Basic Trope: Commoners are allowed easy access to royalty.
- Straight: Alice, though a commoner, walks up to King Bob the Nth in his palace without any trouble.
- Exaggerated: Alice makes a not-so-subtle entrance into the palace, makes out with the crown prince, and talks boisterously to the king, and nobody says anything.
- Downplayed: If you call ahead, the king will probably be able to pencil you in for tomorrow.
- Justified:
- It's a festival or special occasion where barriers between commoners and royalty are relaxed.
- Alice is a war veteran and fought by the king's side, where they became good friends.
- Alice is a wealthy merchant who bribed her way in.
- King Bob wants to be seen as a man of the people, so he lets commoners speak freely to him.
- Alice is a peasant who leases from a royal estate. King Bob sees her enough to be familiar with her.
- Alice is the king's servant.
- King Bob is a Barbarian Hero who started as a clan chieftain. Maintaining informality is a necessary part of keeping his warriors' loyalty.
- King Bob had to earn his crown, and Alice has known him since he was just Bob.
- It's an emergency: Alice's hometown got razed by the neighboring kingdom, and she's one of a handful of survivors who got just enough warning to flee.
- Inverted:
- Access to royalty is so tightly controlled that Alice doesn't even know the king's real name or what he looks like.
- The king randomly shows up at Alice's house.
- Despite being a commoner, Alice keeps such strict security that not even the king can just visit her anytime.
- Subverted:
- Alice goes up to King Bob as if it's seemingly normal, until the king orders his guards to drag her to the dungeons for insubordination.
- While at first it seems Alice was talking to royalty, it quickly turns out that he is "King" by praenomen, not title.
- or by surname. note
- Double Subverted: …where King Bob meets them again, revealing the entire thing to be a prank on his Platonic Life Partner Alice.
- Parodied: Commoner Alice has her own room and servants at the palace for no reason at all.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice talks to King Bob as if it's normal in one episode, but in another episode she has to wait nearly two weeks before her request for an audience is granted.
- King Bob is only willing to meet with some commoners; others have to go through various extra procedures, unless they have information that their ruler simply must hear immediately…
- Averted:
- Alice never goes to the palace or sees the king outside normal circumstances.
- Alice has to wait for an audience as normal.
- Alice doesn't even live in a monarchy at all.
- Enforced: Alice is the protagonist of an RPG, and the programmers didn't want to force the player to jump through all sorts of hoops just to meet the King and get the opportunity to go on the quests he assigns.
- Lampshaded: "Is she allowed to just waltz up to the king like that?"
- Invoked: To show the idiot king just how bad of a job he's doing, The Good Chancellor convinces the king to relax his security for a short period of time to allow his subjects the time to express their dissatisfaction.
- Exploited: Alice casually waltzes into the throne room, since she's allowed to, and stabs King Bob.
- Defied:
- "Talk to the king about it? Are you nuts? They'd never let some common schmuck like me into the palace!"
- King Bob wants to do this, but his advisors tell him it's a security risk.
- Discussed: "How did I just go up to the king like that? I paid off the guards, that's how."
- Conversed: "So, why did they let that guy just stroll on up to the king again?"
- Implied: Alice casually mentions the king in conversation. "Great guy. Sucks at darts, though."
- Deconstructed: Though warned against such lax policy, King Bob doesn't believe that any 'lowly commoners' could seriously threaten him. This attitude comes back to haunt him when an assassin disguised as a common farmer comes in to speak with him.
- Reconstructed: King Bob beats the would-be assassin to a bloody pulp.
- Played for Laughs: Alice and Bob tell gut-bustingly hilarious jokes during their chat.
Back to What's Up, King Dude?
