To-do list:

• Consensus was to keep the Royal Bastard name and clarify the description so that trope applies to all inherited authority/status positions. The description is being updated using the Sandbox.Royal Bastard sandbox; it needs to be swapped in before the thread can close.

Original post:

I saw this on the Tropes Needing TRS page and decided to take a swing at it.

The trope description is very focused on a "child of a royal and a non-royal" definition, specifically. The main themes it focuses on are angst about heritage due to coming from different social classes, alienation from both the upper and lower classes, getting in the middle of a Succession Crisis occurs, attempts at legitimization by heirless parents, scheming by Bastard Bastards out for power, and a Rich Sibling, Poor Sibling dynamic with legitimate children.

The second paragraph is vaguer about this and uses non-royal nobility terms ("out of the succession and sometimes ostracized, yet too much of a noble to get along with their commoner side" and "If both sides are nobility, expect the scandal to be ten times greater.") but generally the wording sticks to very specifically royal terms.

The examples, however, have a large percentage of nobility-and-commoner bastards, and some nobility-and-nobility also, with no royal involvement:

(For reference, I will be classifying examples by the rank of their highest-ranking parent, so a royal-and-noble bastard would count as just a royal bastard. I'm also going to treat kings/queens, emperors and princes as a single class of royalty for simplicity.)

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Examples:

Results:

• Royal bastards: 88/129 (68.2%)
• Noble bastards: 47/129 (36.4)
• Other (non-titled aristocrats, politicians, ranking clergy, etc.) bastards: 5/129 (3.9)
• Unspecified bastards: 2/129 (1.6)

About 40% of the examples do not involve royalty of any sort.

It's been suggested that the Noble Bastard redirect may be the cause of this confusion. I am absolutely certain that this is not the case for three reasons:

• One, that redirect is currently seeing no use outside of two Administrivia/Sandbox pages, so evidently it has a rather low wiki footprint.
• Two, it's only about a month old whereas the page has been around for a year (as it so happens, I requested the redirect myself, because of how many non-royal examples were present, just two days before this issue was first brought up last month).
• Three, it also so happens that the large presence of non-royal bastards has been a thing since the page was created. Below is a wick check of the page's original appearance when it was launched from TLP on September 25th, 2021:

Results:

• Royal bastards: 74/121 (61.1%)
• Noble bastards: 45/121 (37.2)
• Other (non-titled aristocrats, politicians, bishops, etc.) bastards: 5/121 (4.1)
• Unspecified bastards: 2/121 (1.7)

The ratio is basically the same — if anything, the non-royal examples are about a percent higher.

(Incidentally, not sure how relevant it is here, the laconic on the TLP was "An illegitimate child of royalty or nobility." The launched page laconic, unaltered since launch, is "An illegitimate child whose parent(s) are of royal/noble birth.")

I elected not to perform an inbound wick check because, since the page is only about nine months old, I do not expect that the inbound and on-page wicks will have had time to deviate from each other very much.

My suggestion is to broaden the description's wording and find a broader title, for three reasons:

• One, there's been no example drift — the page's current focus is basically the same as the one it had at launch. The original sponsor mainly just picked a bad title.
• Two, I do not really see a great deal of benefit to be drawn from diving royal from non-royal noble bastards. The basic narrative tropes in play are the same in both cases — the feelings of alienation, the character occupying a position halfway between social classes, problems over inheritance, hostility from legitimate siblings and/or stepparents, etc. The basic meat of this concept's narrative identity, the way in which this character's basic existence screws around with in-universe assumptions about inheritance, class and legitimacy and nobody knows where they fit, are basically the same regardless of whether they're a king's by-blow, a duke's or even a powerful politician's. I don't see a good reason to make overly granular distinctions about specific ranks of aristocracy here; it just isn't a narratively significant distinction.
• However, in light of that, the current title is overly narrow and misleading. Evidently it's already caused confusion as to what this trope means, and it's also the likely reason why noble bastards are significantly outnumbered by royal ones despite the original concept allowing for both.

Regarding a new title, I see two options. One, move the page to Noble Bastard and keep Royal Bastard as a redirect, because I think that people would be likelier to think of royalty is a special case of nobility than the other way around. Two, find a new, more generic title (and I would also keep the other two as redirects, myself).

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Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 28th 2022 at 12:28:58 PM

Opening.

Macron's notes

I wrote the entry for Tropes Needing TRS. The Noble Bastard redirect claim was not my opinion—it was based on what the linked comment in the TNTRS entry speculated the issue was.

Anyway, paging ~Wyldchyld since they mentioned wanting to take this to TRS and also paging ~Cutegirl920fire as the TLP sponsor.

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Just to clarify, I don't believe the Noble Bastard redirect is the cause of the misuse. I think it's a symptom.

The trope is about the illegitimate offspring's link to the throne, giving them a dual complication of being both illegitimate and a potential threat to legitimate heirs, requiring them to face being ostracised for both reasons (instead of just having an illegitimacy stigma). Most examples would be a royal+noble pairing, with some royal+commoner pairings. The issue is with noble+noble offspring because there's no succession conflict (there might be a family complication, but not a national one).

So, my question was: is the description just messily failing to clarify that this is the broader trope, or do we need to actually broaden the trope? Do we need to clean up any noble+noble or noble+commoner entries, or broaden the trope to include any situation where illegitimacy creates a dual social + legacy ostracism?

If it's just a case of either broadening the trope, or fixing the description to make it clear that it's always been the broader trope, then I suggest we change the trope name for being too specific.

Edited to add: I was also thinking that it's probably better to be Noble Bastard (with Royal Bastard as the redirect), unless it's going to be broadened to include any significant family inheritance, such as New Money (where we're talking millionaires/billionaires — upper middle classes, upper classes, etc; people with large fortunes but who are not part of the aristocracy). If it's going to be broadened to include non-aristocratic wealth or legacies, then I'd suggest changing the name to something else (like Socialite Bastard, or something better), and retaining Noble Bastard and Royal Bastard as redirects. In short, I agree with themayorofsimpleton.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 11th 2022 at 6:21:58 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

I need a bit to process exactly what to think about scoping here, but off the top of my head, I'd advise caution regarding making Noble Bastard a more visible link around the wiki. Given the inherent double homonym, I'd expect it to attract a rash of misuse from tropers mistaking it for a snowclone of Noble Demon.

As I said, I would lean towards broadening the scope of the trope, largely because the concept you've identified (dual complication of being both illegitimate and a potential threat to legitimate heirs) is also entirely applicable to a noble+commoner pairing.

(Or, well, technically I think that this has always been the broader trope and would just like to clarify that.)

That is a very fair point. I think that that ambiguity may be addressed by adding a genitive in the name (i.e., "Noble's Bastard").

I would also be wary of broadening too far as we have Bastard Angst that neatly covers "any situation where illegitimacy creates a dual social + legacy ostracism".

I also agree with OP that:

• There's no tropeworthy distinction between "illegitimate child of the king who isn't in line for the throne" and "illegitimate child of the liege lord/nobleman who isn't in line for the title/estates/fiefdom", which have the same succession implications but on different scales.
• I don't think there's a difference between royal/noble, noble/noble, royal/commoner, and noble/commoner either.

I think we can rename to cover both royal and noble bastards and call it a day... Blue Blooded Bastard maybe?

Edited by Synchronicity on Jun 11th 2022 at 9:49:08 AM

Personally, I would restrict this to situations where power and titles are explicitly passed down through inheritance, since the issue with legitimacy and inheritance of power seems to be the core of this trope. Thus, this would not extend to illegitimate children of people who gain their power some other way (i.e., presidents, senators, CEOs, bishops and high priests, etcetera), no matter how influential the parent is. Exceptions could be made for cases like a Hereditary Republic, but those would likely be fringe cases.

I'd be fine with broadening.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I'm okay with moving, maybe even using a new name.

Edited by Amonimus on Jun 12th 2022 at 4:49:32 PM

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Tentatively alright with Synch's solution myself.

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If we use a new name with broadening, what about Blue Blood Bastard? I don't think it would work if we cut the Noble Bastard redirect and cull the examples for non-royal nobility.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jun 12th 2022 at 8:41:57 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Blue Blood Bastard sounds good, I'm waiting if there are any other ideas.

Edited by Amonimus on Jun 12th 2022 at 4:40:46 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

But would it work if we limit it to royalty and cut the examples for non-royal nobility? That's what I wasn't sure about.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I should have taken time to read through the OP. If the "Royal bastards, not Noble bastards" is the current scope, then I think it would make sense to include "Noble bastards" as well, since there aren't notable differences I can think of except maybe Succession Crisis plots.

Of course, if expansion is not voted in favor then renaming would go down with it.

Edited by Amonimus on Jun 12th 2022 at 4:53:34 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

...Why didn't anyone say something in the TLP draft?

I didn't create the draft, I just adopted it. It was like lingering around in TLP for 10 years and my interest in Royalty made me want to adopt it.

Victor of HGS S320 | "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember."

The description does not limit examples to royalty, and neither does the laconic. Nobility examples are not misuse, so what is the problem?

No rename, keep the redirect, declare Tropes Are Flexible and adjust the description if necessary (i.e. leave as is).

Agreed on the issues of expanding too far, that's why I made it clear that if it gets extended to someone who the illegitimate child of two commoners, it'll only count if they're New Money wealthy elite, who do tend to move in the same social circles as the Old Money aristocracy because of their wealth and connections. That's because they're still trying to function in the same social circles as the nobility, and there's still an unusually vast legacy at stake. But, I think that's the absolute broadest it should go (if we let it get that broad, of course; I'm happy with it only allowing only one commoner parent max and offspring of super-wealthy commoners being placed under the Bastard Angst trope instead).

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 12th 2022 at 1:11:55 AM

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Do we have any potential crowner options other than renaming and restricting to royalty (excluding non-royal nobility)?

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Seconding this. I think this is more of a description and wording thing than an actual issue. To me, it just seems like the use of "royal" here is standing in place of "elite" or "titled position of import". A viscount, marquis, baron, or duke are all positions of relative authority that are (traditionally) tasked with overseeing land and its people. The only difference between a bastard of one of those positions and an actual royal seems to be just of magnitude, which is explicitly covered under Tropes Are Flexible (and warned against by The Same, but More).

I also think that if anything, it may be worth considering changing the name of Bastard Angst to Illegitimate Child Angst. Bastard has its roots in being specifically used for the illegitimate child of a noble of some sort, not just any person. If there's a fear of overlapping and confusion between the two (which i think is understandable), then altering the name of that trope rather than this one makes more sense.

Etymologically yes, colloquially it is just used to refer to any illegitimate child. We can leave it alone, and Heroic Bastard and Bastard Bastard would be much bigger problems with that train of thought.

Yeah on further inspection this seems like it can probably be left alone. Evidently when I added this to TNTRS I should have done more research. I apologize.

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So does this mean we're closing then?

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No? Not everyone agree that's the page should be left alone.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 15th 2022 at 10:31:41 AM

Macron's notes

Parroting Gaston,

• Rename
• Restrict to royalty and exclude nobility examples.

Any other possible options? If restricting gets any favor, we can also optionally give Noble Bastard own page and description and move unfit examples there.

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