History Main / RegentForLife

* North Korea is a necrocracy, based on the rules of its late ruler, Kim Il-sung. After his death, he was elevated to the highest position as "eternal leader" while his successors are technically second in command as the "Supreme Leader".

* North Korea is a necrocracy, based on the rules of its late ruler, Kim Il-sung. After his death, he was elevated to the highest position as "eternal leader" while his successors are technically second in command as the "Supreme Leader".

* Cersei Lannister in ''Series/GameOfThrones'', as detailed above under Literature. Later subverted in that, while she deliberately put her son Joffrey on the throne with the intention of being this trope (which probably would have been an improvement over him ruling in his own right) she quickly found him less controllable than she expected, which was one of the reasons why she progressively turned against Joffrey with each passing episode. It was her own damn fault for being a moron, but still. Then when [[spoiler: he dies and Tommen takes the throne]], she tries again only to be pushed out by his wife and later the Faith Militant. [[spoiler: Cersei eventually foregoes the 'regent' part altogether and claims the throne herself after she blows up the wife and the Faith Militant, leading to Tommen's suicide.]]

** The SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' shows in Book 4 how Kuvira takes back control of the Earth Kingdom (it was plunged into chaos due to the actions of [[BombThrowingAnarchist Zaheer and co.]]) by basically defeating the gangs of every state and making their citizens pledge loyalty to her and her army for full protection. [[spoiler:The "for life" part comes when she refuses to give up her temporary power to the rightful heir and declares sovereignty over the new ''Earth Empire''.]]

* Viren attempts this in ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'', but he gets [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome thrown in prison for lying that he's the regent]].

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': Lor'themar Theron is one of the blue moon variety; he was left as Regent-Lord of Silvermoon while Prince Kael'thas journeyed to Outland to find magic to feed his people. [[spoiler: Following Kael'thas' fall and defeat(s), there is no one left in the Sunstrider line, leaving Lor'themar as the new ruler of the Blood Elves. Curiously, he still holds the title "Regent", and has yet to establish his own dynasty. His closest friend Halduron seems to be pushing for him to do so, though Lor'themar insists he is a ranger, not a politician.]]

* In one of the ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'' series, the regents tamper with the King's will to increase their power, keep his first son permanently drugged until he dies, kill the second son when they discover he's plotting against them, and plan to kill the third son as soon as he provides a heir, threatening to have his wife raped if he doesn't cooperate.

* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance2'' has its intro sequence show billboards near Omerta with the caption 'Queen Deidranna- your Queen for life!' Which doesn't actually sound all that dystopian and BananaRepublic-like unless you know from [[AllThereInTheManual in-game briefings]] that the country was an ElectiveMonarchy with a parliament and considerably less tyranny going on until she poisoned the King and framed her husband the Crown Prince for it.

** [[DatedHistory It was once thought]] that Hatshepsut fit this trope. For a long time, most historians believed that she had maliciously kept the throne from her stepson Thutmose III for thirty years, only allowing him to control the Army while she ran everything else. When she died, the story went, Thutmose immediately destroyed or covered up all of her monuments in an attempt to erase his wicked stepmother from the historical record. However, it's since been discovered that Thutmose didn't destroy any of her monuments until decades after her death, and other historians have pointed out that if Thutmose hadn't liked Hatshepsut being in power, he could have disposed of her the day he reached adulthood, since ''he controlled the Army''. It's now suspected that Thutmose and Hatshepsut were ''friends and allies'' who ruled together peacefully, Thutmose conducting Egypt's many military campaigns while Hatshepsut stayed at home and dealt with the domestic matters that the budding YoungConqueror Thutmose didn't care about. As for her name being defaced off her monuments, many historians believe that Thutmose's successor [[GloryHound Amenhotep II]] simply wanted to take credit for building them himself.

* In the ''RobinHood'' legend, [[UsefulNotes/RichardTheLionHeart King Richard]]'s brother Prince John acts as his regent during the crusades. While gone, Prince John plots and manoeuvres to retain his despotic rule. (As part of the Robin Hood legends, this is NewerThanTheyThink; Prince John had no part of the legends until Elizabethan times, when he was introduced into the legend by Anthony Munday's play, ''The Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon'' (1599).)

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', Knight-Commander Meredith takes control of Kirkwall after [[spoiler:Viscount Dumar's death]]. She soon begins using her power to crack down harder on mages, causing further tension between mages and templars. She refuses to consider appointing a proper successor.

* Prince Luitpold became regent of Bavaria on June 10, 1886, after his nephew King UsefulNotes/LudwigIIOfBavaria was declared unfit to rule. Ludwig died under mysterious circumstances three days later, leaving the Bavarian throne to his younger brother Otto who was already confined to a mental asylum. Luitpold thus continued to be Prince Regent (Prinzregent) of Bavaria until his own death in 1912. His son prince Ludwig succeeded him in that position, but several people called for him to take the throne himself, and the Bavarian legislature introduced a constitutional amendment that if a incapacity related regency had lasted for ten years with no end in sight, the regent could end the regency and declare himself king upon approval by the legislature and Ludwig subsequently declared himself King Ludwig III in 1913. In the end, Ludwig III was forced to abdicate during the November Revolution of 1918.

** The Stewards of Gondor in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' are a family of hereditary regents, generally good ones. They rule Gondor after the last king disappears. Unfortunately, the only one we actually ''meet'' in the books and films alike is Denethor, mentally unhinged by the loss of his favorite son, the hordes of Mordor at his doorstep, and finally by the EvilOverlord himself through the seeing-stone which Denethor foolishly thought he could control. In [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the movies]], possibly due to {{Flanderization}}, he and Boromir both make it very clear that "Gondor has no king. Gondor ''needs'' no king." (though in Boromir's case it's because he feels Aragorn has been running away from his responsibility and leaving the people of Gondor to fight the armies of Mordor to play at being a Ranger). In the book, Denethor says, his rule "is mine and no other man's, unless the king should come again" (''[=LoTR=]'' V 1). Denethor might be perfectly willing, even overjoyed, to yield to a king, but we never learn whether Denethor would accept Aragorn as the king, considering Gandalf tries to conceal from Denethor the coming of Aragorn. Denethor would have a solid precedent for refusing to give Aragorn the throne: Aragorn's ancestor Arvedui tried to claim the throne of Gondor, and they turned him down. Aragorn isn't a direct male-line descendant of Anárion. He's descended from Anárion's older brother Isildur, who ''was'' King of Gondor even though his children weren't, and he also descends from Anárion through his ancestress Fíriel, a daughter of the last king of the senior line of Gondor and wife of Arvedui, so there are arguments to be made both ways.

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]

* Miraz in ''Film/PrinceCaspian'' started out as "Lord Protector" or some other title and slowly took on the title of king by disposing of anyone at Court opposed to him. He raised the true heir, his brother's son Caspian, as his own heir... until he had a son of his own, prompting Caspian to flee the proceeding murder plot.

* UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria believed that she had only by the grace of God avoided a RegentForLife. When she was seventeen and recovering from typhoid fever, her mother's "friend" Sir John Conroy tried to make her sign a document stating that her mother, and through her Conroy, would rule in her place ''even after she turned eighteen''. Victoria had the presence of mind to refuse to sign the document, and it's unlikely that Parliament would have consented to such an agreement, but it was only her accession as Queen at eighteen that stopped Conroy from repeatedly pressing her to make him her regent. (It may also have helped that her uncle, [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover King William IV]], saw right through his sister-in-law's schemes and gave made it known he supported his niece's efforts to remain independent.)[[note]]Some even say that he clung to life despite his illness as long as he did so that Victoria could inherit at 18, at which point she would have to be recognized as monarch without a regency, basically for this reason. Of course, we can't know if that's even possible. However, we can say that William would have done it if it were--he said so himself, delivering a deliciously haughty but well-deserved TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to Victoria's mother ''to her face''.[[/note]] In fact, her entire life before her ascension as Queen was designed to make her this. She was raised under the Kensington System, which was a strict and elaborate set of rules designed by her mother and Conroy to make her weak and dependent, which thankfully did not work.

* In ''Film/TheBanditOfShherwoodForest'', William of Pembroke, Regent of England imprisons the young King of England Henry III, and moves to repeal the Magna Carta returning England to autocratic rule.

** When King Maegor suddenly died, Lord Baratheon tried to make Prince Jaehaerys, last of King Aenys's sons a king with Baratheon in charge behind him. Then it turned out Jaehaerys was far too smart and strong-willed to go along with this. Baratheon tried to press the issue. Jaehaerys pressed harder, and Baratheon gave up. Fortunately, Jaehaerys I turned out to be a pretty good king.

** Unwin Peake, slimy git per excellence, immediately started trying to rule the Seven Kingdoms when made part of Aegon III's regency council, including filling the Red Keep with relatives and toadies. After Viserys reappeared from being presumed dead, a conspiracy suddenly rose claiming Visery's wife's family were part of an insidious plot to overthrow the king, and that the king needed to be taken away by the Kingsguard for his own good (taken to ''where'' exactly being one of many unanswered questions). This was proven to be bunk, and Peake slimed away without ever being ''proven'' to have taken part.

** During Hōjō reign, the whole regency business was taken {{Up To Eleven}}, since shikken was the regent for the reigning shogun, not the emperor himself. And since shogun was kind of regent himself, this leads to a regency for a regency [[RuleOfThree for a regency]]

->'' ' "How many hundreds of years needs it to make a steward a king, if the king returns not?" he asked. "Few years, maybe, in other places of less royalty," my father answered. "In Gondor, ten thousand years would not suffice." Alas! Poor Boromir. Does that not tell you something of him?' ''