Heir Club For Men - Television Tropes & Idioms

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Although 99% of the time this trope is about the desire for a male heir, it also includes instances where a female (for matriarchies) is desired, any other gender would be an Inadequate Inheritor. Or any other special trait—just as long as only people with that trait can bear the hereditary name or title. When there is no male heir, a Succession Crisis results, which is reason enough for kings to go to great lengths to get a suitable heir.

If the king doesn't, the courtiers may get into the act. Succession Crisis can be unpleasant all around. This is commonly with a grieving widow or widowers, who may be told You Have Waited Long Enough with great promptness.

And, in the event they do get such a heir, this only secures one generation. As soon as the child is grown, they turn to pressuring the heir to have an heir of his own.

Although most common in stories about royalty, this trope also includes the common people. This trope is about heirs, and it is not intended to cover cases where the parent(s) merely wish for a boy (or girl) because they would like one, but is only when they wish for one to continue the family name—when tradition demands it.

This trope still exists today as Real Life examples can be found in modern China, India, and other nations, where the birth of a female is often met with disappointment. The wish for a male is reinforced by several Patriarchial traditions; the male child is usually the one who passes down the family name while the female takes her husband's name, the male child inherits the property while anything inherited by the female goes to her husband, and the male would be responsible for caring for his parents in their old age, while the female was expected to a marry into her husband’s family and care for his parents.

Truth In Television: The best known example of this trope through a historical Ret Con is Henry VIII of England, who was king of England from 1509 to 1547. Henry had six wives:

Katherine of Aragon, whom he repudiated because only one out of the six children she had bore him lived, and that was a girl. Henry, logically enough, took this as evidence his marriage was hateful in the eyes of God and applied for an annulment. The Pope did not agree and Henry only got his annulment after pulling England out of the Roman Catholic Church. Many historians believe that the English Reformation was due mainly to Catherine's stubborn (and immensely stupid for all involved, but especially for her) refusal to back away gracefully - had she done so, there would have been no need for Henry to break with Rome.
Anne Boleyn, who was executed after she gave birth to a daughter, then later miscarried a son. Henry's 'conscience' started working again, with a little prompting from Anne's many enemies, and she was executed on false charges of adultery (including one count with her own brother). Anne's despised daughter turned out to be the last and greatest of the Tudor monarchs, Elizabeth I.
Jane Seymour, who died of puerperal fever only a few weeks after giving birth to Henry's only legitimate male heir, the future Edward VI.
Anne of Cleves, whom Henry repudiated because she was supposedly "ugly". In fact she was distinctly better looking then Jane Seymour (most women are) suggesting that Henry had curious tastes. The marriage was arranged by Thomas Cromwell as part of a diplomatic agreement which soon became unnecessary - and so did Cromwell. Henry held no grudge against Anne though. She was smart enough to agree to a divorce and Henry, in gratitude, gave her a large income, two huge manors to live in and the rank and precedence of his 'sister'. One might say they lived happily ever after.
Catherine Howard, Anne Boleyn's cousin. A sly little minx with an eye for the main chance she was delighted to catch Henry but not smart enough to keep her legs crossed. She was executed for treason and adultery with a young courtier, and unlike her cousin was as guilty as sin.
Katherine Parr, a widow who survived Henry only to die a year later in childbirth after having her heart broken by the first husband she'd ever loved.

Modern medicine has brought some irony to cases where men find another woman when their wife produces only daughters, as the chromosome that determines sex is transmitted by the male.

For even more irony, Henry VIII’s second daughter, Elizabeth I, whom he declared illegitimate after he had her mother beheaded, became Queen of England and is considered one of the greatest English monarchs. On the other hand she did effectively end the Tudor dynasty (and Henry's direct legitimate line) so it is unlikely old Henry would have taken too much comfort in that.

Examples

Anime

The plot driver of Ribon No Kishi, aka Princess Knight. A male heir must inherit the throne, Sapphire is born with a conspicuous lack of penis, her father the king decides to bluff the public and Sapphire becomes a Wholesome Crossdresser.
- Ribon no Kishi provided direct inspiration for many other anime including Rose Of Versailles.
Needing a male heir, in particular a biological one, is the source of much of the trouble related to adopted child Amon (Adrian in the English dub) in Yu-Gi-Oh GX.
- And before him, Odion (Rishid in the original Japanese) in the original Yu-Gi-Oh was adopted by the Ishtars to provide a male heir. Then Ishizu and Marik were born in turn...
Miroku of Inu Yasha needs to perpetuate his line (with a son) before the affliction that plagues all men in his family kills him. He attempts to do so by propositioning every girl he meets. He loses the affliction before the end of the story, but has at least three kids anyway, and one's a boy.

Comic Books

The Invisibles: Transvestite shaman Lord Fanny was born a boy in a family with a long line of brujas. After his mother's second attempt to have a child ended in a miscarriage, his grandmother ordered him to be raised as a girl. Fortunately, Fanny took quickly to crossdressing, and ably took up the family tradition.
In one of Strangers in Paradise's later story arcs, the plot is driven by Tambi's machinations to get Katchoo to produce an heir for the Baker-Choovanski clan.
Ra's al Ghul needs an heir to take over his criminal empire, who must marry his daughter to inherit. His daughter is a genius ninja who already manages large sections of his empire. Or rather, she was, until she became a constantly hysterical single mother. Batman from the animated series once referred to him as "the world's oldest chauvinist".

Film

In Pans Labyrinth, Capitan Vidal is determined to have a male heir at no matter what cost to his wife or his stepdaughter.
The fact that only males can inherit the throne in Stardust means that Princess Una isn't a target of her other brothers. It helps they have no idea where she is.
Caligula: the emperor refused to marry Caesonia until she bore him a son. When his sister Drusilla pointed out that it would be impossible to tell if the child was actually his, he replied that he would simply keep her under constant guard. The guards would be homosexuals. Who'd been castrated.

Literature

In the Daughter, Servant, and Mistress of the Empire books by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, the titular woman is constantly concerned about an male heir for her noble house.
- Of her four children, three of them are male, but guess who ends up inheriting her titles at the end?
One of the major plot motivators in Pride And Prejudice is the Bennetts' lack of a male heir.
In CS Lewis' Till We Have Faces, the king of Glome wants a male heir and gets three daughters. His anger about this is the source of much tension in his family and the court. In the end, his oldest daughter seizes, and holds, the throne after his death.
The kingdom of Númenor had a Agnatic Primogeniture law applied to it's line of Kings. Tar-Aldarion, having no male heirs and having only a daughter, changed the Law of Succession, replacing the principle of agnatic primogeniture with that of fully equal primogeniture and she (as Tar-Ancalimë) became the first Ruling Queen of Númenor. Afterwards, the oldest child whether male or female inherits the throne.
- The last king of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon, subverted this by marrying his cousin Miriel, who was the only daughter of the previous king, and forcebly took the title of king (its noted that he broke three Numenorean laws in doing so; he forced Miriel to marry him, marriage between first cousins was forbidden, and the law stated that the eldest child of the previous ruler would ascend to the throne, and not her consort in the case of a woman).
In Dune, Duke Leto's concubine Lady Jessica was supposed to have a daughter for the Bene Gesserit, but Leto wanted a son, and she went along with him, although it is not made clear if he wanted a son for reasons of getting an heir or just wanted a son because he wanted a male child.
- Added to by the fact that the Bene Gesserit's Xanatos Roulette was aiming for a daughter so that they could produce a male heir with a Harkonen. Making the Bene Gesserit a Heir Club for Witches?
- In the Dune prequels, the Emperor's wife deliberately prevented this.
  - Probably under orders from the Reverand Mothers, who planned to bring the Kwisatz Haderach into existence within a few generations, and needed the throne empty for him to assume.
In Prince Caspian, it is the usurping Evil Uncle finally getting a male heir that jump-starts the plot and gets Prince Caspian moving. Fast.
The Wheel Of Time has that Andor is always ruled by a queen, and it's said that no man has ever survived sitting on the Lion Throne. Every so often there are minor "wars of succession" because it's unclear which woman is next in line.
The Assassins Of Tamurin: The success of Makina Seval's plot hinges on her adopted daughter Ashken having a male heir with Ardavan. Nilang assures Lale she has a contingency plan — if Ashken's first child should happen to be female, she will quickly be Switched At Birth with a male child before anyone is the wiser.
The king and queen in Peau d'âne (Donkeyskin) only had a daughter, and were content with this. But the queen fell ill and died without leaving a male heir, but not before saddling him with the additional restriction that his new wife equal her in beauty and other attributes. Which, after many failed considerations, leads him to the conclusion that his new wife should be his own daughter. Because that would be more acceptable than simply letting her inherit the throne. She manages to escape that situation, and marry a prince, to boot. Thankfully, the prince is not her brother.
- In at least one version of the tale, she DOESN'T manage to escape that situation.
In Bujold's The Curse Of Chalion, Roya Orico grasped that the problem lay with him and convinced his Royina to secretly lie with his (evil) Chancellor (who was at least polite about it) and said Chancellor's even more evil brother (who was not). When that plan proved unsuccessful (and Royina Sara threatened to kill herself), he summoned his much younger half brother Tediz to court along with his sister Iselle. Bujold eventually subverts it when Iselle (the bright one to begin with) is left the last of Fonsa's line alive when the titular curse is finally broken.
In the first book of Melanie Rawn's "Sunrunner" series, Dragon Prince, the realm is in an incredibly fragile political situation due solely to the fact High Prince Roelstra has seventeen (seventeen?!) daughters, yet no male heir; like Henry VIII in real life, Roelstra has put aside wife after wife, and his daughters (legitimate and illegitimate) are both opportunists and opportunities, politically. One of the book's key intrigues rests on ensuring (via an elaborate deception) that Roelstra's fourth and current wife bears — or appears to bear — a son.
In Andre Norton's The Jargoon Pard Lady Heroise is determined to bear a son she can mold into her puppet and so rule Car do Prawn. Unfortunately her child is a daughter. Luckily the expectant couple in the next room has just delivered a son. But unbeknownst to Heroise the father just happens to be her own long lost half-brother....!
In Piers Anthony's A Spell For Chameleon, the Magician Trent must marry the Sorceress Iris in order to remain in Xanth; this condition is set because only Magicians can rule in Xanth, and in hopes that their powers will ensure that they have a Magician son. In The Source of Magic, the widowed Trent has difficulty ensuring an heir because he still in love with his first wife; they do succeed, in time, in having a child, but a daughter. Finally, in Night Mare, when Magicians are being removed as soon as they are King, during an invasion, Aint No Rule is invoked: the laws of Xanth forbid a ruling queen, but do not explicitly require that kings be male. Sorceresses, both Iris and her daughter, ascend the throne as Kings.
The entire plot of the Merry Gentry series is The Fair Folk being mostly infertile, and whether or not Prince Cel or Merry can deliver an heir first.
The House of Rahl from the Sword Of Truth series takes it a step further: Not only must they have a male heir, but the heir has to have the magical gift. More recent generations (particularly Darken Rahl) took to killing any female and/or non-gifted children.
- Also inverted in the case of the Confessors. Any male child of a Confessor had to be killed because, they invariably ended up abusing their power.
The cause of more than a few problems in The Farseer. Chivalry, the crown prince, caused a scandal when he married who he wanted instead of for politics, and then she turned out to be too infirm to carry a child to term. When word came that Chivalry had a bastard son, Fitz, he stepped down in favor of his brother, Verity. Verity eventually marries but wrecks his health so much with using the magical Skill that he can't father children, so Verity takes over Fitz's body to have sex with his wife in hopes of continuing the royal line, even if through a bastard, since the Skill is strongest in the royal bloodline and if lost there may die out altogether.
A side plot in the Last Herald-Mage trilogy by Mercedes Lackey is that King Randale of Valdemar is sterile. To hide this fact, Vanyel sires a child on Randale's lifebonded mate (at her request).
Many of the people in the Barrayaran line of succession hope that Emperor Gregor will hurry up and produce an heir or two, to get them off the hook.

Theater

Subverted in William Shakespeare's Winter's Tale. His courtier want Leontes to remarry, to provide an heir, but the oracle had said that he would live without an heir unless his lost daughter was found, and so he refused.

Video Games

Gender inversion: The dual office of Empress and Apostle of Begnion in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. The two offices are inadvertently separated when the first-born female of the current generation is thought to have been assassinated, leaving an Empress who cannot hear the Goddess's voice. The true apostle isn't dead, though.

Web Comics

Galasso in Shortpacked! keeps trying to get people to breed with his daughter Conquesta, even though she is a decent heir herself.
- Connie also mentioned to Ethan (after they had sex at Galasso's command) that she was "on the pill", indicating that she may be a bit more assertive than she lets on.
Gender-inverted in Drowtales due to a matriarchal society. Thanks to an injury from an enemy, Quain'tana has been unable to produce a suitable female heir for her clan despite having several daughters. The first hates her and mingles freely with the enemy, the second is possessed by a demon, and her adopted daughter was disowned after being tainted and generally considered a failure. She eventually resorts to stealing her eldest daughter's first child to solve this.

Western Animation

The Simpsons fifth season episode "Burns' Heir" is Exactly What It Says On The Tin.

Real Life

Naturally, Henry VIII of England. He even went so far as to reject the Roman Catholic Church because they wouldn't let him get his marriages annulled. See: The House Of Tudor for more on him and his family, including Elizabeth I.
- Nowadays, the UK partially averts this: Women may inherit, but only if they have no living brothers. Moves are underway to at least talk about changing it. In Britain we prefer seismic changes to happen gradually over time if at all necessary. Big changes in a short period can be very unseemly.
Parodied in this Onion article.
Absolutely Truth In Television throughout most of history, and in much of the world. You were an unfortunate queen if you couldn't bear a son — if you were lucky, the king wouldn't set you aside. Otherwise, you'd end up divorced, beheaded, poisoned, locked up in a convent, etc. Princesses becoming queens regnant (ruling queens) had all sorts of problems. No one wanted a female ruler, because if she married her kingdom would be combined with that of her husband. This is why some queens regnant, notably Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Christina of Sweden, refused to marry at all. The Iberian kingdoms solved this problem by having their queens marry their close blood relatives, so the crown stayed inside the kingdom. Queen Maria I of Portugal married her UNCLE to avoid marrying a foreign prince. They had 3 surviving children, and their eldest son married in turn his aunt (Maria's sister). Mercifully, this marriage produced no children. A lot of kingdoms (notably France) refused to allow women to inherit the throne at all.
- The Iberian example above was not the worst in that corner of Europe. The House of Hapsburg lucked into Castile/Aragon/Burgundy/the Low Countries because the Houses of Valois and Trastámara married a princess into their dynasty and failed to pop out a male heir. To avoid being on the receiving end of this the two branches of their house swapped most of their princesses between the Spanish and Austrian courts. The long term effects of this policy◊... did not work out too well for the Madrid branch, and the male line of the Vienna branch puttered to a halt not long afterwards with predictable results.
The Unfortunate Implications of China's One Child Policy is that, since families want male heirs, they've been having (or keeping) too many sons and not enough daughters, which means not enough wives to go around (which anyone could tell you is what happens when it's only acceptable to have sons!). Oops! The government eventually had to compromise by allowing girls to inherit their family name and giving families "incentives" (read: money) to have baby girls.
Real life subversion: The Roman Empire (and Ancient Rome in general). If you weren't able to produce a biological heir, adopting one worked just as fine. In fact, the majority of Roman emperors inherited the empire after having been adopted by the previous emperor. Some even disregarded their biological children in favour of an heir of their choosing. Julius Caesar, for example, had a son by Cleopatra, but chose to adopt his sister's grandson as his firstborn son and made him his heir instead. This adopted son later became known as Emperor Augustus, who in turn adopted his wife's first son (fathered by her previous husband) as his heir. This proved to be a smart tactic, as often the person who seemed best suited to take over the empire would be adopted by the emperor, instead of trusting that pure biology would make someone a great leader.
- Julius Caesar couldn't adopt any of his illegitemate sons (he had several, Caesarion was merely the most famous) because they weren't Roman citizens. He had only one child who was a Roman citizen, Julia Caesaris, and she and her infant son predeceased him.
- The adoption process also worked really well for them at other times. The second century was dominated by the "Five Good Emperors", one after another, all selected by adopting promising young men as heirs. The string ended when Marcus Aurelius allowed his biological son Commodus to inherit the Empire, which he proceeded to utterly screw up.
  - This story, badly mangled, was the core of Gladiator.
- This troper, being a biology enthusiast, finds this particularly enlightened. After all, as humans, a great deal of passing on our "genetics" consists of teaching your kids to hate the things you hate, which can be done just as well with adopted kids.
In Japan, there was a rather large controversy about there not being a suitable male heir to inherit the imperial throne, such that it came to the point that they were about to change the constitution to allow a woman to do so. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view re: tradition v. feminism) someone finally popped out a boy, meaning that the question was staved off for at least another generation.
- The former Imperial Princess had actually suffered from severe stress-induced illnesses from the pressure, to where her Husband actually publicly rebuked his whole family for it.
Some European countries are doing away with this altogether. In Norway and Sweden, for example, they recently changed the law so that not only can a woman inherit the throne, but that a woman inherits the throne even if she has younger brothers. This is probably true in other countries as well, but I don't know them off the top of my head.
- There are occasional rumours of the UK doing something similar as soon as possible since the top three in the line of succession (Charles, Elizabeth II's eldest child as well as eldest son and Charles's two sons) wouldn't change. Complicated by the fact that the Commonwealth nations that are still constitutional monarchies (Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc) need to be in agreement otherwise you might wind up with multiple, separate lines of succession or Australia becoming a republic. It was recently raised by Gordon Brown, but nothing will probably be done until after the next election.
- Notable example where women may inherit the throne: The Kingdom of the Netherlands hasn't had a King since 1890. They have had, instead, a female regent and 3 Queens Regnant. (The heir to the throne, however, is a crown prince).