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There's a reason that the royal family is the one in control of the kingdom. Their bloodline is the one with the powers. Their line is associated with magic, or telepathy, or some other sort of supernatural ability.
Sometimes this is the product of Superpowerful Genetics, other times it's an object passed down, or a ritual that the royals invoke that grants them their powers. Other times it is just handwaved as the Divine Right of Kings with a deity granting them their abilities, or just because Everything Is Better With Princesses.
Subtrope of Royal Blood and Supernatural Elite, supertrope of Fisher King. Compare to Authority Equals Asskicking and The Magocracy. See also Hive Queen, God Emperor, and Vampire Monarch.
Examples:
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- In Fiona Patton's Tales Of The Branion Realm series, the royal family of an alternate Britain is associated with a fire god. All the family have glowing eyes, and the sovereign is the god's "Vessel" or avatar.
- In The Lord of the Rings the kings of Gondor have healing abilities.
- Everyone in Xanth has a magical talent, but there's a legal requirement that the king must be a Magician (someone whose talent is particularly powerful). Over the course of the series, one family has kept the throne for several generations because they're descended from a character who was given the gift that all his descendants would have Magician-class talents.
- Labyrinths of Echo explored the implications. The protagonist immigrated to a very rich kingdom. Later his boss explains the reason why here only scholars know what "drought" means: crown princes of several successive dynasties were trained and initiated into a special magical tradition giving the ability to strike deals with the land itself. So they fight off endless attempts to influence them, to the point that "was a crown prince and trained accordingly" is given as a reason why a king-Arbiter managed to control his powers. In many generations of batshit insane mages almost no one tried to overthrow the monarchy or attack a specific king. Rebel mages screamed for blood of the head of a magical order allied with the crown and long after civil war's end avengers popped up once per tenday or so. Not against the King. In the land choke-full of diviners he travels incognito with two guards and a token cover-up: lots of people could track him if they wanted, but no one does.
- Only the nobles in Zero No Tsukaima can use magic, and their children can use magic via Superpowerful Genetics. And in a special case, a user of Void Magic must be descended from the either one of the founding leaders of any of the four countries.
- In The Dresden Files, being a descendant of royalty is one of the criteria for being a Knight of the Cross.
- Both the House of Haldane (rulers of Gwynedd) and the House of Furstan (rulers of Torenth) in the Deryni works are deeply associated with magic.
- The Haldanes ruled Gwynedd long before their powers were discovered; the discovery of the abilities facilitated the restoration of the dynasty to the monarchy after an interregnum of some eighty years. Subsequent Haldanes used their powers to help retain their throne in the face of their rivals' repeated efforts to retake the country.
- The Furstans largely train to use their powers like other Deryni, but the monarch's investiture is a magical ritual involving the tomb of the dynasty's founder, which is depicted throbbing with arcane power. Kelson Haldane and some of his courtiers visit the tomb with the young King Liam and his uncle before the ceremony, and even Liam is noted as avoiding touching the tomb.
- In Dune the Bene Gesserit manipulated marriages between members of certain houses for about ten thousand years in an attempt to breed a Kwisatz Haderach who could access both sides of his lineage's Genetic Memory and see the future perfectly. The end result was Paul Atreides, who used his powers to become the messiah of the Fremen of Arrakis and Emperor of the known universe. His son, the God Emperor Leto II, inherited the same powers and spent the next four millennia selectively breeding his sister's bloodline (including repeated inbreeding with clones of Duncan Idaho) for the ability to not be viewed by prescience.
- In A Song of Ice and Fire members of house Targaryen supposedly have the blood of dragons, though the only current one who is fireproof and can command the loyalty of dragons is Daenerys.
- Melisandre claims that royal blood has power. Since this power can only truly be unlocked through sacrifice, this doesn't work out so well for the royals in question.
- In Margaret Weis's The Star Of The Guardians series, the ubermensch ruling class have perfect genetics, psychic abilities, and the sanction of God.
- In the Inheritance Trilogy the Arameri royal family has a variety of superpowers- they can command the Enefadeh (a group of powerful gods), and also command weaker members of the family depending on their sigil.
- Members of the Rakan dynasty, rulers of the ancient Golden Anaxia in Reflections of Eterna, wielded magical powers connected to the very fabric of the world of Kertiana, but the knowledge of how to use them has been lost as the dynasty almost died out. Likewise, the four ducal houses of Golden Anaxia also wielded some sort of Elemental Powers but forgotten all or almost all about them.
- In the Hells Gate series, we have a few on both sides of the inter-universal war. On the Arcanan side, the Mythalans have a Fantastic Caste System, with the magic-using Shakira on top, the supported by the military nobility of the Multhari, and oppressing the mundane Garthan peasantry. On the Sharonan side, the Calirath dynasty has ruled Ternathia, and at one time or another, most of the world, thanks to their family Talent- the ability to predict human suffering and tragedy, and thus act to prevent or minimize loss of life (on their side, when it happens in battle. Chunika s'hari, Halian.Sho Warak.) that gets stronger the closer the Calirath is to the centre of the danger.
- In the Star Trek novel Spocks World, one of the primitive Vulcan tribes discovered that their young were born with a "second eyelid," that allowed their tribesman better vision in the harsh Vulcan desert. When the more warlike protagonist of that sub-story takes virtual control of her tribe, she uses that ability to gain a better water source and better resources from the other tribes of ancient Vulcans. Eventually, her tribe becomes the dominant bloodline for all Vulcans and this genetic feature becomes part of normal Vulcan physiology. (This is what saves Spock's vision in the episode "Operation: Annihilate" in the series.
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- In The Cyantian Chronicles, until a recent coup, the three highest ranking castes in the Fox Empire were genetic elites with enhanced strength and regenerative abilities. The Blacks also had the ability to project energy blasts.
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