The Emperor: Difference between revisions

* In David Eddings' Belgariad Emperor Zakath of Mallorea is depicted as being effective, ruthless and icily insane. In the Malloreon {{spoiler|his insanity is revealed to be a major plot point and we get to know all the whats and whys and he becomes a full fledged member of the good side.}}

* David Eddings likes this trope. In the Tamuli, Emperor Sarabian is personally charming, intelligent and one of the few people at court who isn't corrupt. Bizarrely, {{spoiler|his eventual coup which overthrows the quasi-democratic government and institutes an absolute monarchy under martial law is something of a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]}}.

* In N. Perumov's "Diamond Sword, Wooden Sword", we have a '''good''' emperor, fighting against the [[The Magocracy|evil Magocracy]], which turns out not so evil (and by fighting them he [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|actually helps the true baddies]], though he understands this in time to help ruin their plans). He is ruthless enough (when needed), however, to be a realistic emperor portrayal.

* In the ''[[Sten]]'' series (Bunch, C and Cole, A), the Immortal Emperor starts out as a pretty nice guy, devoted to ''laissez-faire'' capitalism, and long-forgotten recipes and skills, who only sends in the troops when the realm is genuinely threatened with instability. It helps that he has a nigh-unbreakable monopoly on AM2, the fuel that the Empire runs on, and it is worth noting that someone developing/finding another source of AM2 counts as a threat of destabilising the Empire. {{spoiler|1=And then a ''successful'' assassination attempt and a random bit of meteor damage to his resurrection ship turn him into a megalomaniacal despot who is not only ridiculously tyrannical, but no longer capable of supplying AM2 and, more importantly, ''no longer immortal''}}.