Cool Chair



""Somehow, I feel comfortable here.""

- Captain Kathryn Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager, trying out someone else's Cool Chair.

Pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin. People sit on chairs, and this one is awfully cool.

In Ye Olden Times, they called it a throne and there's usually a King in it. Or a princess, for some reason. Or sometimes, some dude named Orcus. The Corrupt Corporate Executive and Mob Boss love their swivelling chairs behind the desk of their penthouse office, with much the same effect.

More modern versions can include buttons on the armrest, which can help The Captain take a memo if any Bridge Bunnies aren't around. Alternatively, The Big Bad will have one of these (in black leather, natch) and any built-in controls will probably have to do with the tidy disposal of underlings.

Other fiendish uses for the Cool Chair Couch of Villainy (muah-ha-ha!) include practicing your Slouch of Villainy, and naturally, the Chair Reveal.

Villains and roguish heroes of the Middle Eastern persuasion will often be surrounded by scantily-clad women fanning him and feeding him grapes.

Cool Chairs will always be thematically appropriate. You will never find Lord Azazel the Befouler brooding atop his dread throne of plush cushions, and conversely you'll will never see Captain Jake McHero reclining on a seat made of iron spikes and human tibias. In The Sixties, the Cool Chair was Aarnio Eero's Ball Chair. People who have their own Cool Chairs (understandably) tend to be attached to them; should some irreverent interloper put his seat in your seat, feel free to declare: This Is My Chair.

A subtrope of this is the Hovering Cool Chair, often found in video games and more fantastic works of fiction. Hovering Cool Chairs are also sometimes weaponized - machine guns, rockets, and lasers pop out of it to attack the villain's enemies- especially when also functioning as a Super Wheelchair. This may serve as a way to introduce a Boss Battle with a mastermind-type villain without resorting to Authority Equals Asskicking. Swivel Chair Antics is another Sub-Trope.

Also, on occasion, the chair may serve as an escape pod for the villain to make his getaway.

Anime and Manga

 * The Major from Hellsing has a cool chair that is on an elevated platform in the zeppelin. It hides a surprise weapon too.
 * Axis Powers Hetalia: England tries to trick America into sitting on the "Infamous 'Sit and You Die' Busby Stoop Chair. Its evil doesn't stand a chance against Russia's, though, so it's not as cool as it could be.
 * Masaru's hovering chair in Akira, complete with bubble dome.
 * While we're at it, the concrete throne at the Olympic Stadium made a better Cool Chair for Tetsuo than anything else he could have sat on.
 * The wheelchair in the last episode of Samurai Champloo is revealed to be a cool chair because
 * Dragon Ball Z features Freeza and his "bubble car", as the abridged series humorously puts it.
 * While Franken Stein's rolling desk chair may look mundane, a frightful power is contained within.
 * Bleach has the Espadas' chairs, all of which are inexplicably about 15 feet tall and shaped like a piece of modern art. Aizen's couch shares the same absurd size and shape. Both have achieved their own fandoms.

Comic Books

 * Metron from DC has another hovering Cool Chair.
 * Thanos of Titan has had three "Space Thrones" made, each capable of generating a powerful, nearly impenetrable forcefield, energy-beam weapons capable of automatic targeting and firing, a teleportational device, a tractor beam emitter, and engines capable of transporting the craft through separate dimensions and realities, powerful sensor arrays, and an advanced computer system.
 * Savah's chair in Elf Quest has a cool psychic light display behind it, but it's not nearly as ostentatious as Lord Voll's (later Winnowill's) throne.
 * Professor X once had a high-tech hovering chair given to him by the Shi'ar.
 * And Whiz Kid can turn any object of sufficient mass into any device he can imagine. His wheelchair being the closest thing at hand, it's been turned into a rocket-powered one-man tank on several occasions. Sadly, he's among the C-List Fodder to be depowered at the end of House of M.
 * The Mekon, arch-villain of the Dan Dare comics, crouched on a flying throne shaped like half a lemon.
 * The comics adaptation of The Thrawn Trilogy shows us the command chair on the Chimera, the Star Destroyer that Grand Admiral Thrawn picked as his flagship. It's this massive thronelike thing made out of slabs.
 * Every member of the Justice League of America has a chair in the roundtable, however credit for Cool Chair would have to go to the Atom, who has a hovering cool chair that's just his size.
 * The throne of the Raven kingdom in Scion is pretty awesome.
 * M.O.D.O.K. is his awesome hoverchair.

Fan Works

 * When Voldemort finally comes face-to-face with her at the climax of the Worm/Harry Potter crossover A Wand for Skitter, Taylor is sitting in the middle of Hogwarts' Great Hall on a (conjured) throne made of human skulls, filing her nails.

Film
"Spock: Outofthechair."
 * Star Wars is full of them:
 * The Jedi Council hold their meetings in a tower, where each member gets a nice looking chair that you could almost swear was built specifically for them. Sometimes, when some of the members are away, they even fill their chairs via hologram communication.
 * And sometimes Yoda even uses a hover-chair.
 * And let us not forget the Emperor's cool chair while we're at it.
 * In Episode I, we get a scene of Viceroy Gunray on a "mechno-throne", a cool chair that walks around on four legs.
 * Also in Episode I, Darth Sidious uses the "mechno-throne" as a hologram projector. Let me recap: he is sitting on a throne that walks around on its own power. And he is a hologram at the time. Is Evil cool or what?
 * Don't forget Vader's cool chair in his meditation chamber. It's unique in that, rather than being the typical throne, it's low enough that Vader has to cross his legs when sitting in it.
 * "...One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne // In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie..." Subverted somewhat in that Sauron is never seen on his throne. Doubly so in The Movie, where Sauron is portrayed as a giant, Faceless Eye made out of fire, making a Cool Chair fairly useless. You know, what with him not having a butt and everything.
 * However! Realize that in fact Sauron has the coolest chair of them all, as his chair routinely spawns gargantuan legions of horrifying abominations of purest, twisted evil and is the tallest tower in the whole of middle-earth! He RULES this trope!!
 * Also, Saruman's spiky black chair in a throne room made of spiky obsidian (film only). Christopher Lee described it as "a great place to throw a really classy party, but not too comfortable to sit in."
 * Let's not forget the Steward of Gondor's seat (book and film), a plain black chair below and to one side of the (permanently unoccupied) throne.
 * Those egg chairs from Men in Black may be a subversion of this. They LOOK cool, but are horribly uncomfortable and it's almost impossible to write while sitting in one. Of course, that was the point—the written exam was a Secret Test of Character; the real test was to see which, if any, of their candidates realized that they were in a situation which was singularly unsuited to writing properly; noticed that there was a useful flat surface in the middle of the room; and go ahead and used that flat surface, even if it made that horrible screeching noise.
 * Wild Wild West (1999) movie. Dr. Loveless' wheelchair had a built-in gun and could turn into a 4-legged mini-mecha.
 * In the first Chronicles of Narnia film, the White Witch's throne of ice was a Cool Chair—literally. The four thrones at Cair Paravel toward the end of the film were quite spiff.
 * Parodied in the Austin Powers series, where Dr. Evil's Cool Chair keeps malfunctioning, or he just doesn't know how to work it.
 * Doctor Doom is seen briefly in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer sitting in a rotating chair with LCD screens on its armrests in a room where the walls are covered with larger monitors. Shame so little of it was shown, as it looked rather cool.
 * The Riddler's throne from Batman Forever might be a subversion of this.
 * Patrick Stewart's role as Charles Xavier in X-Men turned a wheelchair of all things into a freakin' cool chair. Those brain probes he uses for mass mind-readin' can't hurt the look, either.
 * In The Stuntman movie, the director character has a hovering cool chair (suspended by a crane) he uses to pop in and out of scenes.
 * The new Star Trek film features an awesome captain's chair.


 * There's an entire website dedicated to the chairs of The Incredibles.
 * Xerxes's gigantic throne in 300, which is the size of a small house, is carried around by no fewer than 100 slaves, and is lavishly decorated with statues, ivory, and gold.
 * In Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, the villain steals a pretty sweet looking couch to use as a throne.

Literature

 * In the second Artemis Fowl book, Opal Koboi had a hovering chair.
 * In Isaac Asimov's Foundation story "Bridle and Saddle" (AKA "The Mayors"), a ruler had a glowing chair that could float due to its shielded nuclear motor.
 * In Dune, the Emperor's throne was a "massive chair carved from a single piece of Hagal quartz". In Dune Messiah this is changed to "Hagar emerald" (probably a typo). The aborted 1975 film version of Dune would have had the Harkonnen Capo Chair, designed by H. R. Giger of Alien fame.
 * The Silver Chair from The Silver Chair, which apart from looking cool has the magical ability to completely brainwash its occupant for 23 hours a day, and keep him imprisoned for the remaining one.
 * Nero Wolfe has a chair that has been modified and reinforced (under his own supervision, of course) to support his great bulk. There's also the red leather chair in his office that's reserved for his client (or Inspector Cramer). If it's a story where Wolfe has multiple clients, the one he considers most important gets the red leather chair; if it's one with no paying client, it goes to the person Wolfe is more or less working for. In any case, the person who gets the red leather chair is virtually never the guilty party.
 * The Iron Throne in A Song of Ice and Fire is intentionally Cool but Inefficient. Aegon the Conqueror took the swords of all the defeated lords of Westeros and hammered them into a scary but still very sharp throne, saying that a king should never sit easy. Kings often cut themselves on the throne, and legend states that it has killed at least one of them.
 * The populace seems to think that it might be magical and harm only bad kings. Joffrey gets stuck with it when he's at his most arrogant and bratty after the Battle of Blackwater (and goes crying to Mommy). Also, Jaime mentions that Mad King Aerys always has scabs from sitting on the Iron Throne. Both, of course, are awful rulers, so the assumption is that the throne is rejecting them. Of course, it could also just have been a really bad idea to create a chair out of swords.
 * It features quite prominently in [[media:Game of Thrones Iron Throne HBO promo 01 1452.jpg|promos]] for the mini-series.
 * The Eastern Empire from Mercedes Lackey's later Valdemar books also features a throne of blades, except it's all the personal weapons of every leader the entire line of Emperors has conquered in hundreds of years of history.
 * Somewhat subverted in Garfield's PET FORCE, a series of short young-adult novellas written by Jim Davis, in which Garfield, Odie, Nermal, Arlene and Pooky are sucked into the universe of a comic book starring characters conveniently similar to them. The planet they end up on is a monarchy, and the king is... Jon Arbuckle. Since being royalty can do little to change the fact that he's still fundamentally Jon, he's had the traditional throne replaced with a recliner upholstered in Naugahyde, chosen on the basis that stains wipe right off.
 * The throne of Kinakuta in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. It looks like a chair designed by a Scandinavian with twin degrees in engineering and semiotics and given a blank cheque. When the Sultan sits in it, you know who's in charge here.
 * The Dragonbone Chair of the first novel in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series.
 * Prince Xizor has a chair that strengthens his muscles for him and tells him sycophantic nothings, although it always pronounces his name "Sheezor", much to his annoyance.
 * The titular Ravenor of the Warhammer 40,000 novels has his Cool Chair Life support Prison, complete with Psi boosters, Communication jamming and intercept equipment and hidden machine guns.
 * A tagalong in one of the books even privately refers to him as 'The Chair'.
 * William Albacastle / Willy Pete, authorial character of the White Wolf Mage: The Ascension supplement Iteration X and a major character in the novel Judgement Day by Bruce Baugh has a damn cool chair. The fact he's a technophillic quadrapalegic who uses waldoes to build telepresence drones and whose motorized wheelchair houses treads, robotic arms, and Hades knows what else gives him a good excuse to have one.
 * Again, the Steward of Gondor's seat in The Return of the King is a plain black chair below and to one side of the (permanently unoccupied) throne.
 * Discworld: Patrician Vetinari's seat at the foot of the steps leading up to the long-unoccupied solid gold throne of Ankh-Morpork.
 * Discworld addresses this idea again in The Fifth Elephant, with the Scone of Stone: revered seat cushion of the Low King of the dwarfs.
 * If "cushion" is really the right word for a baked good the consistency of stale granite.
 * In David Eddings' The Belgariad, Brand, the hereditary Rivan Warder, has a seat below the empty throne of the Rivan King.
 * This is actually a reference, unintentional or not, ot Denethor, Steward of Gondor in LOTR who sits on a plain wooden chair beneath the Gondorian throne (on the third step I believe)
 * The chair in the courtroom of the Wizengamot in Harry Potter has chains that, depending on the occupant, may coil up and tie him or her to it. It seems to only do it if the occupant is perceived to be potentially dangerous; in the Death Eater trials Harry sees in the Pensieve, it chains up several Death Eaters, but when Harry himself comes to sit in it in Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix, it lets him alone.
 * The Chairmaker in "Use of Weapons"  Nobody sits on it though.

Live-Action TV
""I know you don't think this chair is important, but you're wrong. What's the most critical component on this ship? The main computer? The warp reactor? Uh-uh, it's the crew. And the most important member of the crew is the Captain. He makes life and death decisions every day and the last thing he needs to be thinking in a critical situation is, 'Gee, I wish this chair wasn't such a pain in the ass.'""
 * Number 2's chair in The Prisoner. The desk it faced had several phones and a set of controls.
 * Rygel used a hovering throne-sled in Farscape.
 * The Captain's chairs on The Bridge in the Star Trek series and movies, starting with Captain Kirk's. Best described in this awful fanfic.
 * It's Color Coded for Your Convenience, as well: a Federation chair is done in soothing shades of beige, whereas Klingon furniture is all made from black leather and bolted-together slabs of iron. But the Klingons like it that way.
 * There's a delicious source of Narm in Star Trek: Insurrection, where the Big Bad's Cool Chair is a literal Couch Of Villainy. A big comfy red one. On a ultra-high-tech, stainless-steel Bridge. It really doesn't work, as seen here. (Perhaps the problem is that he isn't doing a a Slouch of Villainy on it...)
 * In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Singularity", the crew become obsessed with trivial nonsense due to Space Madness, and engineer Trip Tucker went all nuts trying to design the Ultimate Captain's Chair with interactive status displays, secondary helm control, inertial micro-dampers and cup holder (but apparently No Seat Belts).


 * Referenced a few times in Star Trek: The Next Generation. One episode that stands out is where Worf has to play the role of captain to fool some 80-year-old Klingons fresh out of stasis that the Klingon Empire controls the Federation. After succeeding, Riker asks him how if felt being captain. Worf's response is thus: "Comfortable chair."
 * On Friends, Rachel buys a new armchair. It's really, really nice. So nice, in fact, that Joey deliberately breaks his leather Barcalounger in a desperate attempt to be allowed to sit in it. Twice (long story...).
 * The Ancient control chairs (aka Recliner of Doom) in Stargate SG-1 and onwards launch Macross missile massacres on command from the sitter's thoughts, but if and only if the sitter has a particular gene.
 * Stargate SG-1 gets a Cool Chair too, in the form of General Hammond's chair. In "Proving Ground," Daniel gets to sit at the desk and revels in how comfortable it is.
 * In "Prometheus Unbound," Hammond returns to the SGC to recruit Daniel for the latest flight to Atlantis. When Jack asks him if he misses the chair and wants it back, Hammond says yes... and has the chair shipped to his office in Washington. That must be a damn comfy chair.
 * Daniel's control chair in his secret underground bunker in "Absolute Power" also definitely counts. It's on a cantilever, at least one of its armrests is a control panel, and it has a Deflector Shield, making it immune to shooting from a 9mm pistol.
 * Let's not forget Baltar's infamous swiveling chair in the original Battlestar Galactica. Though how he got up there in the first place is beyond me.
 * Averted on the new Battlestar Galactica. As part of the design of the 2003 mini-series, the writers and producers attempted to avoid as many of the standard stylings of typical TV Space Opera. Commander Adama and Colonel Tigh always stand in CiC. Some folks think they didn't really think it all the way through...
 * Having been crippled, Davros, the creator of the Daleks and recurring villain in Doctor Who, has his lower body encased in a cool chair by the time of his initial appearance in Genesis of the Daleks and retains it in later appearances.
 * The Iron Throne in Game of Thrones purposely subverts this Trope. It's an ugly mess of bent, sharp, tarnished metal, and obviously is not comfortable to sit on. Whoever does could could even injure himself by sitting on it, or even shifting his position while doing so. Which is the whole point. Aegron built it with the intent to teach his heirs that no ruler should ever accept the authority it confers frivolously, just as they must not rule carelessly.
 * The Thinking Chair from Blue's Clues. Want!
 * The Frank Lloyd Wright chairs in the council chambers on Babylon 5, and the command chair on the White Star-class ships. One of the buttons on the latter was programmed, at the battle of Corianna VII, to detonate 500 Megaton thermonuclear mines. Can you get any cooler?
 * A Genre Savvy moment in Rome has Cassius trying to convince Brutus that the cool chair Caesar has ordered for the forum is actually a throne and indicative of a thirst for power. Brutus claims that "thrones are usually more decorative. That is decidedly plain and chair-like."
 * In the first episode of NCIS, Ducky and DiNozzo quickly snap photos of each other sitting in the President's chair on Air Force One.
 * The Diary Room chair on Big Brother. Not particularly cool as a chair, but very definitely shorthand for "Draaaaaaaa-mah! is about to occur!"
 * Dad Anyfamily's mobile (as in gasoline-powered) chair from Roundhouse. It comes equipped with a TV, a propane grill, a cooler, and even brake lights.
 * The chair in the page picture is a replica of the one contestants sat in on the game-show Master Mind. It was considered so cool that it was once kidnapped and held for ransom.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40,000: SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! The Emperor's Golden Throne might count too, despite the fact that it's not so much a chair, than an elaborate life support device the size of a large building. Apparently the part where the Emperor's body lies does look somewhat like a throne, though.
 * There is also Inquisitor Lord Karamazov's Throne of Judgement, which is essentially a Space Marine Dreadnought with a chair top.
 * The Scarlet Throne of Exalted is an elaborate thing made from magical jade of each colour carved into the shapes of the Five Elemental Dragons in a protective and deferential pose to the sitter, and has been the main symbol of the authority of the most powerful person in the world for 700 years.

Video Games

 * A golden throne, studded with platinum and decorated with dragon bones, and carved with the glorious feats of the town's ruler, doesn't even get near how awesome chairs and thrones (as all furniture) can become in Dwarf Fortress.
 * Dr. Robotnik has various incarnations of his signature Eggmobiles, which manage a trifecta of Cool Chair, cockpit of sundry Boss Battling machines, and omnivehicle escape pod. So enamored is he with his flying chair that it's rare to see him actually standing.
 * We never see her sit in it, but Azala in Chrono Trigger has a throne made of bones in Tyranno Palace. Choosing to sit in it causes the character doing so to give an Evil Laugh.
 * Some Castlevania games have a sidequest centered around finding and sitting in Cool Chairs.
 * Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow has a soul you can collect which, when equipped, will regenerate health at a fairly generous rate whenever you're sitting down-be it in a Cool Chair, a few boards and dowels barely held together with glue, or a crate.
 * The Frozen Throne of the Lich King in Warcraft games - a chair magically carved out of glacial ice, which doubles as Ner'zhul's phylactery. There's also a place called the Throne of Kil'Jaeden, but it's not an actual throne. Whether the Legionlord has an actual Cool Chair remains to be seen, as surely no self-respecting demon lord would go without an obsidian throne covered in skulls and spikes.
 * Several CoolChairs can be found in World of Warcraft, usually in various throne rooms. Kel'thuzad has a particularly cool looking one, which is sadly somewhat wasted, as he's a semi-incorporeal lich and doesn't have the necessary bodyparts (like everything below his torso) to actually sit on it.
 * In Halo the prophets glide on hover chairs, that have Deflector Shields and can shoot lasers. Normally Master Chief vs. an old man wouldn't be much of a fight, so it's a good thing the Cool Chair fixes that.
 * Sebastian Krist has one in Rise of the Triad.
 * Sebastian Krist's chair is so cool that it comes with built-in rocket launchers.
 * There's one of these that Bowser usually sits on in the Super Mario Bros. series, with a clear example of such a sinister spike-covered throne found in the Mario Party Bowser mini games.
 * Resident Evil 4's Leon Kennedy finds a Cool Chair while venturing into the final areas of the game. You even get an action command to sit it in, Dracula style (Doing so will reveal a collectible).
 * Organization XIII of Kingdom Hearts has an entire circular meeting room with no less than thirteen cool chairs for each member of the Organization. Each one is raised to ridiculous heights on top of a plain white tower, and they seem built for people who are about ten feet tall (less of a problem when you can teleport). Since all the elevations vary depending on rank, it's amazing that they manage to have meetings without having to shout at each other to be heard. Naturally Xemnas, being the leader, has the highest chair.
 * Ape Escape's evil genius simian antagonist Specter is seldom seen without his levitating chair. In the first game, he even fights the first half of the final battle in it. It doesn't appear to have any weapons of its own, but it does teleport and apparently give him mind-control beam and energy blast attacks, so it's pretty cool.
 * Nethack - Occasionally you can come across a throne. Sitting in it can net you something nice...or something horrible.
 * Dist has a cool flying chair.
 * The throne of the ruler of Ferelden, and the Viscount of Kirkwall. The Viscount's throne comes complete with a beer mug sitting on the arm. For 10 years.
 * A Memetic Mutation of a Mondegreen from Metal Slug resulted in meme-art of a ''Rocket Lawn-chair".
 * The Normandy SR2's pilot chair is so spiffy that Joker has a Nerdgasm over it.
 * Given that Joker's got a bone disease that requires him to spend most of his time sitting, his reaction is justified.
 * The Illusive Man's chair is impressive if only for its elegant simplicity. There's a reason why, in Mass Effect 3, he gets annoyed when
 * In Wii version A Boy and His Blob, the emperor sits on a rather slimy throne which is has several heads very much alive.
 * Kristoph Gavin in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney gets a very expensive looking cool chair Chairs, nail polish and reading are his only hobbies, and given the circumstances, this means he's doing quite well for himself.
 * In Darkstalkers, one of Morrigan's victory moves has her create a throne made of bats that she can sit on.
 * Maple Story has hundreds. In gameplay, chairs (which you character stores in his or her Hammerspace inventory) are used to heal, and Nexon never gets tired of designing them, offering two or three with every event, in every shape imaginable. This YouTuber gives examples of 150 Cool Chairs, but this is by no means a complete list.

Web Comics

 * Lord Shojo from Order of the Stick has a Cool Chair that.
 * The lack of a cool chair is the reason the bug of Bug. could never be a super villain.
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, all Nemesite chairs have narrow backs for wings, tail-holes, and four armrests. Bob finds them uncomfortable, but Molly and Galatea, who have tails, heartily approve of them.
 * Fly, Pupa!!!!!!!! Flyyyyyyyy!

Web Original

 * Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Dr. Horrible has a big, giant overstuffed chair in his laboratory. It's a bit too gaudy to be a proper Evil Overlord chair, which makes it probably an Affectionate Parody. Plus, meta-wise, the chair belonged to the person in whose home they filmed the Billy shots. "The chair really is that big," Whedon was quoted as saying. "We did not bring a chair increaser."
 * The online program Habbo Hotel has the throne. Unfortunately, to obtain such an item means you have to scam it, trade for it or... gulp... buy it. :(
 * The Brick Testament gives Satan a particularly nice throne here.

Western Animation
"Matrix (rebooted as Megabyte): Could you pass me my legs."
 * Villains with a preference for high technology (and occasionally heroes, too) often use a hovering Cool Chair, which can move them around their screen-covered command-center without the inconvenience of getting up and walking. I recall an episode of the old Spider-Man animated series, when J. Jonah Jameson is 'invited' up to SHIELD's Helicarrier, and we get the Chair Reveal on Nick 'The Pirate' Fury. He's sitting in some sort of awesome, electric, hovering chair. Just to underline the "These guys have loads of cool stuff" point
 * In another episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Norman Osborn hired Spencer Smythe to create the Spider Slayer, the terms of their deal included Norman financing the development of a hover chair for Smythe's son. In the end of the episode, Spencer was believed dead and his son, blaming Spidey, Osborn, Jameson and Eddie Brock for that, agreed to work for the Kingpin, who provided him with a hover chair.
 * Professor X in the 90's X-Men cartoon had a hoverchair for no apparent reason.
 * Because they're a lot cooler than a wheelchair?
 * Easier to animate?
 * Because he had it in the comics at the time. However, in the comics, he'd gotten it from the Shi'ar. In the show, he had it from the beginning, and we wouldn't meet the Shi'ar for a while.
 * Parodied on The Simpsons, where Mr. Burns offers to use his influence to get Homer into college to actually get his nuclear physics degree, saying "I have a chair on the admissions board of Springfield University". His "chair" turns out to be a giant throne with devils carved into it, skulls for the handrests, and two attack dogs chained to it.
 * How can we not mention Stephen Hawking's wheelchair from the same show? It could fly and was loaded with more tools than Inspector Gadget.
 * Professor Farnsworth from Futurama pilots a flying, armed Laz-E-Boy when they are pushed back to 1940's Roswell.
 * Hedonism Bot is a Cool Chair.
 * The Inspirationally Disadvantaged Felix Renton from Kim Possible has a wheelchair with a hover system and retractable Combat Tentacles. It was built by his mother, a cybertechnology expert who moved into town to work at the space center with Kim's father. In his second appearance, the bad guys steal it, causing Shego to remark that Even Evil Has Standards.
 * Big Bad Megabyte in ReBoot had a hovering Cool Chair. Of course, sitting in it required him to take his legs off to attach himself to it. He often had one of his Mooks polishing his legs while using his chair.

"Megatron: I trust you're comfortable in your chair?"
 * Transformers Animated. Bulkhead's kibble.
 * When Megatron was still in pieces, Professor Sumdac used Megatron's hand as a chair.
 * And after Megatron rebuilt himself and captured Professor Sumdac:


 * In Batman the Brave And The Bold, episode "Trials of the Demon", a demon lord who is banished to his own personal pocket dimensional prison turns out to have a giant stone throne covered in spikes in there. Keep in mind that he's the only being in the entire prison, so you have to imagine: at some point he had to have formed a throne himself from the rocks just because a demon lord's gotta have a throne.
 * Jafar in Aladdin has a throne that's basically a couch with a giant carving of a cobra's head above it and more cobras for the legs. He also chains Princess Jasmine to it. Of course, the original throne of the sultan of Agrabah was pretty cool too, having an elephant carving.
 * In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Earth King has an ornate throne worked into an absolutely enormous wall fashioned in the likeness of a badgermole, and covered in what appears to be gold and jade. Firelord Sozin had a golden throne before a similar wall worked with a golden dragon and surrounded by fiery cressets. After he crosses the Moral Event Horizon this is replaced with what seems to be a simpler seat... that's hidden behind a wall of flames in an otherwise unlit hall.
 * Jimmy Two-Shoes: A temporarly smart Beezy makes a chair that can Time Travel.
 * In ThunderCats (2011) Thundera's Good King Claudus has a high-backed golden throne with cat's head armrests (appropriate to a Catfolk monarch) and royal blue cushions. Big Bad Sorcerous Overlord Mumm-Ra later sees fit to commandeer it after he's succesfully laid siege to Thundera.

Real Life

 * Thrones. Duh.
 * The sedia gestatoria used by The Pope has to be seen to be believed.
 * Real-life example: the term "chairman" comes from a time when all the members of a committee, save for the most important one, had to sit on benches. The most important one got a chair, which, when everyone else is sitting on benches, seems pretty cool all by itself.
 * In the British House of Commons, only the Speaker has a chair. Everyone else sits on benches.
 * Subverted in the House of Lords, where while the Lords do sit on benches (admittedly really, really, posh benches), the "chairman" of the House (formerly the Lord Chancellor, now the Lord Speaker) does not get an actual chair but rather sits on the Woolsack, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: a sack full of wool. Despite the absence of a back, it's apparently quite comfortable. There's also a Judges' Woolsack, another (much longer) wool-filled cushion right in front of and below it, where the Law Lords—Britain's highest judicial authority until they were moved to the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in late 2009—sat during the State Opening of Parliament (although any Lord may sit on it during normal session). Double Subverted in that there is a rather cool chair in the Lords Chamber—it's the monarch's throne, from which he/she gives the Speech from the Throne every State Opening of Parliament—and unlike the Judges' Woolsack, if you're not supposed to be sitting in it but sit in it anyway, you will get in trouble.
 * The old-school Chesterfield chairs and sofas are among the most recognisable upper class furniture, familiar from every Smoky Gentlemen's Club in fiction, ever.
 * The long-running TV show Jim'll Fix It featured a large chair for Jimmy Savile with concealed compartments that would open when he pressed the right button. When Tom Baker and K9 were on the shown K9 said it was pleased to meet "Mr Savile and Chair".
 * The Atlantis resort and watermark in the bahamas gives us The Golden Throne, a seat that guests are free to sit in (one at a time... normally) and take pictures in for free.
 * The "thrones" occupied by mall Santas tend to be fairly impressive to look at, at least to the small children who come to sit on his lap.