History Main / RoyallyScrewedUp

->''"Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss that coin into the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land."''
-->-- '''Barristan the Bold''', ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''

** Heavy metal poisoning, especially lead. (If you're looking for others to shake things up, antimony, mercury and arsenic are places to look: they've also had effects.) Seriously, it's a fashion at the moment for forensic archaeologists to imply this as the cause of most of the [[TruthInTelevision real world cases]] of mad monarchs 1500-1815, the source primarily being lead makeup. There were a few reasons for this: lead makes for an easily applied and very white pigment... which aristocrats loved to whiten their skin with to emphasis how little outside work they had to undertake, as well as not to look sweaty or smell so bad (lead pigments also can act to some extent as deodorants). These same aristocrats stopped using makeup from about 1815-1920 for fashion and decency reasons (moral decency, that is); not coincidentally, the incidence of insanity among them dropped, although they weren't entirely clear on why at the time). Although lead in the booze and water (more from the lead used in distilling equipment and pipework than the relatively negligible amounts leached from the crystal glasses) has also been implicated.[[note]]More recently, the higher crime rates in the West and particularly the US 1960-1990 have been attributed to lead poisoning, from leaded gasoline and lead paint. "Lead is bad news" holds for everyone, evidently.[[/note]]

[[folder:Manhwa & Manhua]]

** On the mortal side of things, you had the House of Atreus. Their ancestor was Tantalus (that guy who got smote for trying to serve the gods his kid), and, believe it or not, it somehow got worse from there.

** Interestingly enough, Agammemnon's brother Menelaus seems to have also escaped the brunt of the curse; while his wife Helen was kidnapped and he had to fight a war to get her back, he eventually ''did'' [[EarnYourHappyEnding reunite with her and lived in peace from then on]].

** And that's not getting into TheEmperor, [[TrulySingleParent his sons]], [[Literature/HorusHeresy and the tragedy that shattered the galaxy]]. On one hand, the Emperor brought a new golden age to the galaxy and most of his sons were initially stable (The exceptions being Kurze, a murderous sociopath; Angron, a blood-crazed berserker; Lorgar, a raving zealot; Alpharius, who had colossal delusions of grandeur; and quite possibly the twins, whose names were wiped from history for reasons unknown). On the far less lenient hand, he was also a stubborn egomaniac who couldn't be bothered to change his mind when he started ruling humanity. His intolerant holier-than-thou attitude on his sons (''especially'' Lorgar) drove some to madness, which started the fall.

* ''Videogame/BlazBlue'' features the Yayoi family, one of the twelve ruling families of the Duodecim. They rarely show up directly, but they are pretty messed up from what we know. Members of the Yayoi family would [[SuperpowerfulGenetics only have children]] with those who had strong [[{{Magitek}} Ars Magus]] potential. Eventually they [[RoyalInbreeding started inbreeding]] due to considering themselves the only ones strong enough. The current heir, [[YamatoNadeshiko Tsubaki]], is not the firstborn child; she's the first one that ''survived''. She's strong and nice, but she's [[GreenEyedMonster not]] [[{{Yandere}} quite]] [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter right]] and ends up manipulated.

* Pretty much any royal family featured in ''WebOriginal/LoomingGaia''.

*** Until the trade with India really picked up at the height of the Roman Republic, and cane sugar started to be imported, about the only sweeteners known in the Europe were honey and must — aka "boiled-up fruit juice or pressings" (see also [[https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_cuit_(Suisse) Swiss vin cuit]], a direct, northern descendant similar to apple butter and [[https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_cuit_(France) French vin cuit]], a direct southern descendant which is a concentrated wine). The juice of the sweet, ripe grapes famous around the Meditetranean is rich in glucose, and boiling the water off a lot concentrated the sugar; first into the syrupy'' defrutum'', and then into the molasses-like ''sapa''. Given the Romans penchant for lead utensils at every stage, one shouldn't be surprised that they widely used lead-soldered, lead-lined or just plain lead cauldrons to do so, which exposed a lot of lead to the acidic grape juice, leading to formation of the aforementioned lead acetate — as well as lead malate, lead ascorbate and other lead salts that naturally went right into the syrup. In fact, the lead acetate probably got its common name, "sugar of lead", because someone tasted the whitish crystals that formed on the rim of their defrutum-making pot.

*** There's also a fact that for most of the Classical Antiquity and Middle Ages the lead acetate was known as "sugar of lead" and thought to be a great sweetener: it's cheap, easy to produce and much sweeter than the other alternatives. In was widely used in cider-, perry- and winemaking, and given that for much of the period the preference was for very sweet, syrupy concoctions, it exposed the drinkers to far worse doses of lead than any lead plumbing could.

* The Prentiss family in ''Film/TheManchurianCandidate'' (known in the novel as Iselin). The novel alludes pretty frankly to [[spoiler:incest between Eleanor and her father Tyler]], and relates with equal candor at least one instance of same between [[spoiler:Eleanor and her son Raymond. While he's under mind control, no less.]] All three are driven, passionate patriots working at high levels of office -- Tyler was a diplomat, Eleanor is a Senator and Raymond is a Representative running for Vice President. Over the course of his campaign it is revealed that his mother [[spoiler:has been involved for many years in a conspiracy which began with the Congressional Medal of Honor and ends with an assassination attempt on the president-elect and, ultimately, the deaths of both Raymond and Eleanor]].

** When King Gultopp Folkvar found out that his newborn daughter Sygbarne was mentally disabled, he told everyone that she was stillborn and locked her up, hiring every possible quack doctor in an attempt to cure her condition while hiding her existence from the rest of the world, continuing it well into her adulthood. His son Prince Hestal also had his wife assasinated because he got tired of her.

** Candy Kingdom Law is "complicated" according to Princess Bubblegum. In the event that anything should happen to PB, who inherits the throne? Her maladjusted, overly sensitive, socially awkward, most likely brain-damaged, insensitive, angry, sour-tempered, alienated son/science experiment gone wrong, the Earl of Lemongrab. Arguably, Lemongrab is a pretty sympathetic example of this trope -- he obviously has a... [[AmbiguousDisorder delicate condition]], but that doesn't stop everyone from despising his guts for being a {{Jerkass}} most of the time and sending everyone to the dungeon for a million years. But why stop there? When the princess realizes her errors, she must create a second heir. This time, she brings her own DNA into the equation in an attempt to stabilize the formula. Enter the giant, pink, infantile being Goliad. Princess Bubblegum wants to educate her in all the ways of royalty and leadership and Finn and Jake are tasked to teach her. However, Goliad's "mondo mama brains" have an extreme imprint. Just seeing Jake yell at a group of preschoolers in order to keep them quiet send her into an authoritarian state in which everyone is forced to follow her rules. Then Goliad pulls out her ThirdEye and begins to control the citizens of the Candy Kingdom with mind control and telekinesis. If not for [[spoiler:Stormo, a being created by Finn's DNA]], the kingdom would have fallen.

** When King Gultopp Folkvar found out that his newborn daughter Sygbarne was mentally disabled, he told everyone that she was stillborn and locked her up, hiring every possible quack doctor in an attempt to cure her condition while hiding her existence from the rest of the world. His son Prince Hestal also had his wife assasinated because he got tired of her.

** Olympus is of course ruled by the usual backstabbing, hypocritical self absorbed pantheon, and their royal family is related to the Royal Family of the Amazons.

* In ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'', royalty of the planet Eiattu interbreed and use technology to keep the line "pure" of the ills afflicting the common folk. But nature abhors a vacuum. Plourr Ilo, revealed as the last confirmed survivor of the main royal family after the other nobles had a bloody revolution (her story was loosely based off of the legend of Anastasia), tells the other characters why the man rumored to be her brother (who's a new kind of revolutionary, this time for the common folk) can't be him.
-->"All those years of dipping from the same genetic pool caused a wrinkle, a flaw in an otherwise normal family line. We set out to keep ourselves above the common man and found ourselves with a thing from the deepest pit of the Sith."
** She also knows it's not him because on the night her family was killed, her father managed to get the two of them out and her brother started screaming for the revolutionaries to come and find Plourr and slit her throat so he could be Emperor. [[http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/728104.html So she killed him]].

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* The ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfiction, ''Fanfic/MaternalInstinctMLP'' has the royal family of the Changeling Kingdom, the House of Roachanov. Although Changeling culture is primarily based off UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan, the royal family has a reputation of intermarriage amongst its members that, throughout generations has led to many physical and mental disabilities and illnesses much more similar to those of old European royalty. Queen Chrysalis appears to have dodged most of these ailments, but her daughter and heir, Crown Princess Pupa is both heavily mentally and physically disabled. Pupa, at the time of the fanfiction, is approximately the same age as the Cutie Mark Crusaders, yet she can neither walk or talk, and is treated as virtually an infant and carried around as one by her careers. She is comparable to King Charles II of Spain and Feodor I of Russia. As one commentator remarked, ''"the Changeling royalty is essentially a tour of all the screwed up monarchies of Europe."'', again ironic as the culture is primarily Japanese.
* [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2138275/1/ Let Them Fade]] is a terrific Franchise/HarryPotter fic exploring, in the form of a conversation between Snape and an adult Hermione, the results of long-term inbreeding among Purebloods, the wizarding world's analogue to royal inbreeding: "For every Pureblood child in my generation, I have calculated or deduced the existence of five stillbirths or miscarriages." She also points out an increasing number of Squibs and prevalence of learning disorders among the surviving Pureblood children, and calculates that the Death Eater war hastened the fatal genetic bottleneck by 200 years, because it killed off a substantial chunk of the remaining gene pool. [[spoiler:She covers these findings up in her official Ministry report but tells Snape in private. That way he can discreetly spread the word to affected families but there won't be any coercive breeding laws based on her discovery.]]
** In ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5651585/3/Wizards-are-stupid Wizards are stupid]]'', a collection of one-shots dedicated to demonstrating the stupidity of Potterverse wizards, the third chapter "Incest is bad" is dedicated to Draco Malfoy's birth: the first Draco was a circus freak [[BodyHorror (with three arms, fourteen fingers on the arms, three testicles and no penis, two mouths (one on the side of the face, the other on the neck), among other things),]] quickly killed and incinerated, and there were three other freaks, stillborns, or miscarriages before we got the Draco we met in the series. It's openly attributed to inbreeding, with Lucius and Narcissa being presented as first cousins on the Black side of the family, and the author gleefully pointed out many alternatives.
* In the setting of ''FanFic/SonicXDarkChaos'', the Emirate of Mecca is ruled by the House of Ishmael. How utterly corrupt and screwed up is it? The [[TheCaligula Prophet Muhammad]] (who happens to be a completely insane dictator who tried to irrigate fields with blood) is considered to be ''one of the better members''. The family is the primary reason for the Emirate being a nightmarish totalitarian theocracy. According to WordOfGod, it was explicitly based on the real life Saudi royal family.

[[folder:Films - Live Action]]

* As of ''Film/ThorRagnarok'', we find out that Asgard's royal family is this. While in previous movies, both of Thor and Loki's worst mistakes included various shades of unprovoked mass murder, in the third ''Thor'' movie, we find out that they're not the only members of their family with a bloodthirsty past. [[spoiler: Odin went through a phase where he was a brutal GalacticConqueror, and also had a daughter that neither Thor nor Loki knew about [[DaddysLittleVillain who helped him conquer the Nine Realms]] before Thor and Loki were born. Unlike Odin, who eventually [[HeelFaceTurn saw the error of his ways]], Hela [[BloodKnight didn't want to stop expanding their empire]], so Odin was forced to imprison her [[AxCrazy before she destroyed everything.]]]] The Asgardian royal family are the leaders of [[ProudWarriorRace a very warlike society]], and multiple generations of the family, from [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar Thor's grandfather]] to Thor's generation, have been linked to... questionable or immoral decision-making in war. Thor, at least, was able to change quickly after Odin exiled him and [[BroughtDownToBadass stripped him of his powers]], though the speed of his character development in that case is most likely at least partly due to the [[HumiliationConga humiliation]] and [[TraumaCongaLine trauma]] he went through then. Loki, though adopted into the family, seemingly got his worst tendencies from both nature and nurture. He was raised in a Asgard's warrior society, but his biological father, King Laufey, tried to conquer Earth at one point, and is implied to have been planning to exterminate all native life on the planet.

[[folder:Mythology]]

* In the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness RPG ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'', many of the ruling tribe, the Silver Fangs, suffered from this -- despite the fact that werewolves had to outbreed (werewolf-werewolf matings were lucky if their children were just insane). Of course, interbreeding [[TooDumbToLive with the Habsburg line]] didn't help.
** Somewhat justified in that the Silver Fangs had such an obsession with lineage that they refused to breed with any humans that weren't royal. So they managed to get most all the bad traits of just about everyone in the "Real Life" section.

** The d'Honaires are related to Dominic d'Honaire, Darklord of Dementlieu. They tend to be sickly but with a gift for healing, and to be either kindhearted and empathic or cold-blooded sociopaths. d'Honaires in Dementlieu are also immune to supernatural mental modification, as part of Dominic's curse.

** The Von Zaroviches are related to Strahd von Zarovich, Darklord of Barovia (but not directly- he doesn't have any children) and have no less than ''four'' family curses- susceptibility to the attentions of the Dark Powers, chronic nightmares, berserker rages, and being prone to visions of horror if wounded in battle. Thankfully they need not all apply to the same person at once. They are prone to being evil, but this isn't universal.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' is fond of this trope. During the most decadent period of the Empire's history, it's implied that inbreeding reached epic proportions and led to actual mutations among the nobility. They seem to have straightened things out for the most part by the "present day" though. Thank Sigmar for the [[BurnTheWitch witch hunters]], eh?

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has numerous examples of hereditary planetary rulers who follow this trope -- though [[Literature/CiaphasCain Inquisitor Vail]] would point out that this doesn't happen ''quite'' as often as the stereotypes would have you believe. In Caligula-bad scenarios (such as Osric the Loopy, mentioned in passing in ''The Traitor's Hand''), the [[PsychoForHire Officio Assassinorum]] can be dispatched to "tidy up" matters.
** And in ''worst''-case scenarios, the Royally Screwed-Up ruler is a heavily mutated [[TheCorruption Chaos]]-worshiper who unleashes TheLegionsOfHell on the planet they're supposed to be governing. At which point, the Imperium's gung-ho fundamentalists take FisherKing [[EarthShatteringKaboom to its logical conclusion]].
** And that's not getting into TheEmperor, [[TrulySingleParent his sons]], [[Literature/HorusHeresy and the tragedy that shattered the galaxy]].
*** On one hand, the Emperor brought a new golden age to the galaxy and most of his sons were initially stable (The exceptions being Kurze, a murderous sociopath; Angron, a blood-crazed berserker; Lorgar, a raving zealot; Alpharius, who had colossal delusions of grandeur; and quite possibly the twins, whose names were wiped from history for reasons unknown). On the far less lenient hand, he was also a stubborn egomaniac who couldn't be bothered to change his mind when he started ruling humanity. His intolerant holier-than-thou attitude on his sons (''especially'' Lorgar) drove some to madness, which started the fall.

* ''Theatre/{{Elisabeth}}''. Oh, boy. Among the main characters: Emperor Franz Joseph is a MommasBoy {{Workaholic}}, Empress Elisabeth is a RebelliousPrincess turned BrokenBird[[note]](seagull?)[[/note]] DeathSeeker, and their hypersensitive son Crown Prince Rudolf (who might also be a DeathSeeker depending on the production) was [[spoiler: DrivenToSuicide]] by a FalseFriend who used MoreThanMindControl on him. Lots of the dysfunction comes from the machinations of Archduchess Sophie, the KnightTemplarParent, and Death, the GrimReaper StalkerWithACrush.
** Let's hear [[AllKnowingSingingNarrator Lucheni]] relate the fate of Sisi and Franz's family/in-laws: [[note]]Yes, the same Habsburg people down at the Real Life section.[[/note]]
--> Maximilian von Habsburg. Elizabeth's brother-in-law, Emperor of Mexico, shot by revolutionaries. One, two, fire!
--> Maria von Wittelsbach. Elizabeth's sister, Queen of Naples, went mad.
--> King Ludwig of Bavaria. Elizabeth's cousin, went insane and drowned.
--> The Duchess of Alencon. Elizabeth's sister, caught fire and burnt. Ashes to ashes!

* Princess Sara in ''[[Webcomic/EightBitTheater 8-Bit Theater]]'' is smart, sexy, and sane enough to fully realize her father is a CloudCuckooLander with genocidal tendencies. Naturally, she doesn't hold much stock in hereditary rule. She's still a rude, shrewish sociopath, though, and engineered her own kidnapping.
** How bad it is: No matter what horrible evils she unleashes on the populace when she comes into power, it will look like a golden age compared to the completely ruinous and unhinged chain of decisions King Steve makes every day, simply because she's not enough of an idiot to be capable of the same levels of casual destruction.
*** It's even worse than that: King Steve boasted a 52% approval rating. He got this by having pollsters ask which would they prefer: Having Steve as their king or taking a sword to the head. 48% of his subjects chose execution (And received it).

* Nearly every [[TheClan clan]] in ''WebComic/{{Drowtales}}'' could fit into this, but the Sharen are the most screwed up. Matricide, starting a civil war, and subjecting one's entire clan as well as any female summoner to demonic Tainting, is a good start for proving a case of mental imbalance. Zhor claims that [[spoiler:Snadhya'rune]] is truly insane (not just evil or ruthless, but ''insane''), and Diva knew it.
** The Sarghress clan apparently has a history of child abuse. Allegedly, Quain'ana [[spoiler: ordered her soldiers to rape her own daughter Mel'arnach]] when Mel refused to bear an heir for the clan; in turn, according to a non-canon side story, [[spoiler: Mel and Sil'lice raped their adopted sister Syphile]], and Syphile once locked Ariel (who was physically about 5 years old at the time) and Fuzzy (Ariel's cat) in a cell with no bathroom for a week, and then [[spoiler: killed Fuzzy in front of Ariel when Fuzzy bit her]].
** Kharla'ggen, ruler of the Vloz'ress clan, is the page image for LivingDollCollector.
*** It's noteworthy that while Kharla is an adopted member of the clan, the native-born Vloz'ress apparently have a streak of madness a mile wide.
-->'''Kiel'ndia:''' So, what do you think of my home? Sucks, doesn't it? I wonder what was going through their heads when they built this place. "Let us create a monument to immortalize our madness, to be cherished forever by nuts worldwide. All loonies shall live here and despair... MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

--->'''Vole:''' De pipple of Mechanicsburg would '''not''' ekcept dot [killing Castle Heterodyne] as proof dot she iz a Heterodyne ... not unless she danced nekked though de ruins vile trying to shoot down de moon -- turned all de tourists into monsters -- and den built a very dangerous fountain out of sausages.

* ''Webcomic/TowerOfGod'': Hendrock Bloodmadder, head of the noble Hendrock family, sacrifices each of his children at the young age of 100 (relatively young for ''[=ToG=]'' standards) to keep himself immortal. The kids are completely fanatic about daddy.

* Candy Kingdom Law, in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', is "complicated," according to Princess Bubblegum. In the event that anything should happen to PB, who inherits the throne? Her maladjusted, overly-sensitive, socially awkward, most likely brain-damaged, insensitive, angry, sour-tempered, alienated son/science experiment gone wrong, the Earl of Lemongrab. Arguably, Lemongrab is a pretty sympathetic example of this trope--he obviously has a... [[AmbiguousDisorder delicate condition]], but that doesn't stop everyone from despising his guts for being a JerkAss most of the time and sending everyone to the dungeon for a million years. But why stop there? When the princess realizes her errors, she must create a second heir. This time, she brings her own DNA into the equation in an attempt to stabilize the formula. Enter the giant, pink, infantile being Goliad. Princess Bubblegum wants to educate her in all the ways of royalty and leadership and Finn and Jake are tasked to teach her. However, Goliad's "mondo mama brains" have an extreme imprint. Just seeing Jake yell at a group of preschoolers in order to keep them quiet send her into an authoritarian state in which everyone is forced to follow her rules. Then Goliad pulls out her ThirdEye and begins to control the citizens of the Candy Kingdom with mind control and telekinesis. If not for [[spoiler: Stormo, a being created by Finn's DNA]], the kingdom would have fallen.
** Surely the Candy Kingdom can't have all the fun. There's also the [[{{Hell}} Nightosphere]] and the Vampire Kingdom, controlled by the Abadeers, respectively Hunson and Marceline. Hunson, as the [[ChaoticEvil Lord of Chaos]], controls the strange tortures that flood the Nightosphere. Mutilation, immolation, bananas coming out of orifices; all done in pure glee. His daughter, Marceline the Vampire Queen, is seen less as a ruler and more a fickle [[TheTrickster trickster]]. If she has royal obligations, she completely ignores them.
*** At one point, Marceline was tricked into [[spoiler: becoming the Lord of Chaos by ''her own father''. This made her even more disturbing as she would line up those in the Nightosphere and hand out punishments on whim, giving choices like "pain, pleasure, or weird punishment" and asking if someone wanted abs (which she placed on the person's head)]].

** SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' shows that this isn't exclusive to the Fire Nation. [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Earth Queen Hou-Ting]], unlike her father [[TheGoodKing Kuei]], is a tyrannic, petty monarch who makes life for commoners living hell, and undid all the progress achieved under her father just because of her own personal whims, driving the Earth Kingdom into poverty. [[spoiler: When she ends up getting murdered by Zaheer, [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing the citizens cheer]] and raid her palace, triggering the fall of the Earth Kingdom.]]