nice Chomby who’s enthusiastic about being mayor. But I think that’s the problem, he’s so enthusiastic about being mayor he only refers to himself as such. I don’t think I’d even recognize his name if he wrote it down, I don’t recall ever hearing what it was. How can any of his works and accomplishments be archived if no one knows anything about him aside being a mayor of Moltara?”

Name Not Given

Roo Island Ruler: King Roo

Citizen’s Complaint: “If I had to put every problem with King Roo in one word it’ll be this: GAMES. King Roo’s obsession with games was fine when it was just him playing Dice-A-Roo to keep himself and guests entertained, but then he started incorporating gaming into the ruling of Roo Island. Sure, bringing the Games Room to Roo Island increased tourism, but it also has brought big messes and public disturbances to the surrounding area by disrespectful visitors. But this is about King Roo, more important on his ruling decisions. When he’s not trying to hurry proceedings so he can get back to his games, resulting in some unsatisfied resolutions, he’s basing decisions on how it’ll affect the Games Room. We spend more of our budget on maintaining the Games Room than our infrastructure, which goes back to the issue of disrespectful visitors making a mess of things. Local businesses even have begun to suffer, primarily expansions being held back in favor of expanding the Games Room. It has come to a point the king’s council is working with game designers to see if they can’t make a game out of ruling the kingdom! Is this any way a kingdom should be run, I ask you?”

Serious Business

Shenkuu Ruler: The Emperor

Citizen’s Complaint: “Now when it comes to proceedings that the Emperor oversees himself there’s no problem, the Emperor being a bit of a perfectionist. But when it comes to him assigning someone a position of management are there problems. I’ve seen some managers who shouldn’t be supervising a Petpet let alone a crew of workers. But the managers aren’t the only problem, bad choices lead to more bad choices and that means workers who aren’t qualified being assigned over those who are. From personal experience, I was part of a ship crew with an absentminded Captain, a big mouthed rigger, a bossy doctor who wanted to sail off course, a lazy boatswain, and a crazy cook who makes horrible food and throws you overboard for saying so! Someone gave them their license, and that person had to be assigned by someone, and so on and so forth until we finally get up to the Emperor. I’d say if he’s that bad at choosing overseers he should form a council to make the decisions for him, though then we come back to the problem of him picking who will be on the council! Hopefully Princess Lunara will be a better judge of character.”

Gazing Navigator

Virtupets Ruler(?): Doctor Frank Sloth

Citizen’s Complaint: “Sloth is a joke! He claims to be a genius but he’s completely incompetent. I served directly under Sloth as a commander of his forces. I had gone through many hardships and sacrifices to obtain this supposedly prestigious position. Yet, while my fellow commander, Garoo, was leading the invasion of the Virtupets Space Station during his last takeover attempt, I was treated like a office gofer! And Sloth knew there was a resistance group; had I been sent to one of the many other entry points on the other side of the space station with an elite squad we could have ambushed them and accomplished our takeover. I’m glad he lost and got trapped in the Space Faerie’s charm, clears room for I to take over! You will know and fear my name in good time, and maybe then I’ll stop being called a hero for not chasing off a couple of kids.”

Mistaken For Hero

I think I might have to do a better job at vetting these letters- Um, I mean, that’s it for Citizen’s Complaints About Their Rulers & Leaders! These citizens have shed some light on the, um, “shady” side of their rulers and leaders. Maybe now that their complaints are known far and wide it can be shown to their ruler or leader and they can take action to correct their mistakes and shortcomings! That or I should be expecting angry letters; yeah, definitely the angry letters. But that is another article for another time, so until then, fair reader!

 
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