Spare to the Throne: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''My parents were rather... traditional. They wanted the heir and the spare, and I was left in the cold.''|'''Sebastian''', ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]''}}

In history books you will occasionally see references to the term "an heir and a spare" which reflects the desire of [[Royal Blood|kings and queens]] of the time to have at least two male heirs.

* Chagum in ''[[Seirei no Moribito]]'' is the Emperor's second son, and [[Spare to Thethe Throne]]. Unlike most examples he did apparently receive schooling because his older brother suffers from a [[Soap Opera Disease]], and becomes the heir apparent after his brother succumbs to it halfway through the series. In either case, he is remarkably calm (although clearly not-too-pleased) about it.

* Inverted in ''[[The Horse and His Boy]]'' -- it—it turns out Shasta the peasant boy is actually one of two twin princes of Archenland, kidnapped as a babe. And since he's the older of the two twins he's next in line for the throne, which delights his brother no end because he never wanted to be the heir (and is by extension now the spare).

{{quote| But Verence had kingship thrust upon him. He hadn't been raised to it ... In the role of ruler, then, he had started with the advantage of ignorance. No one had ever told him how to be a king, so he had to find out for himself. He had formed the unusual opinion that the job of a king is to make the kingdom a better place for everyone to live in.}}

* ''[[The Mote in GodsGod's Eye]]''. Commander Roderick Blaine was the second oldest son in a noble family, who wanted nothing more than a Navy career and the chance to become Grand Admiral someday. His older brother George was in line to inherit the estates and title when their father retired but was killed in battle, leaving Rod as the heir.

* At the age of eleven, [[Vorkosigan Saga|Aral Vorkosigan]] watched as his mother and older brother were slain by a death squad sent by the mad emperor Yuri. While these events happened before the time of the books, they are of critical importance in the relationship between his father, Count Piotr Vorkosigan, and his son, Miles. His mother, Cordelia, was poisoned while pregnant, and the boy was considered lost by both Count Piotr and their doctors, who called for an abortion, with the intent of trying again for a healthy heir. <br />Years later, while Miles was [[Death Is Not Permanent|briefly dead]], his clone-brother, Mark, who had been created in a plot to replace him and destroy the Imperium, had to face the concept that if Miles was truly lost (dead and ''rotted''), he might have to take up his progenitor's place as heir to the Countship of the Vorkosigan District in the Council of Counts.

* In the [[Prince Roger]] series by [[David Weber]] and [[John Ringo]], Prince Roger is the Heir Tertiary to the throne of the Empire of Man (third in line, after his older brother and sister); nobody, including his own family, can decide whether he's an [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit]] or a potential traitorous usurper, so he is specifically ''not'' given any guidance in how to exercise power. Then he gets marooned on a [[Death World]], and then he finds out he was actually safer on that [[Death World]] than his brother and sister...

* The title character of ''[[I, Claudius]]'' (see [[Real Life]] below).

* A modern example: After President Keeler in ''[[Twenty Four24]]'' is incapacitated by a missile strike that takes out Air Force One, Vice President Logan is sworn in as President. He looks for all the world like he's going to pee himself out of nervousness for the entire rest of the season.

* A second modern example: Prince George from ''[[The Palace (TV)|The Palace]]''. For most of the series, he shows no interest in ever being a monarch, and tells his older sister Eleanor that if their brother Richard dies, she can be queen. However, when Richard's [[Royal Blood|legitimacy]] is challenged in Episode 8, making George's ascension an imminent possibility, he starts to think that it might not be such a bad deal. (Of course, being an immature [[Royal Brat]], he would almost certainly [[The Wrongful Heir to Thethe Throne|fail spectacularly]] in that role.)

* ''[[Dragon Age (Video Game)|Dragon Age]] Origins'' has this in Alistair, who reveals early on that he is of royal blood... unfortunately he's a bastard, so he wasn't raised to the task. Needless to say, he's not happy about the idea of becoming king after being trained for something completely different and being quite forcefully assured that his illegitimate status would prevent the question.

** And it's sequel, ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]'' gives us Sebastian Vael, who is the spare to the spare as the youngest of three children. Initially he resented his brothers for this, then settled into life at the Chantry and was happy there. When his family gets slaughtered and Sebastian is suddenly the rightful ruler, he's not sure he wants to be prince anymore. Hawke can push him one way or another. {{spoiler|In the end game, if Anders lives, Sebastian decides to take back his throne for real this time in order to exact vengeance.}}

* Appears twice in ''[[Dragon Quest V (Video Game)|Dragon Quest V]]'':

* ''[[Dragon Quest VIII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VIII]]'' has a similar situation with King Argonia, an [[Unexpected Successor]] who had to step up after his elder brother disappeared while pursuing his lost love. While he has shaped up to be a good ruler, his ''own'' son is none other than [[Prince Charmless]], causing his father no end of grief over how horrible ''he'' would be once it's time for ''him'' to hand down the crown. In the [[Golden Ending]], he's presented with his brother's son at a rather awkward time for a family reunion, and it's heavily implied he cedes the right to rule after him to this new arrival, giving his own son the shaft.

* ''[[Suikoden V]]'' has a non-royal example with the House of Barows. After his older brother Hiram was assassinated during the bloody Succession Conflict, Euram was thrust into the role of his father's heir, as well as dealing with his mother's extended [[Despair Event Horizon|BSOD]]. This stress of this helps shape him into the irritating [[Epic Fail|Epic Failing]]ing [[UpperclassUpper Class Twit]] everyone has to deal with during the events of the game, until [[Character Development]] enables him to grow out of it.

** [[RichardofRichard of Gloucester|Richard III, King of England]] (reigned 1483-1485) was the eighth son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and the fourth to survive to adulthood. Three brothers and their possible descendants would outrank him in the Yorkist succession. First son Edward IV (reigned 1461-1470, 1471-1483) took the throne and was survived by seven legitimate children. Second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland was killed in the aftermath of the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, dying childless. Third brother George, Duke of Clarence was privately executed in 1478 but was survived by two legitimate children. In 1483, Richard (III) was only tenth in the order of succession. He used some doubts on the legitimacy of Edward's marriage to declare all of his royal nephews and nieces to be bastards. He used the attainder of George (for treason) to also bar his children of the succession. By doing so, he eliminated the succession rights of everyone who had a superior claim to himself in a single stroke. It pays to be the ''de facto'' Regent.

** Charles I of England and Scotland (reigned 1625 -1649) was the second son of James VI/I. His older brother Henry Frederick (1594-1612) was trained to become King and was considered robust and athletic. He died suddenly of typhoid fever in 1612, leaving Charles as the heir to the throne at the age of 12. Charles was weak and sickly since birth, and had to overcome physical infirmity (weak ankles) just to walk as a child.

** George V (reigned 1910-1936) was a spare, serving in the Royal Navy for twelve years (1879-1891)--he even got a tattoo of a red and blue dragon on his arm while in Japan. He became the heir when his (somewhat insane, possibly gay) older brother Albert Victor died without issue even before [[Queen VickyVictoria|grandma]] died (giving him on the order of 20 years prepare for the job, but he still would have preferred not to take it at all). It's theorized that the reason these most recent two Georges were such excellent constitutional monarchs is that they hadn't expected the crown and as a result hadn't had the prospect of the crown get to their heads.

** When Edward VIII (reigned 1936) abdicated, his successor, George VI (reigned 1936-1952), was reluctant to take up the post, as he had never expected or wished for the position. He had served in the Royal Navy during [[World War OneI]] (he had to sit out much of it on account of ill-health).

*** For one thing, he had a dreadful stammer and a fear of public speaking. Indeed, it's widely suspected that part of the reason for his death at a relatively young age (56) was due to the stress of being King throughout [[WWWorld 2War II]].

*** It also helped avoid [[Royally Screwed -Up]]: since the two Georges were junior royalty, they were allowed to marry less-royal spouses. George V married Mary of Teck, a fourth cousin and a member of very junior German royalty. George VI married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who wasn't even royal but rather the daughter of a Scottish Earl--, in what was essentially a love match, no less (Bertie proposed ''[[Dogged Nice Guy|three times]]'' before she said "yes").

* Roman emperor Claudius (reigned 41-54) was never seriously expected to inherit the throne in his youth. While the Roman Empire had a fairly loose set of succession laws (basically the heir was appointed and didn't even have to be directly connected by blood), Claudius was still too far out on the periphery early on, and by all accounts he was not an ambitious man anyway. He essentially became emperor by outlasting everyone else (including [[Emperor Caligula]]), who were all too busy [[Royally Screwed -Up|killing one another off]] to pay the "doddering old fool" any serious attention.

* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_France:Henry II of France|Henry II]] [[L'État, Etat Cestc'est Moimoi|of France]] seemed relatively fortunate to have ''three'' sons at the time of his 1559 death in a jousting accident. However sickly young [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II_of_France:Francis II of France|Francis II]] died roughly a year and a half later (December 1560) at age 16, his brother [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_IX_of_France:Charles IX of France|Charles IX]] acended the throne at 10 only to die without issue of tuberculosis in 1574, and [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_III_of_France:Henry III of France|Henry III]] (who smuggled himself out of Poland less than a year of gaining ''that'' throne) was assassinated in 1589 leading to [[Succession Crisis|a worsening of the ongoing wars]] that did not really cease even after Henry II's son-in-law [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_IV_of_France:Henry IV of France|Henry of Navarre]] was crowned in 1594.

* 18 year old [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_II_of_Portugal:Manuel II of Portugal|Manuel II (the Unfortunate) of Portugal]] was a younger son who had just started his studies at the Portugese Naval Acadamy when his father [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_I_of_Portugal:Carlos I of Portugal|Carlos I]] was killed and his brother Luis Filipe mortally wounded by anti-monarchist radicals in 1908 (Manuel was in the same carriage and suffered a minor wound to the arm). A coup forced him and his surviving family to flee to Britain within three years.

[[Category:SpareWill Toand TheInheritance ThroneTropes]]