Royally Screwed-Up: Difference between revisions

* 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]]s of the last century.

* Averted in some ''[[Discworld]]'' novels. Arguably, rulers of the city of Ankh-Morpork in the Discworld have had a tendency to be raving psychopaths. This applied when the city was ruled by kings, and was still true afterward when the kings were killed and replaced by the Patricians. By some stroke of astounding good fortune, the city is currently possessed of a Patrician, Vetinari, who is remarkably sane; as insurance, the rightful heir to the line of kings is also hanging around the city, and he too is remarkably sane, for certain values of sanity. How that happened is anyone's guess, as Ankh-Morpork is a thoroughly crazy city and tends to produce various types of craziness in anyone who lives there too long. Most of the citizens get used to it, though.

** Played utterly straight when one book describes the lineage of kings in other Discworldian cities, and cites the last King of Quirm as "having been so inbred he repeatedly tried to mate with himself," or something along those lines.

* In [[Jack Vance]]'s ''[[Lyonesse]]'' trilogy, the king of South Ulfland's single son, Prince Quilcy, is feeble-minded and spends his days playing with fanciful doll-houses.