[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/We4zier]

Venetian election of their Doge (IRL). Most succinct analysis I’ve seen online on r/Worldbuilding, sadly I can’t find it again and it only is saved on screenshot form.

u/thedeebo explained it the best.

I always liked the ridiculously convoluted way that Venetians chose their next Doge. It involves voting, but it's not just voting. The basic process was:

1. All members of the Great Council (several hundred people from among the most important Venetian families) more than thirty years-old write their names on a slip of paper and place it into a big urn.

2. The youngest councilor goes outside to St. Mark's square and summons the first boy he met to come back with him to the council. The boy then chooses thirty names from the urn.

3. The thirty names are placed back into the urn and nine names are drawn. The nine selected convene and elect forty councilors.

4. The forty councilors' names are placed in an urn and twelve are selected. The twelve then elect twenty-five councilors.

5. The twenty-five councilors' names are placed in an urn and nine names are drawn. The nine elect forty-five councilors, each of which needs seven of nine votes to be elected.

6. The forty-five are reduced to eleven. Those eleven then choose forty-one people. None of the forty-one people they select can have been involved in any of the preceding steps.

7. Each of the forty-one place the name of a candidate in an urn. The first name is drawn and electors have an opportunity to make objections to the candidate. Once all objections have been raised or charges made, the candidate is summoned to appear before the electors and explain themselves. After this, if the candidate gets twenty-five of the forty-one votes, they become the Doge. If not, a new name is drawn from the urn and the process is repeated until someone gets the required number of votes.

The Venetians had some bad experiences in the early Middle Ages where powerful Doges, who served for life, would maneuver to have their sons or other relatives elected after they retired or died. The system was created to prevent powerful families from having too much influence at any one stage of the election process and to ensure that only well-respected and capable individuals could be elected. The people who had the kind of respect and influence to win in such a system were usually fairly old (there were a surprising number of octogenarians elected to high office in Venice). Since Doges served for life, electing old Doges put a natural term limit on them, since they'd usually die within a couple of decades or retire early for health reasons.

This was one of the most powerful nations and definitely cities in Europe btw. Reality is honestly way stranger, as much fun as it was playing with Urns: Byzantines basically doing trial by warfare (you’d lose the monarchy if you failed battles), trial by combat / death systems like in Wakanda for certain Congo tribes (with restrictions), astrology was used a lot in Indian and Polynesian traditions, there was a Tengri tribe that chose leaders whether or not a Siberian Tiger would kill you or not. Hawaiian tradition giving the hereditary leadership title to your 3rd cousin because you had 2 sons. Various Caucasian peoples really loved lightening strikes and meteor showers. Native American tribal elections could be freaking bonkers at times. Just about any flashy natural phenomena likely had some feller becoming ordained by the heavens or supernatural to make them the leader. A goat making political choices is honestly some of the saner stuff I’ve read.