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King Incognito: Difference between revisions
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* {{spoiler|Nat Whilk}} in ''The Dragons of Babel''. It helps that he's been gone for a number of years and no one saw that much of him to begin with. {{spoiler|And at the end, Will comes back after twenty years or so and does the same thing.}}
* The Eternal Emperor, Ruler of the Court of a Thousand Worlds, in the ''Sten'' series by Chris Bunch & Allan Cole, liked to take a break from the Imperial rulership thing by dressing up as a seedy starship engineer named "Haroun al-Raschid" (in a deliberate homage to the Arabian Nights) and go out bar crawling. And getting in bar fights.
* The Connatic, benign dictator of the Alastor Cluster in [[Jack Vance]]'s ''Alastor'' trilogy, not only frequently goes out into the public in disguise, but makes sure that the people know of this habit. He only appears as his official self once in the series. It's implied that Ryl Shermatz, a government agent who appears in two of the books, may be one of his cover identities.
* Sir [[Walter Scott]]'s ''[[Ivanhoe]]'' features [[Richard the Lion Hearted|King Richard I]] going around as a mysterious knight searching for adventure upon his return to England. His loyal retainers' advice not to risk his life in this manner is ignored.
* In Fiona Patton's ''The Painter Knight,'' the mildly insane king goes bar-crawling. This doesn't work, however, because members of the royal family are quasi-divine and have literally flaming eyes. Whatever tavern he enters is forced to uncomfortably maintain the fiction, under pain of having the bar burned down. When he is assassinated and his daughter and heir is on the run from her enemies, her eyes are disguised by blindfolding her with a thin cloth, so that she can see but others think she is blind. Her distinctly red hair, another family characteristic, is darkened with dirt.
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* In the [[Chivalric Romance]] ''Sir Orfeo'', Orfeo wanders in the wilderness because of his grief at the loss of his wife, kidnapped by the king of [[The Fair Folk|Fairy]]. However, when he finds the fairy court, he exploits it to present himself as a ministrel. When the king [[The Promise|promises]] him a reward, he asks for his wife back. The king objects because he is so tattered. Orfeo says that [[I Gave My Word|breaking his word]] would be worse, and gets her.
* In Greg Costikyan's book ''Another Day, Another Dungeon'' {{spoiler|Vic, the senile old man who tells long, pointless stories and begs for spare change, turns out to be the last polymage, a type of sorcerer thought to have died out more than ten thousand years ago.}} This definitely counts as a [[Deus Ex Machina]], but it's completely forgivable because it's ''hilarious.''
* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|Chessmen of Mars]]'', Gahan the Jed of Gathol met, and rather repulsed, John Carter's daughter Tara.
** John Carter himself went incognito a few times after becoming Warlord -- especially in ''Swords of Mars''.
* Ruthlessly subverted in Yulia Latynina's ''Wizards and Ministers'', when the naive young emperor Varnazd tries to be this {{spoiler|and ends up being coerced to join a street gang which then just betrayed him and took him hostage, easily recognising who he was}}. His [[Deadpan Snarker|Prime Minister]] was honestly relieved that this was as far as it went, haing previously noted that all the wannabe Haroun ar-Rashid emperors in the Wei Empire tended to end up as irresponsible Robin Hood-wannabe gang leaders ''with complete immunity from law enforcement'' that was afraid to arrest anyone right or wrong for the fear of accidentally arresting the Emperor.
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* The initial love interest in ''[[Variable Star]]'' is addicted to this in an almost literal fashion, discovering just how much she can find out if nobody realizes who she is. (She's not technically royal, but her financial status is about a step above [[Richie Rich (comics)|Richie Rich]].)
* Murtagh of the [[Inheritance Cycle]], despite seeming to be an ordinary rogue, is {{spoiler|the son of the Empire's most powerful general, the Dragon Rider Morzan, who died fifteen years earlier}}
* In [[Andre Norton]]'s [[Ruritania]]n novel ''The Prince Commands'', [[Overly Long Name|Michael Karl]], soon to be King of Morvania as a result of his cousin Urlich Karl's suspicious death, is captured by a bandit known as The Werewolf, a prime suspect, who makes no secret of his dislike for the royal family. {{spoiler|The Werewolf '''''IS''''' Urlich Karl, who dodged an assassination attempt and is now using that role to build [[La Résistance|a loyal army]] while '''also''' posing as an American journalist to ferret out [[Aristocrats Are Evil|traitors among the nobility]].}} Michael Karl for a time claims to instead be a (nonexistent) American friend of his, and reinforces the deception with a few snide remarks alleging that Michael Karl is a coward.
* In [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Sylvie and Bruno]]'', when Sylvie and Bruno chase after a beggar driven off by their uncle, aunt, and cousin, they find it's their father—who has become the King of Elfland.
* In [[Scott Westerfeld]]'s latest novel, ''[[Leviathan (novel)|Leviathan]]'', {{spoiler|Alek turns out to be the rightful heir to the Austrian-Hungary empire.}} Not a king, but close enough.
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