Fabletown - Government

Government

While Fabletown is run, ostensibly, along democratic lines, in practice many of the same people have stayed in office for centuries, at least until recently. The longtime mayor was Old King Cole, who delegated much of his work to his deputy mayor. A number of fables have served as deputy mayor, including Ichabod Crane, who held the position for 115 years and Snow White, who took over in the mid 1990s after Crane's resignation to avoid charges of sexual harassment and embezzlement. The sheriff of Fabletown was the Big Bad Wolf, now known as Bigby Wolf, who had acquired the ability to assume human form. Bigby was hampered in his work by the agreement that had made him part of the Fable community; many of the less-human Fables had suffered his predations in the "Homelands," and one part of the compromise that was struck to allow him to join the others in the New World was that he should never be allowed on the Farm under any circumstances whatsoever. This would later become a sore point, because his own children would be confined to the Farm, meaning that he could never visit them.

Cole was eventually ousted by the actions of Prince Charming, who discovered that there had not been an election in modern times. Charming wanted the job of Mayor because of Bluebeard's treasure which, with Bluebeard dead, went into the town coffers to be spent by the mayor. He made many campaign promises, particularly with respect to providing free glamour spells or transformations to non-human Fables, allowing them to pass as human and so be able to leave the Farm. Unfortunately, he neglected to consult with Frau Totenkinder and the other resident magic-users before making this promise, leaving him in an uncomfortable position when they informed him that they were already close to the limit of what could be managed and that there was no way that they could mass-produce the spells as he had unwisely promised. His inability to live up to these promises has led to frequent calls for his resignation. Neither Snow nor Bigby were willing to work alongside the new Mayor; both resigned, with Bigby going into self-imposed exile and Snow moving to the Farm to look after their children. Charming has appointed Beauty and the Beast to take their places as Deputy Mayor and Sheriff respectively. Both are settling into their roles and Charming seems to be a fit leader, as he was raised to be king and well understands sacrifice for duty.

More recently, Prince Charming resigned as Mayor in favor of Cole, so that he could devote his time to the war with the Empire of the Adversary. Charming seems to have died in that war. As a result of actions by Mr. Dark, the Bulfinch Street section of Fabletown crumbled to pieces. Mayor Cole then led the survivors to the Farm to regroup and contemplate what to do next.