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Rightful King Returns: Difference between revisions
post-Jason cleanup: punctuation, word choice; also fixed some spelling elsewhere
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[[File:King.jpg|frame|Bad things happened in his absence -- that's why he returns.<ref>The painting is ''Kazimierz Odnowiciel'' by Wojciech Gerson</ref>]]
{{quote|''"But at the essential moment, see, your [[Royal Blood|genuine kings]] throw back their cloak and say 'Lo!' and their essential kingnessness shines through."''
|'''[[Terry Pratchett]]''', ''[[Discworld/Guards! Guards!|Guards! Guards!]]''}}
This is the common [[High Fantasy]] plot that involves restoring the rightful heir to the throne. Requires, obviously, the [[Royal Blood]] trope; it doesn't work in a kingdom with elective monarchs. (Not that many works actually use elective monarchies.)
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{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'': After his father's death, he must reclaim his kingdom. However he will have to reclaim it from a black-maned, scarred lion has usurped the throne in his absence. It must be told it was made forty years before Disney made ''[[The Lion King]]''.
* ''[[Trinity Blood]]'' ends with {{spoiler|Esther being crowned queen}}.
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** If he didn't come back during the Blitz, he's probably not coming back at all. Though they did have Churchill...
* Subverted by {{spoiler|Carrot Ironfoundersson}} in [[Discworld|Ankh-Morpork]]. He's the rightful king, and would make a really ''good'' one, too, caring about both his people and the city... but he stays away from the throne for exactly that reason, as he knows that monarchy is exactly what Ankh-Morpork ''doesn't'' need, and possibly because he ascribes to Vimes' problem with the term 'rightful'. He'll occasionally exploit his status, though, using it to pull off the [[Theory of Narrative Causality|narrative tricks]] that come with this trope (Such as fighting other enemies aware of narrative causality who realize you can't beat a rightful king who's not yet on the throne, especially when he's got justice and is outnumbered).
** He often directly subverts the Tolkien examples, with the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork being in the role of the Steward of Gondor. Unlike the Tolkien example, both the Steward and the Rightful King are happy with the status quo: Vetinari can rest secure in the knowledge that, if anyone
** Pratchett does the same trick in ''[[Discworld/Wyrd Sisters|Wyrd Sisters]]'' in which Tomjon returns to Lancre, but rejects the kingship in favour of being an actor. Luckily he has a secret half-brother. {{spoiler|Said half-brother is the son of the former King's jester; Tomjon is the
* ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]'' is almost a subversion of the trope though since the guy helping to restore the king is agreed by the king's allies to actually be a better ruler, and in fact the guy who overthrew the king is also a much better ruler.
* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in the novel ''The Dragons of Babel'' by Michael Swanwick. The king of Babel has been missing for a few decades. Will, the protagonist, falls in with a con man named Nat, who comes up with a plan to pass off Will as the king's bastard son and therefore the sole heir to the throne. {{spoiler|In the end, it becomes a [[Double Subversion]]: Nat is both the long-lost king and Will's biological father, meaning that Will really ''is'' the heir to the throne.}}
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* Princess Ozma, the true ruler of [[Oz]] in [[L. Frank Baum]]'s series of books, is restored to her throne some time after Dorothy's original adventure; by the time Dorothy returns to Oz in the third book in the series, Ozma's back on her throne and ruling wisely and peacefully. Although the second book in the series details Ozma's recovery {{spoiler|(she had been usurped by the Wizard and the wicked Witches and disguised as a boy for her entire life, so that even ''she'' didn't know who she was)}}, Baum changed her origin story no less than three times during the writing of the rest of the series. Note that Ozma rules as anointed sovereign, but never becomes Queen; [[Everything's Better with Princesses|you know why.]]
** At the end of ''The Land of Oz,'' Ozma is referred to as a "Queen."
* Jim Butcher's ''[[Codex Alera]]'' series used this. Due to a [[Contrived Coincidence]], it was ''literally'' the case that the earth shook and the sky turned red when the long-lost prince declared his true identity
* [[Prince Roger|Prince Roger Ramius etc. MacClintock]] of the ''March'' series, starting with the revelation that the assassination attempt on him was the first step in a successful coup against his mother the Empress.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story ''[[The Hour of the Dragon]]'', "Valerius, rightful heir of the throne of Aquilonia." wants this - to depose Conan. Doesn't work as usual. For one thing, Conan sets out to implement this trope.
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* Frequently part of ''Legend of Zelda'' games, at least the ones where Princess Zelda is the rightful ruler. She's not going to return by herself, though; you (Link) have to rescue her.
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic]]'' sees King Eric III of Drostardy return to his throne after breaking out of a drow dungeon. (The reason he was in there in the first place? He hit on [[Psycho Lesbian|Arachne]].)
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' with Agatha Heterodyne. While she isn't a Queen per se, the incumbent Heterodyne is a sovereign, so it's treated [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20180221 as a matter of formality] in the same way that Klaus didn't proclaim himself Emperor, but could as well. Her reclaiming her birthright {{spoiler|by taking Castle Heterodyne and triggering the ringing of the Doom Bell}} definitely has major overtones of this trope. The locals "[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111116 are not happy unless a ''Heterodyne'' is in charge]".
** Invoked, in the prophecy of a new Storm King who will marry a Heterodyne and cause the new Golden Age. Or, as one of candidates [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130703 put it] —
{{quote|'''Martellus''': The Order spent years creating a Storm King shaped ''hole in the world''. }}
== Western Animation ==
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* Invoked during the 1868 Meiji Restoration in which the Japanese Emperor usurped political power from the Shoguns who had been running the country for the past 700 years.
* King Michael of Romania was a figurehead ruler during most of his reign in the 1930s and 1940s. A fascist dictator came to power in Romania, who allied his country with the Nazis. In 1944 Michael, along with several generals loyal to him, organized a coup against the fascists and became allied with the West and the Soviets. Romania's communist government forced the king into exile in 1947. He eventually returned in 1992 and on a more permanent basis in 1997 although Romania does not recognize him as their monarch.
* Keeping other countries' pretenders under protection is an old political gambit. In the past the theory was that it costs nothing to give him a suitable resemblance to a court, that he provided leverage to bargain with, could be made a flag to wave if an invasion was launched and could be disavowed if he was to obnoxious or politics made him undesirable. Nowadays there is a similar practice of harboring the heirs of monarchs or
{{reflist}}
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