Royally Screwed-Up: Difference between revisions

[[File:Juan_de_Miranda_Carreno_002_2494Juan de Miranda Carreno 002 2494.jpg|frame|The result of ''several'' generations of [[Kissing Cousins]] and other inbreeding: Charles II "The Bewitched" of Spain. Sadly, neither his mind nor his health were any better than his looks. And, yes, his tongue is poking out of his mouth.]]

* Eiichiro Oda's pirate manga ''[[One Piece]]'' has the World Royalty, otherwise known as the ''Tenryuubito'' (or "Celestial Dragons"). In particular, we meet a family of three World Nobles, St. Rosward and his children, St. Charlos and Princess Guu([[Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Haré+Guu|not that one]]). Their only claim to influence is being the direct descendants of kings who founded the One Piece-verse's World Government. However, that claim allows them to perform atrocities ranging from shooting people for having the gall to speak to them directly to randomly naming women on the street as the newest additions to their long lines of wives (and sending the ones they're tired of back to the common folk) with absolutely no fear of retribution as the government will sic a Marine Admiral, complete with fleet, on anybody who dares defy them. Not that Luffy cared.

* An interesting variant: the heir presumptive of the Holy Kingdom of Saillune in ''[[Slayers]]'', Prince Phillionel, while somewhat of a [[Leeroy Jenkins]]-like lunatic with a passion for [[Badass Normal|physical fights]], is probably ''the'' sanest and respectable member of the family and a stellar runner of the country; his younger daughter [[The Pollyanna|Amelia]] has most of his traits. The rest of the family is filled with [[Dirty Coward|Dirty Cowards]]s who will do anything to move up a spot for the throne, with no concern for others - both of Phil's younger brothers, Christopher and Randionel, and his nephew, Alfred, have attempted to murder him. Alfred in particular contracts one (two in the anime) [[Alwayz Chaotic Evil|Mazoku]] to both take out Phil and take Saillune for himself while letting Christopher (his father) take the blame. {{spoiler|In the novels, Christpher himself [[Offing the Offspring|kills Alfred]] to prevent any more damage, and nearly commits suicide himself}}.

== [[Film]] ==

* The Prentiss family in ''[[The Manchurian Candidate (novel)|''The Manchurian Candidate'']]'' (known in the novel as Iselin). The novel alludes pretty frankly to {{spoiler|incest between Eleanor and her father Tyler}}, and relates with equal candor at least one instance of same between {{spoiler|Eleanor and her son Raymond. While he's under mind control, no less.}} All three are driven, passionate patriots working at high levels of office -- Tyleroffice—Tyler was a diplomat, Eleanor is a Senator and Raymond is a Representative running for Vice President. Over the course of his campaign it is revealed that his mother {{spoiler|has been involved for many years in a conspiracy which began with the Congressional Medal of Honor and ends with an assassination attempt on the president-elect and, ultimately, the deaths of both Raymond and Eleanor.}}

*** [[Truth in Television]] -- the—the early Ottoman Empire tried to cut down on succession wars by having all male relatives of a newly crowned sultan put to death. Predictably this only ''increased'' the number of succession wars, as every potential claimant to the throne knew that upon the death of the old sultan he had to either win the crown or die. Urgit's quote of "It was either the throne or the block." in ''King of the Murgos'' is drawn straight from history.

* The Kingdom of Delain, in ''[[The Eyes of the Dragon]]'' by [[Stephen King]], suffers from this problem every now and again. Particular mention is made of Mad King Alain, who was truly a raving and unstable lunatic but did his people the favor of dying quickly -- hequickly—he decided to go outside and play games on the lawn during a raging thunderstorm (lunatic, remember?) and got struck by lightning.

* The page quote comes from ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', in which the royal Targaryen line is blessed with greatness as much as it is cursed with madness due to centuries of inbreeding. It started with the first Targaryen king, who was a great man but unfortunately married and had children with both of his sisters; from there on out it's been a crapshoot. The line has produced many able warriors, statesmen, and scholars as well as a rogue's gallery of tyrants and psychopaths. Some Targaryens begin quite noble and lose their grip on sanity as they age, such as King Aerys II-- byII—by the end of his reign, he was known as [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|King Aerys the Mad]], and in the end his excesses sparked a revolt that toppled the dynasty. Daenerys, the only POV character with Targaryen blood ([[Epileptic Trees|so far as we know]]) seems to have come out fine; her brother, Viserys... not so much. The books do give us some other normal Targaryens-- RhaegarTargaryens—Rhaegar (universally loved, killed in Robert's Rebellion), Maester Aemon of the Night's Watch, and {{spoiler|Aegon VI, who it turns out is still alive-- and is essentially the opposite of Joffrey.}}

* In the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'', there once was a King by the name of Palancar who tried to wage war numerous times with the Elves, even though every invasion was a hopeless crusade. Eventually his nobles rebelled against him to end the madness and had him exiled into a valley that later inherited his name. The Protagonist and his cousin, and the village they grew up in, descended from Palancar. Paolini so far has acted like that's at least somewhat of a ''good'' thing. Then again, he's also trying to convince us that the one who's really [[Royally Screwed-Up]] is Galby.

* Fiona Patton's series ''Tales of the Branion Realm'' is set in a fantasy Britain where the gods take an active interest in their followers. The royal family, whose head is called the Aristok, is literally touched by the gods -- thegods—the sovereign is the avatar of the Living Flame, a deity/demon/primordial critter which is a sort of symbiotic parasite. This makes the Aristok something of a cross between a hereditary Christ-figure and the real British system of the monarch being head of the church. Not only does the Aristok have divine right, she can prove it. Obviously, however, being the physical sacred vessel-on-earth of a ''fire god'' is bad for your health. Out of forty-one monarchs, fifteen have died in childhood, been assassinated, or committed suicide, and most of the rest went insane or died young. Three even converted to the Catholic-analogue faith, which makes for real cognitive dissonance among their followers as well as themselves. Clearly, whether this system is a blessing or a curse on the royal family is up in the air.

* The first two of Mervyn Peake's ''[[Gormenghast]]'' books are, among other things, a long examination of this trope - the Groan lineage and their staff are a bunch of depressed lunatics, their spirits both crushed and perversely sustained by the castle and its ancient, messed-up rituals. They are a sympathetic bunch though - the melancholy and bookish Lord [[Meaningful Name|Sepulchrave]] and his unloved, [[Cloudcuckoolander]] daughter [[The Ophelia|Fuchsia]] must surely be among the most tragic literary [[Woobie|woobieswoobie]]s of the last century.

** ''[[Discworld/Interesting Times|Interesting Times]]'' plays this fairly straight with the Emperor and Lord Hong. While the former's insanity is suggested to have a dash of genetic inbreeding behind it, the book hints that breeding the most paranoid, heartless, and evil bastards intentionally, and then not telling them cruelty is bad, may have been more of a problem.

** Vetinari might seem to be more accurately described as ''effective.'' rather than ''sane,'' but ''The Discworld Companion'' describes Vetinati as "very, very sane". It is worth considering, however, that Jeremy Clockson and Sane Alex are ''also'' sane. Sanity and "normality" are not synonymous, and may be mutually exclusive.

*** In ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'', someone mentioned sanity was 'defined by the majority'. Given how the majority of ''Ankh-Morpork'' act...

* The Civil Government of the planet Bellevue in [[The General]] Series is [[Royally Screwed-Up]] in that both the current governor and his acknowledged heir are borderline clinical paranoids, and becoming less borderline all the time... They're both intelligent and competent. Just envious/jealous and distrusting. Really, really distrusting.

* Averted in the ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series, in part because Valdemaran law forbids a monarch (or, presumably, heir) from marrying anyone within two degrees of kinship. And the newly-crowned Selenay plays it to the hilt to keep her councilors from forcing her into marriage, too. The requirement that all monarchs must be [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|Heralds]] is probably more important -- thereimportant—there's nothing saying a Herald can't be a bit nuts (Hi, Lavan and Vanyel!), but at least it's the type of nuts that doesn't result in the abuses seen on the rest of this page.

* ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' has numerous examples of hereditary planetary rulers who follow this trope - though [[Ciaphas Cain|Inquisitor Vail]] would point out that this doesn't happen ''quite'' as often as the stereotypes would have you believe. In worst case scenarios (such as Osric the Loopy, mentioned in passing in ''The Traitor's Hand''), the [[Psycho for Hire|Officio Assassinorum]] can be dispatched to "tidy up" matters.

* The House of Naelax, rulers of the Great Kingdom of Aerdy in the ''[[Greyhawk]]'' setting, were commonly viewed as being possessed by demons. [http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=528 This article]{{Dead link}}, although written by a fan for his own campaign, is nonetheless a good summary of what the Ivid Overkings were like.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]''. Good lord, ''[[Fire Emblem]]''. ''Every freakin' game''. Granted, no more than two games (except 1/11, 2 and 3) take place in any one continuity, but regardless, there is at least one mad ruler per game, or at the very least, mildly evil (''Blazing Blade's'' King Desmond wasn't really mad, just a petty idiot--andidiot—and Marquess Laus ''wanted'' to rule all of Lycia, but never actually did.) Well, okay, ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Radiant Dawn]]'' actually had a bunch of evil senators trying to usurp the empress of Begnion and an [[Evil Chancellor]] at the side of the new king of Daien...FE10 ''did'' have Naesala, but he turned out to be...compromised.

* Princess Sara in ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|8-Bit Theater]]'' is smart, sexy, and sane enough to fully realize her father is a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] with genocidal tendencies. Naturally, she doesn't hold much stock in hereditary rule. She's still a rude, shrewish sociopath, though, and engineered her own kidnapping.

* The Masters Royal Family of [https://web.archive.org/web/20120830153535/http://chesspiece.smackjeeves.com/ Chess Piece] are said to be cursed. Luckily, it skipped a generation. Unluckily, the current Prince has seriously planned on ''taking over the world'' since he was ''four''.

== Web[[Western OriginalAnimation]] ==

* Candy Kingdom Law, in ''[[Adventure Time]]'', is "complicated," according to Princess Bubblegum. In the event that anything should happen to PB, who inherits the throne? Her maladjusted, overly-sensitive, socially awkward, most likely brain-damaged, insensitive, angry, sour-tempered, alienated son/science experiment gone wrong, Lemongrab. Arguably, Lemongrab is a pretty sympathetic example of this trope--hetrope—he obviously has an... ahem, a delicate condition, but that doesn't stop everyone from despising his guts for being a jerkass most of the time and sending everyone to the dungeon for a million years.

== [[FanReal FictionLife]] ==

* [[Henry VI]] had some kind of mental illness which left him near-catatonic for long periods. It may have been inherited from the French royals; Henry's French grandfather, Charles VI, was also mentally ill, sometimes claiming to be made of glass. Charles's madness led to a civil war, and a English invasion - Agincourt and Joan of Arc; Henry's madness led to the War of the Roses - two wars which effectively purged the royal lines of madness. This shows that occasionally Real Life can be more sensible than fiction: most medieval kings had to be competent, or they got removed.

* The Habsburgs were inbred even by the standards of European royalty, which might not have been a problem except that their matriarch (Juana de Trastamara aka "Juana La Loca", known in old-timey English sources as "Joan the Mad") became a total basket case after the death of her husband Philip the Handsome (their marriage, fortunately for them and unfortunately for Spain, was [[Perfectly Arranged Marriage|Perfectly Arranged]]); she ended up incarcerated by her own father Ferdinand and, later, her son Carlos I/Charles V, who had to be told to treat his poor mother better ''as a condition to be elected [[Holy Roman Empire|Holy Roman Emperor]]''.<ref>Yes, this is ''that'' Charles V. The one who might have been ruler of all Europe (save England and France) had it not been for the emergence of Protestantism. That one.</ref>. Don Carlos, the rebellious son of Philip II, was insane to the point of being physically dangerous and would take swipes at passing servants with a knife. Ferdinand II's favourite occupation was rolling around in the bin. Even the more mentally stable scions of the dynasty tended to feature a massively disfigured lower jaw, often to the point they could not even close their mouth.

** The trope's picture is a portrait of Charles II of Spain, last Habsburg King of Spain--andSpain—and the art style of that time tended to gloss over any blemishes someone had (much like fashion magazine photos today) so in all likelihood, his looks were even worse. He was physically ''and'' mentally disabled as well as disfigured (he had the "Hapsburg Lip" to such an extent that he could not close his mouth; that's why his tongue poking out). His subjects nicknamed him "The Bewitched". Unsurprisingly, he closed the Habsburg chapter in Spain by not perpetuating his genetic pool, constituted among many other issues by his grandmother being also his aunt. After all, Charles descended from Juana La Loca just 14 times... twice as a great-great-great grandson, and 12 times further. When ''all'' your ancestors are descended from "Joanna the Mad", you're not off to the best genetic start in life.

* Queen Victoria was a hemophilia carrier, passed it on to three of her children, and the bad gene was spread to many other royal houses across Europe, royally screwing them over (including the Romanovs, whose last legitimate heir was doomed to die from this illness before maturity; that's why the faith-healer [[Grigori Rasputin|Rasputin the Mad Monk]] gained such prominence). The extent of the hemophilia gene among royals became so universal that many commoners thought that hemophilia was ''the'' genetic marker of royalty. Even the 1950s B-movie ''Queen of Blood'' decided that the extraterrestrial featured must be royalty ''solely because she was a hemophiliac''. That is one impressive little allele.

* In a [[Real Life]] subversion, the nation of Nepal abolished its 240-year-old [[Royally Screwed-Up]] monarchy in 2008, becoming a republic. The Nepalese reached this decision after Crown Prince Dipendra allegedly went [[Ax Crazy]] in 2001 and gunned down most of his relatives, including his father; by law, Dipendra was crowned Nepal's king in turn, despite being both a mass murderer and comatose from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Dipendra quickly succumbed to his injuries and his uncle was crowned king, but Gyanedra's abortive attempt to abolish Parliament (along with conspiracy theories that he had engineered the massacre) was the last straw: Nepal had had enough of this trope.

** [[Heir Club for Men]] says not quite--thequite—the lineage was best secured by a son of the king who had the maximum royal blood on his mother's side, so your sister's kid was the best bet. The dynasties and therefore the gene pools involved changed a good deal more than the OP indicates, though.

*** It's actually effective for the Mediterranean region in general, which is what Ibn Khaldun knew; while he mostly gave North African examples, you have to bear in mind that the ''Muqaddimah'' (which is where these theories come from) was actually the ''introduction'' to a much larger history of North Africa (''muqaddimah'' [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|just means "introduction"]] in Arabic). With the possible exception of the Roman and Egyptian empires, pretty much all every great empire of the Mediterranean region in the pre-modern era were founded by at best half-civilized conquerors who took over the established civilizations: the Akkadians, Assyrians, Hittites, Persians, Macedonians, Germans, Arabs, and Turks (to name only the most obvious examples) all did this. Even the Romans were pretty uncouth when they started taking over Italy; between their militarism, agrarianism, lack of high culture, and piety, <ref>Rome was noted as the most pious city in Italy in that era</ref> the perception among the Etruscans and Greeks of the peninsula was essentially the same perception that American bicoastal elites have of [[Flyover Country]]. Even the Egyptians count to some degree, as their empire was only established after native rulers adopted the technology of foreign barbarians (the "Hyksos", who were probably Canaanite shepherds).