Awesome Moment of Crowning

"Now come the days of the king!
May they be blessed."

"Therefore I am sure that this, my coronation, is not a symbol of a power and splendor which are gone, but a declaration of our hopes for the future and the years, and for the years that I may, by God's grace and mercy, be given to reign and serve you as your Queen."

— Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

This is when, at the end (usually) of the story, the main character or characters are crowned The Leader of the land they just saved. Reasons can vary:

• The hero is part of the royal line, so this is done when the Rightful King Returns.
• There was an Ancient Tradition.
• The hero(es) defeated the old ruler(s), so You Kill It, You Bought It.
• It's part of the Standard Hero Reward.
• Their new king is always Offered the Crown.
• He retrieved the legendary Royal MacGuffin of Royalty. Finders Rulers, nyeah nyeah!

Sometimes, it doubles as a coronation wedding with a Prince / Princess or the hero's Love Interest, guaranteeing a Happily Ever After of Happily Married conjugal bliss.

Compare Knighting. Contrast Cincinnatus.

The title is derived from "Crowning Moment of Awesome" (and they are very likely to intertwine), the former name of Moment of Awesome.

Considering that this is an Ending Trope, once again, beware the spoilers!

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Examples:

• Anime & Manga
• Animated Film
• Film
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Web Comics
• Western Animation
• Real Life

Arts

• North America: Portrait of a Continent: A crown floats over Triple Divide Peak in Montana in reference to both Glacier National Park's nickname as "the crown of the continent" and the mountain's status as the hydrological apex of North America.
• Peter Paul Rubens' stylized depiction of Marie being crowned Queen Regent in The Coronation in Saint-Denis, part of the Marie de' Medici Cycle. Various members of the court attend, the cardinals are decked in striking red, and the goddesses Abundantia and Victoria shower Marie with coins for prosperity.

Comic Books

• Bone: Thorn, taking her rightful place after the royal family had previously been exiled by a war and the kingdom usurped. Oddly enough, the usurper never had to be dealt with, having died at the beginning of the climactic battle.
• Final Crisis has the Nightmare Fuel-laden scene where Dan Turpin, strapped to an operating table, finally gives up and allows the God of Evil possessing him full reign.
• Ghostopolis has Claire becoming the new ruler of the afterlife (or rather, the interim version of the afterlife that comes between Earth and Heaven).
• JLA/Avengers has Hawkeye (with help from The Flash) save the day. Because of that, Hawkeye gets inducted as a member of the Justice League. Yes, Hawkeye is the only Marvel character to be made a member of DC's premier superhero team.

Fan Works

• An Astral Drop in Heatherfield appears to subvert this in the first attempt to crown Elyon ( It is a trap by Phobos being sprung by an imposter) but it is later played straight.
• An Empire of Ice and Fire has Daenerys and Jon be crowned Empress and Emperor of the Targaryen Empire in Chapter 41.
• The Moonstone Cup: The awards banquet and the build-up to it, where the winners of the Cup are recognized and awarded their medals, culminating in the Cup itself being manifested out of thin air for the winner.
• Perfect Mind, a Chrono Crusade Alternate Universe fic, ends with Chrono and Rosette becoming the new rulers of the demons.
• Memoirs of a Master has a wuxia version when Shifu and his companions, after an adventure that they had to sneak away from Master Oogway for, accept that they could live without becoming masters. At that very moment, Oogway shows and says that because of their self-sacrificing heroism, it's time that they receive their Master titles and dubs them right there and then.
• "Kim Possible: The Next Generation" opens with Kim Possible an ensign on the Enterprise-D (Star Trek: The Next Generation). In the course of the fic she is promoted to lieutenant, demoted back to ensign due to political pressure, and promoted all the way to the youngest lieutenant commander in the fleet after she and Ron save Earth from a devastating attack by Lore. The subsequent epilogue sees Kim promoted to become captain of the Enterprise-E fifteen years later, having served as Picard's first officer for the last few years after Riker received his own command.
• Fist of the Moon: There's one of the mid-story variety, where Usagi ascends from Moon Princess to full Moon Queen in a pillar of light and power. The accidental collateral effects include purifying an enemy that would usually have required use of the crystal, and imbuing another character with powers of their own.
• King of Kings, Ruling over Rulers: Harry's coronation. The ceremonial procession involved having several cavalry squadrons following him as he ascended the Imperial District before entering the Palace of Ceremonies to be crowned as the Emperor of the Romans and also as the Russian Emperor.
• A New World: After defeating the Lunarian assassin who killed the previous Great Tengu, Momiji is declared the new Great Tengu by right of conquest. Moments later, Kanako, observing the Lunarian attack destroyed most of human civilization, including the royal line, declares Momiji, as ruler of the mightiest country standing, the new Shogun of Japan.
• Shadow and Rose has three of these — the crowning of Orzammar's new king, the crowning of Ferelden's king, and the post-wedding crowning of Ferelden's queen-consort.
• Wearing Robert's Crown: This takes place directly at the _start_ of the fic although not literally since Drakebert becoming King is centered upon the throne not the crown. In canon it would have been all downhill from here. In this story, not so much.
• Fairy Without Wings brings us Erza Scarlet, Fairy Tail's Sixth Guild Master.
• While it involves no actual crown, one of the last chapters of A Man of Iron features Ned Stark being declared King in the North, to much celebration both in and out of universe.
• In Handmaid, Anne Boleyn is crowned Princess Consort after giving birth to Edmund. Since she's technically joining the king and queen, the ceremony's not quite as elaborate as it would be for a monarch, but Anne's fine with that, since the end goal was always staying by Katherine of Aragon's side.
• Chapter 35 of A Dragon's Roar sees Prince Daeron being crowned King of Westeros by his faction in defiance of Rhaegar and an open declaration of the Civil War that had broken out between the brothers.
• Chasing Dragons: The final scene of the story is Stannis' son Lyonel being officially crowned as King of Westeros, in a grand ceremony in the Great Sept of Baelor wherein his closest loyalists each anoint him with various articles of authority before a cheering crowd.
• In the Fire Emblem: Three Houses fanfic Heart of Flesh, a defeated Edelgard relinquishes her crown as Emperor of Adrestia to Byleth, as she had intended to do had she won the war against the Church of Seiros. She does this in front of Count Bergliez, who is being led on a Hopeless War by Regent Lord Arundel, to show that her decision to abdicate was her own choice and not a result of being coerced by the church.

Music

• "Crowning of the King" by Blackmore's Night is all about this.
• iamamiwhoami's video "t" features the Mandragora receiving a crown and scepter made of aluminum foil.
• George Frederic Handel was commissioned to write a set of choral anthems for the coronation of George II in 1727, at least one of which, "Zadok the Priest", was considered so awesome that it has been used at the coronation of every British monarch since.

Myths & Religion

• There's an allusion to one in the Song of Songs, from Song 3:11.
  Go forth, O daughters of Zion,
  and see King Solomon with the crown
  with which his mother crowned him
  on the day of his wedding,
  on the day of the gladness of his heart.
• In The Bible, Joseph's ascension from a slave, to a prisoner, to Pharaoh's Number Two. The Pharaoh who put him in charge makes it clear that the only thing that differs between them is that Pharaoh is sitting on the throne; otherwise, Joseph has supreme authority over Egypt to do as he sees fit.
  "You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you." So Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt." Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his finger and put it on Joseph's finger. He dressed him in robes of fine linen and put a gold chain around his neck. He had him ride in a chariot as his second-in-command, and people shouted before him, "Make way!" Thus he put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I am Pharaoh, but without your word no-one will lift hand or foot in all Egypt."

Pro Wrestling

• In the territorial era wrestlers would compete for the crown of South Texas. In 1971 Sylvester Stallone himself crowned of Sue Green after she defeated Joyce Grable, though this was well before any of the Rocky movies so his celebrity wasn't significant part of the draw.
• This is the traditional ending to WWE's "annual" King of the Ring tournament. Of course, this being wrestling and all, they're not really being crowned king of anything, but simply being honored in a faux-coronation ceremony for winning the tourney. This doesn't stop most of the Heel winners from snapping and starting to behave as if they actually were the king of something.
  • Notable "Kings of the Ring" who really ran with it include Harley Race, Randy Savage, Owen Hart and Booker T.
  • This generally involves feuding with Jerry "The King" Lawler, who had used the gimmick in Memphis for decades previous to his entrance in WWE/F.

Sports

• Many sporting events have something similar to this for its winner. The event would be styled as 'King of the X' or something with 'Royal' in it. Often the winner ends up with a cape, crown, and throne for promotional photos.
• The Olympic medal ceremony. All of them. Ever. Unless you're Michael Phelps. Phelps got a lot of flack in the international press for being disrespectful during some of his medal ceremonies. The footage of him stretching his legs on the gold medal podium ticked off a lot of people.
  • Well, if you were wearing all eight gold medals while waiting for the National Anthem to be finished, you'd be stretching your legs too.
    • Also, he had another swim coming up in a half hour or so and so he needed to loosen his muscles so he wouldn't risk cramping up.
  • There was also the famous event of the gold and bronze winners (Tommie Smith & John Carlos) of the 1968 200 m relay doing the Black Power salute at the medal ceremony. That was considered far more shocking than Phelps' leg stretch.
  • And then there was Shaun White, who played air guitar during the medal ceremony at the 2010 Olympics.
• Averted at the 1995 EuroBasket tournament, when Croatia (who won bronze) abandoned the medal stage and walked out when Yugoslavia stepped up for their gold medals. Croatia was still bitter over the Croatian War of Independence and an incident in 1990 by Serbian player Vlade Divac.
• The winner of golf's Masters Tournament getting the famous green jacket put on them by the previous year's winner.

Tabletop Games

• Chess: A pawn gains a crown, along with significant power, upon promoting to a queen.

Theatre

• The climax of the prologue of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov is the coronation of Tsar Boris Feodorovich, with tolling bells building up to an awesome triumphal chorus.
• In Cesare - Il Creatore che ha distrutto, Giovanni de'Medici becomes a cardinal — a prince of the church — and gets a version of this when his teacher gives him his red hat after he passes questioning.
• Set up and then subverted drastically in King Charles III. After months of being badgered to Abdicate the Throne for various reasons and by various parties, Prince Charles finally agrees to step aside and allow William & Kate to take up the mantle of King and Queen. But Charles hijacks the coronation by snatching the crown from the Bishop's hands and delivering some scathing commentary. He ultimately places it on Prince William's head, but it's clear that no-one is happy about how the coronation is turning out.
• In Pippin, Pippin gets crowned king after killing his father, but the crown turns out to be one size bigger than his head.

Web Original

• The Fire Never Dies: While it's an inauguration of an elected head of state rather than a coronation of a monarch, the inauguration of Eugene Debs as Premier of the American Socialist Union fits this, especially as it marks the conclusion of the first book.
• Life in a Game has one, when Subplott finally regains his throne.
• In Ten Little Roosters, Ryan Haywood dons a crown as he becomes the Sole Survivor of the Murder Plot of the series. Doubles as his "Mad King" persona from Let's Play Minecraft.
  • He does it again, at least in Ink-Suit Actor style, in X-Ray & Vav when his character escapes from the asylum.
• WitchCraft SMP: The new Supreme Witch is crowned by their predecessor after becoming the Sole Survivor in a Deadly Game against all of their fellow competitors.

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