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Royal We: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|IN WITNESS whereof We have caused these Our Letters to be made Patent.}}
{{quote|-- [[HM
When royalty speak on behalf of their office (at least in Western systems) they tend to use the [[Royal We]] or ''Pluralis Maiestatis''. This was most famously used by Queen "We are not amused" Victoria, who believed herself to be the avatar for the British Empire. This happens in fiction as well. A good way to show when the monarch in question has had enough and demands obedience is to have them switch to this form of address. Another way is to use this comedically, have a monarch use this in informal contexts or have people confuse the majestic plural for the regular one. ("Where are the rest of them?")
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* The Anti-Spiral in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' never refers to himself in the singular, because he's speaking on behalf of his species. In fact, it's thought that he ''is'' his entire species in a merged consciousness, if so, it makes even more sense.
* Luna talks like this all the time in [[My Bride Is a Mermaid]], and it's easy to see why. She's a famous and hugely popular [[Idol Singer]] and the daughter of one of the most economically (and physically) powerful (mer)men in all of Japan (and Japan's seas). The only time she ever refers to herself in first person is when Nagasumi teaches her a lesson in humility.
* Hotohori talks like this in ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]''. He starts doing it less and less as he begins to interact with the other Seishi as friends.
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{{quote|'''Queen Victoria:''' We are Queen Victoria.
'''Baldrick:''' What, all three of you? }}
* Some of the Tok'ra in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' use this, as the symbiote shares the body of the host.
{{quote|'''Any Tok'ra:''' We are ''not'' Goa'uld! ''(flashes eyes, which doesn't help matters)''}}
** Played straight with the Goa'uld Hathor, who uses it in the royal sense. An interesting [[One-Liner]] by O'Neill before killing Hathor.
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* [[wikipedia:Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifah|King Hamad's]] we.
* In a documentary about the Danish princes Joachim and Frederik, a journalist said that he felt the moment where one of them finally asked the journalist to use the plural "you" instead of the singular one was the moment said prince finally was ready to be a royal. (Because it correlated with a more responsible behavior, not just that alone, but still...)
** It should be noted that in Danish, there is a big difference in formality between polite/plural "you" ("De", always capitalised when pluralised for this reason), which is slightly old-fashioned but merely a gesture to avoid seeming overly familiar, and referring to yourself as "we", which is about as Royal as Rex in your signature.
* [[The House of Tudor|Mary I's]] initial response to the Lady Jane Grey being proclaimed Queen, when [[Henry VIII]]'s will clearly stated that Mary was next in line after the recently-deceased Edward VI, was a diplomatic, yet commanding letter to the lords responsible that used the royal plural to underline the point.
* In Dynastic China, there was a special first-person pronoun used only by the Emperor ("朕"/"zhen"), and he could not be addressed as "you" or by his given name.
* United States Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover once told a subordinate who used the royal we: "Three groups are permitted that usage: royalty, pregnant women, and schizophrenics. Which one are you?"
* Similarly, Mark Twain once said "three orders of men, by right, speak of themselves as "we". These are editors, royal personages, and people with tapeworms."
* Hillary Clinton is quoted by James Stewart in "Blood Sport: The President and His Adversaries" as having responded to a question regarding subpoenaed documents, "I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president."
* In various European languages, other august personages such as bishops and university rectors also use the royal "we." In fact, in Spanish, there's an entirely separate pronoun for it (''nos'', the origin of the modern first person plural ''nosotros'').
* It is common enough in legal writing that a letter from a firm of lawyers will use the pronoun "we," simply because the letter has gone through multiple hands (who all agree on its contents) or it is the considered opinion of the entirety of the lawyers who are working on that matter. It does look rather odd when only one of them signs it, however. It is *also* not a grammatical error when a lawyer switches from "I" to "we" in legal correspondence and vice versa...
* As seen in the quote at the top of the page, [[HM
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