Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,416
edits
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Difference between revisions
m
→Literature
m (→Literature) |
|||
Line 138:
*** It's actually a plot point that the Atreides family is the exception to the rule in this regard, which inspires fanatical devotion in their servants and retainers. Paul's grandfather Paulus, for example, was gored to death by a bull while trying to entertain the people of Caladan with bullfighting.
*** Both of the Harkonnen nephews can be pretty active. Glossu Rabban is utterly ruthless and prefers to personally execute... well, anyone who displeases him. In the prequel novels, he also leads the Harkonnen forces in an attack and flies the first no-ship. Feyd-Rautha, while not as active, does participate in gladiatorial combat (although, it's usually rigged in his favor). At the end of the first novel, he even challenges Paul Atreides to a duel that will decide the fate of the galaxy. In fact, the prequel novels are full of aristocrats actually doing things, including Paul Atreides and Dominic Vernius. Whether or not you consider the prequel novels canonical is a case of YMMV.
* In the [[Belisarius Series]], most of the royalty on the good guys side are involved in something. Besides plotting military and political strategy they have their own ideas for technological, economic, or legal improvements to their respective countries. The bad guys royalty mainly want to make their subjects shed rivers of blood so they can claim the credit for victories they had little to do with.
* The [[Discworld]]'s King of Lancre is an example of this trope, getting involved in everything from crop rotation to the invention of the Lancrastrian Army Knife.
** Although his subjects would rather prefer he didn't, and stick to kinging. Similarly, Magrat initially finds the duties of the queen dreadfully boring (it's mostly embroidering). It's a good thing the elves showed up so she could let off some steam.
Line 144:
** Also, the Low King of the dwarves is, up till his election, a working dwarf.
*** The same could probably also be said of Diamond (the troll king), since he runs a 'Thud' (a dwarven/trollish board-game) Club.
** After his marriage to Sybil elevates him to dukedom, Vimes himself qualifies; he continues to work as the head of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch in spite of being so independently wealthy that his great-great grandchildren could go their entire lives without doing a day of work. In ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'' he's actually mistaken for a sergeant because of his philosophy that armor ought to look like it's been doing
* Princess Raisa actively invokes this trope throughout ''[[The Seven Realms Series]]''. In book one she founds the Briar Rose Ministry, a charity she and her father run that earns money for the people. The Briar Rose ministry not only helps some of her people avoid starvation, but gets some younger people the money they need to go to school ''and'' earns her a very loyal following. [[Chekhov's Gun|(This becomes a very important plot point later on.)]] By book three, she stops caring about making enemies within the government and goes around rectifying serious issues with the way things are done in order to help the people. A good portion of book three is spent on showing her doing this.
* Garion in ''[[Belgariad]]'' is actually a decent king who spends more of his time as an administrator than anything in pomp and ceremony. Most other kings and royalty, and even many aristocrats, in that universe are in a similar position. Also occurs- albeit to varying extents- in Eddings' ''Elenium''.
Line 192:
** Empress Laseen, who succeeded him, was the former head of the Imperial assassins.
** Tehol Beddict also fits this trope although [[Obfuscating Stupidity|not in the]] [[The Chessmaster|usual way]].
* ''[[Deltora Quest
* The heads of the eponymous three kingdoms from ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' also count. Liu Bei, in particular, wove straw mats and sold shoes before he entered politics and military service. In fact, once any noble stops being one of these and starts simply reigning, an ambitious adviser will usually pick up the slack and eventually supplant him.
** In John Woo's movie adaptation, Sun Quan the King of Wu fights on the frontlines during the Battle of Red Cliff. This certainly never happened in real-life; it didn't even happen in the historical novel!
*** Not that battle, no, but Sun Quan is actually rebuked by his subordinates for spending too much time near the front lines in other battles.
* ''[[
** Annoying though Elayne Trakand can be, she spends a fair amount of her time as princess chasing evil sorceresses around the known world and kicking butt. Then she ascends to the throne and immediately has to fight a civil war.
** Rand has plenty of things he needs to do as the Dragon Reborn and being crowned king of Illian and more or less being in charge of several countries he has taken does not change that. The books do show him less and less though as time goes on so while he is probably pretty busy king and ruler, it can seem like he isn't doing much to the reader.
* Nearly all nobles in [[The Riftwar Cycle]], no matter their planet of origin, are like this. The primary setting, the Kingdom of the Isles on Midkemia, is particularly notable because it works under a feudal system called "The Great Freedom" which gives nobles a responsibility to go out and defend their people in exchange for their allegiance.
** Prince Arutha is an exceptional example—he is depicted as far more interested in being hands-on than delegating the dirty work to his subordinates. At one point, he even
** The nobles of pan-Asian Kelewan can vary. Some are more or less useless, others very hands on. Some are warriors, some accountants, some spoiled dandies. Of course, the fortune of their estate rises and falls with their various abilities (and those of their advisors) so this is mildly deconstructed.
* Subversion: Emperor Varnazd in Yulia Latynina's Wei Empire cycle desperately wants to be this, but {{spoiler|almost}} everything he ever does to that end (and he tries a lot of things) backfires badly, to the point of {{spoiler|directly causing an all-out civil war}}.
Line 213:
* Baron <s>Charles</s> Edmond Talbot, from [[John Ringo]]'s [[Council Wars]] series. He's ''very'' reluctantly nobility, but nobility nonetheless, and will frequently be found in battle.
* Being elevated to the rank of Princess of [[Land of Oz|Oz]] when she moves there permanently doesn't slow Dorothy Gale too much.
** In ''[[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]]''
* Many of [[Bernard Cornwell]]'s novels set in earlier time periods, such as the Grail Quest or Warlord Chronicles trilogies, involve monarchs heavily involved in government, and, particularly, warfare, as is appropriate for the time. A somewhat unusual example is Alfred the Great as he appears in the Saxon Stories, often described by the [[Unreliable Narrator]] as engaging in useless clerical or religious work rather than acting as a military leader, evidently unaware that such work will have as great an impact on English history as any of his battles.
* Princess Mia in ''[[The Princess Diaries]]'' puts out in the open a document that had been hidden away that declared that {{spoiler|Genovia is supposed to be a Democracy, jeopardizing her entire family's claim to the throne of Genovia and forcing her father to run for election when he had already been ruler}}. But Mia does it anyway because she genuinely wants what is best for the people of Genovia.
Line 227:
* Stebbins, [[Doctor Dolittle|Dr. Doolittle's]] assistant is quite surprised to learn there is more to being a king than sitting on a throne and being bowed to several times a day.
* There was a short story where one royal family would have the next heir to the throne go on a trip down "the Prophet's Road" on their twentieth birthday. What happened to them would influence their rule; the protagonist's grandmother nearly starved to death, so she had granaries made and stocked. His father was attacked by bandits, so he built up the guard to insure his people were safe. Said father even says that what seperates a person who simply holds the title until the next and someone who goes down in history is what they do.
* In the [[Vorkosigan Saga]], the chief job of Vor, like most aristocracies is war. However in modern times the Barrayaran forces have plenty of commoners in the officer class. Other duties seem to include judging disputes and investigating crimes and maintaining a paternalistic rule over their respective districts.
** The Vor caste in general is as amply supplied with useless aristocratic socialites as it is with competent officers or executives. However, a sitting Count is simultaneously the chief executive and the chief judicial magistrate of a large province as well as a voting member of the planetary legislature, the Council of Counts. As such it is virtually impossible to be a Count or Count's heir and not do ''something'' productive for a living, and the few Counts that actually are useless at their jobs are still expected to find competent staff capable of having the necessary tasks delegated to them... and to still show up and vote at Council sessions.
**The Cetagandians are divided into two noble orders, the Haut who specialize in genetic research, use their rule to gain resources for same and in turn use their knowledge to enforce their rule. The other order is the Ghem who are a conventional warrior aristocracy in some ways [[Not So Different]] from Barrayarans. Court Ghem however outclass even the most decadent of Vor in uselessness and Ivan Vorpatril who on Barrayar is considered a luxury loving courtier(and happy to be so, thank you very much), when he visits Cetaganda and meets some of the tomfoolery of Court Ghem, strikes the reader as being like a [[Mother Russia Makes You Strong|ferocious Siberian frontiersman]] by contrast.
* The Royal Family in Kiera Cass' ''[[The Selection]]''. The family is consistently shown to actively rule and Prince Maxon takes his role as the future King very seriously. It also becomes increasingly clear throughout the story that if she were to become Queen, America would be this type of ruler.
* In his viking stories ''War of the Gods'' and ''Hrolf Kraki's Saga'' among other books, [[Poul Anderson]] has kings who are indeed ruthless warlords as they have to be to force anything like civilization down people's throats but by doing so they manage to make a quiet space where people can live decently. They also have virtues more conducive to modern tastes if less so to that of saga writers for they give fair judgement in court, stop feuding, and encourage trade.
* The British royal family in ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'', composed of Queen Elizard, first princess Rimea, second princess Carissa and third princess Villian. They are part of a power triangle that controls Britain (the other two being the Knights and the Church). All of them play important roles in the British civil war, and Carissa fights personally in World War III.
| |||