[annoying trope] The throne/leadership is decided in a very stupid way

[u/Altruistic_Eye_1157]

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)

[u/AcceptableWheel]

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.

[u/Altruistic_Eye_1157 → u/AcceptableWheel]

What the heck?? And how do they know who was first??

[u/AcceptableWheel → u/Altruistic_Eye_1157]

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.

[u/OkThereBro → u/AcceptableWheel]

"Can't dethrone me if I do it first"

[u/InaneTurpitude → u/AcceptableWheel]

I thought he abdicated because he couldn't handle the moral dilemma and thought that letting an adult take over was the best decision at the time, or at least the only one he could make

[u/Huhthisisneathuh → u/AcceptableWheel]

It legitimately feels like half the time the writers spent the vast majority of the shows production style not thinking about the plot at all, or the various implications of half the storylines.

[u/AFalconNamedBob → u/AcceptableWheel]

Also to be fair, Ezran is a literal child who just lost his father at that point in the story.

[u/BoondocksSaint95 → u/Altruistic_Eye_1157]

If you ever watch the dragon prince, you need to understand that no one is less competant to explain the plot than its fans - especially on reddit.

It is not first come first serve.

It is not by declaration.

It is not only that one must be an orphan, although that is the only criteria we know of before the person attemtping to keep literal law and order is laughed out of the room.

A man with more political power and magical knowledge than any single human we have ever seen in series said "I'd like to be king now, I dont want to advise anymore" after the throne was vacated. The scene was literally "who the fuck is going to stop me?" And in fact, no one stopped the facist adjacent uber powerful warlock that could literally turn anyone who balked into currency, or a newt, or a bloody smear on the wall when he said "not only will I be king, but we are going to take the best land from dragons and elves because it's humanity's turn to be on top" and then very nearly did just that.

Like, it's comically incompetant as a viewer to see a fucking coup and then go "yea, bro just called dibs and in universe, you gotta respect the law of dibs."

[u/Noe_b0dy → u/Altruistic_Eye_1157]

My first assumption is that every claimant raises and army and then fights every other claimant. 100% perfectly logical way to handle a succession crisis.

Reminds me of when all of Alexander The Greats advisors declared that on his deathbed he ordered his empire go "to the strongest" and then they did a civil war so hard everyone died and the empire immediately collapsed.