- Age of Fire: The Imperial Line of the Lavadome is very messed up. Tighila kills her own son and frames and exiles her mate's later chosen heirs, before eventually killing him too, all so that her brother SiDrakkon can become Tyr. When he does, he takes Infamina, his great-niece, as his mate, and ends up nearly bringing the Lavadome to civil war due to his refusal to do anything that doesn't satisfy his hedonism. This lasts until Infamina's brother SiMevolant assassinates him, takes Infamina as his own mate (and it's implied they were already having an affair), and proceeds to play The Quisling to the Wrymmaster's forces, letting them take over the Lavadome, which causes RuGaard (an adopted member of the Imperial Line) to lead a rebellion to take SiMevolant down, becoming Tyr himself afterwards.
- Present in David Eddings' The Belgariad, in the form of the royal line of Cthol Murgos, the Urgas family, with its hereditary insanity. In sequel series The Mallorean, the eventual successor to the throne is more or less sane, which makes sense, given that he's not actually the son of the crazy late king, but instead the product of a brief affair between one of the king's wives and a foreign diplomat. That's one effective way to get the crazy genes out of the royal line.
- Made even more effective by the traditional method of ensuring easy succession: whoever gets the throne has every other potential claimant assassinated. Legally. Maybe the Murgos have had problems like this before...
- Truth in Television — the early Ottoman Empire tried to cut down on wars of succession by having all male relatives of a newly crowned sultan put to death. Predictably this only increased the number of succession wars, as every potential claimant to the throne knew that upon the death of the old sultan he had to either win the crown or die. Urgit's quote of "It was either the throne or the block." in King of the Murgos is drawn straight from history.
- The various Tolnedran imperial dynasties tended towards this as well. Typically the first few emperors of a dynasty would be clever, competent men, but after several generations of inbreeding the line eventually devolved into rulers who were insane, imbeciles, or both. And then subverted by the Borunes, who by their contractual obligations have to marry Dryads. Introducing exogamy into the family line every generation must help. Of course, female members of the Borune family are Dryads also (and exclusively Dryads, there's no such thing as a female half-Dryad)...
- Made even more effective by the traditional method of ensuring easy succession: whoever gets the throne has every other potential claimant assassinated. Legally. Maybe the Murgos have had problems like this before...
- The Bible is chock full of lousy or downright ax crazy evil kings of Israel who choose to snub the God who saved their ancestors from Egypt, so much so that the good kings are the exception.
- And even the good kings still tend to be royally screwed up. Witness David, whose punishment for committing adultery with Bathsheba and having her husband killed was that his first son by her fell ill and died a week later, and the rest of the sons started killing each other for various reasons. David ultimately appoints Solomon as his successor, and even then the succession crisis doesn't end. Solomon was also messed up in his own right on account of his harem of foreign wives.
- From Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion books:
- The main curse of madness/misfortune/sterility/whatever would make things most difficult in The Curse of Chalion is particularly nasty, in that it automatically spreads to anyone who marries into the family, making it completely impossible to eradicate without, as it turns out, direct intervention from the gods. The unlucky king Orico tried to short-circuit it by getting his wife, Sara, pregnant by his chancellor, because any child of theirs would not be part of the cursed royal bloodline. It didn't work because Sara was barren and also the chancellor was evil and his brother was an evil whackjob, but one gets the impression it was a clingy curse that would have come down on whoever inherited the throne, as well anyone around them who could potentially have finagled a way out. Thus, it took a miracle in the end.
- And then there's that strange familial wolf-madness thing in The Hallowed Hunt, too. Revealed not to be madness, but an ancient shamanistic tradition that creates powerful animal spirits linked to certain rulers; the protagonist's dad just had the bad luck to pick a sacrificial animal that was rabid and bit him before it died, and the poor protagonist wound up convinced his own wolf-spirit would do the same to him.
- In P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath, the house of Knorth, from which the ruling Highlords come, has what appears to be an inherited tendency toward madness. Torisen, the current Highlord, is terrified of what lurks in his bloodlines, and of becoming like his father and grandfather. Inbreeding and deliberate breeding for Shanir (magical) traits is probably responsible.
- In A Day of Fallen Night, the story takes place after a particularly troubled century for the Berethnet dynasty of Inys. Because the royal family always consists of a woman who bears one daughter and no other child, and they are believed (in Virtudom, at least) to be the reason the Sealed Evil in a Can is sealed, nobody can rebel against them—but it means they don't have much choice in life either. Sabran V was crowned queen at three days old thanks to her mother's Death by Childbirth and grew up to be a horrific tyrant who justified all of her misdeeds by her claim to saviordom. She emotionally abused her daughter and grandaughter; the daughter was assassinated for her mother's crimes, and the granddaughter was so terrorized by both mom and granny that she was terrified of the crown and easily dominated. Sabran VI, the tyrant's great-granddaughter, had to dedicate her whole life to cleaning up the century of mess her forebears left and purposely treats her daughter Glorian coldly so she won't be weak. Later in the book, Glorian's grandmother posits that Sabran V was so cruel because she was deeply unhappy—having lost her mother and seen mainly for her ability to produce the next protector of Virtudom.
- Zigzagged throughout the Discworld novels.
- Historically, the rulers of Ankh-Morpork have tended to be raving psychopaths. This may have been somewhat genetic while the city was a monarchy and rulers' marriages were arranged to maintain the royal blood and survival tended to favor those homicidal enough to keep ahead of the Decadent Court. However, even after the kings were overthrown and replaced by the non-hereditary Patricians, the stress of the job and the absolute power that came with it turned pretty much everyone who held it some flavor of barking mad. The last two Patricians were known as "Mad Lord Snapcase" and "Homicidal Lord Winder". By a stroke of incredible good fortune the current Patrician, Lord Havelock Vetinari, is not only sane but an utter Magnificent Bastard and as insurance, the rightful heir to the line of kings is also hanging around the city, and he's also sane-ish, as he was raised by dwarfs (his adoptive father was in fact a king, but among dwarfs that job corresponds to "mine director" and appears to be elective, not hereditary).
- The old noble houses of Ankh-Morpork, from which the Patricians are usually chosen, certainly haven't done themselves any favors through repeated intermarriage but, as with the royal line, this is implied to have contributed less to their overall unpleasantness than the self-selection towards dimwitted murder-happy prats (because of the military service requirement) and the self-absorption encouraged by privilege.
- Interesting Times zigzags this with the Agatean Emperor. While his insanity is suggested to have a dash of genetic inbreeding behind it, the book hints (yet again) that intentionally breeding for paranoia and psychopathy, and then not telling the offspring why cruelty is bad, may have actually played a larger role than how closely related his parents were. Lord Hong, the real Big Bad, subverts the trope entirely by simply being a self-made Magnificent Bastard without any of Vetinari's redeeming scruples.
- Pyramids thankfully manages to avoid this, although it is specifically mentioned that the Big Bad had intended to wed the protagonist with his aunt in order to keep the royal line "pure".
- Played utterly straight when one book describes the lineage of kings in other Discworld city-states, and cites the last King of Quirm as having been so inbred he repeatedly tried to mate with himself.
- The Raiths in The Dresden Files, the royal family of the White Court of vampires. The White King rapes his female children into supernatural slavery and kills off his sons. His daughter Lara is a Magnificent Bastard who lives on the line between Sociopathic Hero and Friendly Enemy Anti-Villain. The only reason his son Thomas lived to adulthood is by playing the Upper-Class Twit card for everything it's worth. The only one who doesn't appear to be incredibly messed-up is Inari Raith, who never became a full-on succubus because she fell in love and Lara helped her get away.
- Dune:
- House Harkonnens are not really that screwed up from the start. It’s just that they had a beef with House Atreides a long time ago. It’s only when Vladimir Harkonnen came into the picture, things went worse. His nephews aren’t much better though one character commented that Feyd-Rautha might have become a great hero, if only someone who wasn’t such a monster had raised him.
- It also turns out that Paul and Alia Atreides are Harkonnens too, thanks to their mother who is Vladimir’s biological daughter. Paul is not much of a monster like his grandpa as most of his detractors think; it’s just that he fell in a prescient trap and couldn’t control things such as his rabid followers. His sister is indeed messed up because her mother consumed spice and inherited Genetic Memory of the past Reverend Mothers and all of their ancestors while pregnant. Because of this, she’s called as an Abomination by the Bene Gesserit and they had a good reason to call her that most especially when she got possessed by her evil grandpa in Children of Dune.
- In any case, Bene Gesserit’s plan to control the genes of several noble houses has something to do with this trope. In the past, they made tons of effort to create the Kwisatz Haderach but it produced a lot of failures (e.g. Count Hasimir Fenring). They nearly got it right this time except this Kwisatz Haderach came too early and they ended up paying the price when he became Emperor and unleashed his fanatics throughout the universe.
- Everworld provides a variant: due to the royal tradition of Brother–Sister Incest, the last twelve Pharaohs of Everworld Egypt have all been mentally disabled and unable to rule in anything but name. This, coupled with the fact that the Egyptian gods are basically so obsessed with ritual that they've become willingly comatose, made the country weak and unstable enough for the Amazons to take over.
- The Kingdom of Delain, in The Eyes of The Dragon by Stephen King, suffers from this problem every now and again. Particular mention is made of Mad King Alain, who was truly a raving and unstable lunatic but did his people the favor of dying quickly — he decided to go outside and play games on the lawn during a raging thunderstorm (lunatic, remember?) and got struck by lightning.
- Though not quite royalty, the Usher family in Edgar Allan Poe 's Fall of the House of Usher fits. An illness that causes madness runs in the family, and it's implied to be due to inbreeding.
- A Frozen Heart is a Perspective Flip retelling of Frozen (2013), which expands on Hans, a major character from the movie, and what his family situation looks like. His father, the King of the Southern Isles, is a Social Darwinist tyrant who encourages his sons to torment each other and brutally suppresses any opposition to his regime. Because of the king's domineering nature, the Westergaard clan ends up miserable as his 13 sons don't get along with each other, the royal family develops serious mental health issues, and Hans ends up in major trouble in what was supposed to be a diplomatic trip to Arendelle.
- The Civil Government of the planet Bellevue in The General Series qualifies as both the current governor and his acknowledged heir are borderline clinical paranoids, and becoming less borderline all the time...
- Though, considering the political climate in the Gubierno Civil, the line between clinical paranoia and sane, reasonable social caution is slim indeed. The only reasons the POV character isn't a threat to the throne are his incorruptible idealism and his sure knowledge of the disaster that will ensue if he tries to take the throne for himself. Also, while the Cleretts my or my not be insane, they are also competent, if perhaps not excellent, political and military leaders.
- A better example would be Settler Ali ibn'Jamal of the Colony, who is just an old-school psychopath.
- The first two of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books are, among other things, a long examination of this trope — the Groan lineage and their staff are a bunch of depressed lunatics, their spirits both crushed and perversely sustained by the castle and its ancient, messed-up rituals. They are a sympathetic bunch though — the melancholy and bookish Lord Sepulchrave and his unloved, cloudcuckoolander daughter Fuchsia must surely be among the most tragic literary woobies of the last century.
- In Teresa Edgerton's The Grail and the Ring, it is revealed that Mochdreff has been politically unstable for centuries largely due to the land having been cursed due to the sins of its last ruling prince. He committed an action so terrible that every single member of his family changed their names and refused to take up the sovereignty — although only people like Dame Ceinwen remember even that much of the story, and nobody remembers the specifics. Ever since, there have been Lords of Mochdreff rather than rulers styling themselves princes, until finally, due to the lack of a clear heir to the previous Lord, Prince Tryffin was appointed Royal Governor and took it upon himself to try to clean up the matter once and for all by getting to the bottom of the curse.
- Harry Potter:
- The pureblooded Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has produced a few crazy members, although they're more known for being blood supremacists. They did have a tradition of chopping off the heads of house elves who were too weak to carry a tray, though. The only one who is definitely confirmed to be crazy is Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black), whose status as a Love Martyr for Voldemort is legendary. Her cousin Sirius Black is also mentioned to have gone mad for some time, not from genetics but from his friends' deaths and his own wrongful imprisonment for their betrayal. By the time we meet him, though, he's become Too Broken to Break and subsequently grown Bored with Insanity.
- The Gaunts are even more messed up and inbred than most purebloods, since Dumbledore mentions that they were the only remaining descendants of Salazar Slytherin and Marvolo was obsessed with the inferiority of other families. Ironically, the worst member of the family is conceived when they finally manage to get some new blood: Lord Voldemort, the son of Merope Gaunt and a Muggle.
- Most pureblood wizarding families (with a few exceptions, like the Weasleys, who aren't hostile to mixed or Muggle-born in-laws) have gone this direction in recent decades, as the limited gene pool means they're all increasingly interrelated. Arthur Weasley says at one point that purebloods by the current definition will probably die out within a couple generations, as so many of them are already first cousins and within the incest taboo. Ironically, the Death Eaters probably managed to hasten this extinction quite a bit since many purebloods died in the fighting or were consigned to Azkaban afterwards.
- Interestingly, the Malfoys are somewhat less genetically screwed up than the typical pureblood family since supplemental material reveals they have no issue with letting a wizard/witch with one non-magical parent marry into their family if a sufficiently distantly related Pureblood isn't available.
- Averted in the Heralds of Valdemar series, in part because Valdemaran law forbids a monarch (or, presumably, heir) from marrying anyone within two degrees of kinship. And the newly-crowned Selenay plays it to the hilt to keep her councilors from forcing her into marriage, too. The requirement that all monarchs must be Heralds is also very important — there's nothing saying a Herald can't be a bit nuts (Hi, Lavan and Vanyel!), but at least it's the type of nuts that doesn't result in the abuses seen on the rest of this page.
- Averted in the Honor Harrington series with the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Aside from being a constitutional monarchy, which limits the potential damage, Manticoran monarchs and heirs apparent are specifically prohibited from marrying members of the aristocracy. Aside from the "keeping in touch with the common folk" goal, it also removes the problems of inbreeding.
- He swiped this from E. E. "Doc" Smith's Family d'Alembert series; under the Stanley Doctrine, nobility could marry commoners, but royalty was required to marry a commoner. While this helped, this was not totally successful in keeping loonies from the Imperial Throne (granted, the case of Empress "Mad Stephanie" could have been situational rather than genetic.)
- In the case of the Stanley Dynasty, it may be as much cultural as genetic. At one point the competent, sane, and decent Emperor William (who is definitely an exception to the run of his ancestors) makes a joke about his and his wife's decision to abdicate at his age 70, so their daughter Edna "won't have to kill us." Edna is horrified by the joke, but her father points out that if he'd been more grasping and determined to hang on to power forever, decent Edna might have turned out different too, because, as he notes, 'like begets like'.
- The author even points out that if the Monarch is really bonkers, Impeachment is in the Constitution, with Parliament choosing the new Monarch from any person in the Kingdom.
- And before being added to the official line of succession, the Monarch's offspring have to pass a psychological and intelligence evaluation.
- The Andermani Emperors on the other hand are competent but sometimes strange: the first emperor thought he was a reincarnation of Friedrich der Grosse (Frederick the Great of Prussia). Another was dethroned when he not only talked to his prize rose bush but also tried to make it chancellor.
- And he was deposed by his own sister, who, while generally considered the best Andermani Emperor ever, had to legally declare herself a man, due to their Salic Law succession. May not have been the best decision for her own mental state.
- It's hinted the reason why they are so successful is that the insanity and the genius go together. After all founding a New Prussian Empire on a Chinese colony world and making it into a regional power does sound pretty nuts. The first Emperor was a rich space pirate who saved the colony from starvation.
- Actually, while she's generally sane, Queen Elizabeth III does have her own set of issues. Her temper, for instance, is usually described as "volcanic".
- He swiped this from E. E. "Doc" Smith's Family d'Alembert series; under the Stanley Doctrine, nobility could marry commoners, but royalty was required to marry a commoner. While this helped, this was not totally successful in keeping loonies from the Imperial Throne (granted, the case of Empress "Mad Stephanie" could have been situational rather than genetic.)
- The Hurog family tends to sadism and jerkishness in the male line. More precisely, everyone who lives in castle Hurog is affected in some way, some suffer inexplicable psychological issues, others are suicidal. The fact that the castle was built by an Evil Sorcerer, who turned his bastard son into the child in Powered by a Forsaken Child, by turning him into a kind of Genius Loci that is enslaved, and compelled to serve the head of the family, is probably responsible for that — not so much the genes, as the fact that all heirs of the title live in this castle. Evil is not good for your sanity, and owning a slave whose very soul is bound to obey tends to weaken the moral backbone of those who didn't have much decency to begin with. Oreg, the above-mentioned slave, wrote a curse/prophesy on the wall some couples of centuries ago, but that, if at all, only contributed to the paranoia, as he did is as reaction to something very cruel his then master did.
- In the Inheritance Cycle, there once was a King by the name of Palancar who tried to wage war numerous times with the Elves, even though every invasion was a hopeless crusade (In-Universe, a historian indicates Palancar was in the early stages of dementia by that point). Eventually his nobles rebelled against him to end the madness and had him exiled into a valley that later inherited his name. The protagonist and his cousin, and the village they grew up in, descended from Palancar.
- Played with in The Kingdom of Little Wounds. Everything that would normally be attributed to Royal Inbreeding or a Hereditary Curse is actually caused by an epidemic.
- The Lunar Chronicles: The Lunar Royal Family has produced an entire line of these. Queen Channary was a blood thirsty tyrant who cared more about her various 'romances' and balls than actual governing and had her seamstresses feet chopped off so she had nothing better to do than make dresses. Levana wasn't any better, using her Lunar gift to force a man to marry her, imposing curfews on the population 'for their own good' and trying to take over Earth. In Fairest it's implied her madness is because of Channary using her Luna Gift on Levana when the latter was still a child. Even Levana's step daughter, Princess Winter didn't escape this fate being Ophelia like in her madness, caused by purposefully suppressing her Lunar Gift.
- The Argaven kings of Karhide in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness are described as congenitally mad. This seems to be accepted as part of the nature of kings on Gethen.
- In Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy, the king of South Ulfland's single son, Prince Quilcy, is feeble-minded and spends his days playing with fanciful doll-houses.
- Royal family of trolls in Malediction Trilogy, mostly because of 500 years of inbreeding. The father, king Thibault, is morbidly obese, the queen is conjoined with her sister, the younger son Roland is beautiful but stark raving mad. Only prince Tristan seems to be normal — but he is seriously considering murdering his father and brother for the higher good.
- The Iselin family in The Manchurian Candidate. The novel alludes pretty frankly to incest between Eleanor and her father Tyler, and relates with equal candor at least one instance of same between Eleanor and her son Raymond. While he's under mind control, no less. All three are driven, passionate patriots working at high levels of office — Tyler was a diplomat, Eleanor is a Senator and Raymond is a Representative running for Vice President. Over the course of his campaign, it is revealed that his mother has been involved for many years in a conspiracy which began with the Congressional Medal of Honor and ends with an assassination attempt on the president-elect and, ultimately, the deaths of both Raymond and Eleanor.
- A rather desperate attempt to prevent this touched off the entire plot of A.L. Phillips's The Quest of the Unaligned. The royal house of the realm of Caederan, instead of being tied to one of the four elemental magics, are tied to all of them as the result of an ancient magical bargain binding the King and Queen to Caederan itself. Unfortunately, this means that if the King and Queen favor one element over the others, this will throw the land itself out of whack. A few decades before the story started, King Kethel and Queen Tathilya became increasingly infatuated with the power of air, which also had the side effect of causing them to become increasingly flighty and absent-minded. As the Balance fell further and further towards wind, the country was wracked by droughts, tornadoes, cyclones, and other catastrophes. When Queen Tathilya became pregnant, the nobles realized that if the new prince was raised in the royal court, he to would become infatuated with air magic. The nobles launched a desperate bid to separate Prince Alaric from the ruahk-controlled Court, and thus begins the plot.
- Redwall's Marlfoxes. The mother Silth is a raving maniac, her youngest is a sneak who deliberately feeds her mother's paranoia in order to weasel (or fox?) her way into power, and the oldest six offspring are just plain nasty to various degrees.
- King Rodric IV in The Riftwar Cycle. Hated and abused by his father for being a sickly runt, he proved to be as sick in mind as he was in body. Apart from using openly about how his power would allow him to randomly pick out random people and have them executed for no reason other than he wished to see them die, he squandred much of the tax revenues of The Kingdom Of The Isles on a series of aesthetic public works programs designed merely to make the city of Rillanon look prettier. Worse still, he denied vital military aid to the Western half of his Kingdom, fearing that the soldiers would be used to build an army against him, which helped to drag the first Riftwar out for the better part of a decade.
- In The Silmarillion, the first king of the Noldor, Finwë, is a good man, but after his death, the crown goes to his eldest son Fëanor, who was very paranoid before, and became completely crazy (if still very charismatic) when his father was murdered. Once Fëanor is also dead, his son Maedhros should become king... but he averts this trope: knowing how dangerous the Oath he and his brothers have sworn is, he abdicates and lets his uncle rule. It's a wise move: the sons of Fëanor do commit some horrendous acts, and the two eldest eventually become insane, but at least they only rule a fraction of the Noldor.
- The royal family of Númenor also develop into this, as they become more and more jealous of the Elves for their long life, and determined to find a way to live forever. This culminates in the last ruler of Númenor basically declaring war on God and losing horribly. Ar-Pharazôn wasn't even the rightful King, having usurped the throne by forcing his cousin, the rightful ruler, to marry him.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- The page quote comes from the so-called "Targaryen madness". The royal Targaryen line is said to be blessed with greatness as much as it is cursed with madness, in part due to centuries of inbreeding to keep the "Blood of Old Valyria" pure. It started with the first Targaryen king, Aegon I, who was a great man but unfortunately married and had children with both of his sisters (a family tradition); from there on out it's been a crapshoot. The line has produced many able warriors, statesmen, and scholars as well as a rogue's gallery of tyrants and psychopaths. Some Targaryens begin quite noble and lose their grip on sanity as they age, such as King Aerys II — by the end of his reign, he was known as King Aerys the Mad, and in the end, his excesses sparked a revolt that toppled the dynasty. Daenerys, the only POV character with Targaryen blood (so far as we know), seems more sound of mind than her relatives, but is a bit delusional and idealistic, and would do well to take the advice of those around her. The books give us only one normal Targaryen — Maester Aemon, as even the much liked Rhaegar was bipolar and had delusions of grandeur. Or possibly two, if the theory that Jon Snow is a Targaryen is true.
- Though if you look at history, the Targaryen madness is rather overrated.
• Aegon I — Perfectly normal,
• his son Aenys I — Fairly normal, if a bit indecisive,
• his half-brother Maegor I — Psychopath and mass murderer,
• his nephew Jaehaerys I — Most beloved King in Westerosi history,
• his grandson Viserys I — Aside from not clearing up his line of succession, quite normal,
• his son Aegon II — Paranoid —although for good reason— but lustful, unpleasant, and vengeful,
• his nephew Aegon III — Depression and self-image issues not stemming from genetics, but from PTSD over his Trauma Conga Line of a childhood (most notably watching his mother get eaten by a dragon)
• his son Daeron I — Something of a Blood Knight but not actually crazy,
• his brother Baelor I — Religious fanatic but nonetheless loved,
• his uncle Viserys II — Kept his nephews from imploding the realm during their reigns, but died before he could finish the job as king himself,
• his son Aegon IV — Quite possibly the worst king Westeros ever had, but more due to his corruption, hedonism, and general lack of impulse control than mental illness
• his son Daeron II — Second-best king Westeros ever had,
• his son Aerys I — Obsessed with books to the exclusion of all else, including having children,
• his brother Maekar I — As stern, harsh, and unyielding as his great-great-grandson Stannis and even more unpopular but again not crazy,
• his son Aegon V — Sane aside from maybe the Summerhall incident and well-known for his kindness to the smallfolk,
• his son Jaehaerys II — Often considered weak due to his poor health and short reign but thought well of by anyone who actually knew him, managed to do some good things during his brief time note
• and his son Aerys II — Cloudcuckoolander who eventually degenerated into a psychopathic pyromaniac.- That's only three crazy kings, two borderline crazy kings, and one horribly incompetent one out of the seventeen monarchs. If you want to count the Targaryens who never became kings, only Rhaegal (brother of Aerys I and Maekar), Aerion (brother of Aegon V), and maybe Viserys (brother of Daenerys) were crazy.
- It's unknown how many Targaryens were passed over for the throne due to either mental defects or poor physical health. The insanity problem became prevalent enough that the councils would try to skip over the crazy or sickly Targaryen in the line of succession in favor of a more stable younger son or nephew. And in later generations, a significant number were born with moderate to severe mental defects, or "feeble-witted".note Even their physical health was eventually affected, with several being intellectually and emotionally normal but possessing such fragile immune systems that they suffered from numerous ailments and died young. Stillbirths and cradle deaths were also very common, even when you consider that this is Westeros.note
- The propensity of the Targaryen madness in recent years seems to be influenced by a single factor: the prophecy about the Prince That Was Promised. Jaehaerys II forced his children, Aerys II and Rhaella, to abandon the loves of their lives in favor of each other, because the prophecy stated that the Prince would be born in their dynasty. This resulted in a loveless, unhappy, and (ultimately) abusive marriage. Aerys II's eldest son, Rhaegar, was obsessed with the prophecy, at first thinking he was the one before deciding that it's his son, Aegon. Then suddenly he decided that it required him to abduct an already betrothed woman, essentially abandoning his wife for her and leading to the rebellion that brought the end of the dynasty. And despite knowing that his father was out of his mind, Rhaegar didn't plan to depose him until literally the last day of his life. Finally, Daenerys is haunted by the prophecy upon hearing it in Qarth (up to this point, she didn't know about it), which no doubt feeds into her idealistic, saviour narrative, although it has not dominated her priorities so far.
- The Lannisters seem to be heading the inbred-madness route, too: King Joffrey and his siblings Myrcella and Tommen are the product of Brother–Sister Incest between Queen Cersei (married to King Robert, whom she hates) and her twin brother Jaime. Jaime and Cersei's parents were first cousins. Cersei is a paranoid schemer who eventually engineers her own downfall, and her son Joffrey was sadistic and unstable and had to be put down by Littlefinger and the Tyrells. Hopefully averted with Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella, who are both perfectly sweet children... for now. Though, the incest might be a factor (and, those who believe Stannis will no doubt jump on that explanation), Joffrey really didn't have a chance: his mother both spoiled and smothered him as well as refused to let anybody else educate him... while neglecting such things as mathematics, ethics, psychology, and reading. His father, although not exactly abusive, was both distant and neglectful. Anybody else who could have stepped in to discipline or direct him were either chased off (Maesters) or never spotted the problem until far too late (Grandfather, Father-by-blood, and Uncle).
- The page quote comes from the so-called "Targaryen madness". The royal Targaryen line is said to be blessed with greatness as much as it is cursed with madness, in part due to centuries of inbreeding to keep the "Blood of Old Valyria" pure. It started with the first Targaryen king, Aegon I, who was a great man but unfortunately married and had children with both of his sisters (a family tradition); from there on out it's been a crapshoot. The line has produced many able warriors, statesmen, and scholars as well as a rogue's gallery of tyrants and psychopaths. Some Targaryens begin quite noble and lose their grip on sanity as they age, such as King Aerys II — by the end of his reign, he was known as King Aerys the Mad, and in the end, his excesses sparked a revolt that toppled the dynasty. Daenerys, the only POV character with Targaryen blood (so far as we know), seems more sound of mind than her relatives, but is a bit delusional and idealistic, and would do well to take the advice of those around her. The books give us only one normal Targaryen — Maester Aemon, as even the much liked Rhaegar was bipolar and had delusions of grandeur. Or possibly two, if the theory that Jon Snow is a Targaryen is true.
- The Hapan royal family in Star Wars Legends has some Ax-Crazy tendencies. The heir apparent or Chume’da, has to constantly be on guard against other female relatives attempting to kill them to usurp power. Alonna Solo has even more trouble because she’s a prophesied Jedi Queen-to-be. Han and Leia change her name and raise her as an adopted daughter until she’s old enough to train to be queen without as big a death risk. She’ll still have reasons to be paranoid as queen though.
- In the Sword of Truth series, the Rahl family line, for several generations, have been warmongering psychopaths. The protagonist is, depending on the reader, either an exception or adhering to the rule.
- Fiona Patton's Tales of the Branion Realm series is set in a fantasy Britain where the gods take an active interest in their followers. The royal family, whose head is called the Aristok, is literally touched by the gods — the sovereign is the avatar of the Living Flame, a deity/demon/primordial critter which is a sort of symbiotic parasite. This makes the Aristok something of a cross between a hereditary Christ-figure and the real British system of the monarch being head of the church. Not only does the Aristok have divine right, she can prove it. Unfortunately, being the physical sacred vessel-on-earth of a fire god is bad for your health. Out of forty-one monarchs, sixteen have died young, been assassinated, or committed suicide, and many of the rest went insane. Three even converted to a completely different faith, which made for real cognitive dissonance among their followers as well as themselves. Whether this system is a blessing or a curse on the royal family is clearly up in the air.
- In the Tamír Trilogy (The Bone Doll's Twin, Hidden Warrior, and The Oracle's Queen) hereditary madness has hit the royal line. What makes this particularly dangerous is that the country's god has declared that only women of that bloodline can become ruler... or else. At the end... the sanest remaining member of the royal line takes the throne and the madness that caused the whole situation is just never mentioned again, since the epilogue indicates that there were no problems for centuries afterwards.
- In the Tortall books by Tamora Pierce, the Copper Isles royalty tend to have madness crop up now and then, including one Princess Josiane. A character phrases it thus: "There's bad blood in the Copper Isles kings. They birth a mad one every generation. Josiane's uncle is locked in a tower somewhere. It comes from being an island kingdom — too much inbreeding." It turns out in further novels that it may not be just one per generation...
- Two per generation, as of the Trickster books. The old king who dies and prompts the Succession Crisis and his brother who was mentioned as locked in a tower somewhere, and Josiane and Imajane among the old king's kids.
- The Jimajen line might also have bits of this, though we only see two members: Rubinyan, whose only major flaws are an overdeveloped sense of honor and an inability to control his insane wife; and Bronau, who is extremely egotistical and ambitious without much common sense to go with it. Big brother is also ambitious as hell, but much more sensible...
- Emperor Ozorne of Carthak and that cousin of the Tusaine line who starts the Tusaine-Tortall war in the second Song of the Lioness book both count.
- Duke Roger, nephew to King Roald in the Song of the Lioness quartet, wasn't insane to begin with, but coming back from the dead (or not, precisely, if you believe him) certainly screwed with his head.
- Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga has the Vorbarra Imperial line. Thanks to inbreeding and genetic damage caused by environmental factors, some of the Vorbarra rulers have been... problematic:
- Mad Emperor Yuri killed off most of his own family and then got dismembered and scalped by his own nobles, led by his brother in law/cousin.
- Yuri's brother in law/cousin/successor Ezar was a relatively sane Chessmaster, but was also ruthlessly amoral beyond belief. The man signed off on a pointlessly aggressive war he knew Barrayar would lose to topple his political enemies and kill his own son in a Uriah Gambit. Said son, Prince Serg, was a twisted sadist who probably would have destroyed the Imperium if he'd been allowed to take the throne. (Too bad about the grunts.)
- Serg's son Gregor inherited the throne at age five when Ezar died, and, remarkably, grew up sane and stable thanks mostly to his adoptive parents, Aral Vorkosigan and Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan. But Gregor became so paranoid about the genetic insanity in his family line that he refused to consider marrying anyone even distantly related to him. Since that equated to all the nobility on the planet, there was no clear line of successionnote , and Gregor's death would have caused a massive and probably final civil war...this posed a bit of a problem.
- Fortunately, Barrayar has recently gotten a handle on genetic engineering, eased up on the social stratification, and annexed another planet with its own unrelated set of merchant nobility (one of whom Gregor eventually married), so that nasty strain of nutjobbus maximus is likely to be cleansed from the line in the future. Much to the relief of Gregor, Aral, Cordelia, and every planet anywhere near Barrayar.
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