God Save Us From The Queen - Television Tropes & Idioms

Daa daa daa da da daaaa da da daaaa

—Buckingham Palace Marching Band

Off with her head!

—The Queen of Hearts, Alice In Wonderland

Sometimes I think about having you executed, just to see the expression on your face.

—Elizabeth I, Blackadder II

The Kingdom: A lovely, wealthy country ruled by a benevolent king and a lovely princess loved by the populace. But what's that? There's a queen? Oh brother, we're in trouble.

While kings and princes can be good or evil and princesses are always good, queens tend to be the royalty version of Always Chaotic Evil. Restrained by a competent king, this usually doesn't show, but once a queen is in charge, things get nasty. Either the king is missing, died in an accident or the queen helped things along herself. Or he's easily manipulated for some reason. Note that there are good queens in fiction, but they normally don't stay around for very long, or at all. And this trope comes into play whether they are ruling in their own right or as regents for the under-age king. (The later group tends to fall under My Beloved Smother, as well.)

The idea that "Only a fool would want to be ruled by a woman." played heavily into the lives of real life queens in history - even if their rule might have been decent or competent, many queens tended to be viewed with suspicion or contempt by their male underlings. This is particularly true if the queen's manners and sexual habits were similar to those of powerful men - much as women politicians or executives nowadays are frequently tarred as shrill, bitchy, or castrating for displaying behaviour which would be characterized as leaderlike, assertive, forceful, outspoken, or simply normal or appropriate in a man in the same position.

Interestingly, this trope was much less common before the mid-19th century. Elizabeth I, for instance, was seen in the 17th and 18th centuries as wise, temperate, and moderate in comparison to her advisers, who were seen as a group of blustering, sword-waving hotheads who nearly destroyed England time after time with their rash actions. It took the Victorians and the Freudians to turn Elizabeth into a hysterical, irrational, indecisive basket case who had to be forced into action by her wise, rational, superior male advisers. It could be said that the increasing freedom women demanded in the 19th century led (largely male) historians to re-interpret Elizabeth to "prove" that women were simply not smart or capable enough to be men's equals. Modern historians tend to agree with their pre-Victorian counterparts, seeing (for instance) Elizabeth's reluctance to have Mary, Queen of Scots executed as wise, since executing her led to war with Spain and, eventually, the English Civil War. (For the record, Elizabeth did sign Mary's death warrant, but only after being bullied into it while she was critically ill with a high fever from which she almost didn't recover.)

Another double standard is that the Ermine Cape Effect will just prove the majesty of a king or princess, with the queen, it just proves her vanity.

Often enough, this trope even extends to beings that aren't really queens, but are called that for some reason. Sometimes this can have roots in a writer's sexism. Sometimes it's just an evil person ruling. Sometimes it's played for laughs.

Subverted pretty much every time the lovely princess becomes queen mid or end-story, or when the queen was a princess in a prequel to the story, and when the princess rules the kingdom much like a queen would, and is only princess in title.

The big exceptions are The High Queen and The Woman Wearing The Queenly Mask, the latter of which is actually based the fact that the perception of this trope is the source of much of the queen's troubles.

If the evil queen is in charge of a Hive Mind, she is by definition a Hive Queen.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Sailor Moon has both aversions of this and examples of it. It's averted by the benevolent Queen Serenity (no husband seen) and Neo Queen Serenity (husband seen but she appears to be in charge), the straight examples of the trope are Queen Metallia and her dragon Queen Beryl of the Dark Kingdom, and by Queen Nehellenia of the Dead Moon.
- It's arguable whether or not any of the other Sailors (there as many Sailor Senshi as there are celestial bodies for them to come from) besides the ten that the story focuses on are royalty, but virtually all the royalty that is named is female (the only exceptions are Endymion and Prince Diamond)— there could be hordes of good queens out there that we'd never know about.
- And conversely, it's not clear that Queen Metallia really counts as a queen. She's just called that because... well, the Dark Kingdom is called a kingdom. Queen Beryl, on the other hand, is the real deal (and was the Queen of Earth during the Silver Millenium).
In The Twelve Kingdoms, Youko's predecessor Queen Joukaku. Even though her reign only lasted six years, not only she did not want to be Queen in the first place, but she fell in love with her kirin Keiki, killing every other women that crossed their path of jealously. But she redeemed herself by sacrificing herself, to not let Keiki die when her bad rulership literally caused him to get sick. But with Keiki being a Bishounen, it would be expected.
Completely inverted in Futari Wa Pretty Cure, where the Big Bad is the Dark/Evil King, while the Garden of Light is ruled by a benevolent (and very large) Queen.
The Queen Consort from Berserk is motivated by snobbery to join a plot to assassinate rising star Griffith.
- To be fair, this was after Griffith had Guts assassinate her lover.
- And her step daughter would have been a good Queen. Too bad the nation got invaded by Kushan on her first day.
  - It Got Worse. She recently married the love of her life, Griffith. Looks like he finally got his kingdom.
Mizumi, Queen of the Moraine Kingdom in the manga Return to Labyrinth.
In Dai Mahou Touge, the queen of Magical Land is ruthless, domineering and just plain evil. Her daughter Punie, also known as the heroine of the series, is following in her tracks.
Maestro Delphine of Last Exile, in all but name. Sadistic, Finger Lickin Evil and then some. On the other hand when Sophia, who was First Officer on the Sylvana becomes Empress, she's got the hallmarks of a good ruler, though she had the princess thing going for her.
Queen Himiko in the Dawn arc of Phoenix is portrayed as an insane tyrant whose only goal in life is to find the Phoenix and gain immortality.
In Kiyudzuki Satoko's manga Shoulder A Coffin Kuro, one of the short stories in the second volume features an incredibly spoiled princess who orders travelers to expand upon her favorite storyteller's fairytale featuring her. If she doesn't like where the story goes, she orders the traveler's beheading. However, this is eventually subverted when Kuro and the twins' story brings her to her senses, and her courtiers reveal that they've been using the guillotine to chop up pumpkins to fool her and let the travelers escape.

Comic Books

The Dream Queen, from Alpha Flight. Think sort of a combination of The Joker and Freddy Krueger; her father was Nightmare.
Winnowill from Elf Quest

Film

The Alien Queen who battled Ripley in Aliens. Not really a queen any more than a real queen bee is, but still a dangerous bitch.
- If the Alien Queen goes in here, then the Borg Queen does too.
The "Demon Queen" Bavmorda, from the movie and novel Willow.
The Dark Queen in Mirror Mask. Also happens to be extremely pushy.
The White Witch in the film adaptations of The Chronicles Of Narnia.
The entire plot of Outlaws of Gor was subduing the one dominant female character, the queen.
Subverted in the Star Wars prequels; the queens of Naboo are generally portrayed as just, kind and competent rulers (we only really see evidence of Amidala's rule, but there is nothing to suggest anything untoward about Jamilia and Apilana's rule).
- Especially compared to backstory about Amidala's predecessor.

Literature

The Queens of the Winter and Summer Courts, from The Dresden Files. Mab is more clearly evil, but Titania's pretty damn vicious when she wants to be. And let's not get started on the Ladies....
- The Mothers however seem relatively tame, though Winter's temperament isn't all sweet.
- Although they are Faeries, who are all like that, so it probably would not matter if they were female or not.
Mercedes Lackey generally averts this, but she plays it straight in her book The Black Swan, in which the evil queen used a love potion on the king to gain her position, encouraged him in dangerous hobbies until he offed himself, kept her son completely unfit to rule, and plots to distract or, if necessary, kill her son in order to keep the throne when his 18th birthday (and thus the end of her regency) is on the horizon.
- She also plays it straight in One Good Knight of her Five Hundred Kingdoms series ( the heiress seems to be shaping up nicely by the end), though it should be noted that the premise of that set of books is that the magic of the land makes people live out fairy tale plots over and over and over again.
The bloodthirsty Queen of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland.
- Perhaps taking this trope even further, in contrast to her the King of Hearts is a sympathetic character, who pardons everyone who's been sentenced. Not so much in the film though.
- Averted with the Red Queen and White Queen in the sequel. The Red Queen is somewhat brash and the White one is a bit on the stupid side, and they both say some rather nonsensical things which are typical of the characters in Carroll's writing, but both are hardly villainous in any sense.
Cersei Lannister, in A Song Of Ice And Fire, is a cruel and paranoid despot who isn't quite as cunning as she believes she is. She quickly alienates her strongest allies and turns her kingdom into "a feast for crows." Some readers see Daenerys Targaryen as another example, due to her perceived arrogance and penchant for brutal conquest.
- To be fair, the male rulers in this series aren't generally any better, so could be more an example of power corrupting or God Save Us From Everyone.
The Queen of the Elves in the Discworld novel Lords And Ladies. Subverted somewhat in that the King of the Elves, with whom she doesn't get along too well, actually has the same goals - he's just more patient than she, or possibly smarter, and therefore approaches them differently.
- Of course, being The Fair Folk, her subjects are just as bad.
- Lady Felmet from the earlier novel Wyrd Sisters ought to qualify as well; she actually secures her position as queen by having her frail-minded husband Duke Felmet murder the King of Lancre, then proceeds to rule the kingdom with an iron fist from behind her husband (since the character is a parody of Lady Macbeth (See Theater, below), this is hardly surprising).
The unnamed Queen from Tanya Huff's "A Woman's Work" is highly competent, beloved by her people, treats her staff well... and is utterly ruthless to her enemies (and her friends, if she had any). She's the type of person who wears understated, sensible clothing while her son wears flashy, extravagant uniforms because she knows who assassins would instinctively aim at. And then she marries him off to a neighbouring country's princess (sole survivor of the royal family), the Queen expecting that the princess will quickly produce an heir, following which the prince is likely to have a fatal accident. Not that she minds, as she thinks the princess has the right stuff to inherit the job of Queen.
The Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen's eponymous story.
In The Magician's Nephew, Jadis (who later becomes the White Witch) is the Queen of a powerful nation in her world, so what does she do when her sister attempts to overthrow her? She uses her magic to kill every other living being on the planet, then sits around waiting for someone to take her to another world so she can presumedly do it all over again. Harsh.
- Even more blatant when you consider that she is the Satan to Aslan's Golden Feline Jesus.
- On the other hand, Queens Susan and Lucy seem much more level-headed than Kings Peter and Edmund.
In the Tamir trilogy. Queen Agnalain of Skala fit this trope, since she became so paranoid she was about to have her son and baby daughter executed for treason (after having numerous others killed), but she's treated as an aberration in a long line of warrior queens and her son killing her in self-defense and then taking the throne instead of his sister is presented as even worse, since the god in charge only approves of female rulers. Up to you whether this is an aversion or a straight example.
The Lovecraftian version of Queen Victoria presented in Neil Gaiman's A Study In Emerald is a particularly squicky variation on this.
Played with in Fred Saberhagen's Swords and Lost Swords series. Even though Kristin's father held the title of King, Kristin rules Tasavalta as Princess Regnant, not as Queen. Yambu, of course, holds the title of Queen, and is a bad guy, but abdicates her throne after she does a Heel Face Turn.
The Dark Queen in Connor Kostick's Saga. With a title like that, how could she be otherwise?
Redwall's Tsarmina and Silth are examples. Lantur would have been one had she held onto the crown long enough to actually use the power.
- To be fair, (most) vermin are like that, regardless of gender or ranking.
Subversion: Queen Hemlock from Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series is rumored to be greedy, ambitious, and cut-throat (literally; rumors abound that she murdered her parents to gain the throne). When we finally meet her, she is ambitious...but is also very down-to-earth and cunning, immediately seeing through the disguise that Skeeve is using to impersonate the king. And then she says that she'd rather marry a powerful magician than a king anyway.
- Late in the book, Skeeve tricks Hemlock into marrying King Roderick by giving them magic rings which he claims link their lives together; if one of them dies, they both do. Much later in the series, Skeeve receives a package from Hemlock...a severed feminine finger, ring intact, leading him to assume that Hemlock cut off her own finger just to escape the magic, then killed Roderick. In the end, it's revealed that Roderick died of illness, at which point Hemlock realized the deception; the finger was his, not hers, and overall she wasn't upset with Skeeve for the trick.
Invoked, sort of, in Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies, where during the time between them, Kettricken has been a fair, just, and intelligent queen overseeing a time of much-needed peace for the Six Duchies... But because she's a foreigner who was married for political reasons, and her husband is dead, her political enemies love to spread these kinds of rumors about her.
Subverted and played straight in The Wheel Of Time. Morgase treats Rand fairly when he accidentally falls into the Royal Palace, despite her Aes Sedai advisor acting like a Hanging Judge. Covalere puts all the refugees out of Carhein (the city). She gets removed from the Sun Throne. Tylin is treated sympathetically despite being a sexual predator. Elayne, while she has her issues, is concerned with doing right by her country. Many of the Aes Sedai (such as Elaida, especially after becoming Amyrlin), while not 'queens', do seem to conform to this trope.
Tamora Pierce both subverts this and plays it straight: Queen Thayet of Tortall is a progressive, level headed queen who's perfectly willing to get her hands dirty (and destroy expensive dresses in the process). Princess Imajane, the regent of the Copper Isles in Trickster's Queen is ruthless, mentally unstable, and arranges the murders of the six-year-old King Dunevon and his similarly aged heir Elsren, so she can take the throne. Her successor, Dove, is implied to be another subversion of this trope.
Two Queens in Karen Millers Goodspeaker Trilogy, the first book is about a nameless brat who rises to Mother of the Heir via slavery and soldiery with divinr guidence, and her ambition is to use her son as a 'Hammer' to take over the world. The second book is a Princess who's father and 2 Brothers die and she has to fight for the right to be Queen in her own right. 3rd book both queens get to duke it out.
Queen Elizabeth III of Manticore in the Honor Harrington novels is very much the good constitutional monarch, justly admired by most of the population (even those who have issues with the rest of the aristocracy), except that she has a ferocious temper and is said to hold grudges so long she has them stuffed and mounted. When it comes to the People's Republic of Haven, she could be totally unreasonable and would be quite happy to see them all shoved into a black hole, what with that aforementioned anger issue and them having assassinated her father and all...
The Bible has a few of these:
- Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab (who himself was weak-willed and something of a spoiled brat).
- Queen Athaliah, who tried to murder the entire house of Judah so her sons could take the throne. She missed one.
- The Bible in general didn't have nice things to say about kings who 1) married foreign wives and 2) succumbed to worshiping said wives' foreign gods.
- In the New Testament, when Herod Antipas asks his unnamed stepdaughter to name any reward ("up to half his kingdom") for her dancing, her mother tells her to ask for John's head; John had slandered Herodias and she wanted revenge. In Christian tradition, the story eventually morphs into the daughter, identified as Salome, asking for John's head because he'd spurned her love. In both cases it's claimed that Herod Antipas enjoys John's preaching and is only forced to have him killed because he gave his word to a treacherous woman. Ironically, the Jewish historian who gives Salome's name claimed that Antipas had John killed for political reasons, and that neither Herodias nor Salome were directly involved.
Arthur's sister, Morgan, is married to King Uriens in Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. She kills a young servant for bowing too low and accidentally touching her knee. She continues to entertain her guests as the servants clean up the mess left after she stabs the boy.
Queen Lionstone, in Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series, fits the trope quite nicely. She's even set up a holographic 'playground' of a throne room which has claimed quite a number of courtiers, just for her own amusement.
David Edding's Belgariad/Mallorean, brings us Salmissira, the queen of the Nyssians, a culture of drug addicted snake worshippers. The queen is herself one of these. At the end of her first appearance, she's turned into a Snake, and by her next appearence she's perfectly fine with it. So is the government, except for her unfortunate tendency to bite people.
In Edgar Rice Burrough's Gods of Mars, Issus.
- In The Master Mind of Mars, Xaxa.
Averted in Naamah's Kiss with Queen Jehanne. Also averted in Kushiels Legacy with Queen Ysandre.
Queen Azshara from Warcraft World of the Ancients.
The Queen of Attolia in Megan Whalen Turner's The Queens Thief series is played almost-straight in book 1, then averted completely in following books. It's gradually revealed that although she rules with an iron fist, the conditions of her monarchy demand fair but stringent behavior to maintain power and security.
- That Eddis doesn't need to resort to such tactics to keep her throne has bred resentment in Attolia.
- Attolia has a particularly bloodthirsty grudge against the protagonist Gen that tellingly exceeds her normally fair and politik judgment.
  - And then she goes and marries him anyway. Go figure.
Subverted and played straight in L. F. Baum's Oz. Oz was founded by a Fae Queen, who is revered through most of the land, and her descendant Ozma is quite just and kind, and appointed Oz's . The North Witch and Glinda are also very level-headed and peaceful rulers. However, you get plenty of rotten apples such as the East and West Witches, Princess Langwidere, Jinjur, and Coo-eh-oh. In Baum's verse, it's the male rulers who are usually incompetent or corrupt.

Live Action TV

Queenie in Blackadder II is a ludicrously exaggerated version of Elizabeth I, using the extremes of anti-Elizabethan propoganda to produce a Psychopathic Womanchild who orders executions on a whim. Miranda Richardson went on to play Queen Mab and the Queen of Hearts. (Given the portrayal of male monarchs in Blackadder, though, this probably isn't sexism as much as Aristocrats Are Evil.)
An interesting variation in I Claudius, where resident Magnificent Bitch Livia would fit this trope perfectly, in an I Did What I Had To Do sort of way, except she's not allowed to rule directly, so she rules vicariously through her husband Augustus, and later through her son, Tiberius.
Not quite a queen and not exactly evil but sweet mother of mercy President Laura Roslin will kill you.
- Especially if you tell her that you killed her boyfriend.
- "Not exactly evil"? She's not "evil" at all, certainly no more morally gray than any of the other core protagonists. On the flip side of that coin, "kill" is a bit mild. If you give her a good reason, she'll wipe you out of existence.
- There's a reason why many fans refer to her as Madame Airlock.
Averted in The Tenth Kingdom. A "Golden Age" is referred to several times in which the nine kingdoms prospered under the rule of their queens, but played straight later on with Virginia's mom
Mercy Hartigan in the Doctor Who Christmas Special The Next Doctor.
- Two Christmas Specials before that, the Queen of the Racnoss.
In NCIS, Jenny Shepard, "the first female director of an armed federal agency", is depicted as obsessively abusing her authority to pursue a personal vendetta. But not to worry, she's killed off and normal male leadership service is soon restored.
In Tin Man, the heroes are on the run from the Sorceress-Queen Azkedellia, who seems (at first blush) analogous to the Wicked Witch of the West and certainly has the attitude to match. However, like everything else in this version of Oz, things aren't exactly as they seem. For one, she's a descendant of Dorothy Gale, just like her sister, DG. Second, she's not exactly doing the driving. There's also the "good" lavender-eyed Queen who is being held prisoner.

Mythology

Many villains in classic tales like Snow White and their Disney adaptations.
Guinevere cheated on Arthur with Lancelot, leading indirectly to his defeat at the hands of Mordred. So this is Older Than Print.
- And that's the modern, sympathetic version! Older, Welsh versions had it that she cheated on him with Mordred and actively betrayed him (In some regions of Wales, Guinevere is an euphemism for whore).
- Of course, the still-older Celtic culture that existed before Christianity allowed an adult woman to sleep with whom she chose, whether her husband approved or not. But when the Christians took over they had to rewrite that aspect to match their official position.
  - Marion Zimmer Bradley and Fluffwicca are not a good source for information on the Celts and their ways. Every other culture on Earth had the exact opposite approach, but the Celts were Super Speshul until the evil Christians came? Really.
  - Until the fascist Romans came...
  - That sounds pretty unbelievable, quite frankly, because it's very much opposite to the way every other culture ever has treated marriage. You sure you didn't just fall prey to the old "the Celts didn't know where babies come from" myth?
  - Have heard that the Celtic law was: if a man and woman lay down together with the intent of making a child, they were married. Outside of this, it was your word against theirs.
  - Well, duh. Regardless of cultural mores and values, men in general tend to kill off their rivals in Real Life. Comes from needing to know that your children are yours, and not someone else's. And there are no guarantees women behave any better either; a Jerry Springer show had two women making out with each other, but when asked whether they would be okay with their boyfriends doing the same thing (with other women, as the boyfriends were straight), they were vehemently against it.
  - Read Chinese history; a fantastic number of murders are about a woman with power exterminating the bloodline of rivals. And the female line was dominant in the earliest historical accounts. As in several ancient cultures.
  - Queen Medb from the example below offers sex to other men multiple times throughout the story, often right in front of her husband so this might be true. Although the guys usually don't live long enough for her to make good on her offer...
The Unseelie Queen Mab/Maeve/Queen of Air and Darkness is almost always portrayed as evil, even though a lot of the same books that mention her also mention that the Faerie don't think of good and evil the same way humans do. She's nasty by any standard, apparently. And the Seelie queen is usually portrayed as good...ish.
This is cited as the "moral" of the Ulster Cycle story Táin Bó Cúailnge, or The Cattle Raid of Cooley, where Queen Medb, eager to prove an arrogant boast that she is equal to her husband, touches off a terribly destructive war in an attempt to acquire a bull the equal of the best of his.
The Virgin Mary is an aversion in the Catholic faith. She is traditionally viewed as the Queen of Heaven (bodily taken there), and is usually portrayed as kind and merciful, and interceding for her son, who is bound to justice.

Tabletop Games

Exalted's Scarlet Empress. Ruthless, rules over The Empire, sends her minions on a seek-and-destroy mission to hunt down new P Cs, keeps her subordinates backstabbing each other to maintain her own power...on the other hand, she did save the entire world from obliteration by The Fair Folk in the backstory, and is currently being held prisoner by The Legions Of Hell.
The Queen of Aundair in Eberron is like this. She's convinced it's her destiny to rule the entire world. Since she lacks the military power to pull it off, she's mostly scheming. She's got no problem with starting another world war, as long as she knows she'll come on top. The funny thing? The rules say she's Neutral Good. Compare the King of Karnath, a Vampire who pulled off a My Grandson Myself combined with a Man In The Iron Mask to for the sole goal to save his country from ruin and famine, free it from the clutches of an evil church, fight a terrorist organization AND is one of the major architect of the continent-wide peace treaty that ended the century-long world war. His alignment? Lawful Evil.
- To be fair the leaders of all nations are plotting to take over the world regardless of gender.
  - Except the King of Breland, which even his enemies agree is the best thing since sliced bread. He genuinely wants to make the world a better place.
In the Tormenta (D&D setting), the Fairy Queen Thanthalla-Dhaedelin is depicted as a vain, frivolous, omnipotent Cloudcuckoo Lander. Because your left canine is one tenth of a milimeter shorter than the others, she may simply wish you'll from now on work as a dung scavenger, and it WILL happen. The last one involved changing the calendar so her estimative would remain right.

Theater

In Shakespeare's Cymbeline, the Queen is pretty much pure evil, complete with a horrible son, a stepson to the title king.
Likewise, Lady Macbeth qualifies after she manipulates her husband into killing King Duncan and taking the throne.
And Queen Margaret in Henry VI Parts II and III is something of a harridan, keeping the Wars of the Roses alight long after everyone else would far rather just give up and go home. She's a bit more of a shrinking violet in the Prequel, Part I.
Once Upon a Mattress. It's played for laughs, though, as the prince is a silly Mommas Boy.
The Queen of Night from Mozart's The Magic Flute is not only murderously violent but also a walking symbol of human ignorance.

Video Games

Queen Brahne from Final Fantasy IX: no king in sight, though it's hinted that he died of (presumably) natural causes sometime in the past.
- It's presumed he died before Brahne met Kuja and subsequently turned evil, so it's unlikely she was responsible. Remember, Garnet says she was really kind before previously spoilered event.
Queen Asheviere from Battle For Wesnoth: has the prince murder the king during a war. Said prince ends up killing himself later, so she takes over instead.
- The princess in that case does start out on the wrong side, but eventually joins forces with the good guys.
Queen Remedi from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance: no king to speak of, but her husband is the Judgemaster Cid. She is in fact the embodiment of the Grimoire that created the world.
- Her predescessor from Final Fantasy Tactics, Queen Ruvelia, confines herself to Offscreen Villainy. If you read the character profiles over the course of the game, she eventually murders her husband so that her son has a better position in the civil war.
Princess Zelda averts this in Legend Of Zelda:Twilight Princess by remaining a Princess even though she seems to be leading the Kingdom. So does Midna, the titular Twilight Princess.
- A rare exception in the same game is the Queen of the Zoras, although she's dead.
Luminous Arc 2 subverts it with a very kind and capable Queen who gives out the orders for most of the game. While she does try, at one point, to kill or imprison the party, she does so in order to try to prevent another war between magicians, and is quick to help the party once she learns that she has been mislead by a traitor in her inner circle.
Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros is similar, although it is unclear how much ruling she actually does. Seems like Toadsworth is doing most of the job while she gives parties, races, plays soccer or is kidnapped again.
- And just to drive that point home, she becomes possessed by the Shadow Queen in Paper Mario.
- A quest in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga offers the reward of nine million Mushroom Kingdom Coins. When you receive the coins, an NPC informs you that in the Bean Kingdom's currency, it is only worth 90 tokens. Whatever Princess Peach did to make the Mushroom Kingdom's economy THAT miserable is never explained.
  - Perhaps if Peach didn't waste so many resources having races, playing soccer, and hosting parties, the economy wouldn't be so crippled?
  - That or Beanbean has incredible economic policies.
  - Bear in mind that at the beginning of the game, the exchange rate is cited as being 100 to 1 (and at the time, you assume the person who says so is just being mean-spirited, because he's already extorting you, so why not?). That's right, not only has Peach royally FUBAR'd her kingdom's economy, she manages to make the problem 1000 times worse before the game is even over.
  - This Goon would like to see you do better with your words turning into explosives at every turn.
- On the subject of Mario RPGs, don't forget Queen Valentina.
Secret Of Evermore has a queen and no princess. There's also a king, but the queen has the power. Even after you find the real queen, who is likable.
Chrono Trigger: The Queen of Zeal.
- From the protagonists' perspective, Queen Azala. Then again, she seemed to do good for her people and ended up a villain only because the Reptites and Ayla's tribe were fighting each other for survival in the primeval world.
  - You say that as if the humans and reptites couldn't coexist. Its not as if they had only a scarce amount of resources or anything. She's the one that decided that there could be only one.
  - Controversy in my Square-Enix game? It's more likely than you think.
  - ...Wait, Azala's a girl?
  - Azala's gender is never revealed in the original game. It depends on which, if any, of the sequels you consider to be canonical.
"Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-butt" from Earthworm Jim.
- To continue driving the princess/queen point, Jim is trying to rescue the queen's younger sister, Princess What's-Her-Name.
Ico has another Queen that fits this.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn has an aversion of this with Queen Elincia, who in her arc of the game must deal with a rebellious noble who wants to be Crimea's leader and obviously doesn't have Crimea's best interests in mind. She later joins the rest of the cast in helping save Tellius. Of course, she was a princess in the previous title Path of Radiance. Also there is Micaiah, who becomes Queen of Daein in the game's epilogue; and (blunt but good-hearted) Nailah, Wolf Queen of Hatari.
- Radiant Dawn also plays this straight with Queen Almedha, who said that she was willing to sacrifice all of Daein to save her son... or at least, the man she thought to be her son...
- An even bigger subversion occurs in Fire Emblem: Fūin no Tsurugi. The entire plot revolves around the band of heroes trying to remove Zephiel, the Axe Crazy omnicidal maniac King from the throne and replace him with his younger sister, the compassionate and diplomatic princess Guinivere.
- Let's not forget the original devil-incarnate Queen Hilda from Seisen no Keifu. When the evil King refuses to do child hunting, the Queen supports it whole heartedly and is actively sending innocents to the deaths. And let's not even talk about her process of breaking the genkiest girl from the first generation to death, all done not for political manuvers but For The Evulz.
Sarah Kerrigan, self-styled (and earned through serious ass-kicking) 'Queen Bitch of the Universe', from Starcraft.
Played straight in Jagged Alliance 2, where Queen Deidranna Reitmann is petty, vain, abusive, and sadistic. The only things that get her to smile are the fawning of rich sycophants and the very painful killing of people who are bold enough to oppose her.
- She is, in fact, one of the most frustrating evil queen's ever. Not because she's particularly effective at being evil (depending on the difficulty level, she's either stupidly easy or sickeningly difficult in her plans), but because when you finally, finally get to confront her at the end of the game, she says, literally, two words in surprise, and then dies just like any other enemy. There is absolutely no satisfaction in a final boss fight.
Almalexia from The Elder Scrolls fits this trope. She started as a queen of the Chimer, plotted with the court wizard Sotha Sil and the Magnificent Bastard Vivec, and they murdered her husband, King Nerevar, before using the Artifact Of Doom to steal divinity from the dead god. And later she retained The High Queen public image for thousands of years, before facing Nerevar's reincarnation...
- Incomplete interpretations of history aside, Almalexia demonstrates the trope irrefutably in the Morrowind expansion Tribunal.
- Also the Wolf Queen, detailed through books in TES IV as a perfect example of the trope.
- Averted by Queen Barenziah, who throughout her life has been responsible for a variety of great deeds, and by Empress Regent Katariah, who despite taking the crown from her royally screwed up husband, being a woman and a Dunmer (Dark Elf), managed to lead the Empire into a golden age.
World Of Warcraft has Elder Crone Magatha Grimtotem, chieftain of the Tauren's Grimtotem tribe and is one of the highest-ranking Horde officials in the game below the racial leaders. Her husband, the original chieftan, died in a "climbing accident." Her kinsmen are Always Chaotic Evil and stopping their schemes is the object of many quests for Alliance and Horde players alike. She has ties with the Undead and her ultimate goal is to make the Grimtotems the Tauren's ruling clan, even if that means killing Cairne Bloodhoof in the process, whom she loathes.
- And who could forget Azshara original queen of the night elves. Almost succeeded in summoning Sargeas the biggest Big Bad in the series. After being defeated she and her followers were all turned into snake people.
- Then there's Lady Katrana Prestor who, before King Varian Wrynn's return in Wrath of the Lich King, basically controlled all of Stormwind by socially manipulating the boy-king Anduin Wrynn and magically manipulating his guardian Lord Bolvar Fordragon. Oh, did I mention she's actually the black dragon Onyxia and is sowing chaos throughout the kingdom to bring it crashing to the ground from the inside?
- Averted with Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, one of the great aspects who is called Queen of the Dragons in Wrath.
Maplestory has Ariant Queen Areda, a greedy queen who cares only about jewels, and not about her kingdom. While Ariant also does have a king, he's portrayed as lazy and wimpy, and not wielding any actual power. In a series of quests, the player joins a group of rebels against the queen, steels jewels from Areda, and redistributes them to the villages.
The backstory of Soul Blazer is that the king's wife was the one who manipulated Dr. Leo to summon the demon Deathtoll to the world. She's suitably regretful, especially considering that Deathtoll took every soul in the kingdom.
Oddly enough Merlina in Sonic and the Black Knight. The Reveal that she arranged the whole thing so that she could preserve the kingdom forever in a twisted state and sheer ruthlessness she had in achieving this goal was the most shocking moment in the series.
Queen Arshtat Falenas of Suikoden V. She's nice so long as she's not going insane from bearing the Sun Rune. Which is basically every time she acts as a monarch and not as a mom. And being a Queendom, of course, the Queendom of Falena has been in a state of near or outright-civil war for a few generations. Though it's more stable after the end of the game with Lymsleia as queen, though.
- Among the back stories, the Queens before Arshtat had an assassination group - and during the last civil war, the competing princesses had each other's husbands killed, and when the eldest abdicated out of weariness, the younger (Arshtat's mother) had her sister killed.
Mortal Kombat 3 gave us Edenia's Queen Sindel, who was resurrected by Big Bad Shao Khan into doing evil things. She got better afterwards and is now on the side of good along with he daughter Kitana, making this something of a subversion.
The reclusive Queen Himiko from Okami. Given that the player character is the sun goddess Amaterasu, this seems to be a literal case of God Save Us From The Queen - except that Himiko is actually trying to save the city through uninterrupted prayer, resulting in her disappearing from public view.
The Empress Endora from Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen.
Another aversion: Queen Gwendolyn in Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords is, by all appearances, a benevolent ruler.

Western Animation

Played straight and subverted in Gargoyles. Lady Titania is one of the the series' few benevolent Fey, and was second in command only to Lord Oberon, who, despite sometimes meaning well and claiming to be fair and honorable, is bat-shit drunk with power. Of course when a human notes that in Avalon, the Fey's homeland, Oberon is always right, Titania notes that such a statement would be true, if not for the fact that Oberon is married. Word Of God also has stated that it was actions like this on Titania's part that got the entire race banished from the island for 1000 years and that Queen Mab, Oberon's mother, is even worse than Oberon in terms of benevolence.
Most Disney film queens would go here. A classic would be the unnamed witch-queen of Snow White; a newer one would be Narissa of Enchanted.
Usually the case in the My Little Pony series, with the queen typically being the villain of the day.
Played straight on Avatar The Last Airbender, during Azula's short reign as Firelord. Justified by her being in the middle of a Villainous Breakdown but it's not like she was a nice person to begin with either.
The Queen of the Crowns in Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers is depicted as the ruthless tyrant of a crumbling empire. The series's third episode (first in airing order) mentions that she destroyed all but a handful of cities on the planet Tortuna and nearly drove an alien race to extinction in her thirst for life energy. She also enslaved an entire planet to create a BFG she used to blow a hole in Earth's moon.

Real Life

The Byzantine empress Theodora, wife of Justinian I, is presented in this way by Procopius: she humiliates her underlings, traps women in a convent and murders her rivals. It doesn't help that before she married the future emperor she was a whore. A common street walker, not a high class concubine like several other high class men.
- You know what this means...
- To say nothing of the empress Irene, who murdered her husband and castrated her son...
  - There was a lot of blinding people under her rule, if I recall...
  - That was a lot of blinding people in the Byzantine Empire in general; it was their standard M.O. for dealing with political opponents, especially deposed Emperors. They figured that it was unseemly to have God's viceroy on Earth (which is what they considered the Emperor to be) to have an obvious physical deformity, so whenever they wanted to get rid of someone, they would disfigure rather than him/her just killing 'em (which they regarded as uncivilized). Though the Byzantines were initially rather...creative...with the disfigurements, they turned to eye-gouging after Justinian II took back the throne even after he had his nose cut in half.
- In fact (at least according to the male historians, who usually had several axes to grind) every Byzantine empress worthy of note, and certainly any who ruled on her own, fit this trope quite well.
- Procopius also portrayed Justinian as a diabolic man, so you can't accuse him of gender discrimination (although he may have been "slightly" biased).
- Keep in mind that Procopius was extremely conservative, and viewed the idea of a powerful woman as an abomination. Thus, his records of Theodora cannot really be called fair by most standards.
- Procopius wrote several highly slanted accounts of Justinian's court and its notable figures — all of them slanted in different directions. They're mutually contradictory. Historians generally accept that at least some of them have to be outright lies, the ongoing argument is merely as to which ones. So his records of pretty much anything, not just Theodora, require taking with a grain of salt.
Empress Dowager Cixi of China is almost always portrayed as one of these; according to tradition (and most historians) she mercilessly murdered her enemies and ruthlessly did anything she had to do to hold on to power. The fall of Imperial China is frequently attributed to her despotic rule. Despite that, there are people with other interpretations.
- While the early years of Cixi's rule were frequently characterized by brutal authoritarianism, Cixi became increasingly reformation-minded in her old age, to the extent that the last eight years of her rule are actually considered by some historians to be the single most progressive period in all of imperial Chinese history. Her greatest reforms include the abolition of the civil service examination, the establishment of a public education system, and the democratization of provincial governments. In 1908, she even came out in favor of transitioning to a constitutional monarchy, and would have likely followed up on this promise had she not died three months later.
Bloody Mary Tudor of England. Put it this way: her sister Elizabeth has a reputation for executing people, but Mary managed to behead and burn as many people in a five-year reign as Elizabeth did in 25!
- Although common criminals were executed in Elizabeth's reign (as they were in every reign, including Elizabeth II's), you could count the number of political executions under Elizabeth on the fingers of both hands. Mary executed about 290. Their father Henry VIII executed 29,000 for political reasons alone!
  - Anyway the reason reason why she's remember poorly, Mary was Catholic.
Catherine of Medici was married to Henry II of France. Her Medici upbringing didn't come into effect until after his death however, at which point she became the queen mother, and generally the real power behind the throne. Famously, she was able to exercise her revenge upon Diane de Poitiers, whom Henry II had publicly kept as his mistress by forcing Diane to give up the magnificent Chateau de Chenonceau which Henry had given her. Oh. And let's not forget St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. You know, when they killed all the Protestants in Paris. (Which Catherine de Medici had absolutely nothing to do with.)
Aversion: Victoria I of Great Britain, etc. She may not be amused, but she probably won't cut off your head and she's monumentally sensible.
The current queen of England is of course an aversion.
- Elizabeth II is a monarch, not a leader. Modern-day British royalty 'reign but do not rule'.
- That depends on if you believe the Sex Pistols or not, of course.
  - The scariest part is that some people do.
There were over a dozen men, and one woman who were serious contenders for the office of the President of the United States in 2008. Who was called power hungry? The one woman. It doesn't matter what you think of her, or if she actually was. The fact is that, even though by definition, if you run for president you are power hungry, she was singled out for that accusation, while the men seemed to get a pass on that. Hence she suffered from this trope.
- Although Hillary Clinton had accusations of being power-hungry had been leveled at her for well over a decade before the election. But it still fits this trope, when many other US politicians have expressed ambitions often far greater than she ever did.
Catherine the Great of Russia.
- Although it should be pointed out that this belief is mainly due to propaganda spread by her son Paul I, one of the most worthless men to ever breathe good Russian air. Paul blamed Catherine for murdering his father, Peter III. Unfortunately for Paul, a) Catherine didn't order Peter's death, although she profited from it, and b) Peter III wasn't Paul's father by ANY stretch of the imagination. Peter didn't have his famous operation (to cure his phimosis, which prevented him from achieving an erection) until Paul was three years old. Paul even spread the rumour that Catherine died in sexual congress with a horse, something believed by some even today. (She had a stroke on the toilet - hardly as newsworthy.)
- A few points to the contrary: 1) Technically, Paul was likewise the victim of lots and lots of propaganda from all quarters, and the modern historical opinion, at least in Russia, tends to agree that the earlier popular opinion of him as utterly mad was rather exaggerated; 2) he was far from the only one to attack Catherine, she had plenty of critics at home and abroad; 3) Paul's illegal descent and Peter III's impotence are likewise dubious at best, the primary source for both being Catherine again; 4) as for Peter III's death, there really is no conclusive evidence one way or another. Most importantly, though, those particular points are irrelevant to her rule, which was full of controversial if understandable decisions; still, it's easy to understand why some would view her this way, what with partly-hijacking and attributing her overthrown husband's reforms to herself, putting a stop to all talk of reform once some people came up with a perfectly workable idea for the de facto abolition of serfdom, removing many of the traditional Cossack freedoms, practically overlooking lots of horrible abuses and generally practicing the usual Byzantine politics in combination with brand new Age of Enlightenment brands of hypocrisy. Note: This Troper doesn't completely agree with this view of Catherine, but has seen it well-argued by others elsewhere.
  - Keep in mind Catherin was succeeding the very popular Empress Elizabeth the youngest daughter of Emperor Peter the great and Empress Catherin I, almost anyone would look bad after her. Also she was German not Russian and the populace had been historically apprehensive about them, as a matter of fact that was one of the reasons Elizabeth’s coup against the then Regant Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna, who was the handpicked successor of her aunt Empress Anna, was successful was because she was German.
- Considering the fact Russia had been ruled by women for over a quarter century before Catherin the Great her gender probably wasn’t a factor in public opponent
Two of the most prominent reasons for the decline and breakup of the unified Mongol Empire were the regencies (queenships) of Toregene and Oghul-Qaimish, from 1241-1246 and 1248-1250, respectively. As politically incorrect as it is to point out, just as most everything that was right with the Empire had resulted from the Yasa Code established by Chjenghis Khan, most all of the corruption that existed, to varying degrees, within it up to its dissolution was the result of the rule of the two "queens".
Ranavalona I of Madagascar. Due to brutal rule, she directly caused the deaths of over a quarter million people - in a nation of 2 million. She also undid a great many reforms, re-enacted the slave trade, persecuted religious minorities and expelled all foreigners in addition to launching wars of agression and plundering against the other tribes of Madagascar.
No one's mentioned Erszebet Bathory yet? Not a Queen, sure, but whether or not you believe the stuff about her being a Psycho Lesbian and a vampire, she was a Countess and a convicted serial killer, so I'd say she still...er, counts.
Elenor of Aquitane could possibly count. She never really ruled on her own, but she manipulated England, France and every man she had within her grip. She even attempted to get her sons to kill her husband, the king.