History Main / TheWrongfulHeirToTheThrone

* ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'', a prequel to ''Game of Thrones'', has this as the central conflict -- King Viserys named his daughter Rhaenyra as heir, but his second wife has been trying to invoke this trope get her eldest son, Aegon, named heir. Ironically, all evidence indicates that ''Aegon'' would fit this trope, as while Rhaenyra is shown making multiple blunders due to her age and stubborness, Aegon is totally disinterested in ruling [[spoiler:and also a SerialRapist]].

* The reign of UsefulNotes/LouisXIV over France was described by {{Creator/Voltaire}} as an "eternally memorable age" for the heights of influence and power France acquired during Louis's time on the throne. However, Louis's heir, the Louis le Grand Dauphin (the French crown prince) lacked his father's drive and intelligence. The Dauphin was a KindheartedSimpleton who rarely participated in affairs of state and was said to be able to pass a whole day just siting idly in a chair. The king had nothing but contempt for his son, and it was said that the worst way to politically harm someone was for the Dauphin to commend him to the king. The Dauphin died of smallpox before taking the throne, and when the king died he was replaced by his great-grandson UsefulNotes/LouisXV, who proved to be just as wrongful an heir as the Dauphin ever could.

The heir has the automatic advantage of legitimacy, but what if he's evil? Or just [[InadequateInheritor jaw-droppingly incompetent]]? Or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs jaw-droppingly incompetent and evil]]? Even if he is competent, what happens if the kingdom is facing a terrible crisis it would take a much better leader to deal with?

** Renly tries to invoke this trope to justify taking the throne for himself. He has no legal claim, but he thinks he would be a better king than either of his nephews or his dour older brother. Subverted in that we really have no evidence that Renly would make a good king other than his own and his lackeys' belief - the few unbiased opinions we're privy to are much more skeptical about him: basically, he's charismatic and charming, but has nothing else going for him. It is also quite probable he knew his eldest brother Robert's children were not Robert's but sat on the information until it benefited him to publicise it.

* A RealLife example from English history would be [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy King Stephen]], who usurped the throne from his cousin Matilda -- the rightful heir -- because as a woman, she was regarded as incompetent to rule by the standards of the time (the 1100s).
** Considering the disastrous result -- a 19-year CivilWar so bad it was called "the Anarchy" -- even people at the time thought they would have been better off putting up with a woman for a generation. And in the end, Matilda even won after a fashion: her descendants, not Stephen's, ended up with the throne, starting with [[UsefulNotes/HenryTheSecond her son, Henry II]].

** Renly tries to invoke this trope to justify taking the throne for himself. He has no legal claim, but he thinks he would be a better king than either of his nephews or his dour older brother. Subverted in that we really have no evidence that Renly would make a good king other than his own and his lackeys' belief - the few unbiased opinions we're privy to are much more skeptical about him. It is also quite probable he knew his eldest brother Robert's children were not Robert's but sat on the information until it benefited him to publicise it.

* Tsar Peter III of Russia is often portrayed as an idiot who was allowing the country to go down the crapper. His wife, their union an {{arranged marriage}} when he was younger, was Sophia, a German princess from a poor family, and she was a tad more competent and deposed him. She's better known today as UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat. Most of the stories about Peter's madness were made up by Catherine's spin doctors, but the guy still managed to piss off a number of people with his hero-worship of UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat of Prussia and announcing crazy projects like phasing out serfdom. Unfortunately for him, many of these discontents were to be found in the [[PraetorianGuard Life Guards]], which enabled Peter's Tsarina to oust him from power and have him offed. Maybe not an idiot or madman, but probably not a competent, shrewd and decisive ruler (it is speculated that if he had not hesitated to strike at once, he might still have been able to quell Catherine's palace revolution with troops loyal to him). Since Catherine "the Great"[[note]] the title was awarded to her by a legislative commission set up by herself -She was quite annoyed at them for wasting time on that instead of doing what she told them to do [[/note]] basically sold out the serfs to their landlords, on whose support she depended, there were several peasants' rebellions during her reign. The most serious was led by Yemelian Pugachev, who managed to increase his base by announcing that he was in fact Peter III, miraculously escaped from the forces of the Empress. So even in 1773-1775, over a decade after his death, Peter III was a lot more popular than his consort with a lot of people.

* In ''Manga/{{Ooku}}: The Inner Chambers'' a {{Gender Flip}}ped Shogun Tsunayoshi and one of her attendants Emonnosuke discuss the 'mandate of Heaven' theory mentioned below under RealLife. [[spoiler: By the end of her reign Tsunayoshi believes herself to be this trope, and would welcome someone to kill her. It's unclear if she got her wish or if [[WomanScorned another trope]] motivated her murder.]]

* In one ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'' story, the team put Latervia's hereditary ruler, Prince Zorba, back on the throne, only for him to be as bad or worse than Doctor Doom. When they overthrew Zorba, Doom managed to take power again. Well, at least he's good to his people, [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]].

** It's implied that this trope is the reason [[spoiler:Princess Camilla]] [[AbdicateTheThrone abdicated her claim to the throne]] in the ''Birthright'' route of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'': she believed herself to be this compared to [[spoiler: her TeenGenius younger brother, Prince (now King) Leo, since their older brother Xander is now dead.]]

* Queen Arrabel in Tanya Huff's ''A Woman's Work'' is well aware that her son is not up to her standards of Evil Overladyness and is a romantic idiot. After the conquest of a neighbouring kingdom, she notices that the youngest princess (and sole survivor) of the deposed royal family has a very ''practical'' frame of mind and quickly agrees to a marriage to Arrabel's son. The princess is the sole survivor because she convinced her two brothers to launch a failed suicide attack on Arrabel during the family's last stand and arranged for her older sister to have unfortunately become deceased. Queen Arrabel cheerfully expects that her son will suffer a tragic accident very soon after their first child is born, making the daughter-in-law the new heir to the throne, and is quite pleased with the thought of having a competent successor. She's also quite careful not to eat any food given to her by her new daughter-in-law.

** After the rebellion, Ser Barristan gave this as a justification for why he accepted Robert's pardon and served him: while Aerys's son Viserys may have been the rightful king, he was also [[GenerationXerox "his father's son"]] in many unfortunate ways. Following both Viserys' and Robert's deaths and Barristan's dismissal by King Joffrey, he reassesses his loyalties once more and goes over to Danaerys.

** ''Literature/FireAndBlood'' also has the two kids of Aegon the Conqueror, Aenys and Maegor. Aenys is the first-born, but generally weak-willed and too eager to please, a bad thing when you need someone to solidify a dynasty. Maegor, meanwhile, is an AxCrazy kind of guy with a fondness for solving every single problem with murder.

** In the sequel series ''Literature/TheNikolaiDuology'' [[spoiler:Nikolai proves to be a pretty good king, improving the lives of the small folk, modernising the military and keeping the country together despite the instability caused by the previous king. In case of SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome, however, people immediately start using the rumors that he's a bastard to try and replace him with a Lantsov cousin, and when they find good enough proof (his mother decides to testify) he realizes he can't overcome the issue. Instead he abdicates and convinces the Ravkan nobles to ''elect'' a new monarch, just as they elected the first Lantsov--essentially legitimizing the wrongful heir process, but taking himself off the board.]]

** In the ''Literature/BardicVoices'' series, Kestrel was the rightful king of Birnam after his uncle deposed his father, and has been sending assassins after the poor kid ever since despite the fact that he was suffering from IdentityAmnesia thanks to a severe fever he caught while fleeing. It turned out that the father was taxing the people heavily and wasting it on personal luxuries while the uncle was ruling the kingdom wisely, and had been a neglectful father at best on top of that, and once Kestrel found out was actually going on he couldn't AbdicateTheThrone fast enough. [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot And likely would have at the very beginning of the palace coup if his uncle had bothered to ask]], for that matter.

** Played with again in ''Oathbreakers'' from the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series. The throne of Rethwellen is empty. The King's eldest son and designated heir is poised to take it, and he's a right bastard; the younger SpareToTheThrone was an irresponsible philanderer but matured after running away to avoid being murdered by his brother and is now leading a rebellion to take the crown. The twist comes in with the fact that the Crown Prince is not ''necessarily'' the legitimate heir; ever since [[spoiler:the enchanted Sword that Sings that's ''supposed'' [[TheChooserOfTheOne to choose the king]] was stolen]] the other members of the royal family vote on who gets the throne. If the protagonists can [[spoiler:find the sword in time, and it does indeed choose the younger brother]], then the rebellion will have morality ''and'' legality on its side.

** In ''Literature/WyrdSisters'', Tomjon, the true heir to the throne of Lancre, has no interest in becoming king and wants to continue his acting career. The witches put Verence up as an alternative, claiming that he is Tomjon's half-brother, which is true. They see no need to point out that their shared father wasn't the previous king but his Fool -- the Queen got lonely while the king was fooling around with the peasant girls.

* In ''Literature/DragonBones'', high king Jakoven is the legitimate heir to the throne. He is also a huge jerk who doesn't protect the five kingdoms under him, whose rulers have been demoted to nobles. His bastard half-brother, Alizon, is shown to be both a nicer person and a competent military leader, who cleverly abdicated all political positions when Jakoven became king. This is what saved him from sharing the fate of Jakoven's brother Kellen, who has been imprisoned as to not get in the way.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ShrekTheThird'' [[KilledOffForReal King Harold dies]], meaning that [[TomboyPrincess Fiona]], and by extension [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Shrek]], are rightful heirs to the throne. Neither really wants this position, especially Shrek, so he goes on a quest to find Fiona's teenage cousin, [[KingArthur Arthur]].

** In the sequel series ''Literature/TheNikolaiDuology'' [[spoiler:Nikolai proves to be a pretty good king, improving the lives of the small folk, modernising the military and keeping the country together despite the instability caused by the previous king. In case of RealityEnsues, however, people immediately start using the rumors that he's a bastard to try and replace him with a Lantsov cousin, and when they find good enough proof (his mother decides to testify) he realizes he can't overcome the issue. Instead he abdicates and convinces the Ravkan nobles to ''elect'' a new monarch, just as they elected the first Lantsov--essentially legitimizing the wrongful heir process, but taking himself off the board.]]

%%* The movie ''Film/{{Dave}}'', where the lookalike is better at the job than the real deal.

* In the first film, Film/{{Thor}} initially isn't ready to be king of Asgard because he's an immature, impulsive prat. By the [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld second film]], he's gained the maturity and wisdom required to be king [[spoiler: but has matured enough to realize that he doesn't have the necessary ruthlessness, and voluntarily gives up his claim to the throne. He'd much rather be facing evil, protecting the innocent, and fighting the good fight than sacrificing others and having them die for him, however necessary it might be.]]

** In the sequel series ''Literature/TheNikolaiDuology'' [[spoiler:Nikolai proves to be a pretty good king, improving the lives of the small folk, modernising the military and keeping the country together despite the instability caused by the previous king.]]

* ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'' [[TheChessmaster Reinhard]] [[YoungConqueror von Lohengramm]] deposes the last Kaiser of the Goldenbaum dynasty, an 8-month old baby.

* ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' the First Prince of the Federated Suns became Caleb Davion after he killed his father Harrison Davion when informed that his cousin Julian Davion would be named the rightful heir. Caleb promptly made a series of increasingly bad military choices that has led to the Federated Suns being in more danger of being conquered by its enemies than it ever has been before, and then was killed fighting the Draconis Combine. Julian is now returning to take the crown himself and presumably attempt a BigDamnHeroes moment.

** In [[VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn Radiant Dawn]], after spending the first chapter getting the "legitimate" heir on the throne of Daein ([[spoiler:Pelleas]]), he turns out to be a kindhearted person... but very, ''very'' unfit for reigning, plus easily manipulated for the purpose of creating a world war. [[spoiler:But in a subversion, Pelleas ''isn't'' really the real heir in the end, and the "legitimate" heir (Soren) never finds out. After Pelleas either reveals that he's not the legitimate heir or is tragically killed, depending on the path the player takes through the story, Daein winds up being run by the person who was actually the legitimate heir of the ''neighboring'' country of Begnion, Micaiah; she did find out the truth, but her ChildProdigy little sister Sanaki had been running the place pretty well, and she considered Daein her home more than Begnion. And if Pelleas is alive, he's said to [[AbdicateTheThrone have willingly left the throne to Micaiah]] to become one of her advisors, [[EarnyourHappyEnding a "work" that fits him much better than actually being the King]].]]
* It's implied that this trope is the reason [[spoiler:Princess Camilla]] [[AbdicateTheThrone abdicated her claim to the throne]] in the ''Birthright'' route of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'': she believed herself to be this compared to [[spoiler: her TeenGenius younger brother, Prince (now King) Leo, since their older brother Xander is now dead.]]

* The reign of UsefulNotes/LouisXIV over France was described by {{UsefulNotes/Voltaire}} as an "eternally memorable age" for the heights of influence and power France acquired during Louis's time on the throne. However, Louis's heir, the Louis le Grand Dauphin (the French crown prince) lacked his father's drive and intelligence. The Dauphin was a KindheartedSimpleton who rarely participated in affairs of state and was said to be able to pass a whole day just siting idly in a chair. The king had nothing but contempt for his son, and it was said that the worst way to politically harm someone was for the Dauphin to commend him to the king. The Dauphin died of smallpox before taking the throne, and when the king died he was replaced by his great-grandson UsefulNotes/LouisXV, who proved to be just as wrongful an heir as the Dauphin ever could.

** In the ''Literature/BardicVoices'' series, Kestrel was the rightful king of Birnam after his uncle deposed his father, and has been sending assassins after the poor kid ever since despite the fact that he was suffering from IdentityAmnesia thanks to a severe fever he caught while fleeing. It turned out that the father was taxing the people heavily and wasting it on personal luxuries while the uncle was ruling the kingdom wisely, and had been a neglectful father at best on top of that, and once Kestrel found out was actually going on he couldn't AbdicateTheThrone fast enough. [[CouldHaveAvoidedAllThisPlot And likely would have at the very beginning of the palace coup if his uncle had bothered to ask]], for that matter.

* The reign of UsefulNotes/LouisXIV over France was described by {{UsefulNotes/Voltaire}} as an "eternally memorable age" for the heights of influence and power France acquired during Louis's time on the throne. However, Louis's heir, the Louis le Grand Dauphin (the French crown prince) lacked his father's drive and intelligence. The Dauphin was a KindheartedSimpleton who rarely participated in affairs of state and was said to be able to pass a whole day just siting idly in a chair. The king had nothing but contempt for his son, and the Dauphin died of smallpox before taking the throne. When the king died roughly four years later, he was replaced by his great-grandson UsefulNotes/LouisXV, who proved to be just as wrongful an heir as the Dauphin ever could.