History Main / LoveRuinsTheRealm

*** Finally, there's the bitter rivalry between Aegon IV's bastard sons Aegor "Bittersteel" and Brynden "Bloodraven", who chose opposing sides of the Blackfyre Rebellions (Bittersteel supported Daemon while Bloodraven supported Daeron II). Although the fact that their mothers hailed from houses which have been legendary rivals in the Riverlands for centuries made their rivalry almost a given, it was further ignited by their competition for the affections of their half-sister, Aegon's youngest bastard Shiera Seastar, who seemed more amused at being the center of a love triangle than anything (for the record, she never married anyone).

** Historically, the case of the oft-rumored relationship between Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight is complicated. It didn't seem to cause too many issues while they were alive (presumably because Aemon the Dragonknight is an actual heroic figure [[CrapsackWorld for a change]]). However, after they were dead, the rumor that Aemon was actually the father of Naerys's son Daeron was the reason Daeron's half-brother Daemon Blackfyre gave for rebelling against Daeron's rule and trying to claim the throne. This led to more than a century of war.
** Having said that, this civil war may have been ostensibly triggered by those rumours, but [[AdiposeRex King]] [[FatBastard Aegon]] [[{{Jerkass}} Targaryen]], the fourth of his name, better known to all as "[[TheHedonist The Unworthy]]", was actually the root cause. To the point that many historians of the Seven Kingdoms subscribe to the view that he spread those rumours about his sister-wife and brother himself. Worse, he took mistresses from any noble House willing (or unwilling) to hand him their daughters to try getting on his good side — he also particularly enjoyed finding [[FeudingFamilies rival Houses]] to take daughters from. Which resulted in a lot of highborn bastards being born from such goings-on. All of whom he legitimized before his death, just to spite Daeron and the memory of his siblings. None of this would go on to directly impact the events in the war that broke out and increase its ferocity and duration at all, of course... Oh, heavens, of ''course'' not! Lesson: unbridled lust in a spoiled brat of a king? Not good.
** Adding fuel to the drama of Aegon IV's family, it is also rumored that one of the reasons Daemon Blackfyre started his rebellion was because he was denied the hand of his half-sister, Daenerys, as she was betrothed to the Prince of Dorne. While this was certainly false (not only his rebellion started years after Daenerys' wedding, but there were no records of her mourning his death), it illustrated just how entitled Daemon became after his father legitimized him.

** Two generations before that, King Viserys I lost his first wife and was advised to marry Laena Velaryon. He instead decided to marry Alicent Hightower. This did not turn out great, since Alicent ''really'' didn't like Viserys' daughter Rhaenyra, and she especially didn't like the fact that Rhaeny was Viserys' choice for heir over his sons with her. When Viserys died, quite suddenly, Alicent was the one who talked her son Aegon into making a play for the throne, which led to the Dance of the Dragons, the death of all but one of Alicent's children, Rhaenyra's death, and dragons going nearly extinct in Westeros.

* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' has Viego, now known as [[EvilOverlord "The Ruined King"]], whose once upon a time [[InadequateInheritor fell into the throne at the kingdom's behest after the death of his brother]], already proving he was unfit to rule due to spending all his time obsessing over the beautiful seamstress who he made his queen. Things became [[FromBadToWorse exponentially worse]] when said queen was killed in a botched assassination attempt, and [[LoveMakesYouCrazy his mad quest to try to bring her back to life]] led him to uncovering the hidden Blessed Isles and slaughtering everyone in his path when they denied him the powers they knew he couldn't handle. Indeed, his attempt to resurrect his lover cursed the isles into a festering DeathWorld known as the Shadow Isles, [[FateWorseThanDeath eternally binding legions of the undead to Runeterra]] and posing as one of the world's biggest threats.

* [[Myth/KingArthur Arthur mythos]]: Guinevere and Lancelot are a classic example.

* One of the [[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]] books recounts the story of Dream's love affair with queen Nada. Unfortunately, the heavens didn't approve of a human having an affair with one of the Endless, and started destroying her kingdom's cities left and right until she broke up with him. At which point he [[DisproportionateRetribution sent her to hell,]] [[WhatTheHellHero forever.]]

* ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}'': Boy does Arthur run into this one. By falling for the ManipulativeBitch wife of one of his knights, he ensures that [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the gods abandon him, that each of the knights of the Round Table thinks he can run the country better, and generally gives up on the idea of a unified kingdom.]]
* Notably averted in ''Series/{{Merlin 2008}}'' with Gwen. While Uther and Agravaine argue that marrying a commoner would weaken Camelot (as opposed to marrying for political ties which would strengthen its position) Gwen turns out to be the most competent Camelot monarch in the show, successfully rooting out a traitor in her first episode as Queen. [[spoiler: She eventually becomes Arthur's heir and Queen Regnant of Camelot.]]

* ''{{Series/Kaamelott}}'': Despite receiving every possible hint that it's a Very Bad Idea (including a tranced-out seer stating it that the gods would take offense), Arthur still goes ahead and has an affair with Mevanwi, one of his knights' wives (despite having four official mistresses) both for love and in the hopes of conceiving an heir. The kingdom goes right to hell shortly after, with Guenievre's parents struggling to hold on to their authority, Mevanwi is revealed to be a complete BitchInSheepsClothing, nobody able to pull the sword from the one except Arthur (who has no intention of pulling it out), Lancelot (who'd already rebelled and been joined by Guenièvre) building up an army to take over the country (with Guenièvre realizing this wasn't the ideal life either), and then Méléagant shows up to give Lancelot [[TheCorruption a little push in the right direction.]]

* This has happened in some of the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games, particularly in the [[VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral Jugdral]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Elibe]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Tellius]] sagas.

* In ''Comicbook/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDW'', Princess Celestia discovered a portal to the MirrorUniverse and fell in love with its version of King Sombra (here a heroic king instead of a tyrant). Their affair had repercussions because keeping the portal open destabilized the two worlds and Celestia was too distracted to rule, to the point where Princess Luna had to disguise herself as her to prevent the citizens from thinking Celestia had abandoned them. For the good of both worlds, the portal was closed, [[StarCrossedLovers separating the two]].

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

* In ''FanFic/OfWhiteTreesAndBlueRoses'', Rhaegar Targaryen was very aware of how badly things could turn out after his abduction of Lyanna Stark, particularly after hearing of his father's execution of the Northern lords. Other characters had also thought to themselves (or voiced their opinions on) just how bad the idea really was.

* The ''My Little Pony'' example below is expanded upon in ''FanFic/TheGodEmpressOfPonykind''; the love poison was a concoction of [[EvilChancellor Sombra]] to get the king and queen of the Crystal Kingdom into a vulnerable position where he could kill them, allowing him to take the throne for himself and eventually ascend to Daemon Princehood.

** Barristan also ponders on how all three sons of King Aegon V Targaryen rejected the [[AltarDiplomacy political marriages]] he had made for them to follow their hearts (his eldest son [[AbdicateTheThrone abdicated his claim to the Iron Throne]] to wed a commoner, his second son [[{{Elopement}} eloped]] and [[BrotherSisterIncest got married to his sister]] and his third son [[AmbiguouslyGay preferred the company of his best friend]]). Aegon didn't press the matter for fear of being [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]], given he and their mother had [[MarryForLove married for love]], but in letting his sons have their way, Aegon alienated a lot of the nobility, particularly the noble Houses whose daughters his sons had spurned, and without the support of the nobility for his desire to improve the lives of the commoners, Aegon resorted to more drastic measures to secure power to fulfil his wishes, culminating in his death in what is [[EpilepticTrees heavily implied]] to have been a botched BloodMagic ritual with the aim of resurrecting dragons.

* This has happened in some of the VideoGame/FireEmblem games, particularly in the [[VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral Jugdral]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Elibe]], and [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance Tellius]] sagas.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In Arakawa's ''Anime/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'', it's commented that a large part of problems that happened in Badakhshan and Pars occurred because of men falling in love with Tahamine. She was first betrothed to the prime minister of Badakhshan, only for his master the prince to steal her away and the prime minister to kill himself after, leaving the country in chaos. Then, after the war between Badakhshan and Pars, King Osroes and his brother Andragoras had a falling out because they both loved Tahamine and it's suspected Andragoras assassinated his own brother and nephew to take the throne and Tahamine for himself.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerling_incident The Mayerling Incident]], which lead to the deaths of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and his mistress, Mary Freiin von Vetsera, in what was apparently a murder-suicide (though this has been debated by historians). Since Rudolf was the Emperor Franz Joseph's only son, the succession passed to Joseph's brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig and his son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. [[UsefulNotes/FirstWorldWar That name should sound familiar to you]]. In other words, the whole incident created the circumstances that would result in not one but two of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

* Russia was already hurtling towards disaster, but the marriage of Tsar Nicholas II to [[MarryForLove his beloved]] Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine -- over the objections of both [[UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria her grandmother]] and his parents -- certainly added lighter fluid to the proverbial fire. Although Tsar Alexander III relented and allowed his son's marriage on his deathbed, Alix -- later known as Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna -- was pathologically shy and incredibly reserved. To those who didn't know her, she seemed cold and uncaring, lacking the natural sociable warmth of her mother-in-law, the Dowager Empress Marie. The family was reserved from the start, but after [[HeirClubForMen their only son Alexei]] was born with haemophilia, they closed ranks completely, withdrawing almost entirely from court life. The one-two punch of [[UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk Rasputin's]] increasing influence over the family, and Alexandra in particular, combined with the disaster of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and a catastrophic economic depression, spelled the end of the dynasty, and [[RulingFamilyMassacre the whole family was murdered]] in an Ekaterinburg cellar in July 1918.

*** Because by ''that'' point, Henry realized she couldn't give him a son, either, and had already begun courting Jane Seymour--who, as the saying goes, 'had the good fortune to bear a son and the good sense to die immediately afterward.'

** Ser Barristan finds himself pondering all the various kings and princes who acted on their own feelings and unwittingly brought misery on the realm. He also reveals The Mad King would have rather wed [[spoiler: Joanna Lannister]] than his sister Rhaella. The implication being Aerys' subsequent madness served to fuel his envy of his childhood friend [[spoiler: Tywin Lannister]] to the point of hatred. It is supported since Aerys's rule was just fine until he went mad. One of the factors might be his unrequited love to [[spoiler: Johanna]].

** In ''Literature/DuneMessiah'', Paul Atreides's marriage with Princess Irulan Corrino is strictly political as he's only in love with his Freman concubine, Chani, who will provide his heir. After being coerced by several conspirators, Irulan becomes jealous and drugs Chani in order to delay her pregnancy. Though Chani did get pregnant, she died after giving birth to twins which Irulan regretted it later on. As a result, Paul went into a self-imposed exile after going blind in an assassination attempt, though he did foresaw it, and his Empire is in the hands of his sister, Alia, who slowly succumbs to the possession of their late grandfather, [[spoiler: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen]].

* ''Literature/TheVicomteDeBragelonne'': If Louis XIV could stop falling in love with every other woman he runs into (including his sister-in-law and Raoul's LoveInterest), there would have been two deaths avoided ([[spoiler:Raoul joining the army to commit SuicideByCop and Athos shortly dying of despair shortly after]]), and he might have avoided being seen as a political liability that would encourage plotters to [[spoiler:replace him with his more pliable twin brother]].

* ''{{Series/Kaamelott}}'': Despite receiving every possible hint that it's a Very Bad Idea (including a tranced-out seer stating it that the gods would take offense), Arthur still goes ahead and has an affair with Mevanwi, one of his knights' wives (despite having four official mistresses) both for love and in the hopes of conceiving an heir. The kingdom goes right to hell shortly after, with Guenievre's parents struggling to hold on to their authority, Mevanwi revealed to be a complete BitchInSheepsClothing, nobody able to pull the sword from the one except Arthur (who has no intention of pulling it out), Lancelot (who'd already rebelled and been joined by Guenièvre) building up an army to take over the country (with Guenièvre realizing this wasn't the ideal life either), and then Méléagant shows up to give Lancelot [[TheCorruption a little push in the right direction.]]

* ''LightNovel/TheTwelveKingdoms'': the empress Jokaku went insane with love for her advisor, Keiki, and slaughtered or exiled all other women from the kingdom. Being that the state of the kingdom is [[FisherKing directly dependant on the competency of the ruler]] in this series, things went downhill very quickly.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Anakin Skywalker is torn between his love for Padmé Amidala and his duties as a member of the celibate Jedi Order. Darth Sidious manages to manipulate Anakin's emotions to corrupt him, bringing about the downfall of the Jedi Order, the Galactic Republic, and the rise of the tyrannical Empire in its stead.

* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Anakin Skywalker is torn between his love for Padme Amidala and his duties as a member of the celibate Jedi Order. Darth Sidious manages to manipulate Anakin's emotions to corrupt him, bringing about the downfall of the Jedi Order, the Galactic Republic, and the rise of the tyrannical Empire in its stead.

** [[spoiler:Cersei and Jaime.]] It starts as [[{{Twincest}} total squick]] when you learn how young they were when they... um... escalated their relationship, but the results almost two decades later are, arguably, even more distressing; this illicit relationship contributes massively to the series' instability and multi-stage civil war that resulted not only in people being hurt but also affected their [[AChildShallLeadThem inbred]] [[TheCaligula children]] [[TheCutie as]] [[HairOfGoldHeartOfGold well]].
** The third book sees [[spoiler:Robb Stark and Jeyne Westerling (or Talisa Maegyr in [[Series/GameOfThrones the television series]])]]; of course, the realm a large has already gone to hell by that point, but their relationship is what eventually leads to [[spoiler: the Red Wedding and collapse of the Northern war effort]].

** It's ultimately revealed that [[spoiler:MagnificentBastard Littlefinger]] engineered the War of Five Kings with one of the goals being the exile/death of Ned Stark so that he could make a play for Ned's wife Catelyn Stark, who [[spoiler:Littlefinger]] had loved since he was a child. [[spoiler:Boy, did ''that'' go wrong. But, hey, she has a daughter! Nothing potentially splody there, either.]]
** Ser Barristan finds himself pondering all the various kings and princes who acted on their own feelings and unwittingly brought misery on the realm. He also reveals The Mad King would have rather wed [[spoiler:Joanna Lannister]] than his sister Rhaella. The implication being Aerys' subsequent madness served to fuel his envy of his childhood friend [[spoiler:Tywin Lannister]] to the point of hatred. It is supported since Aerys' rule was just fine until he went mad. One of the factors might be his unrequited love to [[spoiler:Johanna]].

* Similarly, there's undertones of this in Shakespeare's ''Theatre/RichardII''; Richard neglects his duties, his wife and more importantly the nobles in favor of a lavish good time with his favorites. Prior to the time in which Shakespeare's play is set, similar accusations had been leveled at Richard's close friend and maybe-lover Robert de Vere, in particular because this undercut the authority of his uncles.

* Shown to be part of the reason everything goes down the drain in the realm of the Tiste in the ''Literature/KharkanasTrilogy'', the prequel to the ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' series. Various factions in the realm want Mother Dark, their queen turned goddess, to find herself a husband for the sake of propriety, and to set aside her Consort, Lord Draconus. In this case, though, it is not Mother Dark's love for her Consort that ruins things, but Lord Draconus's love for her, as it's implied that he is actually [[spoiler:the creator of the Tiste as a race]] and thus [[spoiler:fell in love with his own creation]]. So neither does Mother Dark bother to do something about the situation, nor will Lord Draconus step down from his position; no, instead, to prove his devotion, he commissions a gift for Mother Dark that ends up causing civil war, the sundering of their whole realm, and a war on the ''concept of Death itself''. NiceJobBreakingItHero.

* In ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', the Bene Gesserit regarded love as a dangerous emotion and a weakness. Hence, when Jessica fell in love with Duke Leto Atreides and gave him a son instead of a daughter which the Bene Gesserit wanted for their Kwisatz Haderach plan, it went into disarray because the son, Paul, became Kwisatz Haderach who is born too early which resulted to an instability in the realm brought by the Fremen's jihad. However, Paul foresaw this because this instability is necessary to keep humanity from getting extinct, and later, his son Leto II takes the reins to be NecessarilyEvil for humanity's survival. Of course, the Bene Gesserit never know this and blame Jessica, Paul, and Leto II for the mess that they're in.
** In ''Literature/DuneMessiah'', Paul Atreides's marriage with Princess Irulan Corrino is strictly political as he's only in love with his Freman concubine, Chani, who will provide his heir. After being coerced by several conspirators, Irulan becomes jealous and drugs Chani in order to delay her pregnancy. Though Chani did get pregnant, she died after giving birth to twins which Irulan regretted it later on. As a result, Paul went into a self-imposed exile after going blind in an assassination attempt, though he did foresaw it, and his Empire is in the hands of his sister, Alia, who slowly succumbs to the possession of their late grandfather, [[spoiler:Baron Vladimir Harkonnen]].
* ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'': If Buckingham just stayed in England instead of going to see the Queen he was madly in love with, a great deal of diplomatic incidents, drama, and his death could have been avoided.

** And then WordOfGod has it that [[spoiler:after Arthur's death]] she reigns over the Golden Age of Camelot and lifts the ban on magic (heavily implied when she [[spoiler:figures out that Merlin has magic and reacts with joy at the revelation]]).

** The love affair between Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, [[spoiler:who secretly married and conceived a son, Jon Snow]], lead to a mass-scale war that killed thousands of people and ended the Targaryen dynasty, as well as having other far-reaching consequences down the line [[spoiler:including, ironically, unwittingly endangering their only son, whose true origin would have resulted in him being killed by the new ruling dynasty that arose from this war. Jon is hidden, protected, and raised by his uncle, Lyanna's brother, who claims Jon as his illegitimate son to save him]].

** By forfeiting a marriage pact he had with the Freys and marrying for love instead, Robb angers the Freys, who join with the Boltons to kill him and divide his newly re-established kingdom in the North between them. It doesn't just cost Robb, his wife, and mother their lives but the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of his men when they're massacred along with him.

* In Arakawa's ''Anime/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'', it's commented that a large part of problems that happened in Badakhshan and Pars occurred because of men falling in love with Tahamine. She was first betrothed to the prime minister of Badakhshan, only for his master the prince to steal her away and the prime minister to kill himself later. Then, after the war between Badakhshan and Pars, King Osroes and his brother Andragoras had a falling out because they both loved Tahamine and it's suspected Andragoras assassinated his own brother and nephew to take the throne and Tahamine for himself.

* ''Under Heaven'' by Guy Gavriel Kay is a fictionalized account of the emperor Xuanzong listed under truth in television. The emperor's love for his consort leads him to name her cousin prime minister, and his poor handling of an ambitious and powerful general leads directly to a civil war.

* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' has Viego, now known as [[EvilOverlord "The Ruined King"]], whose once upon a time [[InadequateInheritor fell into the throne at the kingdom's behest after the death of his brother]], already proving he was unfit to rule due to his obsessive love of a beautiful seamstress who he made his queen. Things became [[FromBadToWorse exponentially worse]] when said queen was killed in a botched assassination attempt, and [[LoveMakesYouCrazy his mad quest to try to bring her back to life]] led him to uncovering the hidden Blessed Isles and slaughtering everyone in his path when they denied him the powers they knew he couldn't handle. Indeed, his attempt to resurrect his lover cursed the isles into a festering DeathWorld known as the Shadow Isles, [[FateWorseThanDeath eternally binding legions of the undead to Runeterra]] and posing as one of the world's biggest threats.

* Yet another of the many risks to a ruler in ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings''. An ArrangedMarriage falls apart because one of the two falls in love with someone else, the marriage alliance is shattered when the pope grants a divorce, and suddenly the previously allied families are free to go for each other's throats or be devoured by neighbors that didn't dare face both, but can take on one.

** Aerted with the Ivory King, whose wholehearted acceptance of his wife Alsanna, also a daughter of [[spoiler: Manus]], prevents his kingdom from going down the same road as Vendrick's. It gets destroyed anyway, but she actively works to contain the situation rather than bringing it about.

* ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'': Any details are a giant spoiler. [[spoiler:When the Pillar falls in love, the world of Cephiro is literally ruined, as in, overcome by monsters and natural disasters because she is not putting absolutely 100% of her concentration on it. She summons the Magic Knights to kill her so it doesn't get worse.]]

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny'' [[PrinceCharmless Yuna Roma Seiran]] tries to use this trope to convince [[RebelliousPrincess Cagalli]] to break off her engagement to [[AcePilot Athrun]] and marry him instead. It nearly works until her brother [[SpeakNowOrForeverHoldYourPeace disagrees]]