Fisher King: Difference between revisions

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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The Dreaming, the kingdom of Morpheus in ''[[The Sandman]]''; he literally ''is'' his kingdom, and it obeys his commands and bends to his will. This leads to the inhabitants knowing he was angst- ridden when it rained for months on end.<br /><br />In the spinoff series ''[[Lucifer (comics)|Lucifer]]'', Elaine, guardian spirit of Lucifer's world, inadvertently causes the environment around her to decay when she's angry. When Mazikeen points this out, Elaine controls her temper and the environment is restored.
 
In the spinoff series ''[[Lucifer (comics)|Lucifer]]'', Elaine, guardian spirit of Lucifer's world, inadvertently causes the environment around her to decay when she's angry. When Mazikeen points this out, Elaine controls her temper and the environment is restored.
* Isis in ''[[52]]'' brought beautiful flora to the country of Kahndaq, until she became saddened, then it poured with rain for weeks - and when she fell ill, the plants withered and died.
* Though not always the official ruler of anything, Marvel's [[Storm]] has this effect; her mutant weather-control powers tend to cause local weather to change to reflect her mood. In her past, this caused villagers to worship her as a goddess; unlike a true Fisher Queen, the power is not dependent on her location, though it could be interpreted as being linked to the Earth itself.
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'''Agent K:''' "It rains ''because'' you're sad." }}
* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'', the captain of the Flying Dutchman has this effect on the ship. A good captain has a nice ship, while a corrupt one (Davy Jones) makes the ship [[Worldwide Punomenon|a little fishy]]. Thus, when {{spoiler|Will Turner}} becomes the captain, the ship's appearance improves and the sailors are no longer human-fish hybrids. In fact, you can see the fishy bits falling off of his crew when he takes over. {{spoiler|Will's father}} even takes the starfish off his face on camera.
* [[David Lynch|David Lynch's]] [[Film of the Book]] ''[[Dune]]'' ends with Paul Atreides taking up his rightful place as the Kwisatz Haderach, at which point Arrakis, a planet defined by its absurd dearth of water, is consumed by a torrential downpour of rain. Subtle. In the book, it took years of [[Terraform|terraformingterraform]]ing. <ref>From what we know, rain would also kill the sandworms, to whom water is toxic. The consequences of the deluge to vital spice production are not covered in the movie: the rain is presented as a Good Thing.</ref>
* In [[Jim Henson|Jim Henson's]] ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'', the area around the crystal castle is barren and gloomy while the Skeksis are in power. Once the Ancients return and hand it over to the Gelflings, cue sunshine and green grass everywhere.
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' the corruption of Sauron is reflected in the harsh barren landscape of Mordor. After Sauron's overthrow, the land literally opens up and swallows his army. Handled a bit better if less visually interesting in the book.
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* [[Michael Ende]]'s ''[[The Neverending Story (novel)|The Neverending Story]]'': Phantasién (or Fantasia/Fantastica) is linked to the Childlike Empress: She is the source of all life, and without her, the world could no longer live, like a human body that had lost its heart. As an extension of this, Phantasién is subjected to The Nothing whenever the Childlike Empress needs a new name.
* In [[Simon R. Green]]'s ''Blood and Honour'', Castle Midnight starts sliding into a hellish (literally) state without a King. As soon as a King is on the throne again the darkness subsides.
* As [[Robert Jordan]]'s ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' goes on, the world becomes a worse place to live, the weather system is screwy as hell, and chaos reigns in most of the countries due to years of near constant warfare, from civil strife to human to inhuman invasion. Bubbles of Evil cover the earth killing people, and ghosts are even appearing as the Pattern itself becomes unstable. This is reflected by Rand's mental health, as he slowly goes mad. By the end of ''Knife of Dreams'' Rand is schizophrenic, {{spoiler|is missing a hand, and his eyes are damaged}}. He also has the traditional unhealing wound in his side. Moridin even refers to Rand as the Fisher King, after a crucial piece in a complicated, nearly forgotten board game. Even in book 1 (when the weather was only mildly odd and Rand not yet mad or injured) we get the phrase, 'The Dragon is one with the land, and the land is one with the Dragon'.<br /><br />In the conclusion of ''The Gathering Storm'', {{spoiler|Rand has gone through his [[Despair Event Horizon]] and out the other side, and it's implied he has fixed his schizophrenia--at any rate, Lews Therin won't be talking in his head anymore--and, for the first time in virtually the entire book, the clouds break and pure sunlight shines through.}} Immediately following this in the next book, Rand {{spoiler|makes an entire orchard of rotten apples grow instantly, and wherever he goes, the clouds clear up and the sun shines}}.
 
In the conclusion of ''The Gathering Storm'', {{spoiler|Rand has gone through his [[Despair Event Horizon]] and out the other side, and it's implied he has fixed his schizophrenia--at any rate, Lews Therin won't be talking in his head anymore--and, for the first time in virtually the entire book, the clouds break and pure sunlight shines through.}} Immediately following this in the next book, Rand {{spoiler|makes an entire orchard of rotten apples grow instantly, and wherever he goes, the clouds clear up and the sun shines}}.
* In [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms|Five Hundred Kingdoms]]'' series, this is seen as a manifestation of "The Tradition", a universal force that basically compels the world to act out fairy tales.
* A variant and partial inversion from [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''[[Valdemar]]'' series: After Ancar usurps the throne of Hardorn, he damages the land by draining its magical energy for his own use. After he gets taken down, the locals insist that his [[Reasonable Authority Figure|replacement]] accept a magical link to the land to prevent him from doing the same, since harming the land would mean harming himself. Since the land is still damaged when this happens, this is rather unpleasant for the new king at first.
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* In the ''[[Enchanted Forest Chronicles]]'', the eponymous forest apparently has a kind of low-level sentience, which is linked to the status of its king. If he dies, the forest reacts in a dramatic fashion. As one character mentions, reflecting on a prior such occasion, "none of us got any sleep for three weeks."
* In novel ''Inne Pieśni'' (''The Other Songs'') by Polish author Jacek Dukaj ([[Gushing About Shows You Like|pity the fact he's not translated into English, guys and girls!]]), world is ruled by both "casual" kings (who do not exhibit this trope) and ''kratistoi'', virtually demigods whose [[Determinator]][[Up to Eleven|-plus]] level force of will influences both people and land of their domains.
* Happens all the time in [[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien]]'s Middle-earth writings. Justified when the kings in question are semi-divine, and their will and nature has direct influence on physical matter; so the land of the Valar (angels) is paradisiacal, the land ruled by Morgoth (Satan) or Sauron (Satan Jr.) is always hellish. Tolkien referred to these effects as "Secondary World Powers" in his commentaries.<br /><br />Also, the forest kingdom of Doriath is protected by Queen Melian's divine magic, an almost literal fence or maze that keeps unwanted visitors out. When the King dies and she abandons the land, Doriath is very soon overrun by its enemies. Galadriel, though an Elf, learned a lot under Melian and hence later on she does something very similar for Lórien.
 
Also, the forest kingdom of Doriath is protected by Queen Melian's divine magic, an almost literal fence or maze that keeps unwanted visitors out. When the King dies and she abandons the land, Doriath is very soon overrun by its enemies. Galadriel, though an Elf, learned a lot under Melian and hence later on she does something very similar for Lórien.
* In the ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant|Second Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant]]'', Lord Foul is a sort of Fisher King, or rather the Fisher King's illness. His presence corrupts the magical Earthpower, causing the Sunbane which warps the Land's weather so severely that travel is impossible without powerful magic. His defeat allows Linden to restore the natural order.
* A rather large part of [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Waste Land]]''. The motif of dry/wet and its symbolism of life, death, and resurrection recur in the poem, and parts III and V explicitly refer to the Arthurian motif. Indeed, Eliot's notes to the poem specifically cite From Ritual to Romance, a book which discusses the origins of the Fisher King motif in Arthurian legend in much detail.
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* Escalated in ''The Lords of Dûs'' series where it is not the ruling king who influences the land, but the ruling ''god'' who influences ''the world''. Each of the gods rules the world for a given age, and during that age the world reflects their nature. The novel begins during the Age of the Goddess of Decay, when all the kingdoms are in decline. It transitions into the Age of Destruction and wars break out. The ultimate fear of many characters is when the Fifteenth Age begins, ruled by the God of Death.
* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|Up Jim River]]'', the emperor of Morning Dew hates his position because all his subjects believe this trope, and therefore he's to blame for anything that goes wrong.
* ''[[Labyrinths of Echo]]'' has not-quite-real worlds, including ones accidentally born out of dreams, working like this and usually dying with their creator -- unlesscreator—unless or until they acquire full independent reality. The latter, at least according to one ancient being, is the whole purpose of [[Reality Warper|Arbiters]]' existence, not that they aren't apt to accidentally create such near-realities themselves.
 
 
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* [[Trope Namer]] is from [[Arthurian Legend]]. See the trope description.
* A variant is Demeter, the goddess of verdant stuff in the [[Greek Mythology]], especially in the story of the kidnapping of her daughter Persephone by Hades. When she is with her daughter, the world is lush and green. When her daughter is away with her hubby Hades, the world is hot, dry, and barren. Give yourself a pomegranate seed! Persephone goes away for half the year. This is, of course, the origin story of the change of seasons.
* In some ancient cultures the king and his personal piety and virility were equated with such things as the success of the crops and life of the land in general. So, in the early ages, the Pharaoh of Egypt [[Squick|masturbated into the Nile]] annually at the festival of ''Shemu'' to ascertain the flood. <ref>Shemu is still celebrated in [[Modern Egypt]] as a general spring festival called ''Shamm el-Nessim'', without the masturbation, thank you. Can you imagine Hosni Mubarak jacking off into the Nile?</ref> It's not entirely surprising that this was [[Truth in Television]], in a sense - succession was rarely a smooth business, and as such, ''any'' king who perpetually managed to hold on to life generally ensured an era of stability and well-being for his people. While no sovereign actually has sympathetic magical control over their lands, good governing generally means stability and well-being for the people, while bad governing means a rough time.
* The ancient Indian epic ''[[Ramayana]]'' features a semi-demonic king whose emotions seem to effect the whole world's climate. When he becomes lovestruck, the seasons change rapidly, and time itself stops temporarily.
* Chinese emperors believed themselves to be responsible for the well-being of the land in varying degrees ("The Mandate of Heaven," which even modern communists try not to upset too much- ever see a government official slack off when a Chinese natural disaster strikes?), and thus instituted a number of rituals in which they'd attempt to appease the heavens; some of them apparently have been heard to directly appeal to the gods to [[Take Me Instead!|punish them instead]] during natural disasters. People who worked for the emperor were often [[Genre Savvy]] about this, sending memorials to the Imperial palace about bad omens like solar eclipses in various places (which have been calculated by modern scientists to be impossible at that time and place) simply to politely tell the Emperor that his policies were unpopular in (X) Province.
* [[Oedipus the King]], who kills his father, marries his mother and becomes the king of Thebes. This moral stain -- evenstain—even though he has no idea that ''they'' are his parents -- bringsparents—brings year-long famine to the land.
* [[Older Than Dirt]]: A variation appears in ''[[Inanna's Descent to the Netherworld|Inannas Descent to The Netherworld]]''. The Mesopotamian fertility goddess Inanna mourned her husband Dumuzi each year when he died. Her grief (and guilt for killing him) transformed the earth into a parched wasteland where nothing could grow. Only the annual return of Dumuzi could cheer her up.
 
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** To a lesser degree, there is a [[Because Destiny Says So|Fatebound Merit]] named after the [[Trope Namer]]. As long as the holder is not suffering from serious damage, all their Social Merits function at double efficiency, but they suffer serious damage whenever a member of their Court dies and unrest in their kingdom is physically painful.
* ''[[Unknown Armies]]'' has the True King, an archetype that characters can become Avatars of. True King avatars have a supernatural connection to whatever their "kingdom" is: the realm reflects their physical and emotional state, they can heal themselves by draining the fertility and well-being of their realm (or vice versa), and lose their powers if they have no realm to rule over.
* ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' has a Bloodline known as the Bron, whose members believe themselves to be descendants of the Fisher King. Their curse is that any land they claim as their domain instantly becomes harder to control -- feedingcontrol—feeding checks are made at greater difficulty, and so on. Ironically, the line's split down the middle on their true origin -- membersorigin—members in the Lancea Sanctum (Christian vampires) believe themselves to descend from the Fisher King, whereas members in the Circle of the Crone (pagan vampires) believe they come from Bran the Blessed.
* [[GURPS]] Fantasy provides highly abstract rules for this as an Advantage. Due to it's limited nature and serious drawbacks it is not particularly expensive to have.
* In ''[[Infernum]]'', this is the effect of one of the Noble Mutation chains (sets of powers that a demon can acquire by taking control of sufficient territory). With the Chain of The Screaming Sky, the demon can make its land hotter, [[Evil Is Deathly Cold|colder]] or darker. At first level, it merely determines the weather. By third level, its kingdom is either under a permanent night sky, or swallowed up amidst either glaciers or volcanoes. A similar Noble Chain is the Chain of The Burning Land, which ties a demon more strongly to its kingdom- this makes it more powerful in its home turf, as well as giving it early warnings of things like gatherings, invading armies, riots, Et cetera.
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** In ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', {{spoiler|the future world of Ultimecia under her domination, and most especially her castle.}}
* In ''[[Wild Arms 2]]'', {{spoiler|the Encroaching Parallel Universe, Kuiper Belt, is gradually eating the entire universe, and strikes Filgaia with a phenomenon called the Stain Paradigm, which rots away the sky, the land, the water, the forces of nature, everything, as Kuiper Belt grows more powerful. Named after but very different from the real Kuiper Belt, a ring of countless Plutoid planetoids surrounding the main Solar System, some of which occasionally stray into the main Solar System like Pluto does every few centuries.}}
* In ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'', a [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]] known as a "Reality Marble" shows the inner workings of a Mage's soul by making a world that represents that Mage overlap the real world. These worlds, being shaped by the Magi's inner nature, are of the Fisher King nature. One inner world shown during the course of the game and the anime is [[Field of Blades|Unlimited Blade Works]], which belongs to Archer ( {{spoiler|and by extension, Emiya Shirou}}).<br /><br />Other Reality Marbles mentioned include that of ''[[Tsukihime]]'''s Nrvnqsr Chaos (pronounced Nero Chaos), which is always active and allows him to join his being to other creatures, giving him a body that is incapable of dying so long as at least one part of it remains alive and he can maintain magic energy to feed it. Unless you're [[One-Hit Kill|Shiki.]] Satsuki's Reality Marble represents her loss without gain (Isn't it sad? No, really, not just a meme in this case) and passively destroys any mana in a radius around her that is not contained in a living being. Reality Marbles are bizarrely specific and produce equally strange results.
 
Other Reality Marbles mentioned include that of ''[[Tsukihime]]'''s Nrvnqsr Chaos (pronounced Nero Chaos), which is always active and allows him to join his being to other creatures, giving him a body that is incapable of dying so long as at least one part of it remains alive and he can maintain magic energy to feed it. Unless you're [[One-Hit Kill|Shiki.]] Satsuki's Reality Marble represents her loss without gain (Isn't it sad? No, really, not just a meme in this case) and passively destroys any mana in a radius around her that is not contained in a living being. Reality Marbles are bizarrely specific and produce equally strange results.
** In its sister series ''[[Tsukihime]]'' there is introduced in its back story a group of beings called the Ultimate Ones, the final singular lifeform that embody the hereditary of the now-dead planet of which it originates. Their very presence is enough to cast a permanent denial of reality sphere called Alien Order, overwriting Earth's laws of physics with those of their original planet as it was when it still bore life. In the main series, this is the effect Type-Mercury is having on a region in South America. In the far-flung future of ''Notes'', the body of Ultimate One Type-Venus is blown out of the sky and, crashing onto the dead Earth of the future, its "corpse" is the only place that can still sustain life, albeit Venusian life.
** The prequel of ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'', ''[[Fate/Zero]]'', also has Servant Rider's shared Reality Marble, "Ionioi Hetaroi", which summons the [[Badass Army]] which conquered half of the world in his lifetime.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Last Res0rt]]'', [http://www.lastres0rt.com/2010/12/why-talking-is-still-a-free-action/ Whimsy] is apparently caused by a [[Reality Warping]] [[Fisher King]] of sorts -- andsorts—and treated [[Oh Crap|accordingly]].
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=1995 Slick characterizes weather changes as God's mood changes].
 
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** The animated series included one episode with a child king whose good or bad moods outright affected the weather of his kingdom.
* In ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', the castle matches the prince's appearance. When he's The Beast, the castle is gothic, dark, and with scary gargoyles. When he returns to being human, the castle is turned into white marble, and the gargoyles become statues of angels.
* The savannah in ''[[The Lion King]]'' reflected the rule of its king. Pride Rock turns into a desolate wasteland under Scar's evil rule, partly the result of and partly a symbolic indication of how he has forced the pride to overhunt their territory until the natural "circle of life" is unbalanced and disrupted. (It started raining the ''second'' Simba took the "throne".) What makes this an even better, and more moving, example of the trope is that the kingdom of the Fisher King could not be healed until the king himself was -- iwas—i.e., the Pride Lands were restored not just because the good and proper king had taken the throne, but because Simba himself, in honoring his father, defeating his treacherous uncle, and earning his place in the circle, had finally overcome and recovered from his trauma.
** In the Pride Lands level of ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' the land has remained barren because Simba still had doubts about his abilities as a leader {{spoiler|and was plagued by the Heartless ghost of Scar.}} That, and, let's be honest here, it's doubtful that the Pride Lands were restored to their former glory ''instantly'', there's at least four months between when Simba takes the throne and Kiara's "christening" seen at the end of the film and the epilogue of the game. This is nature we're talking about, not magic.
* In ''[[The Tale of Despereaux]]'', [[The Kingdom]] turns cloudy and the colors go away when the king is grieving.
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