History Main / DecadentCourt

** While Orlais is the nation most notorious for their court intrigues, that's only because they're poetic enough to have a name for it. Other nations that engage in this trope are Tevinter (a nation ruled by mages where it's an open secret that any mage of political standing practices blood magic), Antiva (a nation with a PuppetKing that's truly controlled by assassins and merchant leaders), and Orzammar (in a notable aversion to OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame). The Chantry, the setting's dominant religious sect, engages as well; they're well aware that their decrees shape the culture of the entire continent of Thedas, and clerics (including the Grand Cleric--the setting's Pope) are not above employing spies and assassins to do their dirty work.

* In ''Manhwa/TheBrideOfTheWaterGod'', both the Emperor's Court and the Court of the Water Kingdom are filled with intrigue and characters at cross-purposes. Of course, many of the characters are in both courts...

** Things got pretty deadly and decadent during UsefulNotes/TheReniassance as well. [[UsefulNotes/PopeAlexanderVI Rodrigo Borgia]], for example, was infamously elected in the 1492 papal conclave after he bribed other cardinals into supporting him, and he himself became a cardinal because he was [[{{nepotism}} appointed by his uncle]], Pope Callixtus III. Many popes financed building projects and their hedonistic lifestyles through the sale of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence indulgences]]; backlash against such obvious money-grubbing helped kickstart UsefulNotes/TheProtestantReformation.

* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', it seems like all the major nobles in Midland are out to get Griffith, who ends up as the target of two assassination plots by the jealous nobility. Griffith, however, is no slouch himself, and all of the nobles who take part in the assassinations end up dead or blackmailed.

* The Brethren Court in the ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' series, being the "ruling body" over hordes of uncontrollable rogues and pirates, seems to only have any order at all because [[TheDreaded Captain Teague]] is the one enforcing The Code. It is best described by Elizabeth and Jack:

* ''Series/TheCaesars'': A Creator/{{Granada}} series covering the same time period as ''Series/IClaudius'', and likewise featured the tangled web of incest and murder that was the Julio-Claudian royal family and their social circle. Just to name a few examples, Livia happily admits to having arranged "a good many" deaths over the course of sixty years, Livilla and her lover Sejanus conspire to poison her husband Drusus so that they can rule Rome as regents for her son Gemellus when he succeeds Tiberius, and Caligula has sexual relations with all three of his sisters - until he accidentally strangles one and has the other two banished for allegedly conspiring against him.

* ''Theatre/TwistedTheUntoldStoryOfARoyalVizier'': The court of the Magic Kingdom. While [[TheGoodChancellor Ja'far]] seeks to implement positive change for the Magic Kingdom, the Sultan’s court and then-GrandVizier are only interested in maintaining their own lavish lifestyle at the expense of the people. They laugh when Ja'far proposed reforms, and go off to enjoy some opium. They cut off the royal entertainer’s ear to spite her, and later kidnap her for the Sultan when he declares she will be his wife.

** You get to have a go at playing court politics in ''Videogame/DragonAgeInquisition'', when a quest sends you to a grand ball to prevent the Empress's assassination. It starts with you getting judged for your background (unlucky for you if you're anything but a non-mage human) and only gets more murky. If you do well you can get the person of your choice [[spoiler: in charge of the Empire.]] If not...you get tossed out and the whole kingdom dissolves into chaos as you fail to prevent the killing. The whole sequence features an absurd amount of murder, trickery and nice masks. And shoes, don't forget the shoes.

'''Captain:''' And poisoning. And blood magic. Calling the Tower a snake pit is doing [[InsultToRocks a disservice to snakes]]; they don't usually bite unless provoked. Some of the fuckers up there will have you killed for wearing robes that look too much like theirs.

** More generally, the somewhat "puritanical" version of this trope was in effect in Stalin's USSR. There was officially not supposed to be any decadence, luxuries, or other stuff of the sort, but there were plenty of luxuries for UsefulNotes/JosefStalin and his close comrades, though how much they enjoyed them is a different matter. [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas Stalin gave his mother a palace]], for example, but she refused to make use of it, sleeping in the servants' quarters and cooking her own meals. In post-Stalinist times, the decadence finally came to town, though it was still discreet and subtle, never fully shown to outsiders. Though one of the causes of the fall of the USSR was the exposure of this corruption and decadence, it survived the fall unscathed and continued in UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, now stripped clean of any and all Communist puritanism and its practitioners reveling in their new status as the officially unequal upper class. Simon Sebag Montefiore called his excellent book on Stalin ''The Court of the Red Czar''.

* The Ottoman Empire was likely the defining post-renaissance example; that it was ''intentionally'' set up so that every Sultan's death resulted in a frantic power-grab by every potential heir, with the winner having the legal right to have '''ALL''' surviving losers strangled to death was just the tip of the iceberg. No matter if your mother was your father's favorite, one of his wives, concubines, or slaves, all of his sons had equal claim to the throne and represented a threat to you so long as they lived. It didn't help the Janissaries, the Sultan's bodyguards who eventually became corrupt, also chose a [[KingmakerScenario new heir]] to fulfill their political agenda. The [[RoyalHarem Ottoman royal harem]] was no less of a viper's nest, with concubines competing among themselves for the Sultan's affections and to secure their children as the heir so they can become the newest ''Valide Sultan'' or [[MotherMakesYouKing Queen-Mother]]. To this end, they were not above conspiring with eunuchs to get rid of overly ambitious rivals, like stuffing their bodies into bags and throwing them into the sea or gelding them to prevent them from producing competitors of the throne. It's believed that the average life expectancy of every new concubine was 5 years.
* The court of UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia approaches this, although exile, shaming, and [[ReassignedToAntarctica reassignment to Antarctica]] are preferred to outright killing; after all, almost all members of the court are (half)-brothers or cousins (being descendants of King UsefulNotes/AbdulAzizIbnSaud), and the public image of family unity must be maintained. However, by all accounts, the internal politics of the Al Saud are quite dangerous--particularly now that there's a SuccessionCrisis due in a decade or so that everyone can see coming from a mile away--and the decadence of the Saudi court is so legendary, [[ArabOilSheikh it has a trope]].

** On the other hand, the French court that ''preceded'' Louis's reforms was just as bad. The Frondeurs repeatedly struggled with Louis's mother Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin for power even during a long war with Spain, intriguing against the royal household and each other, with one of the best French generals even defecting to the Spanish. Louis didn't create a decadent French court so much as he reformed it to one that better benefited the state, particularly in cleaning up a lot of the aristocratic corruption.

* The Ptolemies - who ruled Egypt for 300 years following the death of Alexander the Great - are especially famous for three things; sibling marriage among rulers (a long-standing Egyptian custom which they appropriated), recurring civil wars among family members, and a lavish lifestyle that made the early Romans gape in shock and envy. During the so-called Hellenistic Age (roughly 323 - 30 B.C.E.), the Ptolemies were the wealthiest rulers in the Mediterranean, and they threw parties and spent money like nobody’s business.
** While many rulers of the dynasty lived only for such parties and enabled a "kill or be killed" mentality among their relatives, Cleopatra VII was notable for her intelligence and political savvy (she spoke nine languages, presided over an intellectual revival in Alexandria, and used her magnificent wealth - among other things - to keep her kingdom from being annexed by Rome for nearly 20 years).

%%* The Borgias. And most of Florence at that time, really.

* [[UsefulNotes/EdwardIV King Edward IV]] of England was a WarriorKing, who achieved great victories at the Battle of Towton and the Battle of Tewkesbury, and was the longest serving Yorkist king during the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses. At 6'4'' he was tall, handsome and affable, and when he wasn't winning political and military victories, he was indulging in wine, food and women with his cadre of male favorites. In short, he ran his court like a Medieval frat house. He famously alienated key allies by marrying for love, but that didn't stop him from taking many mistresses, fathering many bastards, and after he was done with war, eating and drinking himself to an early death that would have far reaching historical consequences.

The court here is that not-so-noble group of [[BlueBlood aristocrats]] who hang around a monarch's luxurious halls. They are dissolute, dissipated, degenerate, depraved, privileged and back-stabbing-- let's just sum it up as "decadent" -- to such an extent that every thing they touch becomes corrupted. The country they are ruling is heading for doom while they drink, flirt, gossip, and play their spiteful little games and jockey for status and position.

* In her letters, Louis XIV's [[TheBeard sister-in-law]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Charlotte,_Madame_Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine]] wrote to her relatives and friends complaining about the increasingly decadent French court at Versailles at the end of 17th and beginning of 18th century:

-->''Regimol'': “A quite delightful planet it was. They weren't without their political intrigue, of course, and their class structure wasn't fair by Federation standards. Still it reminded me a lot of Romulus, if you could turn the Romulans into a peaceful, insular people”.

* In her letters, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Charlotte,_Madame_Palatine Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine]] wrote to her relatives and friends complaining about the increasingly decadent French court at Versailles during the 18th century:

Often, TheFairFolk and [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils the Princes and nobles of Hell]] are organized around feudal lines, and in these cases the courts of great fey kings and mighty demon lords are invariably depicted as halls of treachery, ruthless social climbing, and subtle and vicious insults truly beyond human ken or capacity.

A bit of a TruthInTelevision trope, since nations with absolute rulers and a wealthy aristocracy have tended to breed Deadly Decadent Courts like flies. Imperial Rome, its medieval continuation the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire, Imperial China (and later communist-controlled China), and pre-Revolutionary France are the archetypal examples that most writers seem to crib from. Non-royal "courts" often work too, such as the Soviet Union.