A Child Shall Lead Them: Difference between revisions

They usually exhibit [[Wise Beyond Their Years|great wisdom]] in the course of the story, thus justifying their enormous power despite their youth. They may [[Nice to the Waiter|have friends (or adventures) among the servants or guards]], giving them an insight into the lives of their subjects that their stuffy courtiers would scorn. They may have to resort to [[King Incognito]] to get anything done. [[Rebellious Princess]]es sometimes become good examples of this trope.

 

 

 

Compare [[Royal Brat]]. [[Young Conqueror]], [[The Wrongful Heir to the Throne]] The [[Evil Chancellor]] etc. may actively try to encourage this, and the young ruler must shake them off. The corporate version of this is the [[Grade School CEO]], the petty leader [[Young and in Charge]]. If the entire government is children, not just one ruler, you're looking at a [[Teenage Wasteland]].

 

{{examples}}

* By the end of ''[[Code Geass]]'' the world's power is wielded by three <s> lolis</s> teenage girls:

** Tianzi, godhead-empress of China. She's just 13 years old and starts out as mix of puppet empress, [[White-Haired Pretty Girl]] and [[Lonely Rich Kid]], therefore her bodyguard Li Xingke's ultimate goal is to give her the influence and power she needs to truly rule. He succeeds with help of Lelouch.

*** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Endless Waltz|Endless Waltz]]'' has Mariemaia, supposed daughter of Treize Kushrenada, leading her own army to conquer Earth in her preteens, although Dekim Barton is very clearly manipulating her actions and thoughts.

** In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Gundam SEED]]'', Lacus Clyne (15) becomes the leader of her father's resistance movement following his death. By the end of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny|Gundam SEED Destiny]]'', she's the Chairwoman of the PLANT Supreme Council. Cagalli Yula Athha (same age) is also the chief representative of the nation of Orb following her father's death.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[The Sandman]]'' has a story-within-a-story about Prez Rickard, an 18-year-old who became president of the United States in an [[Alternate Universe]]. He does a perfect job for eight years, creates a golden age of peace and prosperity, and [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|resists the temptation]] of [[Light Is Not Good|Boss Smiley]]. Then he [[Walking the Earth|walks the earth]] until he dies and moves on.

 

** This seems to be regular practice on Naboo; ''Revenge of the Sith'' has a Queen who's supposed to be only 13 (who would've been elected at 12), and according to the [[Expanded Universe]] all politicians on Naboo retired at 20 until Palpatine refused to, and Padme was still unusual for staying in office into her twenties.

** This would also probably explain why Naboo is the galaxy's buttmonkey.

* In the future of ''[[Idiocracy]]'', the Secretary of Energy was in his early teens. Things like this happen when you give out Cabinet positions in a contest, though he didn't seem any worse at his job than anybody else.

* ''[[Tropic Thunder]]''. The heroin ring was run by a little kid, who was as ruthless as you'd expect a leader to be, and far more capable in combat than one would expect.

* In the film version of ''[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', the leaders of Magrathea are this.

** Actually, the {{spoiler|mice}} are not in charge of Magrathea. They are merely their clients. They're also much older than they appear.

 

* ''[[Duumvirate]]'' is absolutely packed with these, from the titular characters to lower-level [[The Illuminati|Illuminati]].

* Royina Iselle from ''Curse of [[Chalion]]'' by [[Lois McMaster Bujold]].

* Michael Karl in [[Andre Norton]]'s ''The Prince Commands''. {{spoiler|When Ulrich Karl, his alleged dead cousin, shows up so that Michael Karl is not the heir, he's an even better example.}}

* All four of Fiona Patton's [[Historical Fantasy]] ''Branion Realm'' series feature young royals and sovereigns as protagonists, often leading armies. In the first book, the ruler is 24, and much younger for large parts of the book; his mother took the throne at 25, and led a "Charge of Carnage" at 14. In the second, the ruler is five; her two immediate predecessors both took the throne at age 10. In the third, the ruler is 18, and was twelve when he cunningly poisoned an entire enemy army.

* Xuan at the end of ''[[Conqueror|Lords of the Bow]]'' is proclaimed Emperor of the Chin at the age of seven, after [[Evil Chancellor|Zhi Zhong]] murders his father.

* When Luxa is introduced in ''[[The Underland Chronicles]]'', she's eleven, and the Queen of Regalia.

* In [[Jack Vance]]'s ''[[Planet of Adventure]]'' series: Traz. The nomad tribes' nominal leaders are generally teens or pre-teens—probably so the priests, who are the actual leaders, can have an easier time.

 

* The Anointed One in [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]. The Master actually quotes the name of this trope.

* In the [[Bad Future]] of the first ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'' season finale, the preteen son of [[Big Bad|Darken Rahl]] and Kahlan Amnell (who was forced to marry Rahl after Richard's apparent death), is a self-made orphan after executing his mother (for attempting to kill him) and [[Power of Love|confessing]] a guard to kill his father. He then proceeds to confess the entire population of D'Hara and beyond, ensuring ultimate loyalty.

* ''[[Pair of Kings]]'' the twin brothers Boomer and Brady are both crowned as kings of an island called Kinkow.

 

* [[Vocaloid]]'s ''Story of Evil'' series of songs features Rin as a fourteen-year-old ruling princess. [[Evil Overlord|The result is definitely not pretty.]]

 

* [[The Bible]] provides the page quote. The [[Trope Namer]] is an unrelated but famous passage about the Messiah.

** Judah had several child rulers, such as Joash, crowned at 7, and Josiah, crowned at 8. They were some of the few kings who "did what was right in the eyes of the Lord"

* By most sources, [[King Arthur]] was somewhere in the 15-to-18 range when he was crowned High King. The other rulers were not happy.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* Elisabetta Barbados, the 13 year-old Holy Sacred Empress of Abel in ''[[Anima: Beyond Fantasy]]''. In fact, she's known as the ''Child Empress''.

 

* Shakespeare's [[Henry VI]] (also a historical figure) was crowned king at nine months old, after Henry V died. This is an instance of a child king being portrayed as wholly negative, as he is too young and unknowledgeable to keep his courtiers from the petty in-fighting. Because he has no father to guide him, Henry stays weak and naive, which eventually leads to the War of the Roses.

{{quote|"Henry VI, in infant bands crowned King/Of France and England, did this king succeed/Whose state so many had the managing/That he lost France, and made his England bleed." (epilogue, [[Henry V]])}}

* [[Antony and Cleopatra]]: Octavius Caesar, though older than most examples, is noted in play by various characters for only being in his twenties and ruling Rome.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In the ''Medieval'' installments of the ''[[Total War]]'' games, it is entirely possible, through extremely nasty bad luck, to end up with a fourteen-year old king/sultan. This usually only happens if all other eligible faction heirs get killed and the king kicks the bucket, leaving only a young, untested son as the last available option. Alternately, the king could be batty and simply designate the boy as his heir over more eligible options because he's completely nuts. If the king is ''really'' nutty, the heir won't be a blood relation but a captain who was adopted as a son after he killed a single-unit company of brigands.

* In ''[[Drawn (series)|Drawn]]: Dark Flight'', your ultimate goal is to drive out the shadows over the kingdom so that the child Iris can take her place as rightful ruler.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In ''[[The Gamers Alliance]]'', [[Wise Beyond Their Years|Gerard Aurelac]] becomes the King of Maar Sul in his early teens and comes up with a plan to capture [[Glorious Leader|Pronin]] whose [[Dirty Communists|forces]] are besieging Maar Sul City in the Godslayer era.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* As of the finale of ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', {{spoiler|both the fourteen-year-old Azula and sixteen-year-old Zuko have possessed the mantle of Fire Lord.}}

** [[All There in the Manual|According to the website]], the Earth King took the throne at the age of four. Unfortunately, [[Evil Chancellor|Long Feng took advantage of this]].

{{quote|'''Tygra''': You may be king, but I'm ''still'' older than you. }}

* On ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]],'' the queen of Vlatava is a ten-year-old girl named Perdita.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

** Actually, many Japanese emperors were like this, such as the eight-year-old Antoku from the ''Tale of the Heikei''. It was practice for hundreds of years to keep very young men on the throne so that the real ruling of the country was left to the members of the Fujiwara clan, serving as regents, who also married their children into the line whenever possible. Many emperors abdicated early, and took on ''more'' power and authority as "''retired emperors''" while their younger successors were kept cloistered. And, of course, for about two hundred years during the [[Warring States]] period the real power fell to whomever was Shogun just then.

* The children's crusades, both led by young teenage boys with great expectations. Suffice to say that they didn't turn out so well.

* The Sassanid Empire took this trope to the [[Logical Extreme]] when [[wikipedia:Shapur II|Shapur II]] became the only known monarch to be crowned ''in utero''. In other words, while his mother was ''still pregnant with him'', a coronation ceremony was held and the crown was placed on her belly, making him the next ruler.

** A similar case occurred in Spain with [[wikipedia:Alfonso XIII|Alfonso XIII]], who became king at birth.

* Dom Pedro II, Emperator of Brazil, was crowned at age fifteen after long, hard years of studies and training for assuming the charge. Nearly 60 years later, he became perhaps the most popular monarch ever to be overthrown. It's said that the only person in Brazil other than those responsible for the coup who didn't mind was Pedro himself, who'd grown tired of ruling. The citizens were ''pissed'' at how he was treated.

* King Oyo of Toro is a modern-day example. Though he's technically an adult now, he was crowned at age 3 1/2.

* [[wikipedia:Sobhuza II|Sobhuza II of Swaziland]] ascended to the throne at the age of six months on the 10th of December, 1899, and reigned until his death 82 years, 254 days later, in 1982, making his reign the longest reign of recent history, and the third longest of all time.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Authority Tropes]]

[[Category:Royalty and Nobility Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Is Not an Example]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Child Shall Lead Them, A}}