I have a strange fascination with servants. I’m not saying this as a blue-blooded person who thinks that the “help” are quaint. I’m fascinated with them on a level of their potential and their use in fiction.

Butlers, secretaries, assistants, nannies, so many people on the service end of things get no respect but could completely sink the people that they serve, if they chose. They are the pillars upon which the rich and famous rest.

Who does Batman rely on? Not Robin the Boy Hostage; he relies on Alfred Pennyworth, his long-suffering butler. Alfred is not just good at keeping the house, he keeps the secrets, manages the house network, is an accomplished field medic, and, depending on which one of the many plotlines you read, is also good at boxing, swordsmanship, and archery. And he's deft with a shotgun too!

I know CEOs who would be lost without their assistants. These people who do the real work while those on top think the great thoughts and make the big bucks. Assistants and service people are overlooked and underpaid, but man, what potential.

Alfred is probably the most magical for me. His number one job is serving the Wayne family. He wears his suit and is dapper and proper. All about the etiquette, Alfred is never mussed or out of sorts. And still he kicks ass.

When I was writing for the World of Warcraft RPG books I was given a group to flesh out, a group of caretakers who are trained to care for and protect magical weapons. I had so much freaking fun with those guys, giving them combat abilities, trap-making abilities, and repair skills. There was a school they had to attend -- very difficult to be accepted to -- and multiple vows of secrecy to adhere to (on pain of death, natch.)

That was the most fun I’ve ever had writing in an RPG world. Perhaps my love affair with this kind of character has to do with the unexpected. No one pays attention to the janitor or the maid or the receptionist. They’re perfect assassins and spies and bodyguards.

Geeks, forgive me for the next example, but dammit, it fits (despite the weeping pile of bantha-shit that the movie was) but in The Phantom Menace, Padme got a lot more intel from masquerading as a servant than from being all gunked up with LOOK AT ME, I’M A DECOY makeup.

I was talking about butlers with some friends last summer, and just this week one of them sent me this link. Apparently, there is a butler school. It’s an eight week program in The Netherlands. It costs twelve thousand euros but they do point out this covers lodging, food, not to mention your dapper outfit complete with white gloves(!).

The problem is, I’m finding myself obsessed with this idea. I want to apply and go, count it as research, and find out the world of butling from the inside.

Do they have secret training on ass-kicking? Martial arts? I know from my years in kung fu that there’s not much you can learn in two months of training, but maybe it’s extensive -- a morning of etiquette, an afternoon of efficient and effective housekeeping, then four hours of martial arts training. They not only train you to kick ass, but to do so in a way that when you’re done, you don’t have a hair out of place or a rumple in your suit.

The site does have a “specialized training” area, but I couldn’t find “weapons,” “martial arts,” “hidden room architecture,” or “espionage.”

I was somewhat disappointed, I have to say. But maybe they don't advertise that part of the school.

Someone on Twitter told me that as a writer, I should probably just visit the school instead of spending the dough to enroll, but I disagree. Do you really think they’re going to show their secret assassin training area to a writer? I have to get inside, I have to experience it.

Whether I can learn from the inside or not, the service/butler character is a beloved one in my mind. Someone whose job it is to hold shit together is a powerful person indeed and should be trained in more than wine-meal pairings. So if I want to learn more, but don’t want to go to The Netherlands, what can the US offer me? More importantly, what can they offer me nearby?

Most of US etiquette training organizations I came across offer seminars instead of school-based learning, and nearly every one emphasized the value of getting darn kids off our lawns in order to learn some goddamn manners. And a school in South Carolina was a disappointment. Their Butler School's website has pictures of men and women you just KNOW could give Alfred a run for his money, but this page features a nervous guy holding flowers and tugging at his collar. I have no idea what this is trying to tell me.

I find myself wanting to learn more etiquette, as if it would lead me down a path of forbidden and mystical knowledge. Etiquette is so lost on the world, put aside as “stuffy” or “holier than thou,” that it’s becoming somewhat magical. Wow, if that guy knows what fork to eat his salad with, or how to properly mix chemicals to get a stain out of satin, I wonder what ELSE he knows?

Yeah, my imagination is probably making way too much about this, and I doubt I’ll be looking to enroll in butler school any time school. But from now on I’ll be looking at door men, janitors, and concierges with a bit more respect and, yes, wariness.

(Notice I didn’t list butler there -- it’s cause I’m never invited anywhere where a butler works. It might be cause I don’t know any fucking etiquette.)


Mur Lafferty is an author and podcaster who recently released her first novel, Playing For Keeps. She Speaks Geek every month on SuicideGirls.com. Click HERE for more of Mur's musings.