Royally Screwed Up / Live-Action TV

• Ashes of Love: The Heavenly Realm's royal family, and how. The Heavenly Emperor became obsessed with and raped Zi Fen. The Heavenly Empress arranged Zi Fen's death, tried to kill Jin Mi, and spent years tormenting Run Yu. Run Yu and Xu Feng both fall in love with Jin Mi, and before long they go to war over her.
• In Babylon 5, the nephew of Emperor Turhan, Cartagia, became the Emperor of the Centauri Republic after his uncle's death. Emperor Cartagia was as bad as any fiction-version of Caligula, and apparently modeled after him. Interestingly, the position of Emperor does not seem to be connected to any individual line for more than a few generations; it appears to be totally normal for the Centauri nobles to hand the throne to a new House even though the old imperial house still exists (Londo rules as Mollari II, as one of his ancestors had held the throne once). This presumably means that Cartagia's madness was a relatively rare occurrence in his House — rather as the Julio-Claudians only had two Emperors who could be called insane (Caligula and Nero), only one of whom (Caligula) was totally bonkers (Nero, while an awful ruler, was not totally incompetent; he was just very young when he took the throne, too obsessed with drama—in both senses—and not very well brought up).
• Doctor Who: "Tooth and Claw" strongly implies that eventually the British Royal family might become werewolves. However at the time Victoria had already had all her children, and the Doctor is on good terms with Elizabeth II, so it was clearly a joke. Also discussed in the episode is Victoria being a carrier of hemophilia, despite it not being in her family previously, and how it's a bona fide historical mystery (although there are some theories, though none of them involve Victoria getting a splinter from a wolf attack).
• Game of Thrones:
  • The show implies this is caused by inbreeding in the Targaryen and Lannister family lines, in as little as one generation. The crazy rate is implied to be around 50% (as per the page quote), regardless of how long the inbreeding has been practiced. Technically the Lannister case isn't a single generation; Jaime and Cersei are first-generation sibling incest, but their parents were first cousins. And since no particular fuss is made over that fact, it can be assumed that cousin incest is not uncommon in the Lannister family. Cersei and Jaime were far from the first incestuous pairing in the family, but they were probably the straw that broke the camel's back. Furthermore, they're both unpleasant people (though Jaime is trying to be less unpleasant), and their son Joffrey's complete personal monstrosity seems to combine the worst aspects of each. His siblings Myrcella and Tommen, on the other hand, are perfectly reasonable people (though Tommen is an Extreme Doormat) who wind up being Too Good for This Sinful Earth thanks to Cersei's machinations, leading to the end of their house. Furthermore, though not crazy, all of the Lannisters mentioned except Kevan have issues. Tytos had a desire to please that made him a doormat, Tywin sees people as tools for his work, as mentioned above the twins are unpleasant, Tyrion is an alcoholic dwarf with terrible family relations, Lancel is a zealot, and there is one who just smashes beetles while screaming crunk. In later Targaryen generations, some were born with moderate to severe mental defects, or "feeble-witted". Even their physical health was eventually affected, with several being intellectually and emotionally normal but possessing such fragile health that they suffered from numerous ailments and died young.
  • Selyse is blatantly unstable due to the trauma of so many stillbirths and her inability to produce a male heir for Stannis. Writer Bryan Cogman confirmed that the reason she became the first person on Dragonstone to embrace the new Lord of Light religion (even before Stannis) is that she couldn't process that the Seven would let her unborn sons die, so like many people in traumatic situations, she fanatically embraced a new religion. Even the normally stoic Stannis pities how deeply traumatized she is about their stillborn sons, insisting that it wasn't her fault when she starts blaming herself.
• The Glamorous Imperial Concubine: Oh boy, where to start...
  • Fu Ya's uncle usurps the throne, murders most of his relatives, and is about to have Fu Ya executed for the terrible crime of rescuing a boy from prison. Fu Ya's cousin Xiang Yun has a servant beheaded just because the poor girl happened to see Xiang Yun stumble and fall while dancing.
  • Du Fei Hong hates her son Qi You and thinks he's trying to assassinate her. And the reason she hates him? When he was a baby Meng Zhi Xiang forcibly took him away from her and told Consort Mei to raise him instead, ignoring Fei Hong when she begged him to let her raise Qi You herself.
  • Meng Zhi Xiang insists on marrying Zhao Yi against her wishes, and has her parents killed when they object.
  • Du Wan is determined to marry her cousin Qi Xing. He doesn't want to marry her, so she waits until he gets drunk then gets in bed with him so he'll have to marry her.
  • Lian Cheng's mother threatens to kill Fu Ya. Lian Cheng makes her change her mind by threatening to commit suicide if she harms Fu Ya.
  • Lian Cheng rapes Xiang Yun and kills a doctor for lying to him.
  • Qi Xing becomes convinced Qi You is a threat to him so he has Fu Ya and Qi You locked up and forbids their friends from seeing them.
  • Ma Du Yun poisons Qi You and kills his son, then seizes the throne for himself and promptly gets killed by his sister.
• Goodbye My Princess: All the royal families to some degree, but special mention must go to Li Dynasty. The emperor beats and demotes Cheng Ji for demanding he investigates a crime, the empress was responsible for the death of Cheng Yin's mother, Cheng Ye plots to kill his father and brothers, and Cheng Yin eventually becomes as ambitious and manipulative as the people he hates.
• Kingdom: Joseon's royal family is so screwed-up that the king being a zombie is the least of their problems. Queen Consort Cho is faking her pregnancy and has taken in dozens of pregnant women in the hope one of them will have a son. When the women give birth they're murdered, and if their child is a girl she's killed too. One of the women ( Mu-yeong's wife) gives birth to a son, so Queen Consort Cho kidnaps the baby and pretends he's her son. Then she unleases the zombies to ensure Lee Chang, the only good person in the royal family, can't take the throne from her.
• The King Loves: Goryeo's royal family.
  • Won's father, King Chungnyeol, dislikes Won's mother for being Yuan (Mongolian) and Won for being half-Yuan. He also hates Won for being the grandson of Kublai Khan, which in Chungnyeol's mind means Won outranks him, so he tries to find an excuse to depose Won as Crown Prince.
  • Won's mother, Princess Wonseong, had her husband's first wife and son thrown out of the palace. She hates Rin, Won's only friend, because she thinks Rin is trying to steal Won's position.
  • Won himself becomes violent when angry and wants to put San in a birdcage so she can never leave him.
• The King's Woman: The entire royal family of Qin. Special mention goes to Ying Zheng, who has no qualms about killing children.
• The Legend of Xiao Chuo:
  • Yelü Jing murdered his brother for the throne. Because of this he's paranoid that someone plans to murder him. He murders his servants, and when he learns Zhi Mo is having an affair with a maid he has him castrated and partially blinded. Eventually his guards get tired of his craziness and assassinate him.
  • Xian knows Yan Yan is engaged to De Rang, but he forces her to break up with De Rang and marry him instead.
• Lost Love in Times: The royal family of Great Wei. The emperor is a paranoid schemer who killed his older brother and forced his brother's widow to marry him, Consort Lian murdered the empress, Yuan Zhan stages a coup, several of the princes team up to attack Yuan Ling, and Noble Consort Yin assassinates her own son and poisons her grandson.
• Love and Redemption: In Xuan Ji's third incarnation she was the emperor's daughter. He banished her mother to the Cold Palace, so Xuan Ji killed him. Later Xuan Ji also has Si Feng killed even though he helped her take the throne.
• A lot of tension surrounding the Succession Crisis in Merlin is based on this trope. It's revealed in Series 3 that the Pendragon men have a history of mental illness, one which King Uther ultimately succumbs to after his arguably Ax-Crazy illegitimate daughter betrays him and takes the throne.
• Moon Lovers: You know Goryeo's royal family is a mess when Yeon-hwa wants to marry her half-brother and no one bats an eyelid.
  • In a flashback King Taejo announces he's going to marry another woman right after his son's death. Queen Yoo tries to stop him by threatening to kill Wang So, and even that doesn't make Taejo change his mind.
  • Wang Wook poisons his half-brother Wang Mu. The poison takes such a severe toll on Mu's sanity that he decides to send his young daughter off to Khitan, then forces Wang So — her uncle — to marry her instead.
  • Wang Yo kills two of his half-brothers and his sister-in-law. Then he suffers a Sanity Slippage and becomes convinced their ghosts are haunting him.
• Invoked in The Musketeers, when after outwitting some depraved noblemen, Aramis says "Centuries of inbreeding is making the aristocracy (taps the side of head) stupid."
• My Country: The New Age: The Yi family. Seong-gye deliberately stirs up trouble between his sons. His oldest son is an alcoholic. His second son is a womaniser with fifteen illegitimate sons. His third son is incompetent. His fourth son is an alcoholic and womaniser. And then of course there's Bang-won, who Seong-gye goes out of his way to humiliate and who reacts predictably.
• Novoland: Eagle Flag: Ooooh boy...
  • Asule finds out he's adopted when his biological father kills his adoptive father and massacres Asule's home village.
  • Baili Yin tortures Ji Ye. His father Baili Jing Hong is the spectacularly stupid sort of screwed up and goes out of his way to antagonise Asule, the future ruler of a rival kingdom.
  • Ying Yu tortures Ji Ye and sees him as a wild beast to tame, while also having a weird unrequited crush on him.
  • It's tradition that when the emperor of Yin dies, all of his concubines (and possibly his illegitimate children too) are executed.
  • Lu Yan murders Asule once he outlives his usefulness. Later Lu Yan burns his own palace rather than let Ying Wu Yi take over.
• Like in the comics, Preacher has the descendant of Jesus, who is incredibly mentally impaired due to literally millennia of inbreeding.
• Queen for Seven Days: Lee Yung (better known as Yeonsan-gun of Joseon, also mentioned in the Real Life section) is willing to behead his half-brother for losing a race, as well as doing many other insane things. And the series downplays the real Yeonsan-gun's atrocities!
• Referenced in the Red Dwarf episode Rimmerworld. Kryten explains the problem of having an entire society descended from Rimmer and his clones by drawing comparisons with European monarchies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The actual leader of the planet seems to be an example himself.
• The Rise of Phoenixes: The royal family of Tiansheng is dysfunctional to say the least. The Crown Prince takes the cake for framing and murdering two of his brothers, along with dozens of other innocent people.
• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace: In the first episode alone the Yongzheng Emperor disinherits his oldest son and orders Yixiu to be locked up for the rest of her life. It all goes downhill from there.
  • Zhen Huan forces Ruyi to choose between killing herself or letting Yixiu die, which drives Yixiu to suicide.
  • Hongli rapes Hailan, who's then forced to marry him. No one except Hailan sees anything wrong with this.
  • Langhua almost dies in childbirth. Instead of being concerned for her health, her mother's immediate concern is whether or not she'll be able to have more children.
  • Xiyue and Yuyan poison pregnant women and force them to miscarry so their own children will have fewer rivals.
  • Hongli disinherits two of his sons for not showing enough grief at a funeral and becomes suspicious of another son for being too competent. The funeral was Langhua's, who had murdered Yonghuang's mother and also had systemically and viciously abused Yonghuang himself. Hongli is aware of all of this but still chose to disinherit Yonghuang over it.

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