...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Royally Screwed Up
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Nearly every family of a decent size has at least one relative who's a little... strange. Maybe it's Great-Aunt Enid and her collection of carefully mounted cat skeletons (no one knows where she gets them—they just appear), or second cousin Dolf's extensive research library on famous serial killers, complete with memorabilia he buys off of eBay at outrageous prices. (Those clown paintings he adores are particularly creepy.) This isn't much of a problem, usually, as long as one is careful not to get cornered by them at family reunions. But, what happens when your family are hereditary rulers of some kind? Kings, Emperors, High Priests, whatever you want to call it, the point is you have great power. Power that belongs to your family, and your family alone. Power that somehow meets Crazy. Due to random chance or, sometimes, not-even-remotely-random, deliberate action, Great-Aunt Enid or second-cousin Dolf will end up with the royal prerogatives. What follows is either a reign of grotesque excess, blood, and terror, or some other form of epically bad king or queen. Rarely, you'll actually get somebody so bonkers and out there, they actually work well enough for their... little quirks (they're just paintings, for crying out loud!) to be ignorable. Eventually, however, our "At Least Painting the Throne-Room Puce and Yellow Worked" King Dolf or "Perhaps We Should Have Looked Into Those Cats More" Queen Enid will leave the throne (or be made to leave)... That should be the end of this outbreak of eccentricity, right? Not necessarily. In fact, not even probably. Potentially dangerous insanity in the ruling line rarely appears in a single, isolated case when it comes to fiction. Nope. Chances are the whole family line is just as affected somehow, which means that sooner or later — probably sooner — along will come Queen Enid II and King Dolf III both or either of whom is painfully, obviously off their rocker enough for people to openly comment... And, the whole thing will start up all over again. This may continue for a good many decades or even centuries, with each new generation crossing its fingers that they get one of the "good" rulers from the line and not one of the "iffy" bunch. If you are unfortunate enough to get stuck with one of the blood-drenched loonies, one common solution is to go find someone else from the same family who didn't get hit with the Ax-Crazy stick and put them on the throne instead of poor Enid or Dolf before revolution breaks out. This is where disgraced half-brothers, exiled princes/princesses and unknown sons/daughters come into play. Unless something permanent is done about the family problem, however, this is most likely just a temporary solution. Give it a generation or three of this side-branch inheriting, and it'll be back to our regular Queen Enid "Tree-Whisperer (and Agricultural Reformer)" IV and King Dolf "Bloody Insane" VI programming. In fiction there are several common reasons why a royal family might be prone to madness. |
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Adventure Time: Candy Kingdom Law is "complicated" according to Princess Bubblegum. In the event that anything should happen to PB, who inherits the throne? Her maladjusted, overly sensitive, socially awkward, most likely brain-damaged, insensitive, angry, sour-tempered, alienated son/science experiment gone wrong, the Earl of Lemongrab. Arguably, Lemongrab is a pretty sympathetic example of this trope — he obviously has a... delicate condition, but that doesn't stop everyone from despising his guts for being a Jerkass most of the time and sending everyone to the dungeon for a million years. But why stop there? When the princess realizes her errors, she must create a second heir. This time, she brings her own DNA into the equation in an attempt to stabilize the formula. Enter the giant, pink, infantile being Goliad. Princess Bubblegum wants to educate her in all the ways of royalty and leadership and Finn and Jake are tasked to teach her. However, Goliad's "mondo mama brains" have an extreme imprint. Just seeing Jake yell at a group of preschoolers in order to keep them quiet send her into an authoritarian state in which everyone is forced to follow her rules. Then Goliad pulls out her Third Eye and begins to control the citizens of the Candy Kingdom with mind control and telekinesis. If not for Stormo, a being created by Finn's DNA, the kingdom would have fallen. Surely the Candy Kingdom can't have all the fun. There's also the Nightosphere and the Vampire Kingdom, controlled by the Abadeers, respectively Hunson and Marceline. Hunson, as the Lord of Chaos, controls the strange tortures that flood the Nightosphere. Mutilation, immolation, bananas coming out of orifices; all done in pure glee. His daughter, Marceline the Vampire Queen, is seen less as a ruler and more a fickle trickster. If she has royal obligations, she completely ignores them. At one point, Marceline was tricked into becoming the Lord of Chaos by her own father. This made her even more disturbing as she would line up those in the Nightosphere and hand out punishments on whim, giving choices like "pain, pleasure, or weird punishment" and asking if someone wanted abs (which she placed on the person's head). The entire Fire Kingdom court is evil. This includes Finn's new Love Interest Flame Princess, though her father admits that love could turn her chaotic neutral (at the cost of an experience penalty for going against alignment). She's also Cute and Psycho with a Hair-Trigger Temper, and if her emotions go out of control she can destroy the world. Her father is also a little too eager to make sure his daughter stays evil. |
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The Amazons' queen Hippolyta is Ares' daughter, even in the Post-Crisis reboot that changed Hippolyta into a resurrected murder victimnote the implication being that she is the resurrected form of his daughter Alcippe, who was raped and murdered by Poseidon's son Halirrhothius. While Hippolyta is usually a just and beloved ruler she can become obsessed with things and has been forced to abdicate the throne by her own people after she nearly started a war over a misunderstanding. This also means that the New 52 reboot making Diana into Zeus' daughter meant that Hippolyta had a daughter with her own grandfather, though that version of events was jettisoned by Wonder Woman (Rebirth). | |
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Also of Marvel, Magneto and his offspring formed a House of M in the miniseries of the same name, but in a subversion (aversion?), the royal family seemed pretty well-balanced. In the Ultimate line, however, the same 'royal family' is... Well, let's just say they've got problems. General explanation? Big Daddy M's crazy-genes, plus power-induced madness. | |
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Keep marrying relatives in Crusader Kings II and you are liable to end up here — the game keeps track of familial connections enough to mark characters down as inbred behind-the-scenes. This trope comes in in that there are two traits you can get just from being inbred — the inbred-only inbred trait (with a wide range of negative effects) covering mainly the physical sides of this, and the lunatic trait covering The Caligula side of it. Religions that encourages incestuous marriages are nice enough to decrease the risk of getting the inbred trait, but only at the cost of making lunatic more likely. | |
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Fire Emblem. Good lord, Fire Emblem. Every freakin' game. Granted, no more than two games (except 1/11, 2 and 3) take place in any one continuity, but regardless, there is at least one mad ruler per game, or at the very least, mildly evil (Blazing Blade's King Desmond wasn't really mad, just a petty idiot—and Marquess Laus wanted to rule all of Lycia, but never actually did.) Well, okay, Radiant Dawn actually had a bunch of evil senators trying to usurp the empress of Begnion and an Evil Chancellor at the side of the new king of Daien...FE10 did have Naesala, but he turned out to be...compromised. Fire Emblem: Awakening goes one step further: not only is the main villain the result of a thousand years long program of eugenistic breeding among plegian royalty meant to create an avatar to a demonic genocidal city-sized dragon, but this time, s/he's the protagonist. Kind of.: Fire Emblem: by Nintendo, the company known for its colorful family friendly games Fire Emblem Fates . Both royal families of Hoshido and Nohr are dysfunctional. The Nohr family is the more troubled of the two, since their father Garon sired many children with his concubines. The infighting and power struggles killed off most of the half-siblings — the relatively sane and decent ones are the only ones left. Garon himself was hardened by this but he's still not to blame for all of the really awful things that happen in the game, since he's a Dead All Along puppet of the true Big Bad Anankos. If Nohr used to be dysfunctional but the infighting stopped after Elise's birth and from there the siblings get along well, Hoshido was the opposite. They used to be a happy family, but everything fell apart after the Avatar was kidnapped by Nohr and Sumeragi assassinated. The two older siblings Ryoma and Hinoka trained themselves too hard, busying themselves to distract themselves from the sadness of losing their father and younger sibling, but distancing themselves from their left younger siblings (namely Takumi and Sakura). This is visible in their supports, that Nohr siblings cleared their inner conflicts well, but the Hoshido siblings... Do not completely clear their problems, even if you A support all of them. If you sent the younger siblings fight the oldest one in Revelation, this also shows. Xander has special dialogue if you sent Camilla against him, but Ryoma DOES NOT have any special dialogue even if you sent Takumi or Sakura against him. Even more so against their father Sumeragi. Sumeragi only has special dialogue with the Avatar and Ryoma, showing clear signs of Parental Favoritism. The straightest example of an insanely evil royal is the protagonist's true father Anankos who also happens to be a godlike dragon, but even that's due to a flaw with dragons in the Fire Emblem verse: If they spend too long in their dragon forms without using a dragonstone they go insane. Anankos is even worse than the normal insane dragon, because his sane half is still aware of what's going on and can't do anything to stop it. |
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In The Hobbit, this is the case for the dwarven King Thrór and his grandson Thorin. Apparently, it was Thrór's excessive greed that brought the dragon Smaug to Erebor. Later, Thorin succumbs to dragon sickness, claiming the wealth of Erebor is greater then any life, suspecting the Company of stealing the Arkenstone and almost throwing Bilbo from the ramparts when he finds out he took the Arkenstone to the elves and men. He refuses to help the Iron Hill dwarves outside when they're fighting a massive army of orcs and goblins, leading to a What the Hell, Hero? from Dwalin. Thorin eventually realises how dangerous his greed is and leaves Erebor to help fight against Azog's army. He is fatally wounded in a Mutual Kill with Azog, but before Thorin dies he makes his peace with Bilbo. Subverted with Thráin, Thorin's father, who did go mad, but only after years of grief, isolation, and torture. | |
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In the Old World of Darkness RPG Werewolf: The Apocalypse, many of the ruling tribe, the Silver Fangs, suffered from this — despite the fact that werewolves had to outbreed (werewolf-werewolf matings were lucky if their children were just insane). Of course, interbreeding with the Habsburg line didn't help. Somewhat justified in that the Silver Fangs had such an obsession with lineage that they refused to breed with any humans that weren't royal. So they managed to get most all the bad traits of just about everyone in the "Real Life" section. | |
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In X-Wing Rogue Squadron, royalty of the planet Eiattu interbreed and use technology to keep the line "pure" of the ills afflicting the common folk. But nature abhors a vacuum. Plourr Ilo, revealed as the last confirmed survivor of the main royal family after the other nobles had a bloody revolution (her story was loosely based off of the legend of Anastasia), tells the other characters why the man rumored to be her brother (who's a new kind of revolutionary, this time for the common folk) can't be him. "All those years of dipping from the same genetic pool caused a wrinkle, a flaw in an otherwise normal family line. We set out to keep ourselves above the common man and found ourselves with a thing from the deepest pit of the Sith." She also knows it's not him because on the night her family was killed, her father managed to get the two of them out and her brother started screaming for the revolutionaries to come and find Plourr and slit her throat so he could be Emperor. So she killed him. | |
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Princess Sara in 8-Bit Theater is smart, sexy, and sane enough to fully realize her father is a Cloudcuckoolander with genocidal tendencies. Naturally, she doesn't hold much stock in hereditary rule. She's still a rude, shrewish sociopath, though, and engineered her own kidnapping. How bad it is: No matter what horrible evils she unleashes on the populace when she comes into power, it will look like a golden age compared to the completely ruinous and unhinged chain of decisions King Steve makes every day, simply because she's not enough of an idiot to be capable of the same levels of casual destruction. It's even worse than that: King Steve boasted a 52% approval rating. He got this by having pollsters ask which would they prefer: Having Steve as their king or taking a sword to the head. 48% of his subjects chose execution (and received it). | |
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The Dresari family in the MechWarrior 4 series appears to suffer from this; it's doubly painful because the likable player character in the first game pulls a Face–Heel Turn and becomes The Caligula in one of the expansions. Per a previous example, this is not entirely uncommon in the BattleTech universe. Weirdly enough, Word of God retcons this saying that the latter incident mentioned above is in fact propaganda from the aforementioned Steiner ruling government, whose leader at the time was not above this or numerous other antics reaching to the Moral Event Horizon. | |
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Tower of God: Hendrock Bloodmadder, head of the noble Hendrock family, sacrifices each of his children at the young age of 100 (relatively young for ToG standards) to keep himself immortal. The kids are completely fanatic about daddy. Whereas the family of King Jahad seems to be a bunch of quirky young girls with limited amounts of sanity and common sense. And, in the Blue Corner, we have the Khun Family. The Head, Khun Edahn, has many wives and many, many resulting children and grandchildren (and, seeing as this is the Tower) great-to-the-power-of-who-knows-how-many grandchildren... The Family Tree must resemble an overgrown mangrove swamp by now. And, they believe in regular attempts at pruning: politics, betrayals, backstabbings and a coming-of-age tradition that's murder on the kids are all parts of their game. This tends to produce schemers and those with a certain yen towards paranoia that others in the Tower are wary of. |
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In the Discworld of A.A. Pessimal, the canonical character of Prince Samuel of Howondaland is introduced as a corrupt and venal despot who profits from the slavery of goblins exported to the continent (see Snuff) in return for a share of the profits. He is described as a half-crazy and possibly inbred Royal Brat used to absolute power, born into a state presented as an allegory for West Africa who begins a battle that could lead to major war with his neighbouring state Rimwards Howondaland and with Ankh-Morpork. Elsewhere, the royal house of the Zulu Empire avoids too much inbreeding simply because the Paramount King can take as many wives as he likes. But this leads to a lot of royal half-brothers and half-sisters who live in perpetual Sibling Rivalry. It is hinted that some of them have characteristics which can only be explained by tangled bloodlines across the generations and a lot of half-siblings going back over previous generations who might have got too close. | |
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In Final Fantasy XIV, what we see of the Imperial Galvus family of the Garlean Empire doesn't exactly paint a flattering picture of them: the First Emperor, Solus zos Galvus, was arguably the sanest of the bunch, and he was a brutal military tyrant that paved the way for the expansionistic and racist empire; after his death, his family more than happily began fighting for the throne, with his son Titus and grandson Varis clashing in a civil war. When we first see Varis he spits on a family member's grave before ascending the throne, and proves himself to be even worse than Solus, putting a Culture Police in the capital and doubling down on the expansionism of the Empire, even being willing to help the extremely dangerous, extremely anti-mortals Ascians, because he believes the chaos they bring will help create a "master race". Then, finally, there's Varis' son Zenos, a sociopathic Blood Knight who became the way he is due to a mix of being neglected in his childhood and being a Broken Ace; he's so twisted that he willingly stokes revolutions in conquered provinces just so he can crush them to stave off boredom. Even his own father considers him a monster, and is apalled to discover that Zenos is willing to kill him; not because of the act itself, but because Zenos doesn't even want to inherit the throne at all, and just wants to kill him for being in his way. To say the Galvus have family issues would be to put it lightly. | |
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In Homestuck, the Highbloods (high-ranking members of the troll caste system) seem to be innately prone to psychotic behavior. (Well, more so than the rest of the species.) The highest bloodtype; the Imperial, or Tyrian line, boasts Her Imperious Condescension, a millennia-old tyrant known for her cruelty and fickleness. (Interestingly, her descendant Feferi seems to be much more benevolent, making this part a possible subversion.) Meenah, the Condesce's previous incarnation, says it's a shame she can't be around Feferi because they're both of the highest blood type, she has the irrational urge to murder her descendant to take the throne, no matter how sweet Feferi is. There's also the Grand Highblood, a warlord who often killed and mangled people for the hell of it, and his descendant Gamzee, who eventually snaps and brutally murders two of his friends over the course of the story. Equius, a noble-ranking blueblood, has some peculiar anger management issues and pretty much states up front that highbloods are just genetically predisposed to violence and psychosis. | |
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Padmaavat: Alauddin Khilji murders his uncle and steals his throne, then declares war on Chittor because of his obsession with Padmavati. | |
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The Black-Briar family of Skyrim appear to be of the Environmental and Cultural types, being raised by a corrupt business owner in the Wretched Hive of Riften. Hemming is a stuck up brat, Sibbi is a sociopathic killer, and Ingun, the nicest of the bunch, has a strange affinity for alchemy, especially poisons. Close attention to dialogue also shows this to be In the Blood as well, as Hemming will refer to Sibbi and Ingun as both his siblings and his children, and looking at the game files shows that Maven is marked as Sibbi and Ingun's grandmother. | |
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Fire Emblem Fates . Both royal families of Hoshido and Nohr are dysfunctional. The Nohr family is the more troubled of the two, since their father Garon sired many children with his concubines. The infighting and power struggles killed off most of the half-siblings — the relatively sane and decent ones are the only ones left. Garon himself was hardened by this but he's still not to blame for all of the really awful things that happen in the game, since he's a Dead All Along puppet of the true Big Bad Anankos. If Nohr used to be dysfunctional but the infighting stopped after Elise's birth and from there the siblings get along well, Hoshido was the opposite. They used to be a happy family, but everything fell apart after the Avatar was kidnapped by Nohr and Sumeragi assassinated. The two older siblings Ryoma and Hinoka trained themselves too hard, busying themselves to distract themselves from the sadness of losing their father and younger sibling, but distancing themselves from their left younger siblings (namely Takumi and Sakura). This is visible in their supports, that Nohr siblings cleared their inner conflicts well, but the Hoshido siblings... Do not completely clear their problems, even if you A support all of them. If you sent the younger siblings fight the oldest one in Revelation, this also shows. Xander has special dialogue if you sent Camilla against him, but Ryoma DOES NOT have any special dialogue even if you sent Takumi or Sakura against him. Even more so against their father Sumeragi. Sumeragi only has special dialogue with the Avatar and Ryoma, showing clear signs of Parental Favoritism. The straightest example of an insanely evil royal is the protagonist's true father Anankos who also happens to be a godlike dragon, but even that's due to a flaw with dragons in the Fire Emblem verse: If they spend too long in their dragon forms without using a dragonstone they go insane. Anankos is even worse than the normal insane dragon, because his sane half is still aware of what's going on and can't do anything to stop it. | |
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Invoked with Ruprecht in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Lawrence has been posing as a prince to con money out of rich ladies. Whenever an heiress gets too close to his con, he gets Freddie to play a mentally disturbed brother to scare her off. | |
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Marvel Universe character of antiquity Namor the Sub-Mariner is both an example and a subversion. By all accounts, he rules the kingdom of Atlantis relatively well. However, he is also provably crazy: his unique Atlantean/Human physiology means that he requires both air and water to function properly, and if he goes too long without one or the other, his body chemistry drives him towards excessive rage and dangerous short-sightedness; a very dangerous thing indeed in someone strong enough to fight the Hulk to a standstill. | |
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As of Thor: Ragnarok, we find out that Asgard's royal family is this. While in previous movies, both of Thor and Loki's worst mistakes included various shades of unprovoked mass murder, in the third Thor movie, we find out that they're not the only members of their family with a bloodthirsty past. Odin went through a phase where he was a brutal Galactic Conqueror, and also had a daughter that neither Thor nor Loki knew about who helped him conquer the Nine Realms before Thor and Loki were born. Unlike Odin, who eventually saw the error of his ways, Hela didn't want to stop expanding their empire, so Odin was forced to imprison her before she destroyed everything. The Asgardian royal family are the leaders of a very warlike society, and multiple generations of the family, from Thor's grandfather to Thor's generation, have been linked to... questionable or immoral decision-making in war. Thor, at least, was able to change quickly after Odin exiled him and stripped him of his powers, though the speed of his character development in that case is most likely at least partly due to the humiliation and trauma he went through then. Loki, though adopted into the family, seemingly got his worst tendencies from both nature and nurture. He was reared in Asgard's warrior society, but his biological father, King Laufey, tried to conquer Earth at one point, and is implied to have been planning to exterminate all native life on the planet. | |
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Avatar: The Last Airbender: The line of the Fire Lords in has... issues. Specifically, a tendency toward being sociopathic and homicidal on both a personal and national level. Again, if there's hope for stopping the ruling lunatics, it seems likely to come from the branches of the tree that didn't get hit with the genocidal batshit crazy stick — disgraced traitor Iroh, or screwed-up-but-trying-to-improve disgraced traitor Zuko. For the most part the Fire Lords seem to have avoided taking out their issues on their own people, so their own common folks seem to be reasonably pleased with their rulers. It's just everyone else on the planet who's rightfully terrified. The problem isn't likely to go away until the planetary balanced is fixed; it seems to be spiritual in nature. (One ancestor went power-mad three generations back, and his successors have continued his policies. And why not, as they seem to be working fine — as long as you're Fire Nation, that is.) Zuko was able to put a stop to it with himself and his Spin-Offspring, however. His grandson, General Iroh, pops up a few times in Korra and is a completely normal (but extremely badass) guy. His daughter, Izumi, the reigning Fire Lord speaks only in one scene in the show but comes off as a very wise and capable leader. It's exceedingly obvious that Zuko was successful in Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting. Sequel Series The Legend of Korra shows that this isn't exclusive to the Fire Nation. Earth Queen Hou-Ting, unlike her father Kuei, is a tyrannic, petty monarch who makes life for commoners living hell, and undid all the progress achieved under her father just because of her own personal whims, driving the Earth Kingdom into poverty. When she ends up getting murdered by Zaheer, the citizens cheer and raid her palace, triggering the fall of the Earth Kingdom. |
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Elisabeth. Oh, boy. Among the main characters: Emperor Franz Joseph is a Momma's Boy Workaholic, Empress Elisabeth is a Rebellious Princess turned Broken Birdnote (seagull?) Death Seeker, and their hypersensitive son Crown Prince Rudolf (who might also be a Death Seeker depending on the production) was Driven to Suicide by a False Friend who used More than Mind Control on him. Lots of the dysfunction comes from the machinations of Archduchess Sophie, the Knight Templar Parent, and Death, the Grim Reaper Stalker with a Crush. Let's hear Lucheni relate the fate of Sisi and Franz's family/in-laws: note Yes, the same Habsburg people down at the Real Life section. | |
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Armed and Dangerous has an interesting case: a magical curse cast on the kingdom of Forge causes one king of the country to be a clever Evil Overlord, and his immediate successor to be a kind-hearted dimwit, and his successor again to be an Evil Overlord, and so on. In retrospect, it might have been a better idea to make the evil one the idiot. | |
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This problem is endemic in Girl Genius. Sparks, being creative geniuses with impulse control/prioritization issues, naturally respond to any intellectual problem or technological innovation with "ooh, shiny!" The powerful ones also tend toward considerable charisma and psychological instability. Throw in a lot of "manifest destiny" and "right to rule" noble sentiment, probably lifted from real-world history, and you get feuding warlord dynasties unleashing war machines and fearsome monsters upon one another constantly. Anti-Villain Baron Klaus Wulfenbach forged a Pax Wulfenbach of sorts, but there's still a fair amount of scheming and rebellion against the (perceived) Evil Overlord. Even the heroic Sparks, mainly heir to legendary heroes Agatha Heterodyne and her probable love-interest/only viable political rival, Klaus's son Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, are prone to manic episodes of creativity and occasional violence. The House of Heterodyne, of which Agatha is the only known living member, deserves special mention. For generations, they were the most insane and dangerous maniacs that the world had ever known, and also some of the strongest Sparks. The previous generation, Agatha's father and uncle, are an exception, having used their brilliant insanity for good; but according to one observer, the people of her hometown would accept a crazy Heterodyne as legitimate: Add in the fact that the Heterodynes were the ones who created the Jaegers (think WW1 Germans fused with Orkz and muppets) and they were plenty messed up too. Basically, the Heterodynes bred right past crazy and back around to normal. Add to this the House Sturmvoraus, apparently affected with an inborn Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, and a Prince in love with The Other. |
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While all the Great Houses in BattleTech have had issues with sanity-challenged rulers, the Liao dynasty of the Capellan Confederation has it the worst by far. Maxmillion Liao was driven nuts after falling to Hanse Davion's schemes in the 4th Succession War and was left a broken shell until his death. His daughter Romano was far worse: she was a total yandere for Justin Allard and went right off the deep end when he turned out to be Hanse Davion's double-agent. She spent the next few decades becoming increasingly paranoid and instituting numerous bloody purges of her own people as a result of that paranoia, further crippling the badly battered realm; most of its citizens breathed a sigh of relief when her own sister (widely considered the only sane Liao) finally shot her. Her son, Sun Tzu, was mostly sane (though he had his moments) but her daughter, Kali, was completely off the deep end and believed herself to be the actual Hindu diety. The fact that the Capellan state religion views House Liao as actual divine beings certainly didn't help in that regard, either. Kali was responsible for organizing numerous terrorist attacks in the Confederation and on other worlds. And then there's Daoshen, Sun Tzu's heir. Again, he believes himself to be a god, he's hyper-aggressive and paranoid, and his niece is actually his daughter. Insanity doesn't just run in the family, it practically gallops. | |
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Anima: Beyond Fantasy has Lascar Giovanni, the last emperor of said dinasty, who unlike his predecessors — much more benevolent — and having absolute power at his hands ordered senseless executions, took the women he wanted, drove his wife to suicide after she gave birth to her son, and worse making the latter to kill him, so the only heir could not ascend to the throne and ending the ruling of the Giovanni for good. | |
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Cavalier of the Abyss, the sequel to Immortal Regis has an example in the royal family presided by Nexus Nex, the Rogue Protagonist of the original series. Also doubles also as a Big, Screwed-Up Family. Nex is a cold, jaded tyrant with a sadistic side who massacres villages on a regular bases, doesn't even blink when Xix threatens to kill his son's fiance, and has Serin, previously his one true love, tied up in an eternal nightmare. Nex is convinced that he's surrounded by people who want to use or back-stab him. And he's right. Serin is locked in a box, heavily sedated, and subjected to an eternal nightmare, punishment for a major betrayal that has yet to come to light. Nex, however, cannot bring himself to killing her. Which of Nex's children she did or did not give birth to while running away from him are a major plot point. Implied for Siana, Ninurta, and Xix so far. Nex has practical reason of not killing her. As undead he needs her blood from his necromancer aka Serin. Confirmed by Nex himself. Caladbolg, supposed God of Chaos who possesses and continues to identify as Jae-Hoon, Nex's little brother. Due to this, a large plot point is how there's no clear distinction between both personalities. Even though he is the Big Bad he comes off far more compassionate than Nex, acting as a foil. Later it is shown he has taken Siana under his wing, who he confirms is his niece. And that is without bringing up the Incest Subtext between the two brothers... Iffrita, Nex's wife and the queen, once sweet and a total ditz, now a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. She secretly hates the Demon clan for executing her mother as a political pawn, it's implied that she manipulated the events that led to Serin's internment and the razing of the Banaan village, and in court she's constantly maneuvering to get herself as close to Nex as possible. She may or may not have taken Ninurta from Serin and implanted her own traits to pass him off as her son. Ninurta Noah, the prince and purportedly the son of Nex and Iffrita, although Nex is said to have accepted him without actually checking if this is true; it's implied he's actually the son of the queen and Mikhail Noah, as he bears little resemblance to his father. Nex is not that fond of him, and when he is captured by a dragon-bourn Siana, Nex orders his men to fire at him and declares him a traitor when he defends himself to survive. Currently allied with Caladbolg of the Night Clan and possibly became Romantic Runner-Up to Xix, as his failed arrange marriage with Yuan but is shown to be developing ties with Siana. It's shown in later chapters he may in fact be Serin's child, taken from her and imprinted with Iffrita's dna to pass off as hers, and both the fact that Just uses his blood successfully for the blood seal ritual and becomes an undead after dying proves he is actually Nex's son after all. Ouroboros, also known as Just, claims to be the son of Nex and Serin as part of a ruse by Serin's father, and is a Manipulative Bastard who takes sadistic pleasure in tormenting his "brother" Ninurta and really anyone he can get his hooks into. Ouroboros is also the creation of Oski and brother of Skoll, the wolf demon sealed inside Xix. Technically all the beasts are related to Caladbolg, as they are created out of fragments of him. Xix: An Undead and Heartbroken Badass whose entire village was massacred at Nex's orders, thus he has a vendetta against Nex and made a deal with Oski to gain power to try to kill Nex. He is completely thunderstruck when he discovers that he may be Nex's son after a blood ritual. This is after Nex defeats, tortures, and nearly kills him. He was left at the village by a beautiful woman in flashbacks drawn looking like Serin and left with her family's magical artifact Semek. He was actually killed and then resurrected by Siana in previously mentioned massacre. After said resurrection, he proceeds in a daze to tear out Siana's heart and take it into his own body.... then we learn of a prophecy saying that Jae Huk's first son with Serin would be lost to him. The revelations with Ninurta just complicates his potential origin. Also the host of Skoll, a wolf demon created by Oski related to Ouroboros the snake demon. Siana: Childhood Friends with Xix, and member of the Night Clan. She is also necromancer and like Xix is implied to be the long lost child of Serin and an unknown Night Clan member that Caladbolg/Jae Hoon is convinced is Nex/Jae Hyuk. Xix thought she died when his village was destroyed, but in truth a post-resurrection haze Xix tore out her heart to took it into his own body. Afterward her body was taken by Caladbolg and he had his forces work to save her. She reappears later in the present aligned with Caladbolg, and they believe each other to be uncle and niece. Her true body is with the Night Clan and she normally interacts via replicated one her consciousness is tied to. Miya: The only one to get away from this relatively clean. Indisputably Nex and Iffrita's daughter, she is a sickly little girl who cannot even comprehend how messed up her family is. Xix, Ninurta and Nex all care for her deeply (the former initially in opposition to his own vendetta) the fact that she actually looks like Nex often causes people to draw comparisons with how Ninurta does not. |
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Wonder Woman: Olympus is of course ruled by the usual backstabbing, hypocritical self-absorbed pantheon, and their royal family is related to the Royal Family of the Amazons. The Amazons' queen Hippolyta is Ares' daughter, even in the Post-Crisis reboot that changed Hippolyta into a resurrected murder victimnote the implication being that she is the resurrected form of his daughter Alcippe, who was raped and murdered by Poseidon's son Halirrhothius. While Hippolyta is usually a just and beloved ruler she can become obsessed with things and has been forced to abdicate the throne by her own people after she nearly started a war over a misunderstanding. This also means that the New 52 reboot making Diana into Zeus' daughter meant that Hippolyta had a daughter with her own grandfather, though that version of events was jettisoned by Wonder Woman (Rebirth). |
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The Abrasax clan from Jupiter Ascending; even the best of them—arguably Kalique, the only one whose endgame doesn't seem to necessitate Jupiter's death—has no qualms committing genocide for the sake of immortality. | |
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The Elder Scrolls: The Septim Dynasty of the Third Cyrodiilic Empire, founded by Tiber Septim, had its fair share of crazy. To note: Emperor Pelagius Septim, aka "Pelagius the Mad". He was an Ax-Crazy Mood-Swinger and very much the shining example of The Caligula in Tamriellic history. He suffered from extreme weight fluctuations and tried to hang himself at the end of a royal ball. He insisted on his palace always being kept clean and (perhaps apocryphally) was said to defecate on the floors to keep his servants busy. He would only communicate with the Argonian ambassador in grunts and squeaks, believing it to be the Argonian language. He'd frequently strip naked in public and, toward the end of his life, would attack and bite visitors. He was eventually declared unfit to rule and his wife by arranged marriage, Katariah, the Dunmeri former Duchess of Vvardenfell, took over as Empress Regent. However, according to Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness, Pelagius may have been seriously screwed up compared to the average person, but was, for a Septim, pretty normal. While history records most of the Septim line as perfectly sane and even austere, this implies that the Imperial propaganda machine has done it's job in hiding the family's eccentricities. Pelagius aunt, Potema "the Wolf Queen" of Solitude, wasn't much better. In an attempt to get her son on the Imperial throne, she kicked off the War of the Red Diamond, the bloodiest Civil War in Tamriellic history. By the end of the war, she had gone completely off the deep end and used necromancy to bolster her dwindling forces. Ironically, Solitude is suggested to have endured more than its fair share of these kind of rulers in its history. Sanguine is the Daedric Prince of Debauchery and Hedonism. According to The Imperial Census of Daedra Lords, "As revelry and drunken stupor fall under this Prince’s influence, he has been a favorite of many Emperors since the first foundation." The Black-Briar family of Skyrim appear to be of the Environmental and Cultural types, being raised by a corrupt business owner in the Wretched Hive of Riften. Hemming is a stuck up brat, Sibbi is a sociopathic killer, and Ingun, the nicest of the bunch, has a strange affinity for alchemy, especially poisons. Close attention to dialogue also shows this to be In the Blood as well, as Hemming will refer to Sibbi and Ingun as both his siblings and his children, and looking at the game files shows that Maven is marked as Sibbi and Ingun's grandmother. |
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The Holy Grail in Preacher is an organization that has kept the bloodline of Jesus pure for around two millennia. Unfortunately, they did this via Brother–Sister Incest, generation after generation, resulting in sickly, skinny people with eyes like an anime character. As Herr Starr puts it, they're lucky the current (mentally retarded) descendant doesn't have antennae. His parents weren't much better, having literally been locked in a cage because they have the intelligence and behavior of monkeys. | |
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Ironically, this pops up in Legend of the Five Rings. Odd for two reasons: One, the new family line had two generations before being wiped out in their entirety. And two, none of them seemed to be genetically crazy, the first emperor went nuts after being kidnapped and tainted, the next because he had way too much magical power, and the third because his sister died, and the evil of the world showed up and asked if he could join the royal court. | |
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Ravenloft had Legacy of the Blood, describing the relatives of the various Big Bads of the domain of dread, as well as options for PCs to play relatives of them. Most of them are temporal royalty of some sort as well. The Bortisis are related to Ivana Bortisi, Darklord of Borca, although most of them run the Bortisi Trading Company. While they aren't cursed as badly as the others in this list, they do have a definite thing for poisons. The d'Honaires are related to Dominic d'Honaire, Darklord of Dementlieu. They tend to be sickly but with a gift for healing, and to be either kindhearted and empathic or cold-blooded sociopaths. D'Honaires in Dementlieu are also immune to supernatural mental modification, as part of Dominic's curse. The Dilisnya are related to Ivan Dilisnya, co-Darklord of Borca (and also Camille, previous darklord of Borca before Ivana poisoned her). They're largely known as the core of a massive criminal network. The Drakovs are related to Vlad Drakov, Darklord of Falkovnia and blatant Vlad the Impaler expy. They have a tendency for berserking, and they are cursed to always end up becoming Chaotic Evil if they accept a place in the family. Also, most people hate them because of their progenitor's terrible reputation. The Godefroys are related to Wilfred Godefroy, Darklord of Mordent (although not directly, due to his Pater Familicide). They are largely sickly, as well as natural mediums. The Hiregaard family is related to Tristen Hiregaard, ruler of Nova Vaasa. They are cursed with a tendency towards insanity, especially if they commit evil acts. The Mordenheims are related to Viktor Mordenheim, the Mad Scientist who created Lamordia's flesh golem Darklord Adam, and is cursed along with him. Mordenheims, because of Viktor's Flat-Earth Atheist tendencies, cannot wield divine magic and often are resistant to it. The Reniers are related to Jaqueline Renier, Darklord of Richemulot. The family is also tainted with a wererat branch, resulting in even human Reniers being vulnerable to infection with wererat-style lycanthropy (the natural wererats are cursed so that one in every six children born to a wererat mother will be pure human). They're also cursed with a potentially fatal allergy to something innocuous. The Von Zaroviches are related to Strahd von Zarovich, Darklord of Barovia (but not directly — he doesn't have any children) and have no less than four family curses — susceptibility to the attentions of the Dark Powers, chronic nightmares, berserker rages, and being prone to visions of horror if wounded in battle. Thankfully they need not all apply to the same person at once. They are prone to being evil, but this isn't universal. |
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Pretty much any royal family featured in Looming Gaia. When King Gultopp Folkvar found out that his newborn daughter Sygbarne was mentally disabled, he told everyone that she was stillborn and locked her up, hiring every possible quack doctor in an attempt to cure her condition while hiding her existence from the rest of the world, continuing it well into her adulthood. His son Prince Hestal also had his wife assasinated because he was embarrassed of her history as a prostitute. Queen Indiga Evangeline may or may not have murdered her husband. King Oberon Mogdir not only constantly cheats on his wife, but has convinced his people that she's insane and Wrongfully Committed her to a mental hospital. As a result, she has tried several times to have him assassinated. Oberon also severely neglects his children, and his youngest daughter has attempted to murder her younger brother multiple times out of jealousy. The Sovereign of Aquaria made his brother, Mr. Ocean, a medical prisoner and tested a biological weapon on him, attaching a parasitic hankerleech on his brain, which gave him an intense, life-ruining addiction to greenbrite. |
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Disco Elysium: The collapse of the monarchy that ruled over Revache is owned to the lunacy and excesses of the Filippian dynasty Filippan I kickstarted the "Regnum Cocainium" period where the city became the primary productor and exportador of the drug which eventually set up the events that led to the collapse. Filippan II was described as "congenitally deformed" and another one in a long list of mentally-ill monarchs. Filippan III squandered the national treasure in gaudy monuments to opulence (he transformed his room in a vault fulled to the brim in gold) and his own cocaine addiction. |
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Warhammer 40,000: Numerous examples of hereditary planetary rulers who follow this trope — though Inquisitor Vail would point out that this doesn't happen quite as often as the stereotypes would have you believe. In Caligula-bad scenarios (such as Osric the Loopy, mentioned in passing in The Traitor's Hand), the Officio Assassinorum can be dispatched to "tidy up" matters. And in worst-case scenarios, the Royally Screwed-Up ruler is a heavily mutated Chaos-worshiper who unleashes The Legions of Hell on the planet they're supposed to be governing. At which point, the Imperium's gung-ho fundamentalists take Fisher King to its logical conclusion. And that's not getting into The Emperor, his sons, and the tragedy that shattered the galaxy. On one hand, the Emperor brought a new golden age to the galaxy (provided you were a sufficiently genetically-pure human) and most of his sons were initially stable (The exceptions being Kurze, a murderous sociopath; Angron, a blood-crazed berserker; Lorgar, a raving zealot; Alpharius, who had colossal delusions of grandeur; and quite possibly the twins, whose names were wiped from history for reasons unknown). On the far less lenient hand, he was also a stubborn egomaniac who couldn't be bothered to change his mind when he started ruling humanity. His intolerant holier-than-thou attitude on his sons (especially Lorgar) drove some to madness, which started the fall. The Navigators have a special mutation that happens to be great for getting through the Warp quickly, making them vital to the Imperium's functioning. Said mutation is also recessive. Because of this, it's essentially required that they only produce offspring with other navigators, who make up a number of noble families on Terra. When you consider that mutations are common in the setting, they already have a mutation anyway, and they're given relative carte blanche to have as many mutations as they want, many scions of navigator families end up being genetic tumbleweeds who barely even look human after generations of inbreeding. |
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Warhammer is fond of this trope. During the most decadent period of the Empire's history, it's implied that inbreeding reached epic proportions and led to actual mutations among the nobility. They seem to have straightened things out for the most part by the "present day" though. Thank Sigmar for the witch hunters, eh? Inverted in the case of Bretonnia though, where it's the peasants who are inbred and deformed. Some recent anthropological research suggests this may be Truth in, er, roleplaying games. |
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The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfiction Maternal Instinct has the royal family of the Changeling Kingdom, the House of Roachanov. Although Changeling culture is primarily based off Imperial Japan, the royal family has a reputation of intermarriage amongst its members that, throughout generations has led to many physical and mental disabilities and illnesses much more similar to those of old European royalty. Queen Chrysalis appears to have dodged most of these ailments, but her daughter and heir, Crown Princess Pupa is both heavily mentally and physically disabled. Pupa, at the time of the fanfiction, is approximately the same age as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, yet she can neither walk or talk, and is treated as virtually an infant and carried around as one by her careers. She is comparable to King Charles II of Spain and Feodor I of Russia. As one commentator remarked, "the Changeling royalty is essentially a tour of all the screwed up monarchies of Europe.", again ironic as the culture is primarily Japanese. | |
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The Heinous family on Jimmy Two-Shoes, who are basically an entire family of Satans who have ruled Miseryville for centuries. You know something's wrong when Lucius VII — a demon who, in the first episodes alone, forced his right-hand man to literally eat shit and approved of his son's brain being replaced with a dog's — is considered the least evil ruler the town's had. | |
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In the setting of Sonic X: Dark Chaos, the Emirate of Mecca is ruled by the House of Ishmael. How utterly corrupt and screwed up is it? The Prophet Muhammad (who happens to be a completely insane dictator who tried to irrigate fields with blood) is considered to be one of the better members. The family is the primary reason for the Emirate being a nightmarish totalitarian theocracy. According to Word of God, it was explicitly based on the real life Saudi royal family. | |
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Zork: the entire Flathead dynasty, ruling or not, with the sole exception of the last Flathead king, Wurb, and Lucy Flathead. | |
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Numerous examples of hereditary planetary rulers who follow this trope — though Inquisitor Vail would point out that this doesn't happen quite as often as the stereotypes would have you believe. In Caligula-bad scenarios (such as Osric the Loopy, mentioned in passing in The Traitor's Hand), the Officio Assassinorum can be dispatched to "tidy up" matters. And in worst-case scenarios, the Royally Screwed-Up ruler is a heavily mutated Chaos-worshiper who unleashes The Legions of Hell on the planet they're supposed to be governing. At which point, the Imperium's gung-ho fundamentalists take Fisher King to its logical conclusion. | |
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Fire Emblem: Awakening goes one step further: not only is the main villain the result of a thousand years long program of eugenistic breeding among plegian royalty meant to create an avatar to a demonic genocidal city-sized dragon, but this time, s/he's the protagonist. Kind of.: Fire Emblem: by Nintendo, the company known for its colorful family friendly games | |
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Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Brron, Mad King of Dark World certainly gives off this impression. If the name doesn't tip you off, the Slasher Smile and the fact that he's apparently chained up should. Strangely enough, it seems that the others are aware of this; not only are Brron's stats and abilities quite average, but the second Master Guide claims him to be more of a ceremonial figurehead than anything, while the generals and other warlords do all the actual governing. | |
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BlazBlue features the Yayoi family, one of the twelve ruling families of the Duodecim. They rarely show up directly, but they are pretty messed up from what we know. Members of the Yayoi family would only have children with those who had strong Ars Magus potential. Eventually they started inbreeding due to considering themselves the only ones strong enough. The current heir, Tsubaki, is not the firstborn child; she's the first one that survived. She's strong and nice, but she's not quite right and ends up manipulated. | |
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By the end of Electra, Chrysothemis is probably the only member of the royal family who hasn't tried to murder another member in retaliation for a previous murder. | |
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In A Game of Castles, King Bowser's extended family does not get along well. There's also been a number of murders within the family, including Sibling Murder and Patricide. It doesn't help that the Koopa Kingdom itself is known as violent and "savage" compared to its neighbors. | |
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The House of Naelax, rulers of the Great Kingdom of Aerdy in the Greyhawk setting, were commonly viewed as being possessed by demons. This article, although written by a fan for his own campaign, is nonetheless a good summary of what the Ivid Overkings were like. | |
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