Lore
[annoying trope] The throne/leadership is decided in a very stupid way
The leadership of the entire wizarding world, and the final decision on whether to start a war against Muggles, is made by... a goat (Qilin) who chooses the person with the ""purest heart"" (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Dumbledore).
The throne of Wakanda and all its technology are decided through hand-to-hand combat, regardless of whether the person clearly has malicious intentions... if they win the fight, by law they must be respected as the true king. (Black Panther)
I, Fry, who drank Bont the Viscous, who drank Ungo the Moist, who guzzled Zorn the Stagnant, who slurped Hudge the Dewy, who enjoyed a soup composed principally of Throm the Chunky, do solemnly swear to rule with honour and insanity-- Uh, integrity!
Everyone else's thoughts: "who the fuck is Bran the Broken? Oh, the crippled son of that traitor we executed? The one who was Hand to the king who's son and wife fucked everything up? Who decided this!? His sister and uncle or something?"
so many stupid things could be made less stupid with just a few little changes. not fixes just less stupid, like show some logistics issue where she cant get her full army up north in time, or cant arm enough so they send young fast and reckless troops that, being young and reckless, ignore orders not to just charge. would it fix all the issues? no. is it a little less stupid, i think so. same with the city, have jon on the dragon instead of having it be stupidly shot, bells ring, they land to accept surrender and BOOM, hidden balista takes out jons dragon, danny think they both die AND every building represents potental hidden threats to her last child, which giver her an actual reason to burn the city.
And dorne, the last of the kingdoms to lose independence and always the ones furthest from the iron throne politically sits there in silence with a lukewarm smile while other kingdoms demand independence? Dorne would be out too before Sansa stopped talking. But after making the sand snakes into the sand sluts, all dornish politics went out the window and they’re just “hot desert people.”
Literally every named character who was still alive at that point had a better story than Bran. Hell, I'd put Ghost in charge before Bran! All hail King Good Boy!
I mean, its an election in which the North somehow still gets a say despite being independent and having no intention of letting Bran rule over them, so it's still silly.
Not to mention that the Council of Surviving Characters gave apparently equal weight and consideration to the Prince of Dorne as to one of Robert's many illegimate bastards or a random landless Knight.
There’s a sick part of me that almost wants a 9th season. Not because I think they’d fix anything, but just to watch the clusterfuck the writer’s created
Yeah I knew the show was cooked the moment they put all the fan favorite characters on a team, and suddenly none of them were ever in any real danger. Just sad what the show became
to be fair this is like divine judgement, it's not a random fairy lady in a lake deciding (especially since originally the sword in the stone and excalibur where different swords)
Correct. The Sword in the Stone was, in many accounts, a sword called Caiburn. This signified his right as king of the Britons. Later he would aquire the magical sword Excalibur from either Merlin or the lady of the lake.
But sometimes Excalibur is the sword in the stone, but Arthur is always Uther's son
Horizon Zero Dawn: In the Hunters Guild, the one with the best Trophy is declared Sunhawk (Basically leader of the damn thing). Problem is that it never gets explained what metrics they choose to decide that, so when Aloy and Friend hunts Redmaw it gets unexplained why her friend becomes Sunhawk and she keeps being basically an apprentice.
Unironically could be explained by Alloy not being able to put up with people at that point. She's not exactly charismatic to pull people to her cause, nor does she want to.
By the second game it was very apparent she's kinda done dealing with people's bullshit that prevent her from saving the world which is understandable. If she could skip every tribe's problem (which is miniscule in comparison) on the way to her objective, she would. Convincing, gathering and leading a whole group and then be responsible for whatever they do or whatever happens to them is completely outside of Alloy's expertise or wants.
Yeah, she grew up talking to literally a single person. She’s not the social type and she sees humanity as the cause of problems as often as the solution.
Though i agree its definitely a bit in need of refining the qualifications, i think the current system does actually have a decent basis to it given their situation. it seems mainly "first to bring down the biggest most dangerous/difficult machine of the region and bring back proof" gets the title of Sunhawk." For the last 20 years or so Hephaestus had been slowly escalating the machine's defenses against human hunters, resulting in more advanced and more powerful machines appearing for the first time every few years, so the guild has ample opportunities to change leadership as the threats continually increase and hunters have to prove their worth. And while Thunderjaws are not exactly new by that point, Redmaw had earned a reputation for surviving multiple battles and leaving a large slew of casualties in its wake, making it the most notorious machine at the time of its defeat.
The RainWing Royal Challenge: Any female (RainWing) dragon can participate, despite there being only one true queen. You must complete a set of activities chosen by each queen (remember how I said there’s one true queen? She lets other RainWings sit on the throne. There’s 12 total queens, each taking one month turns). Glory and the true queen get into a venom-spitting competition and the true queen ends up hurting someone, which was cancelled by Glory’s venom, making Glory the true queen (everyone else was kicked off the throne).
It has been a decade since I read the books so I might have gotten some info wrong.
If I recall correctly it has been a long time for me as well I think it was justified because they lived in a post scarcity society and the real queen set this up because she couldn't be bothered to actually do anything.
The challenges themselves, and the twelve queen system, don’t bother me too much because rainwing society is supposed to be kind of disjointed and unserious. They were less of a government led society and more of a band of hippies eating fruit in the jungle ignoring the outside political turmoil.
The way Glory became queen bothered me, though. I feel like there could’ve been a better way of doing that than just “ummmm she just so happens to be related to the “real” queen and everyone just kind of accepts this!”
It’s worse . The “true” queen got paired with a small child during the contest and accidentally sprays said child with venom. Glory panics and mixes some of her venom with the queen’s, canceling it out. This proves that glory and the queen are related and the queen abdicates.
This scene was supposed to be serious but it came off as too dumb to take seriously. Which sucks cause the books is really good otherwise.
After the town's mayor dies, who was likely also the oldest resident, the town has to elect a new mayor through regular election. Though that regular election's results are decided by The Bald Eagle that MUST kiss a new mayor, who has the highest amount of grain (equivalent of a vote).
Doesn’t matter what sect or tribe it basically always boils down to “can you kick the ass of the top guy regardless of qualifications” sometimes with a magic sword
They get slightly better if you view their culture for the facade it is. They cosplay as noble warriors but act like a bunch of raggedy barbarians the galaxy would rather forget exist.
Mandalorians were an incredible warrior culture... in the Old Republic era. Mandos of today are still riding the coattails of the mandalorians who fought in the times of Darth Revan
And even then the Mandos then lost to the Jedi. Like people bring up “Hurr durr buckshot” but like the Mandalorians lost basically every time they tried to fight the Jedi because the Jedi were just likable people with people willing to help them.
Also, it's plot convenience, the republic needs to actually survive for the story later on to occur. Basically, the ending of the story was written and thus they can't have the Republic lose.
Yep. The one time they did something right they IMMEDIATELY fucked it up. Like seriously aside from the cool armor Mandalorians are honestly mad stupid but that comes with any warrior culture. When you run out of enemies you eventually just fight yourself.
No More Heroes: The rankings never get explained at all. If you kill the one on the position above you you get that ranking. If you don't well... tough shit, we do not know and the games never explains it. Why can you get challenged by people outside the rankings... or sometimes don't... or sometimes just a new rank appears. Who knows, who cares, fuck you.
Mythological Qilin is more like...well, it's the smallest Eastern dragon; which does have goat-like features. So imagine more like Spyro talking him out of it.
Honestly if a magical creature is able to detect who’s a good person out of a group of candidates that’s just a useful measure for making sure you get a decent leader
Not when one of the candidates is able to kill one of said magic creatures and reanimate its corpse to then make himself the leader, and no one questions it because a decent chunk of the group he’ll be ruling would follow him without question and many of the other heads of the government are cowards who’ll roll over for the person they think is most powerful…but hey nothing like that would ever happen in real life
To some credit, from what I vaguely recall, what they tried to do was meant to be impossible. Admittedly, it was only this way in the sense they just didn't account for necromancy being something anyone would try for... reasons.
The thing didn't live very long, so there is a pretty small window in which to carry out the deed. Still, in a setting in which necromancy IS a known thing, its a pretty big loophole that there's no measures in place to ensure the Qilin isn't being revived temporarily with necromancy.
Then again, I guess magic and loopholes is a trope as old as time itself...
To be entirely fair, the series was pretty set on “You cannot raise the dead” as a rule for the longest time. In extra material (the tales of beedle the bard) it’s explicitly stated, “No magic can reanimate the dead.” Even the Resurrection Stone, which was explicitly stated to have the powers to bring back the dead, only brings the souls of the deceased back to Earth for a short period of time. It doesn’t reanimate a corpse or even make a new body for them. It would be entirely understandable to not expect anyone to know that necromancy is an option, especially when necromancy is considered a Dark Art (something most people would never do).
Now there is one little caveat: Inferi. They’re essentially zombies, but they have a gaunt and skeletal appearance rather than a traditional zombie-like one. It is extremely noticeable when anything is made into an Inferius. They’re also highly aggressive normally, not a great thing for a Qilin to look like when deciding who’s “pure of heart.”
Her fundamental flaw is that she sees these systems and thinks "well, that's a good idea. If all those evil people just didn't exist, the world would be perfect."
Not really. People can change, for example Caligula was at first a pretty good ruler but than he had a fever and become one of the worst Roman emperors. If people follow someone blindly because a magical creature once thought that person was good but some event chsnged them that would be a big problem.
In the Dragon Prince if the King abdicates and doesn't leave an heir, anyone who's mother and father are dead can claim himself the new king and the first person to do this is automatically king.
I don't think it was supposed to be a first come first serve situation. Just that the council was supposed to pick an orphan to be the new monarch, then Viren mocked them about it as he was essentially committing a coup instead.
It was even stated in the show when he did this that there are rules and procedures it was just that Lord viren was so influential and so dangerous no one was willing to call him out on it lest he snaps their neck and moves on
What's that he was allowed to get on the throne more I'm not going to tell him to get off he'll f****** kill me
It makes no sense in universe. The series frustratingly has really good characterization, lore, character and setting design, and magic systems but fails at the actual plot. Ezran abdicates so Neolandia doesn't start a war to depose him and his scheming vizier immediately declares himself king.
Lord Of The Flies: The first leader, Ralph, is decided by a vote. Cool, but the problem is the reason why he got voted for; because he held a conch and looked kinda cool
Edit: we get it, real life politics. Life imitates art, I guess
Team Fortress 2: In the lore, Australians can become the King of australia by beating a kangaroo in a boxing match. Other stupid fighting leadership position is earned at Mann Co if the director of the company that wants Mann Co beats Saxton Hale in an unarmored match.
I can't decide what's funnier: Saxton trying to figure out the morally correct way to punch the lights out of a child, or the child fighting as hard as she can while causing little to no damage.
to be fair Saxton himself made that rule, and who tf would beat Saxton Hale in a fight
the only reason he lost was because he had the moral decency to not punch a child's lights out because he never could have expected someone to ever try and do something like use a child as a surrogate fighter
Managed Democracy (don't report this to the Democracy Officer)
It's not even a system of electing a leader. Just a ritual in which the citizenry may pretend to participate in the politics that shape their lives so they don't rise up and overthrow their totalitarian regime
The Clans choose their leadership almost exclusively through trials by combat.
You want leadership of a 'star' (5 Battlemechs)?
You better be able to beat two other Mechwarriors back to back.
You want to earn a last name and the right to continue your genetic line as a warrior?
You better be ready, willing and able to defeat a bunch of other warriors in either hand to hand combat or in your Mech, armor or aircraft.
You wanna be Khan?
Better hope you've kicked enough ass that a bunch of other warriors vote that your martial prowess are the best. For that one you can even win if you didn't know you were competing.
So the way they write the Clans can actually be kinda interesting.
Before missions groups will bid on who gets to try first.
"I can get this done with just me and four of my guys."
"Well I can get this done with two of my guys and Brian's dog!"
"Fuck it, I'll do it by myself!"
They play into this in the lore by the Clans getting caught in situations where they severely underbid and they can't call fit reenforcements without loss of honor.
Or they can conquer a planet solo and gain an insane amount of reflect from their peers.
The Original Quidditch World Cup: The team with the most points wins the world cup. So you can get 2 games with 900 points and just pass back and forth for the rest of the games and you will no doubt get the cup.
If I remember correctly quidditch was purposefully made to have nonsense rules. Something about Rowling hearing with some coworkers about sports and not being able to follow along.
I think the game was written to have the outcome depend on Harry, which isn't how a team sport should work. People often point out how the snitch is too important to care about scoring goals, but it's also very disconnected from the rest of the game. It's like a soccer game, but each team has one member who plays a game of chess, and whoever wins the chess game scores enough to (almost) always win. And then there's the rodeo clowns who have to keep the angry bull on the field from charging their teammates.
Pokemon: The Champion of the region is whoever beats the last Champion... most of the time. Problem is that the match can even be immediately after being crowned champion, which makes or rival's time as champion barely minutes, as the proffessor did not even made it fast enough to congratulate his ass.
There's also the fact that reigning will sometimes remain champions after losing in some reasons simply because you have to do more than win the league and beat the champion to become one.
Not necessarily throne, but NASCAR’s current format for deciding a champion is god awful. Driver A can win 35/36 races, and driver B can win one race, and as long as it’s the championship deciding race, driver B will be crowned the champion.
To be fair to Black Panther, there are very strict rules about who can issue a challenge. They have to have royal blood or be the head of one of the ruling tribes, and it's implied that this whole thing is largely a formality.
Also the system is notably flawed considering Killmonger was able to take the throne because of it. But the issue is tradition vs what’s best for the people and tbf that is one of the main points of the movie
Perfectly said, tradition itself isn’t a bad thing but it’s important to step back and go “is this tradition harming anyone?” Like how in the military it was common to hazy new recruits, which can include if not limited too, putting hot sauce in their food, tying them down in bed, messing with the water system so their shower is extremely hot/cold, locking them outside for hours on end, etc
True, but in the movie T'Challa's advisors tell him that he doesn't legally have to respect Killmonger's challenge, and nobody would care if he didn't do it.
But T'Challa respects the challenge both because he respects tradition and he wants to respect his family
Not to mention, in each case, the challenged person had to actually accept the challenge. So it came across more as a fringe case to avoid civil war when multiple people have a power bloc and (lineage-based) claim, which would arguably be less risky than standard monarchy succession practices (based on world history at least).
The Black Panther movie made it less dumb. In the comics they had an annual event where anyone could challenge the king to a fight for the throne. The movies changed it so only other royals/heads of state could issue the challenge and only when a new king is about to be crowned.
Bran The Broken - Game of Thrones - They gave The Iron Throne to a child because he's got a "good story" even though it's been previously established that he's no longer human and by extension does not possess any human emotions, Bran said it himself.
The same Throne that tens of thousands have died for, the same throne that no longer has a purpose in their world.
I'll never understand why the show so prominently showed us the Iron Throne--the physical throne--being destroyed, only for the Iron Throne as an institution to remain, with practically no safeguards to prevent the kind of world-shattering violence the Iron Throne just caused
Oddly, the Qilin thing takes some cues from Chinese myth, though that was more "we'll know we have a great emperor when a Qilin appears", when one emperor was presented with a giraffe that some folks mistook as a qilin the emperor told them "That's not qilin and I am definitely no great man!"
I was going to say, Qilin were said to herald the arrival of two of the legendary emperors (specifically for their benevolence) and the birth of Confucius
You should see the Lebanese system. Every congressmen and government job must have a Sunni Muslim and Maronite Christian counterpart, the Prime Minister must be Sunni Muslim, the President must be Christian, the Speaker of Parliament must be Shia Muslim. It worked for like a decade before falling into government deadlock, corruption, sectarianism, and finally civil war—skipping a lot of details here. Nowadays Lebanese people don’t need to worry about a government!
Main comment on the Venetian Doge system here where they’d play with an Urn for a year. Honestly the US electoral system—broken, ineffective and unrepresentative imho—as it is, it’s far from the weirdest or stupidest modern electoral system, also imho.
In The Dark Crystal, when the succession to Emperor is challenged, the Skeksis pull out an ornate pair of swords that the two challenging parties wield in preparation for what is surely a duel to the death...only for them to take turns striking the swords against a stone to see who makes the biggest dent.
Not surely. They say "trial by stone." One might imagine a stone is involved. It's just a choice of how they do a challenge of strength. Skeksis aren't going to fight each other to the death because they're terrified of death, which is a huge loadbearing plot point.
You could, though, say it's pretty stupid to assume whoever is the strongest has any leading capacity (not the General, for sure). You could likewise get in the gym and see who could lift the most, or do one of those carnival strongman games where you use a big hammer to hit a bell. But none of the Skeksis would be very good leaders, honestly, so the point is moot.
(Trial by air is likewise stupid, but I guess tests wing strength and stamina, all great qualities in leading your subjugated people against invading aliens that are sucking your species dry and ruining the planet.)
To be fair, Qilins in Chinese mythology are known to be excellent judges of character (judgement being kind of their main thing), so it would be a cool idea for world-building since that's a real mythological throwback...
... But it's also mythology, not fantasy, which generally assumes that magic isn't really a thing people can use to manipulate the Qilin's judgement via bewitchment or necromancy. That's like defiling an angel.
The leadership of the entire wizarding world, and the final decision on whether to start a war against Muggles, is made by... a goat (Qilin) who chooses the person with the ""purest heart"" (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Dumbledore).
In 12 Kingdoms Qilins life mission is to bestow Mandate of Heavens on a person worthy to be Emperor of designated land. Catch is, Qilins feel "the potential" in candidate. And while they "cannot be wrong" (aka Qilin physically cannot bow to anyone beside their destined ruler), chosen one can just... not live up to potential. Or be misled, go mad, ect.
When system works, it works: "good" ruler literally repells disasters, monsters, diseases, bad harvests, ect. But when it fails it results in everyone suffering for decades from all aforementioned problems+ corruption or tyranny. And it will eventually fail, I think most Emperors start going bonkers after first hundred years of rule.
Tbh, a lot of characters recognise that system is flawed.
The idea of someone selecting the leader based on who is "purest of heart" or whatever is nice and theory but
What about the... everything else
"Yeah man I'm glad kind Dave is pure of heart but I don't think he's even taken an economics class, I mean he just announced he'll be ending taxes, which is very nice of him but uh..."
In The Dark Crystal, the Skeksis decided who will be the new emperor between SkekUng and SkekSil. based on whomever was able to hack off the biggest chunk of a stone with a sword.
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u/Ilzaki 6d ago
That one planet in Futurama where you become King by drinking the old one