Royals Who Actually Do Something - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Active Royalty

Theoden, King, leads the charge of the Riders to save Minas Tirith.

"For this is what it means to be king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land."

— King Lune of Archenland, The Horse and His Boy

Swan: He's a pretty good old boy. First prince I ever seen that tries to do what a prince is supposed to do.

Croaker: Rarer than frog hair, then. I'm sure.

— The Black Company

Due to the Ermine Cape Effect, Everythings Better With Princesses, and other factors, there is a belief that being royalty means doing almost nothing else but, well, being royalty. Aside from all the pomp, ceremony, galas, balls, and the occasional dealing with actual government of the country, royalty just doesn't do anything else with their time.

This has some Truth In Television, such as the court at Versailles or the Forbidden City in China, but not uniformly so. Just as often as not, royalty would actually do something worthwhile with their time. For centuries from classical Greece through to the Middle Ages, kings were expected to be strong warriors to defend their holdings and inspire the men around them; in fact, "strong man who can lead the other men of the village in fighting off enemies" was probably the original meaning of kingship. Three notable examples are Alexander The Great, Charlemagne and Genghis Khan, kings who gained and kept their power through their skills as generals and warriors and, in the case of the latter two, administrators, making this trope Older than Dirt.

This convention also led to the establishment of the feudal system. It was actually a deal between the king, nobles, and serfs (though for the serfs it was usually an offer they couldn't refuse). The serfs would work on the land owned by their lords, and the lords would train to be warriors (aka, knights), who would defend the kingdom against invaders, like the Vikings. ^*

Either way, being royalty does not necessarily mean a life of leisure or boredom (depending on how you view it). And fiction occasionally nods to this.

Note that this trope means that the person is still acting as royalty, just doing other things. So a Rebellious Princess does not count, since she is getting away from that kind of life. King Incognito may count, if the king is attempting to learn things to influence how he reigns; to do it for fun, even if it proves educational, does not count.

It should also be noted that much of the "activities" done by royalty (charity events, sport, arts, etc.) are enabled by their being part of the idle rich, instead of having to work for a living. Also, especially in the case of charity events and good causes, this is often a calculated public relations maneuver, which is not to say that it makes the activities any less of a good impact, there are simply multiple reasons for said activities.