Inadequate Inheritor: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A successful bigwig, be it in business, politics, magic or even world conquest, is growing old, and in preparation for an eventual retirement/death looks to their children to see who among them can [[Take Up My Sword|take up]] [[Taking Up the Mantle|their mantle]]... and is faced with incompetence, disinterest, or a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] in the making. These are by no means an exhaustive list of possible shortcomings, indeed just about anything that can make a parent ask "[[Why Couldn't You Be Different?]]" is grounds for this trope. Special mention should go to times when the Inadequate Inheritor is not good/heroic enough, [[Evil Parents Want Good Kids|too evil]], or ''[[Minion with an F In Evil|not evil enough.]]''

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Stardust (novel)|Stardust]]'', the king of Stormhold is highly disappointed his sons haven't all killed each other to reveal an heir before being on his deathbed. He throws the royal topaz (ruby in the film) and tells them whoever fetches it first is the new king.

* In ''[[Hero Series|Heroes Adrift]]'', the main characters are sent to look for a long-lost bastard descendant of the queen as an alternate heir. Both the queen and the heir end up hating this idea once they actually meet.

* This is the reason Samwell Tarly ends up joining the Night's Watch in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. His dad wants a warrior and a lord for a heir, and Sam is soft-hearted boy of some obesity. When, after a long series of miscarriages and daughters, a second male heir is produced, his dad offers him a choice: join the Night's Watch, thereby forsaking all claims to land and heirs, or experience a "tragic hunting accident."

* [[Heralds of Valdemar|King Valdemar's]] fear that one of these might take the throne resulted in the arrival of the Companions, and an immediate edit to the inheritance laws to require that the monarch of Valdemar must also be a Herald.

 

* On ''[[Haven]]'' Police Chief Wournos is trying various was to to get his son Nathan ready to take over for him and be able to deal with the deadly "Troubles" on his own-He aims to make his son tougher because he'll need to be.

* Played with in an early episode of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''. Grand Nagus Zek proclaims Quark to be his successor, and promptly dies soon afterward. Quark becomes Nagus and Zek's son makes several attempts on his life so that he can usurp the title. {{spoiler|Turns out Zek's not really dead, and it was all a ruse to test to see if his son was ready to be Nagus. Zek determines that he isn't due to his impulsive attempts to simply kill Quark instead of subtly amassing power and support before getting rid of him. Quark himself was not in on the ruse and was not very happy to find out his life was endangered just to teach Zek's son a lesson.}} The successor ends up being {{spoiler|Rom}}.

* ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'' has Detroit mafia don Theo Tonin and his son [[Man Child|Sammy]], a spoiled, weak-willed mob prince who hides behind his father's reputation. As Theo's son, Sammy is the logical inheritor of the crime syndicate, but neither Theo nor Quarles has a high opinion of him.

 

* In the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting, Azalin's son Irik was considered an unsuitable successor by his [[Lawful Evil]] father due to actually being a decent guy. Azalin eventually executed his own son for rebelling against him, and with no "suitable" heir, was "forced" to become a [[Our Liches Are Different|lich]].

 

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Inverted by [[L'État, c'est moi|Louis XIV]] and his eventual successor Louis XV. On his deathbed, Louis XIV told his young great-grandson that he would be a great king, and warned him to avoid making war as much as possible, describing it as the "ruin of the people". Unfortunately, Louis XV ignored his great-grandfather's advice (possibly because he was only four at the time) and proved to be a woefully inept king before passing the throne to the even more incompetent Louis XVI, who proceeded to run France into the ground and lose his head in the [[French Revolution]].