Rightful King Returns



""But at the essential moment, see, your genuine kings throw back their cloak and say 'Lo!' and their essential kingnessness shines through.""

- Terry Pratchett, Guards Guards

This is the common High Fantasy plot that involves restoring the rightful heir to the throne. Requires, obviously, the Royal Blood trope; it doesn't work in a kingdom with elective monarchs. (Not that many works actually use elective monarchies.)

Sometimes started off by a Moses in the Bulrushes scenario. The true ruler may be identified by a Distinguishing Mark, such as a birthmark, or a Orphan's Plot Trinket. The rightful monarch may have been been a King Incognito for his own safety until the right moment, or he may learn his Secret Legacy and go to claim it, in a Rags to Royalty plot. Next thing you know, He's Back. This stuff is likely to end in an Awesome Moment of Crowning.

Related to Fisher King. It wouldn't be so important who sits on the throne if he wasn't magically linked to the wellbeing of the whole country. See also the King in the Mountain. Sister Trope to A Protagonist Shall Lead Them, who may be royalty but often is not.

Contrast Offered the Crown.

Supertrope of the Man in the Iron Mask.

Anime & Manga

 * Kimba the White Lion: After his father's death, he must reclaim his kingdom. However he will have to reclaim it from a black-maned, scarred lion has usurped the throne in his absence. It must be told it was made forty years before Disney made The Lion King.
 * Trinity Blood ends with.
 * The manga adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past by Himeakawa ends this way, with the return of the missing Princess Zelda (who is immediately crowned Queen, thus making it the Rightful Queen Returns).

Film

 * The Lion King.
 * Subverted in Shrek the Third: Shrek is himself a rightful heir, but he intentionally embarks on a quest to find another rightful heir -- Arthur Pendragon -- to relieve himself of the duty.
 * The Court Jester
 * King Ralph
 * In Disney's Robin Hood, everyone (except for Prince John) desperately waited for King Richard to return and reclaim his throne from his greedy brother.

Literature
""Politicians do not understand much; but politicians do understand politics," said Pond pensively. "I mean they do understand the IMMEDIATE effect on mobs and movements. Somehow he had slipped in and started a campaign of private popularity before they even knew who he was. When once he was popular, they were helpless. How could they say: 'Yes, he is popular, he is on the side of the people and the poor; the young men accept his leadership; but he is the King and therefore he must go'? They know how horribly near the world is to answering: 'Yes; he is the King and, by God, he shall stay.'""
 * Aragorn, from The Downfall of The Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King (to cite the full title of the Red Book of Westmarch) was the rightful heir to the throne of Arnor (the senior of the two Dunedain realms), and a strong enough claimant to the throne of Gondor to be crowned without incident after his victory at Pelennor.
 * The Hobbit also has a subversion with Thorin, who, while the rightful heir, is a jerk and ends up experiencing Redemption Equals Death. Bard also qualifies, being a descendant of Girion, old ruler of Dale.
 * The original Robin Hood didn't have this for centuries. But Robin was written into Ivanhoe as a supporting character, and most adaptations since have followed suit. The setting of the original legend could be a generation or two either side of the Lionheart's reign.
 * King Arthur, of course. As a boy, he came back once, and later in life he was mortally wounded ... but it's also said he'll come back from the dead at his kingdom's hour of greatest need.
 * If he didn't come back during the Blitz, he's probably not coming back at all. Though they did have Churchill...
 * Subverted by in Ankh-Morpork. He's the rightful king, and would make a really good one, too, caring about both his people and the city... but he stays away from the throne for exactly that reason, as he knows that monarchy is exactly what Ankh-Morpork doesn't need, and possibly because he ascribes to Vimes' problem with the term 'rightful'. He'll occasionally exploit his status, though, using it to pull off the narrative tricks that come with this trope (Such as fighting other enemies aware of narrative causality who realize you can't beat a rightful king who's not yet on the throne, especially when he's got justice and is outnumbered).
 * He often directly subverts the Tolkien examples, with the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork being in the role of the Steward of Gondor. Unlike the Tolkien example, both the Steward and the Rightful King are happy with the status quo: Vetinari can rest secure in the knowledge that, if anyone DOES try to organize a coup to restore the Rightful Heir to the throne, they haven't got the correct Heir.
 * Pratchett does the same trick in Wyrd Sisters in which Tomjon returns to Lancre, but rejects the kingship in favour of being an actor. Luckily he has a secret half-brother.  Draws on Macbeth
 * The Prisoner of Zenda is almost a subversion of the trope though since the guy helping to restore the king is agreed by the king's allies to actually be a better ruler, and in fact the guy who overthrew the king is also a much better ruler.
 * Subverted in the novel The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick. The king of Babel has been missing for a few decades. Will, the protagonist, falls in with a con man named Nat, who comes up with a plan to pass off Will as the king's bastard son and therefore the sole heir to the throne.
 * CS Lewis's Prince Caspian
 * Not just the eponymous hero, either.
 * Also in The Horse and His Boy,
 * The Belgariad. If you can't figure out who it is, you need to read some more.
 * Played with in Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. The country has a bunch of lesser kings who are overseen by one High King, and although throughout the series there is a kindly and just man in this position, the oracular Book of Three foretells the coming of a truly great High King. There is also an evil overlord threatening the land. The series follows the adventures of a foundling child, who is rescued by a great wizard and is raised by him out in the middle of nowhere.
 * There is a twist, however, which takes center stage beginning with book 4. Taran goes questing in search of his origins, receives from kings and commoners both, and finally realizes he should just be himself. In book 5, he finds out
 * Subverted in the A Wizard in Rhyme series by Christopher Stasheff. One of the characters is the directly descended heir to his universe's equivalent of Charlemagne, and technically the rightful ruler of about half a dozen countries. However, he has vowed only to reveal himself if things get so screwed up that they can't be fixed any other way, and he works behind the scenes to make sure that doesn't happen.
 * In John Barnes's One for the Morning Glory, Princess Calliope returns to her native Overhill, which the usurper Waldo had seized when she was a child, and is crowned there. A Fisher King effect comes into play.
 * Subverted in Ranger's Apprentice. When, who is the rightful inheritor of the throne of Clonmel, returns to his kingdom, it is only to convince the king to stand up against an evil cult which threatens the kingdom.
 * Epidemic in the Ruritanian Romance. Dorothy L. Sayers satirized it in her Lord Peter Wimsey novel Have His Carcase where the murder victim was obsessed with his claimed Royal Blood and his right to the crown of Russia.
 * In the Chivalric Romance King Horn, Horn having been set adrift in a boat as a child, returns as a man to avenge his father's death and claim his thorn.
 * In the Chivalric Romance Havelock, Havelock is living in menial disguise in England when Princess Goldborough's guardian decides he can marry them off and keep her from the throne. After, Havelock returns to Denmark to reclaim his throne, and with the army he acquires there, returns to England to reclaim the throne for Goldborough.
 * Princess Ozma, the true ruler of Oz in L. Frank Baum's series of books, is restored to her throne some time after Dorothy's original adventure; by the time Dorothy returns to Oz in the third book in the series, Ozma's back on her throne and ruling wisely and peacefully. Although the second book in the series details Ozma's recovery, Baum changed her origin story no less than three times during the writing of the rest of the series. Note that Ozma rules as anointed sovereign, but never becomes Queen; you know why.
 * At the end of The Land of Oz, Ozma is referred to as a "Queen."
 * Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series used this. Due to a Contrived Coincidence, it was literally the case that the earth shook and the sky turned red when the long-lost prince declared his true identity publically.
 * Prince Roger Ramius etc. MacClintock of the March series, starting with the revelation that the assassination attempt on him was the first step in a successful coup against his mother the Empress.
 * In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story The Hour of the Dragon, "Valerius, rightful heir of the throne of Aquilonia." wants this -- to depose Conan. Doesn't work as usual. For one thing, Conan sets out to implement this trope.
 * In "A Witch Shall Be Born", the Fake King plot requires this.
 * Inverted in the Fighting Fantasy Gamebook Black Vein Prophecy: as it turns out, both the protagonist and main antagonist are the sons of the former king of the Isles of the Dawn. However, much of the book ends up proving that the protagonist will make a good king despite being descended from the previous ruler. Also, in the best ending, your first act upon becoming the king is to institute an elected parliament.
 * Subverted in The Dragon In Lyonesse: Daffyd is a heir of Lyonesse, and he does return in its hour of need--but he leaves right after, not wanting to stay where The Magic Goes Away.
 * The whole point of Jesus' second coming in the Left Behind book series.
 * Purposefully subverted in Mercedes Lackey's The Lark and the Wren; the old king had driven the country to the point of rebellion, the usurper is doing an excellent job, and the rightful heir only comes back to publicly renounce the throne, having neither the training nor the inclination to run a country.
 * Basically the main plot of the first Septimus Heap book, Magyk.
 * In The Shadow Speaker, the main character Ejii's father takes over a small village in Niger. The queen returns and beheads him in front of all the citizens.
 * How Adrian was planning to use Bria to stop the clan fighting in The Last Dove. It wasn't quite that simple.
 * In G. K. Chesterton's The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond, a Royalist pretender might bring about this because of the problems with republics.

Live Action TV

 * The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Rightful Heir" plays with this. Klingon messiah Kahless, the first Emperor of the Klingon Empire, seemingly returns, as he promised to, and claims the vacant throne of the Empire. It turns out that he is just a clone of Kahless raised to think that he is him, but Worf notes that he is still the rightful heir, and so he is installed as emperor, in a ceremonial role.

Music

 * A constant theme in a whole litany of Jacobite songs and poems, some of which are really, really sad and depressing. Among the most famous:
 * Séarlas Óg- The predecessor of the much better known Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile, the song (rather prematurely) welcomes the Stuart prince Charles to Ireland, along with his French and Spanish allies, desperately awaiting the time when Charles and his men can come and banish the foreigners and the heretics from Ireland. Some other versions of the original song lament the fact that he couldn't actually get the French support he needed, which is more or less what happened in Real Life.
 * Mo Ghile Mear- A musical example derived from the tradition of Aisling Poetry, it is sung in the voice of a woman (representing Ireland) lamenting that the Stuart kings have gone away, and declaring that she cannot rest until she hears news foretelling their return.
 * Wha'll Be King But Charlie?- This Scottish song celebrates the return of Prince Charlie to Scotland, which happened in 1745, and declares the loyalty of all Scotland to their rightful Prince.
 * Charlie is My Darlin'- Another song commemorating Prince Charlie's return during The '45.
 * Will Ye No Come Back Again?- After the '45 Rebellion failed, Prince Charles fled Scotland and went back to France; this song laments that the Stuarts are leaving yet again, and wonders if they will ever return another time (they didn't).
 * When the King Enjoys His Own Again- Actually written after the English Civil War, when England was ruled by a military junta under the control of Oliver Cromwell, this song was resurrected as a Jacobite tune after 1688. "Yes, this I can tell", it goes, "That all will be well, when the King enjoys his own again".
 * Skye Boat Song- Commemorating Prince Charles' escape by boat after the failure of The '45, the last line promises "Charlie will come again".
 * There'll Never Be Peace Till Jamie Comes Hame- Commemorates the failure of The '15 and the flight of the eponymous James III, "the Old Pretender".

Religion

 * The original Jewish concept of the messiah was that a descendant of David would return to resume the dynasty, making it an example of this trope. Since this is one common interpretation of passages in The Bible (including as far back as the prophetic book of Hosea).
 * And then we have Jesus, who Christians believe to have fulfilled the aforementioned role of The Messiah, and who according to the Book of Revelation will do it again. He incidentally is also a descendant of David, fulfilling the Jewish prophecy (assuming he's actually the Messiah, which Jews of course don't for a moment believe, but which Christians use as evidence anyway).
 * Jesus' second coming in The Bible is in part to fulfill his role as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
 * Older Than Dirt: Horus in Egyptian religion, when he regained his father's kingdom from his murderous uncle Set, was held as the prototype of the rightful king ascending to the throne of Egypt and bringing order and justice to the land. Set, who murdered Horus's father Osiris (Set's brother), had usurped the throne of Egypt while Horus was growing up, and his unlawful reign was often depicted as a time of strife. Depending on the Writer, Set was either driven out in disgrace, or peacefully reconciled and shared the throne with Horus. References to this myth were made especially for royal coronations, as each reigning king was identified with Horus.

Tabletop Games

 * Subverted in the Exalted adventure book Return of the Scarlet Empress. The Empress also heralds the return of some of world's overthrown creators, but this is a very bad thing.

Theatre

 * Several Shakespeare plays:
 * Richard III ends with Richmond, the rightful heir, recovering the throne from Richard. (At least, that's the way Shakespeare portrayed it -- note that Queen Elizabeth was Richmond's granddaughter. The actual history is more controversial.)
 * Macbeth ends with Malcolm, the rightful heir, recovering the throne from Macbeth.
 * Hamlet is a subversion. Hamlet, the rightful heir, slays Claudius, who took over the throne, but doesn't live long enough to claim it himself. Then the kingdom gets taken over by Fortinbras, the rightful heir to another whole kingdom, because his kingdom has been usurped. By Hamlet's dad.
 * Subverted hard and then played straight by Gilbert and Sullivan in The Gondoliers. One of two Venetian Gondoliers is believed to be their heir to the vacant throne of the Mediterranean kingdom of Barataria; until it can be revealed which of them is the king, they reign jointly. But it turns out that

Video Games

 * Celice in Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu.
 * Varian Wrynn in World of Warcraft patch 3.0.2, after his prolonged absence from Stormwind ever since the game's launch, explained in the spin-off comic series.
 * The flagship campaign in the Battle for Wesnoth requires Konrad, the only surviving son of the former King, to retreat from his homeland amidst death threats, round up allies, and return later to conquer the kingdom from his aunt the Queen.
 * Subverted in Oblivion when
 * Played with in Final Fantasy IV. The true king's dead, but you take his place.
 * Final Fantasy XII uses this trope with Lady Ashe.
 * Happens in Mitsumete Knight R: Daibouken Hen with, if you finish the game in a odd-numbered playthrough holding the "Licence of Heartless" item: in this storyline,.
 * Frequently part of Legend of Zelda games, at least the ones where Princess Zelda is the rightful ruler. She's not going to return by herself, though; you (Link) have to rescue her.
 * Frequently part of Legend of Zelda games, at least the ones where Princess Zelda is the rightful ruler. She's not going to return by herself, though; you (Link) have to rescue her.

Webcomics

 * Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic sees King Eric III of Drostardy return to his throne after breaking out of a drow dungeon. (The reason he was in there in the first place? He hit on Arachne.)
 * While she isn't a Queen per se, Agatha Heterodyne reclaiming her birthright  definitely has major overtones of this trope.

Western Animation

 * Elyon in WITCH.
 * In The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, it turns out that Hadji has Royal Blood, and was to become the Sultan of Bangalore, except his evil uncle and cousin killed his father, locked his mother up and tried to kill him to take the throne, back when Hadji was just a little kid. Of course he didn't die, he was saved by Pasha the Peddler and eventually adopted by Dr. Quest. Later on, with the help of the Quest Team, he saved his mother took back his throne.
 * Dreamy Smurf in The Smurfs is treated by the Pookies as this in a dream (or so it would seem) when his Second Coming portends that they will be able to defeat the tyrannical Norf Nags.
 * Papa Smurf also plays this role in "King Smurf" when he returns to stop the fighting among all his little Smurfs and to put an end to King Smurf's role as king.
 * Inverted in The Simpsons, "Simpsons Bilbe Stories" episode. As part of a retelling of the story of David and Goliath, David (Bart) was forced into exile by Goliath II (Nelson). David reclaims his throne, however, his people arrest him as Goliath II (the Consensus Builder) was a popular ruler who genuinely improved their lives.

Real Life

 * Real Life examples: Charles II (Britain and Ireland), Louis XVIII (France) and Juan Carlos (Spain).
 * Juan Carlos is an especially modern one. Son of Kings in exile he was taken by Franco and made his Heir since he was the rightful King. Juan Carlos made pleasing sounds, and once Franco was dead, he arranged for a new constitution, ended the authoritarian state, turned Spain into a modern democracy, and pretty much gave up all his power under the constitution.
 * A while back, it turns out that one of the Kings of England may have been illegitimately born, which if true would, technically, make pretty much the entire current royal family illegitimate. They tracked down the direct descendants of the legitimate heir... a Scottish lord living an ordinary life in Australia, who does not even use his use his legal title (14th Earl of Loudoun) in public.
 * The Edward IV legitimacy question crops up a lot, but it's ultimately not material to who sits on the throne today. Parliament decides the succession, and the current royal family has been explicitly asked to take the throne on two separate occasions (the restoration of Charles II in 1660, and the Glorious Revolution in 1688).
 * Of course, such claims crop up all the time -- a historian recently claimed Queen Victoria was illegitimate, which if true would pass the throne to a minor member of the Danish royal family.
 * Hell, there are claims now -- some speculate that Prince Harry is not Prince Charles's son, therefore after Charles and his elder son William, the next heir would be Charles's brother the Duke of York.
 * And, of course, there's still the Jacobite claim, the current heir being Franz, Duke of Bavaria, or "Francis II". He himself declines to pursue it, though, and the only remaining advocacy groups are essentially aristocratic clubs with a quirky title.
 * Thanks to all the intermarriage that went on between all the Royal Families of Europe as well as with the nobles, it wouldn't matter if one or two heirs ended up illegitimate... since they'd all have the same ancestors anyway. Added to the fact that Parliament decides succession, it renders the whole thing moot since it would be the equivalent of Parliament choosing one branch of the family over another.
 * Happened a number of times in World War Two: King Haakon VII of Norway, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg were forced to flee to the court of King George VI in London when the Nazis overran their nations (Wilhelmina later relocated to Canada temporarily). They became major symbols of resistance for the occupied nations, and returned home in 1945 on the heels of the Allied armies.
 * Similarly happened at the end of World War One, when the royalty of most of the occupied nations (including Belgium, Serbia, and Romania) returned to their capitals. Subverted in the case of Luxembourg, where the Grand Duchess' collaboration with the Germans did not play well as Luxembourgians fought and died elsewhere against the Germans, and the return of the Allied armies in fact saw her being forced to abdicate. Averted but tried in the case of Montenegro (where the Serbian crown forced a union of the South Slavic states under the rule of Belgrade in the face of armed Montenegrin resistance), and Russia (where the Whites tried to resurrect the monarchy but were defeated by the Bolsheviks).
 * King Ferdinand I of Romania had fled to the north of the country by 1917, but did not leave Romanian territory. He understood how the resistance to the Imperial German forces might have collapsed if he appeared to have fled the country.
 * Averted with Charles of Austria-Hungary. With the threat posed by the Allies and the Little Entente, along with Horthy, the aim of reclaiming Hungary was doomed to fail.
 * Attempted a number of times by the Jacobites (the displaced Stuart heirs of James VII/II of Scotland and England) in the 18th century, but it wasn't to be.
 * Maharajah Marthanda Verma of Kerala was forced into exile as the result of a coup by his cousins, who wanted the throne, and their allies the "Lords Of The Eight Houses" - the nobles of the state, who disliked his popularity with the people. After the king's disappearance, the state began a steady deterioration into chaos. His cousins even attempted to loot the sacred temples of the state, prevented only by the common citizens taking up arms and fighting off the troupe of highly-trained soldiers and mercenaries. Before things spiraled completely, however, Verma returned with allies and supporting armies and, after several battles, reclaimed his kingdom. The conspirators and murderers were executed. And There Was Much Rejoicing. Needless to say, Verma has been highly popularized in Kerala's literature.
 * Grover Cleveland. Fun Fact - the United States has had 44 Presidents, but only 43 people have ever actually BEEN President. How did this happen? Because Grover Cleveland was elected the 22nd President in 1884, lost in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison, and was elected again as the 24th President in 1892.
 * Similarly done twice in Canada: John A. MacDonald served as Prime Minister from 1867 to 1873 and returned to power in 1878, dying in office in 1891. Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister from 1968 to 1979, returning a year later after Joe Clark's minority government collapsed. YMMV on both, naturally, though especially with Trudeau.
 * It used to happen quite often in parliamentary-style governments: consider the Earl of Derby, who was prime minister of Great Britain on three non-consecutive occasions in the 19th century. The most recent example would be Harold Wilson in the 1960s and 1970s. (Nowadays a prime minister who loses an election is expected to resign as leader of his party, and will never get another shot at the top job.)
 * Actually done four times. Arthur Meighen was Prime Minister from 1920-1921, returning for a few months in 1926 during the King-Byng Crisis. Mackenzie King was Prime Minister from 1921- June 1926, returning to power in September. He lost the 1930 election, coming back for a third and final time in 1935 (this time he stayed on until his retirement in 1948).
 * Deliberately invoked by Napoleon's Genre Savvy nephew, Louis Napoleon, who, despite being of no recognised royal bloodline, capitalised on Bonapartist nostalgia in 1840's France, later having himself declared Emperor Napoleon III (retroactively declaring his uncle's deceased son to have been Napoleon II).
 * Napoleon himself managed it briefly, during the "Hundred Days" of 1815.
 * When the Sultan of Sokoto died in the late 1980s, Nigerian Dictator Babangida passed over the heir apparent Maccido and installed Dasuki, a personal friend from the Royal House. In the mid 90s, new dictator Abacha put Dasuki under house arrest, and installed Maccido as Sultan, to general approval from the caliphate geeks.
 * Invoked during the 1868 Meiji Restoration in which the Japanese Emperor usurped political power from the Shoguns who had been running the country for the past 700 years.
 * King Michael of Romania was a figurehead ruler during most of his reign in the 1930s and 1940s. A fascist dictator came to power in Romania, who allied his country with the Nazis. In 1944 Michael, along with several generals loyal to him, organized a coup against the fascists and became allied with the West and the Soviets. Romania's communist government forced the king into exile in 1947. He eventually returned in 1992 and on a more permanent basis in 1997 although Romania does not recognize him as their monarch.