Basic Trope: A rightful heir returns to take the throne that stood empty or was usurped by another person.
- Straight: Evil Chancellor Bob kills all known members of the royal family and usurps the throne. Many years later Alfred, bastard son of the last king, kills Bob in a duel and takes his birthright back, becoming the next ruler of Tropetia.
- Exaggerated:
- The throne of Tropetia stands empty for a thousand years. Alfred shows up and announces himself as the rightful ruler long after the locals forgot they are supposed to even have a king.
- The entire monarchy was abolished in a bloody and violent revolution, with the crazed rebel leader Bob personally massacring the entire royal family and marking the entire aristocracy for execution. A loyal servant smuggles the Kings youngest son Alfred out of the country during the massacre, and Alfred grows up in exile. He leads an army of royalist counter-revolutionaries to retake his throne and has Bob hanged for treason and crimes against the people of Tropeta. Alfred's descendants rule the realm even to this day.
- The Troperian Dynasty has been overthrown, forced into exile, and reinstalled no less than twenty three times in its history.
- Downplayed: The Crown Prince's kid brother Alfred makes it out the back window during Bob's purge, spends a few months doing the King Incognito thing as he gathers a loyalist force in the provinces, and puts himself on the throne within the year.
- Justified:
- An heir of this particular bloodline is needed to keep the magical spell protecting Tropetia active.
- Alternately/mundanely, Bob is terrible at ruling while Alfred knows the qualities that a king needs. After all, he's the Spare to the Throne.
- In this universe Hobbes Was Right, and any government other than a hereditary government is doomed to collapse into anarchy.
- Inverted: Rightful king Alfred is beaten and exiled by Evil Chancellor Bob who takes the crown for himself.
- Subverted:
- It’s revealed that Alfred is really a commoner who lied to justify his claim to the throne.
- Alfred refuses to take the crown. He puts Charlie, his charismatic commoner friend, on the throne instead.
- It turns out that Alfred's father was overthrown for being The Caligula, and that the usurper Bob is beloved by the people of Tropeta.
- Instead of taking the Tropetian Throne, Alfred forges a new Kingdom across the sea.
- Alfred abolishes the monarchy, and Tropetia becomes a republic.
- Double Subverted:
- Princess Alice comes back from her exile and kills Alfred as a usurper, becoming the rightful queen.
- After Charlie dies of old age his daughter Dalya ascends the throne. Her first action as Queen is to ask Alfred's hand in marriage, making him King once more.
- This story was made during a time when Divine Right To Rule was taken seriously, so Alfred reclaims his throne anyway. The moral of the story is that the King has the right to do whatever he damn well pleases.
- Alfred rules as King of Wikiland for many years until he becomes senile. His regent and son, Prince Albert, uses his authority to press his father's claim on the Tropeta Throne. So King Alfred dies as King of both Kingdoms.
- Only for a revolution to occur, placing Alfred's brother Mathieu in power.
- Parodied: Alfred chases Bob over Bob eating the last ice cream sandwich.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alfred kills Bob and takes his kingdom back. Then commoner Charlie kills Alfred and usurps the throne. Later it turns out that Charlie is the one with royal blood, with makes him the rightful ruler and Alfred the usurper.
- Alfred kills Bob and takes his kingdom back. He then abolishes the monarchy, making Tropetia a republic, only for a coup to put Alfred back in power as an absolute monarch, despite him having no desires to be king, where he later cedes all land to the neighboring Republic of Troperia
- Averted:
- Nobody usurps the throne and nobody returns to take it back.
- The line of the King dies out after King Alfred is killed in a decisive battle. Bob, the trusted second in command who was busy holding the line under Alfred's direct orders is able to hold the kingdom together invoking the memory of the beloved king. Succession passes to his son Charlie. Aside from the addition of 'spiritual' as a qualifier of descendant of King Alfred nothing substantially changes. The line of Bob is considered a worthy enough successor and the man himself considered made worthy by his Undying Loyalty and leadership through darkest of times.
- Enforced:
- The author wants to write an Awesome Moment of Crowning.
- The work was a Propaganda Piece commissioned by King Charles' then-ruling descendant to further solidify his ancestor's claim against the vilified King Bob.
- Lampshaded: "The Usurper is finally dead. All hail to the new and rightful king – Alfred!"
- Invoked: Kings make sure there is at least one Hidden Backup Prince in case all other members of royal family are dead.
- Exploited:
- Alex travels with Alfred to later write an epic ballad about a rightful king returning to take back his throne based on everything he witnessed.
- The powerful nobleman Silas decides that he rather likes the idea of being King, and seeks out an unwitting Alfred to to install on the throne as a figurehead with popular support while he wields the real power.
- Defied:
- Evil Chancellor Bob makes sure he killed all members of the royal family, including infants, bastard children and people exiled many years ago.
- Bob marries princess Alice which makes him the rightful king.
- The Good King dies of natural causes and Evil Chancellor Bob reveals that he is the king's brother and is the heir to the throne. Legitimate doesn't always mean good...
- Evil Chancellor Bob abolishes the monarchy.
- The Good King decides that the parliament established by his predecessors rules better than one man ever could and voluntarily abdicates and abolishes the kingship as a formal institution.
- Discussed: "I don’t believe all members of the royal family were killed. Some say that the youngest prince was saved and will return one day to become our rightful king".
- Conversed: "The king and queen got killed? I bet the rest of the movie is about their youngest son taking revenge and triumphantly returning as a rightful ruler".
- Implied: A few weeks after Alfred’s disappearance other characters hear rumors about a rebellion in Tropetia, led by a mysterious figure looking suspiciously like Alfred and claiming to be the late king’s bastard son.
- Deconstructed:
- His bloodline doesn’t give Alfred the ability to rule. He is quickly eliminated and commoner Charlie is made king instead.
- The king was an incompetent ruler, whereas the kingdom was actually much better off when Evil Chancellor Bob was ruling over the kingdom, despite not having any connection to the royal bloodline. Even if he's evil, Bob is still smart enough to be a Villain with Good Publicity and does enough to keep the people satisfied. Thus, when Alfred takes back the throne, a war to overthrow Alfred starts since people fear he'll be just as incompetent as his father was before Bob took the throne.
- Reconstructed: Alfred takes time and effort to learn how to be a competent ruler. He becomes popular and starts a new dynasty of good and just kings.
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