History Main / RoyallyScrewedUp

** 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.

** 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 below.

* The Holy Grail in ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' is an organization that has kept the bloodline of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} pure for around two millennia. Unfortunately, they did this via BrotherSisterIncest, generation after generation, resulting in [[UncannyValley sickly, skinny people with eyes like an anime character]]. As Herr Starr puts it, they're lucky the current (mentally retarded) descendant doesn't have antennae. His parents weren't much better, having literally been locked in a cage because they have the intelligence and behavior of monkeys.

** When King Gultopp 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.

** King Gultopp Folkvar keeps his mentally disabled daughter Sygbarne locked up in secret from everyone.

** King Oberon Mogdir constantly cheats on his wife, who has tried several times to have him assassinated, and neglects his children. His youngest daughter has attempted to murder her younger brother multiple times out of jealousy.

[-[[caption-width-right:341:UsefulNotes/CharlesIIOfSpain "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuKPzbA9bWs The Bewitched]]". Most people have family trees. This guy had a [[TangledFamilyTree family tumbleweed]]. Yes, his lower jaw ''really did'' jut out that far, and yes his nose ''really was'' that messed up. Also, this is a ''flattering'' portrait.]]-]

[-[[caption-width-right:341:[[TruthInTelevision Carlos II "The Hexed"]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuKPzbA9bWs of Spain]]. Most people have family trees. This guy had a [[TangledFamilyTree family tumbleweed]]. Yes, his lower jaw ''really did'' jut out that far, and yes his nose ''really was'' that messed up. Also, this is a ''flattering'' portrait.]]-]

[-[[caption-width-right:341:[[TruthInTelevision Carlos II "The Hexed" of Spain]]. Most people have family trees. This guy had a [[TangledFamilyTree family tumbleweed]]. Yes, his lower jaw ''really did'' jut out that far, and yes his nose ''really was'' that messed up. Also, this is a ''flattering'' portrait.]]-]

** Chieftess Hethor Etios cheated on her husband and sent the resulting baby in Folkvar out of shame.

** The Sovereign of Aquaria made his brother, Mr. Ocean, a medical prisoner and experimented on him with mind-controlling drugs.

** Disease. Specifically, something like syphilis; it's an STD, so it would get passed around the court, it causes madness if untreated, and the first generally effective treatment wasn't discovered until the 20th century: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsphenamine Salvarsan]]. This links back to the heavy-metal poisoning: the common treatment before Salvarsan was ''mercury'', and while that sometimes worked it also ran the risk of driving the patient a different kind of mad through mercury poisoning. Fun fact: syphilis can (and has) inserted its DNA into the human genome, just for that extra InTheBlood sparkle you might be looking for.

* ''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 [[IncestIsRelative 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.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''Series/AshesOfLove'': The Heavenly Realm's royal family, ''and how''. The Heavenly Emperor became obsessed with and raped Zi Fen. The Heavenly Empress arranged Zi Fen's death, tried to kill Jin Mi, and spent years tormenting Run Yu. Run Yu and Xu Feng both fall in love with Jin Mi, and before long they go to war over her.
* In ''Series/BabylonFive'', the nephew of Emperor Turhan, Cartagia, became the Emperor of the Centauri Republic after his uncle's death. Emperor Cartagia was as bad as any fiction-version of UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}}, and apparently [[TheCaligula modeled after him]]. Interestingly, the position of Emperor does not seem to be connected to any individual line for more than a few generations; it appears to be totally normal for the Centauri nobles to hand the throne to a new House even though the old imperial house still exists ([[spoiler:Londo rules as Mollari II, as one of his ancestors had held the throne once]]). This presumably means that Cartagia's madness was a relatively rare occurrence in his House -- rather as the Julio-Claudians only had two Emperors who could be called insane (Caligula and Nero), only one of whom (Caligula) was ''totally'' bonkers (Nero, while an awful ruler, was not ''totally'' incompetent; he was just very young when he took the throne, too obsessed with drama--in both senses--and not very well brought up).
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E2ToothAndClaw "Tooth and Claw"]] strongly implies that eventually the British Royal family might become werewolves. However at the time Victoria had already had all her children, and the Doctor is on good terms with UsefulNotes/HMTheQueen, so it was clearly a joke. Also discussed in the episode is Victoria being a carrier of hemophilia, despite it not being in her family previously, and how it's a bona fide historical mystery (although there are ''some'' theories, though none of them involve Victoria getting a splinter from a wolf attack).
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** The show implies this is caused by inbreeding in the Targaryen and [[spoiler:Lannister]] family lines, in as little as one generation. The crazy rate is implied to be around 50% (as per the page quote), regardless of how long the inbreeding has been practiced. Technically the [[spoiler: Lannister]] case isn't a single generation; [[spoiler: Jaime and Cersei]] are first-generation sibling incest, but their parents were first cousins. And since no particular fuss is made over that fact, it can be assumed that cousin incest is not uncommon in the Lannister family. [[spoiler: Cersei and Jaime]] were far from the first incestuous pairing in the family, but they were probably the straw that broke the camel's back. Furthermore, they're both unpleasant people (though [[spoiler:Jaime]] is [[TheAtoner trying to be less unpleasant]]), and their son Joffrey's complete personal monstrosity seems to combine the worst aspects of each. His siblings Myrcella and Tommen, on the other hand, are perfectly reasonable people (though Tommen is an ExtremeDoormat) who [[spoiler:wind up being TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth thanks to Cersei's machinations, leading to the end of their house.]] Furthermore, though not crazy, all of the Lannisters mentioned except Kevan have issues. Tytos had a desire to please that made him a doormat, Tywin sees people as tools for his work, as mentioned above the twins are unpleasant, Tyrion is an alcoholic dwarf with terrible family relations, Lancel is a zealot, and there is one who just smashes beetles while screaming crunk. In later Targaryen generations, some were born with moderate to severe mental defects, or "feeble-witted". Even their physical health was eventually affected, with several being intellectually and emotionally normal but possessing such fragile health that they suffered from numerous ailments and died young.
** Selyse is blatantly unstable due to the trauma of so many stillbirths and her inability to produce a male heir for Stannis. Writer Bryan Cogman confirmed that the reason she became the first person on Dragonstone to embrace the new Lord of Light religion (even before Stannis) is that she couldn't process that the Seven would let her unborn sons die, so like many people in traumatic situations, she fanatically embraced a new religion. Even the normally stoic Stannis pities how deeply traumatized she is about their stillborn sons, insisting that it wasn't her fault when she starts blaming herself.
* ''Series/TheGlamorousImperialConcubine'': Oh boy, where to start...
** Fu Ya's uncle usurps the throne, murders most of his relatives, and is about to have Fu Ya executed for the [[SarcasmMode terrible crime]] of rescuing a boy from prison. Fu Ya's cousin Xiang Yun has a servant beheaded just because the poor girl happened to see Xiang Yun stumble and fall while dancing.
** Du Fei Hong hates her son Qi You and thinks he's trying to assassinate her. And the reason she hates him? When he was a baby Meng Zhi Xiang forcibly took him away from her and told Consort Mei to raise him instead, ignoring Fei Hong when she begged him to let her raise Qi You herself.
** Meng Zhi Xiang insists on marrying Zhao Yi against her wishes, and has her parents killed when they object.
** Du Wan is determined to marry her cousin Qi Xing. He doesn't want to marry her, so she waits until he gets drunk then gets in bed with him so [[ShotgunWedding he'll have to marry her.]]
** Lian Cheng's mother threatens to kill Fu Ya. Lian Cheng makes her change her mind by threatening to commit suicide if she harms Fu Ya.
** Lian Cheng rapes Xiang Yun and kills a doctor for lying to him.
** Qi Xing becomes convinced Qi You is a threat to him so he has Fu Ya and Qi You locked up and forbids their friends from seeing them.
** Ma Du Yun poisons Qi You and kills his son, then seizes the throne for himself and promptly gets killed by his sister.
* ''Series/GoodbyeMyPrincess'': All the royal families to some degree, but special mention must go to Li Dynasty. The emperor beats and demotes Cheng Ji for demanding he investigates a crime, the empress was responsible for the death of Cheng Yin's mother, Cheng Ye plots to kill his father and brothers, and Cheng Yin eventually becomes as ambitious and manipulative as the people he hates.
* ''Series/Kingdom2019'': Joseon's royal family is so screwed-up that the king being a zombie is the ''least'' of their problems. Queen Consort Cho is faking her pregnancy and has taken in dozens of pregnant women in the hope one of them will have a son. When the women give birth they're murdered, and if their child is a girl she's killed too. One of the women ([[spoiler: Mu-yeong's wife]]) gives birth to a son, so Queen Consort Cho kidnaps the baby and pretends he's her son. Then she unleases the zombies to ensure Lee Chang, the only good person in the royal family, can't take the throne from her.
* ''Series/TheKingLoves'': Goryeo's royal family.
** Won's father, King Chungnyeol, dislikes Won's mother for being Yuan (Mongolian) and Won for being half-Yuan. He also hates Won for being the grandson of Kublai Khan, which in Chungnyeol's mind means Won outranks him, so he tries to find an excuse to depose Won as Crown Prince.
** Won's mother, Princess Wonseong, had her husband's first wife and son thrown out of the palace. She hates Rin, Won's only friend, because she thinks Rin is trying to steal Won's position.
** Won himself becomes violent when angry and wants to put San in a birdcage so she can never leave him.
* ''Series/TheKingsWoman'': The entire royal family of Qin. Special mention goes to Ying Zheng, who has no qualms about killing children.
* ''Series/LostLoveInTimes'': The royal family of Great Wei. The emperor is a paranoid schemer who killed his older brother and forced his brother's widow to marry him, Consort Lian murdered the empress, Yuan Zhan stages a coup, several of the princes team up to attack Yuan Ling, and Noble Consort Yin ''assassinates her own son and poisons her grandson.''
* A lot of tension surrounding the SuccessionCrisis in ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' is based on this trope. It's revealed in Series 3 that the Pendragon men have a history of mental illness, one which King Uther ultimately succumbs to after his [[spoiler:arguably AxCrazy illegitimate daughter]] betrays him and takes the throne.
* ''Series/MoonLovers'': You know Goryeo's royal family is a mess when Yeon-hwa wants to marry her half-brother and no one bats an eyelid.
** In a flashback King Taejo announces he's going to marry another woman right after his son's death. Queen Yoo tries to stop him by ''threatening to kill Wang So'', and even that doesn't make Taejo change his mind.
** Wang Wook poisons his half-brother Wang Mu. The poison takes such a severe toll on Mu's sanity that he decides to send his young daughter off to Khitan, then forces Wang So -- her ''uncle'' -- to marry her instead.
** Wang Yo kills two of his half-brothers and his sister-in-law. Then he suffers a SanitySlippage and becomes convinced their ghosts are haunting him.
* Invoked in ''Series/TheMusketeers'', when after outwitting some depraved noblemen, Aramis says "Centuries of inbreeding is making the aristocracy (taps the side of head) stupid."
* ''Series/MyCountryTheNewAge'': The Yi family. Seong-gye deliberately stirs up trouble between his sons. His oldest son is an alcoholic. His second son is a womaniser with fifteen illegitimate sons. His third son is incompetent. His fourth son is an alcoholic and womaniser. And then of course there's [[TheUnfavorite Bang-won]], who Seong-gye goes out of his way to humiliate and who reacts [[TheDogBitesBack predictably]].
* Like in the comics, ''Series/{{Preacher|2016}}'' has the descendant of Jesus, who is incredibly mentally impaired due to literally millennia of inbreeding.
* ''Series/QueenForSevenDays'': Lee Yung (better known as UsefulNotes/YeonsangunOfJoseon, also mentioned in the RealLife section) is willing to behead his half-brother for losing a race, as well as doing many other insane things. And the series ''[[HistoricalVillainDowngrade downplays]]'' the real Yeonsan-gun's atrocities!
* Referenced in the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode ''Rimmerworld''. Kryten explains the problem of having an entire society descended from Rimmer [[spoiler:and his clones]] by drawing comparisons with European monarchies of the 19th and 20th centuries. The actual leader of the planet seems to be an example himself.
* ''Series/TheRiseOfPhoenixes'': The royal family of Tiansheng is dysfunctional to say the least. The Crown Prince takes the cake for framing and murdering two of his brothers, along with dozens of other innocent people.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* From the second season of ''Manga/BlackButler'', [[AxCrazy Alois]] [[CreepyChild Trancy]].
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', the Royal Family of the [[TheEmpire Holy Empire]] of Britannia are all pretty messed up for the most part, ranging from [[TheChessmaster Lelouch and Schneizel]], to [[LadyofWar Cornelia]], to Clovis, who wipes out a whole section of dilapidated city to cover up his mistakes. And that's not even talking about [[BigBad Emperor Charles]], his [[spoiler: EvilMatriarch partner Marrianne, who is NotQuiteDead, and his ''insane'' brother V.V.]]. Luckily there's some hope. [[RebelliousPrincess Euphemia]] is a generally sweet girl, and so is her younger sister, [[IllGirl Nunnally]]. Crown Prince Odysseus is also pretty decent, though that may be because he doesn't really do much of anything (not to mention being [[DumbIsGood probably the least intelligent of the family]]). Unfortunately this series likes to [[KillTheCutie kill the kind ones]].
* A borderline case in ''Manga/DragonBall Z'': although [[BigBad Frieza]] is the most well-known member of his family, others are shown, and for the most part, they're just as [[ProperlyParanoid crazy]] and [[AxCrazy evil]] as he is. Fan theories tend to attribute this trope to why they're essentially LawfulEvil.
* In ''Manga/MagiLabyrinthOfMagic'' we have the ''[[BigScrewedUpFamily Kou Royal Family]]'', integrated by a ''[[AxCrazy variety]] [[EvilMatriarch of]] [[ManipulativeBastard members]] [[BeautyIsBad of]] [[EvilRedhead all]] [[BloodKnight flavors]]''! Their internal conflicts are so alike to those of a soap opera, a ''deranged'' soap opera.
* The Zabi family from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' put the Screwed Up in BigScrewedUpFamily. Patriarch and Sovereign Degwin is a WellIntentionedExtremist who seeks to TakeOverTheWorld in the name of his ideology. [[TheEvilPrince Eldest son Gihren]] is a [[TheSociopath psychopathic]] [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinist]] who could not care less about ideology and just wants to [[DespotismJustifiesTheMeans increase his own power whatever the cost]]. Second son Dozle is more or less normal, but turns into an AxCrazy [[TheBerserker berserker]] when turned loose on the battlefield. Daughter Kycilia is a cold-blooded amoral schemer who wants the throne for herself, and doesn't [[WeHaveReserves give a damn about human life]]. The only exceptions seem to be youngest son Garma, the second son Sasro (who was ''only'' a SleazyPolitician, [[PosthumousCharacter killed by ''some'' of his siblings before the story proper]]) and Dozle's daughter, [[HiddenBackupPrince Mineva]], who [[spoiler:is [[LostOrphanedRoyalty raised away from the family, after all of their respective deaths]]]].
* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has the World Nobles, otherwise known as the ''Tenryuubito'' (or "Celestial Dragons"), who are a perfect example of the 'Raised Wrong' cultural cause above. Because they are the descendants of the 20 kings who founded the World Government (or rather, 19 of them- [[spoiler: Vivi's ancestor refused the invite]].) Because of this, they're practically worshipped and considered above even most other royal families. They can do ''anything'' they want, from murder to enslaving anyone who catches their eye (slavery is ''banned'' otherwise), and they get away with it because they can summon an [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority admiral]] any time they want. Naturally, they're complete spoiled monsters. This mindset is entirely culturally indoctrinated, and some World Nobles have learned to escape it. [[spoiler: Notable examples include Donquixote Homing and his immediate family (Doflamingo being his son), and Myosgard after Otohime saved him.]]
* The three Vance sisters from ''Anime/QueensBlade'' are so messed up that, if it weren't for the fact that their father seems to be a fairly sane, stable sort, one would think the gods were justified in dethroning their family's ancestors as the former rulers of the known world and replacing the hereditary nobility with the eponymous tourney, which seems tailor-made to avoid the negative effects that this can have on the political arena.
** Firstly, the sisters as a whole are part of an [[BrotherSisterIncest incestuous]] lesbian LoveTriangle, where eldest daughter Claudette has a crush on youngest daughter Elina that goes unrequited (except in the ''Hide & Seek'' continuity) because Elina is instead obsessively in love with the middle daughter, Leina. Leina herself is only AmbiguouslyGay, but is stable enough that if she is a lesbian, her attraction is to a woman who is ''not'' one of her sisters. Also, all three of them have ''serious'' mommy issues due to their MissingMom -- Claudette actually gets a ''double'' whammy of this, as her mother died before her father married the woman who gave birth to Leina and Elina, and then she died as well.
** Claudette has serious issues with her family due to the fact that she's an illegitimate daughter and so not allowed to officially inherit the family estates, despite being the most formidable fighter. She does love her sisters, but at the same time she hates them, and she also feels torn between love & loyalty and hate for her father. [[spoiler: In ''Rebellion'', with a little magical coaxing from the Swamp Witch, her negative feelings turn her into a full-blown EvilOverlord, thanks in part to Leina giving her the throne of Queen.]]
** Leina is technically the most stable of the sisters, but still suffers from [[HeroicSelfDeprecation severe inferiority issues]] that make her feel unfit to be the heir to the Vance family name and induce her to try and literally run away from her responsibilities.
** Elina, finally, is the most unquestionably screwed up of the sisters. A SpoiledBrat who regards all others as beneath her notice and tortured one of her servants to the point she becomes ''one of the series' {{Big Bad}}s'' just for the hell of it, which she did ''as a child'', she has a complete LackOfEmpathy and is also an unabashed incestuous PsychoLesbian, who in the first anime episode is seen vindictively talking about how she'll make Leina's future husband suffer for having the audacity to marry her beloved sister.
* In ''Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats'', Princess Vi is a selfish, spoiled brat who exiles people to Prisoner Island at the drop of a hat, her mother considers firing a rocket launcher at her daughter an appropriate family greeting, and Emperor Fred... to say he's got a few screws loose would imply he's got any screws left.
* An interesting variant: the heir presumptive of the Holy Kingdom of Saillune in ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', Prince Phillionel, while somewhat of a LeeroyJenkins-like lunatic with a passion for [[BadassNormal physical fights]], is probably ''the'' sanest and respectable member of the family and a stellar runner of the country; his younger daughter [[ThePollyanna Amelia]] has most of his traits. The rest of the family is filled with [[DirtyCoward Dirty Cowards]] who will do anything to move up a spot for the throne, with no concern for others -- both of Phil's younger brothers, Christopher and Randionel, and his nephew, Alfred, have attempted to murder him. Alfred in particular contracts one (two in the anime) [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Mazoku]] to both take out Phil and take Saillune for himself while letting Christopher (his father) take the blame. [[spoiler:In the novels, Christopher himself [[OffingTheOffspring kills Alfred]] to prevent any more damage, and nearly commits suicide himself]].
** [[spoiler:Among the craziest is Amelia's older sister, Gracia, otherwise known as Naga the Serpent. She runs off after Phil's wife is murdered, which is NOT helped by how ''she'' found her mom dead and [[BloodyMurder bloodily killed the assassin]]. She then spent years traveling alone (and with Lina) in an attempt to obtain treasure, learn about the world (sort of), [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl drink]], and gain fame without much effort ([[UnknownRival which definitely doesn't work in her favor, especially when she's traveling with Lina]]). While she is willing to help others, she is like Lina insofar as she does it for her own gain. In the novels, she keeps in contact with Phil, but in other media it seems that she hasn't made contact in years, which disconcerts Amelia.]]
* ''LightNovel/TheStoryOfSaiunkoku''. Where to even begin? The previous emperor of Saiunkoku deliberately pitted his sons against each other, and then exiled his former favorite, the most competent of the lot. Of the remaining five princes, all but the youngest were killed fighting each other in a SuccessionCrisis that nearly destroyed the country. The UnFavorite [[UnexpectedSuccessor youngest]] son Ryuuki became the heir. Ryuuki was none too keen on this and [[ObfuscatingStupidity feigned incompetence]] and spread rumors about his sexuality to make himself unpopular and get out of producing an heir. Ironically, avoiding the temptations of power and recognizing his own insufficient preparation for the throne made him the ClosestThingWeGot to a stable, responsible Emperor. Ryuuki starts to act like a real ruler after his advisors find him a consort capable of acting as a [[StayInTheKitchen privy councillor]]. Oh, and that exiled prince? Turns out he's [[HiddenBackupPrince not so exiled after all...]]
** And that's not even getting into the seven ''other'' families that make up the ruling class of Saimono. To give a sense of how screwed up ''they'' are, the Kou family is currently being lead by Kurou, the youngest of three ''living'' brothers, because Shouka and Reishin each tossed the clan leadership like a hot potato as soon as it fell to them. Kurou just hasn't got anyone else to palm it off on, so he gets stuck herding crazy assassination-happy cats.
* The Juraian royal family in ''Anime/TenchiMuyo'' in all its size and glory is a full-on DecadentCourt, with the constant scheming, and plotting, and framing, and dishonoring, and backstabbing, and whatever else, where even ''the good guys'' range from {{Cloud Cuckoo Lander}}s to {{Manipulative Bastard}}s, and where one ''needs'' to be a OneManArmy simply to survive.
* ''Anime/VampireGame'' is all about one princess's dealings with her own extended Royally Screwed-up family, wherein IncestIsRelative is the ''least'' screwed-up thing one can encounter, not to mention the Chimeras and of course Royal espionage. Oh, and there's a vampire who wants to kill her, too. This is mostly a ''comedy''.
[[/folder]]

* RoyallyScrewedUp/Literature

* [[Literature/RoyallyScrewedUp Literature]]
* [[RealLife/RoyallyScrewedUp Real Life]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AgeOfFire'': The Imperial Line of the Lavadome is ''very'' messed up. [[EvilMatriarch Tighila]] kills her own son and frames and exiles her mate's later chosen heirs, before eventually killing him too, all so that her brother [=SiDrakkon=] can become Tyr. When he does, he takes Infamina, his great-niece, as his mate, and ends up nearly bringing the Lavadome to civil war due to his [[TheCaligula refusal to do anything that doesn't satisfy his hedonism]]. This lasts until Infamina's brother [=SiMevolant=] assassinates him, [[BrotherSisterIncest takes Infamina as his own mate (and it's implied they were already having an affair)]], and proceeds to [[spoiler: play TheQuisling to [[GreaterScopeVillain the Wrymmaster's]] forces, letting them take over the Lavadome]], which causes [=RuGaard=] (an adopted member of the Imperial Line) to lead a rebellion to take [=SiMevolant=] down, becoming Tyr himself afterwards.
* Present in Creator/DavidEddings' ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', in the form of the royal line of Cthol Murgos, the Urgas family, with its hereditary insanity. In sequel series ''The Mallorean'', the eventual successor to the throne is more or less sane, which makes sense, given that he's [[spoiler:not actually the son of the crazy late king, but instead the product of a brief affair between one of the king's wives and a foreign diplomat.]] That's one effective way to get the crazy genes out of the royal line.
** Made even more effective by the traditional method of ensuring easy succession: whoever gets the throne has every other potential claimant assassinated. ''Legally''. Maybe the Murgos have had problems like this before...
*** TruthInTelevision -- the early Ottoman Empire tried to cut down on wars of succession by having all male relatives of a newly crowned sultan put to death. Predictably this only ''increased'' the number of succession wars, as every potential claimant to the throne knew that upon the death of the old sultan he had to either win the crown or die. Urgit's quote of "It was either the throne or the block." in ''King of the Murgos'' is drawn straight from history.
** The various Tolnedran imperial dynasties tended towards this as well. Typically the first few emperors of a dynasty would be clever, competent men, but after several generations of inbreeding the line eventually devolved into rulers who were insane, imbeciles, or both. And then subverted by the Borunes, who by their contractual obligations have to marry Dryads. Introducing exogamy into the family line every generation must help. Of course, female members of the Borune family are Dryads also (and exclusively Dryads, [[OneGenderRace there's no such thing as a female half-Dryad]])...
* Literature/TheBible is chock full of lousy or downright ax crazy evil kings of Israel who choose to snub the God who saved their ancestors from Egypt, so much so that the good kings are the exception.
** And even the good kings still tend to be royally screwed up. Witness David, whose punishment for committing adultery with Bathsheba and [[UriahGambit having her husband killed]] was that his first son by her fell ill and died a week later, and the rest of the sons started killing each other for various reasons. David ultimately appoints Solomon as his successor, and even then the succession crisis doesn't end. Solomon was also messed up in his own right on account of his [[LoveRuinsTheRealm harem of foreign wives.]]
* From Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/{{Chalion}}'' books:
** The main curse of madness/misfortune/sterility/whatever would make things most difficult in ''The Curse of Chalion'' is particularly nasty, in that it automatically spreads to anyone who marries into the family, making it completely impossible to eradicate without, as it turns out, ''direct intervention from the gods''. The unlucky king Orico tried to short-circuit it by [[spoiler:getting his wife, Sara, pregnant by his chancellor, because any child of theirs would not be part of the cursed royal bloodline]]. It didn't work because [[spoiler:Sara was barren and also the chancellor was evil and his brother was an evil whackjob]], but one gets the impression it was a clingy curse that would have come down on ''whoever'' inherited the throne, as well anyone around them who could potentially have finagled a way out. Thus, it took a miracle in the end.
** And then there's that strange familial wolf-madness thing in ''Literature/TheHallowedHunt'', too. [[spoiler:Revealed not to be madness, but an ancient shamanistic tradition that creates powerful animal spirits linked to certain rulers; the protagonist's dad just had the bad luck to pick a sacrificial animal that was rabid and bit him before it died, and the poor protagonist wound up convinced his own wolf-spirit would do the same to him.]]
* In P.C. Hodgell's ''Literature/ChroniclesOfTheKencyrath'', the house of Knorth, from which the ruling Highlords come, has what appears to be an inherited tendency toward madness. Torisen, the current Highlord, is terrified of what lurks in his bloodlines, and of becoming like his father and grandfather. Inbreeding and deliberate breeding for Shanir (magical) traits is probably responsible.
* Zigzagged throughout the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels.
** Historically, the rulers of Ankh-Morpork have tended to be raving psychopaths. This may have been somewhat genetic while the city was a monarchy and rulers' marriages were arranged to maintain the royal blood and survival tended to favor those homicidal enough to keep ahead of the DecadentCourt. However, even after the kings were overthrown and replaced by the non-hereditary Patricians, the stress of the job and the absolute power that came with it turned pretty much everyone who held it some flavor of barking mad. The last two Patricians were known as "Mad Lord Snapcase" and "Homicidal Lord Winder". By a stroke of ''incredible'' good fortune the current Patrician, Lord Havelock Vetinari, is not only sane but an utter MagnificentBastard and as insurance, the rightful heir to the line of kings is also hanging around the city, and he's also sane-ish, as he was raised by dwarfs (his adoptive father was in fact a king, but among dwarfs that job corresponds to "mine director" and appears to be elective, not hereditary).
** The old noble houses of Ankh-Morpork, from which the Patricians are usually chosen, certainly haven't done themselves any favors through repeated intermarriage but, as with the royal line, this is implied to have contributed less to their overall unpleasantness than the self-selection towards dimwitted murder-happy prats (because of the military service requirement) and the self-absorption encouraged by privilege.
** ''Literature/InterestingTimes'' zigzags this with the Agatean Emperor. While his insanity is suggested to have a dash of genetic inbreeding behind it, the book hints (yet ''again'') that ''intentionally'' breeding for paranoia and psychopathy, and then not telling the offspring why cruelty is bad, may have actually played a larger role than how closely related his parents were. Lord Hong, the real BigBad, subverts the trope entirely by simply being a self-made MagnificentBastard without any of Vetinari's redeeming scruples.
** ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'' thankfully manages to avoid this, although it is specifically mentioned that the BigBad had intended to wed the protagonist with his aunt in order to keep the royal line [[PureIsNotGood "pure"]].
** Played utterly straight when one book describes the lineage of kings in other Discworld city-states, and cites the last King of Quirm as having been so inbred he repeatedly tried to mate with himself.
* The Raiths in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', the royal family of the [[EmotionEater White Court]] of vampires. The White King [[MoralEventHorizon rapes his female children into supernatural slavery]] and [[OffingTheOffspring kills off his sons]]. His daughter Lara is a MagnificentBastard who lives on the line between SociopathicHero and FriendlyEnemy AntiVillain. The only reason his son Thomas lived to adulthood is by playing the RichIdiotWithNoDayJob card for everything it's worth. The only one who doesn't appear to be incredibly messed-up is [[spoiler:Inari Raith, who never became a full-on succubus because she [[ThePowerOfLove fell in love]] and Lara helped her get away]].
* ''Literature/{{Dune}}'':
** House Harkonnens are not really that screwed up from the start. It’s just that [[FeudingFamilies they had a beef with House Atreides a long time ago]]. It’s only when [[TheCaligula Vladimir Harkonnen]] came into the picture, things went worse. His nephews aren’t much better though one character commented that Feyd-Rautha might have become a great hero, if only someone who wasn’t such a monster had raised him.
** It also turns out that Paul and Alia Atreides are [[spoiler:Harkonnens too, thanks to their mother who is Vladimir’s biological daughter]]. Paul is not much of a monster like his grandpa as most of his detractors think; it’s just that he fell in a prescient trap and couldn’t control things such as his rabid followers. His sister is indeed messed up because her mother consumed spice and inherited GeneticMemory of the past Reverend Mothers and all of their ancestors while pregnant. Because of this, she’s called as an Abomination by the Bene Gesserit and they had a good reason to call her that most especially when [[spoiler:she got possessed by her evil grandpa in ''Literature/ChildrenOfDune'']].
** In any case, Bene Gesserit’s plan to control the genes of several noble houses has something to do with this trope. In the past, they made tons of effort to create the Kwisatz Haderach but it produced a lot of failures (e.g. Count Hasimir Fenring). They nearly got it right this time except this Kwisatz Haderach came too early and they ended up paying the price when he became Emperor and unleashed his fanatics throughout the universe.
* ''Literature/{{Everworld}}'' provides a variant: due to the royal tradition of BrotherSisterIncest, the last twelve Pharaohs of Everworld Egypt have all been mentally disabled and unable to rule in anything but name. This, coupled with the fact that the Egyptian gods are basically [[spoiler:so obsessed with ritual that they've become willingly comatose]], made the country weak and unstable enough for [[LadyLand the Amazons]] to take over.
* The Kingdom of Delain, in ''Literature/TheEyesOfTheDragon'' by Creator/StephenKing, suffers from this problem every now and again. Particular mention is made of Mad King Alain, who was truly a raving and unstable lunatic but did his people the favor of dying quickly -- he decided to go outside and play games on the lawn during a raging thunderstorm (lunatic, remember?) and got struck by lightning.
* Though not quite royalty, the Usher family in Creator/EdgarAllanPoe 's ''Fall of the House of Usher'' fits. An illness that causes madness runs in the family, and it's implied to be due to inbreeding.
* ''Literature/AFrozenHeart'' is a PerspectiveFlip retelling of ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'', which expands on Hans, a major character from the movie, and what his family situation looks like. His father, the King of the Southern Isles, is a [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinist]] tyrant who encourages his sons to torment each other and brutally suppresses any opposition to his regime. Because of the king's domineering nature, the Westergaard clan ends up miserable as his 13 sons don't get along with each other, the royal family develops serious mental health issues, and Hans ends up in major trouble in what was supposed to be a diplomatic trip to Arendelle.
* The Civil Government of the planet Bellevue in ''Literature/TheGeneral'' series qualifies as both the current governor and his acknowledged heir are borderline clinical paranoids, and becoming less borderline all the time...
** Though, considering the political climate in the Gubierno Civil, the line between clinical paranoia and [[ProperlyParanoid sane, reasonable social caution]] is slim indeed. The ''only'' reasons the POV character isn't a threat to the throne are his incorruptible idealism and his sure knowledge of the disaster that will ensue if he tries to take the throne for himself. Also, while the Cleretts my or my not be insane, they are also competent, if perhaps not excellent, political and military leaders.
** A better example would be Settler Ali ibn'Jamal of the Colony, who is just an old-school psychopath.
* The first two of Mervyn Peake's ''Literature/{{Gormenghast}}'' books are, among other things, a long examination of this trope -- the Groan lineage and their staff are a bunch of depressed lunatics, their spirits both crushed and perversely sustained by the castle and its ancient, messed-up rituals. They are a sympathetic bunch though -- the melancholy and bookish Lord [[MeaningfulName Sepulchrave]] and his unloved, {{cloudcuckoolander}} daughter [[TheOphelia Fuchsia]] must surely be among the most tragic literary [[TheWoobie woobies]] of the last century.
* In Creator/TeresaEdgerton's ''Literature/TheGrailAndTheRing'', it is revealed that Mochdreff has been politically unstable for centuries largely due to the land having been cursed due to the sins of its last ruling prince. He committed an action so terrible that every single member of his family changed their names and refused to take up the sovereignty -- although only people like Dame Ceinwen remember even that much of the story, and nobody remembers the specifics. Ever since, there have been Lords of Mochdreff rather than rulers styling themselves princes, until finally, due to the lack of a clear heir to the previous Lord, Prince Tryffin was appointed Royal Governor and took it upon himself to try to clean up the matter once and for all by getting to the bottom of the curse.
* ''Literature/HarryPotter'':
** The pureblooded Ancient and Most Noble House of Black has produced a few crazy members, although they're more known for being blood supremacists. They did have a tradition of [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness chopping off the heads of house elves who were too weak to carry a tray]], though. The only one who is definitely confirmed to be crazy is Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black), whose status as a LoveMartyr for Voldemort is legendary.
** The Gaunts are even ''more'' messed up and inbred than most purebloods, since Dumbledore mentions that they were the only remaining descendants of Salazar Slytherin and Marvolo was obsessed with the inferiority of other families. Ironically, the worst member of the family is conceived when they finally manage to get some new blood: [[BigBad Lord Voldemort]], the son of Merope Gaunt [[BoomerangBigot and a Muggle]].
** Most pureblood wizarding families (with a few exceptions, like the Weasleys, who aren't hostile to mixed or Muggle-born in-laws) have gone this direction in recent decades, as the limited gene pool means they're all increasingly interrelated. Arthur Weasley says at one point that purebloods by the current definition will probably die out within a couple generations, as so many of them are already first cousins and within the incest taboo. Ironically, the Death Eaters probably managed to hasten this extinction quite a bit since many purebloods died in the fighting or were consigned to Azkaban afterwards.
* Averted in the ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, in part because Valdemaran law forbids a monarch (or, presumably, heir) from marrying anyone within two degrees of kinship. And the newly-crowned Selenay plays it to the hilt to keep her councilors from forcing her into marriage, too. The requirement that all monarchs must be [[IncorruptiblePurePureness Heralds]] is also very important -- there's nothing saying a Herald can't be a bit nuts (Hi, Lavan and Vanyel!), but at least it's the type of nuts that doesn't result in the abuses seen on the rest of this page.
* Averted in the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series with the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Aside from being a constitutional monarchy, which limits the potential damage, Manticoran monarchs and heirs apparent are specifically prohibited from marrying members of the aristocracy. Aside from the "keeping in touch with the common folk" goal, it also removes the problems of inbreeding.
** He swiped this from Creator/EEDocSmith's ''Family d'Alembert'' series; under the Stanley Doctrine, nobility ''could'' marry commoners, but royalty was ''required'' to marry a commoner. While this helped, this was not totally successful in keeping loonies from the Imperial Throne (granted, the case of Empress "Mad Stephanie" could have been situational rather than genetic.)
*** In the case of the Stanley Dynasty, it may be as much cultural as genetic. At one point the competent, sane, and decent Emperor William (who is definitely an exception to the run of his ancestors) makes a joke about his and his wife's decision to abdicate at his age 70, so their daughter Edna "won't have to kill us." Edna is horrified by the joke, but her father points out that if he'd been more grasping and determined to hang on to power forever, decent Edna might have turned out different too, because, as he notes, 'like begets like'.
** The author even points out that if the Monarch is really bonkers, Impeachment is in the Constitution, with Parliament choosing the new Monarch from any person in the Kingdom.
*** And before being added to the official line of succession, the Monarch's offspring have to pass a psychological and intelligence evaluation.
** The Andermani Emperors on the other hand are competent but sometimes ''strange'': the first emperor thought he was a reincarnation of Friedrich der Grosse (UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat of UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}). Another was dethroned when he not only talked to his prize rose bush but also tried to make it chancellor.
*** And he was deposed by his own sister, who, while generally considered the best Andermani Emperor ever, had to [[SheIsTheKing legally declare herself a man]], due to their Salic Law succession. May not have been the best decision for her own mental state.
*** It's hinted the reason why they are so successful is that the insanity and the genius go together. After all founding a New Prussian Empire on a Chinese colony world and making it into a regional power does sound pretty nuts. The first Emperor was a rich space pirate who saved the colony from starvation.
** Actually, while she's generally sane, Queen Elizabeth III does have her own set of issues. Her temper, for instance, is usually described as "volcanic".
* The ''Literature/{{Hurog}}'' family tends to sadism and jerkishness in the male line. More precisely, everyone who lives in castle Hurog is affected in some way, some suffer inexplicable psychological issues, others are suicidal. The fact that the castle was built by an EvilSorcerer, who turned his bastard son into the child in PoweredByAForsakenChild, by turning him into a kind of GeniusLoci that is enslaved, and compelled to serve the head of the family, is probably responsible for that -- not so much the genes, as the fact that all heirs of the title live in this castle. Evil is not good for your sanity, and owning a slave whose very ''soul'' is bound to obey tends to weaken the moral backbone of those who didn't have much decency to begin with. Oreg, the above-mentioned slave, wrote a curse/prophesy on the wall some couples of centuries ago, but that, if at all, only contributed to the paranoia, as he did is as reaction to something very cruel his then master did.
* In the ''Literature/InheritanceCycle'', there once was a King by the name of Palancar who tried to wage war numerous times with the Elves, even though every invasion was a hopeless crusade (InUniverse, a historian indicates Palancar was in the early stages of dementia by that point). Eventually his nobles rebelled against him to end the madness and had him exiled into a valley that later inherited his name. The protagonist and his cousin, and the village they grew up in, descended from Palancar.
* Played with in ''Literature/KingdomOfLittleWounds''. Everything that would normally be attributed to RoyalInbreeding or a HereditaryCurse is actually caused by an epidemic.
* The Argaven kings of Karhide in Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''Literature/TheLeftHandOfDarkness'' are described as congenitally mad. This seems to be accepted as part of the nature of kings on Gethen.
* In Creator/JackVance's ''Literature/{{Lyonesse}}'' trilogy, the king of South Ulfland's single son, Prince Quilcy, is feeble-minded and spends his days playing with fanciful doll-houses.
* Royal family of trolls in ''Literature/MaledictionTrilogy'', mostly because of 500 years of inbreeding. The father, king Thibault, is morbidly obese, the queen is conjoined with her sister, the younger son Roland is beautiful but stark raving mad. Only prince Tristan seems to be normal -- but he is seriously considering [[SelfMadeOrphan murdering his father]] and brother for the higher good.
* A rather desperate attempt to prevent this touched off the entire plot of A.L. Phillips's ''Literature/TheQuestOfTheUnaligned''. The royal house of the realm of Caederan, instead of being tied to one of the four elemental magics, are tied to all of them as the result of an ancient magical bargain binding the King and Queen to Caederan itself. Unfortunately, this means that if the King and Queen favor one element over the others, this will throw the land itself out of whack. A few decades before the story started, King Kethel and Queen Tathilya became increasingly infatuated with the power of air, which also had the side effect of causing them to become increasingly flighty and absent-minded. As the Balance fell further and further towards wind, the country was wracked by droughts, tornadoes, cyclones, and other catastrophes. When Queen Tathilya became pregnant, the nobles realized that if the new prince was raised in the royal court, he to would become infatuated with air magic. The nobles launched a desperate bid to separate Prince Alaric from the ruahk-controlled Court, and thus begins the plot.
* ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'''s Marlfoxes. The mother Silth is a raving maniac, her youngest is a sneak who deliberately feeds her mother's paranoia in order to weasel (or fox?) her way into power, and the oldest six offspring are just plain nasty to various degrees.
* King Rodric IV in ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle''. Hated and abused by his father for being a sickly runt, he proved to be as sick in mind as he was in body. Apart from using openly about how his power would allow him to randomly pick out random people and have them executed for no reason other than he wished to see them die, he squandred much of the tax revenues of The Kingdom Of The Isles on a series of aesthetic public works programs designed merely to make the city of Rillanon look prettier. Worse still, he denied vital military aid to the Western half of his Kingdom, fearing that the soldiers would be used to build an army against him, which helped to drag the first Riftwar out for the better part of a decade.
* In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', the first king of the Noldor, Finwë, is a good man, but after his death, the crown goes to his eldest son Fëanor, who was very paranoid before, and became completely crazy (if still very charismatic) when his father was murdered. Once Fëanor is also dead, his son Maedhros should become king... but he averts this trope: knowing how dangerous the Oath he and his brothers have sworn is, he abdicates and lets his uncle rule. It's a wise move: the sons of Fëanor do commit some horrendous acts, and the two eldest eventually become insane, but at least they only rule a fraction of the Noldor.
** The royal family of Númenor also develop into this, as they become more and more jealous of the Elves for their long life, and determined to find a way to live forever. This culminates in the last ruler of Númenor [[RageAgainstTheHeavens basically declaring war on God]] and [[CurbStompBattle losing]] [[WorldSundering horribly]]. Ar-Pharazôn wasn't even the rightful King, having usurped the throne by forcing his cousin, the rightful ruler, to marry him.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** The page quote comes from the so-called "Targaryen madness". The royal Targaryen line is said to be blessed with greatness as much as it is cursed with madness, in part due to centuries of inbreeding to keep the "[[RoyaltySuperpower Blood of Old Valyria]]" pure. It started with the first Targaryen king, Aegon I, who was a great man but unfortunately married and had children with both of his sisters (a family tradition); from there on out it's been a crapshoot. The line has produced many able warriors, statesmen, and scholars as well as a rogue's gallery of tyrants and psychopaths. Some Targaryens begin quite noble and lose their grip on sanity as they age, such as King Aerys II -- by the end of his reign, he was known as King Aerys the Mad, and in the end, his excesses sparked a revolt that toppled the dynasty. Daenerys, the only POV character with Targaryen blood ([[EpilepticTrees so far as we know]]), seems more sound of mind than her relatives, but is a bit delusional and idealistic, and would do well to take the advice of those around her. The books give us only one normal Targaryen -- Maester Aemon, as even the much liked Rhaegar was bipolar and had delusions of grandeur. [[spoiler:Or possibly two, if the theory that Jon Snow is a Targaryen is true.]]
*** Though if you look at history, the Targaryen madness is rather overrated.
--->• Aegon I -- Perfectly normal,\\
• his son Aenys I -- Fairly normal, if a bit indecisive,\\
• his half-brother Maegor I -- Psychopath and mass murderer,\\
• his nephew Jaehaerys I -- Most beloved King in Westerosi history,\\
• his grandson Viserys I -- Aside from not clearing up his line of succession, quite normal,\\
• his son Aegon II -- Paranoid —although for good reason— but lustful, unpleasant, and vengeful,\\
• his nephew Aegon III -- PTSD, but from watching a dragon devour his mother rather than genetics,\\
• his son Daeron I -- Eager for war but not actually crazy,\\
• his brother Baelor I -- Religious fanatic but nonetheless loved,\\
• his uncle Viserys II -- Kept his nephews from imploding the realm during their reigns, but died before he could finish the job as king himself,\\
• his son Aegon IV -- Leecherous, corrupt, and horribly ineffectual,\\
• his son Daeron II -- Second-best king Westeros ever had,\\
• his son Aerys I -- Obsessed with books to the exclusion of all else, including having children,\\
• his brother Maekar I -- As stern, harsh, and unyielding as his great-great-grandson Stannis and even more unpopular but again not crazy,\\
• his son Aegon V -- Sane aside from maybe the Summerhall incident and well-known for his kindness to the smallfolk,\\
• his son Jaehaerys II -- Often considered weak due to his poor health and short reign but thought well of by anyone who actually knew him, managed to do some good things during his brief time [[note]]End the Blackfyre Rebellions and reconcile the Great Houses [[/note]]\\
• and his son Aerys II -- Psychopath and pyromaniac.
*** That's only three crazy kings, two borderline crazy kings, and one horribly incompetent one out of the seventeen monarchs. If you want to count the Targaryens who never became kings, only Rhaegal (brother of Aerys I and Maekar), Aerion (brother of Aegon V), and maybe Viserys (brother of Daenerys) were crazy.
*** It's unknown how many Targaryens were passed over for the throne due to either mental defects or poor physical health. The insanity problem became prevalent enough that the councils would try to skip over the crazy or sickly Targaryen in the line of succession in favor of [[SpareToTheThrone a more stable younger son or nephew]]. And in later generations, a significant number were born with moderate to severe mental defects, or "feeble-witted".[[note]]This applied to Aerion Blackfyre's daughter and at least several more children, but because they were never seriously considered in the line of succession, little was recorded about them.[[/note]] Even their physical health was eventually affected, with several being intellectually and emotionally normal but possessing such [[IllGirl fragile immune systems]] that they suffered from numerous ailments and died young. Stillbirths and cradle deaths were ''very'' common, even when you consider that [[CrapsackWorld this is Westeros]].[[note]]Dany's mother, Queen Rhaella, had no less than two stillbirths, three miscarriages, and three infant sons who were born alive but so sickly that none of them lived more than a year.[[/note]]
*** The propensity of the Targaryen madness in recent years seems to be influenced by a single factor: the prophecy about the Prince That Was Promised. Jaehaerys II forced his children, Aerys II and Rhaella, to abandon the loves of their lives in favor of each other, because the prophecy stated that the Prince would be born in their dynasty. This resulted in a loveless, unhappy, and (ultimately) abusive marriage. Aerys II's eldest son, Rhaegar, was obsessed with the prophecy, at first thinking he was the one before deciding that it's his son, Aegon. Then suddenly he decided that it required him to abduct an already bethrothed woman, essentially abandoning his wife for her and leading to the rebellion that brought the end of the dynasty. And despite knowing that his father was out of his mind, Rhaegar didn't plan to depose him until literally the last day of his life. Finally, Daenerys is haunted by the prophecy upon hearing it in Qarth (up to this point, she didn't know about it), which no doubt feeds into her [[ChronicHeroSyndrome idealistic, saviour narrative]], although it has not dominated her priorities so far.
** The Lannisters seem to be heading the inbred-madness route, too: [[spoiler: King Joffrey and his siblings Myrcella and Tommen]] are the product of BrotherSisterIncest between [[spoiler: Queen Cersei (married to King Robert, whom she hates) and her twin brother Jaime. Jaime and Cersei's parents were first cousins]]. Cersei is a paranoid schemer who eventually engineers her own downfall, and [[spoiler: her son Joffrey]] was sadistic and unstable and had to be put down by [[spoiler: Littlefinger and the Tyrells]]. Hopefully averted with Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella, who are both perfectly sweet children... for now. Though, the incest might be a factor (and, those who believe Stannis will no doubt jump on that explanation), [[RoyalBrat Joffrey]] really didn't have a chance: his mother both spoiled and smothered him as well as refused to let anybody else educate him... while neglecting such things as mathematics, ethics, psychology, and ''reading''. His father, although not exactly abusive, was both distant and neglectful. Anybody else who could have stepped in to discipline or direct him were either chased off (Maesters) or never spotted the problem until far too late (Grandfather, Father-by-blood, and Uncle).
* The Hapan royal family in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' has some AxCrazy tendencies. The heir apparent or Chume’da, has to constantly be on guard against other female relatives attempting to kill them to usurp power. Alonna Solo has even more trouble because she’s a prophesied Jedi Queen-to-be. Han and Leia change her name and raise her as an adopted daughter until she’s old enough to train to be queen without as big a death risk. She’ll still have reasons to be paranoid as queen though.
* In the ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'' series, the Rahl family line, for several generations, have been warmongering psychopaths. [[spoiler: The protagonist]] is, depending on the reader, either an exception or adhering to the rule.
* Fiona Patton's ''Literature/TalesOfTheBranionRealm'' series is set in a fantasy Britain where the gods take an active interest in their followers. The royal family, whose head is called the Aristok, is literally touched by the gods -- the sovereign is the avatar of the Living Flame, a deity/demon/primordial critter which is a sort of symbiotic parasite. This makes the Aristok something of a cross between a hereditary Christ-figure and the real British system of the monarch being head of the church. Not only does the Aristok have {{divine right|OfKings}}, she can prove it. Unfortunately, being the physical sacred vessel-on-earth of a ''fire god'' is bad for your health. Out of forty-one monarchs, sixteen have died young, been assassinated, or committed suicide, and many of the rest went insane. Three even converted to a completely different faith, which made for real cognitive dissonance among their followers as well as themselves. Whether this system is a blessing or a curse on the royal family is clearly up in the air.
* In the ''[[Literature/{{Nightrunner}} Tamír Trilogy]]'' (''The Bone Doll's Twin'', ''Hidden Warrior'', and ''The Oracle's Queen'') hereditary madness has hit the royal line. What makes this particularly dangerous is that the country's god has declared that only women of that bloodline can become ruler... or else. At the end...[[spoiler: the sanest remaining member of the royal line takes the throne and the madness that caused the whole situation is just never mentioned again, since the epilogue indicates that there were no problems for centuries afterwards.]]
* In the ''[[Literature/TortallUniverse Tortall]]'' books by Creator/TamoraPierce, the Copper Isles royalty tend to have madness crop up now and then, including one Princess Josiane. A character phrases it thus: "There's bad blood in the Copper Isles kings. They birth a mad one every generation. Josiane's uncle is locked in a tower somewhere. It comes from being an island kingdom -- too much inbreeding." It turns out in further novels that it may not be just one per generation...
** Two per generation, as of the Trickster books. The old king who dies and prompts the SuccessionCrisis and his brother who was mentioned as locked in a tower somewhere, and Josiane and Imajane among the old king's kids.
** The Jimajen line might also have bits of this, though we only see two members: Rubinyan, whose only major flaws are an overdeveloped sense of honor and an inability to control his insane wife; and Bronau, who is extremely egotistical and ambitious without much common sense to go with it. Big brother is also ambitious as hell, but much more sensible...
** Emperor Ozorne of Carthak and that cousin of the Tusaine line who starts the Tusaine-Tortall war in the second Song of the Lioness book both count.
** Duke Roger, nephew to King Roald in the Song of the Lioness quartet, wasn't insane to begin with, but coming back from the dead (or not, precisely, if you believe him) certainly screwed with his head.
* Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' has the Vorbarra Imperial line. Thanks to inbreeding and genetic damage caused by environmental factors, some of the Vorbarra rulers have been... problematic:
** Mad Emperor Yuri killed off most of his own family and then got dismembered and scalped by his own nobles, led by his brother in law[=/=]cousin.
** Yuri's brother in law[=/=]cousin[=/=]successor Ezar was a relatively sane [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]], but was also [[TheUnfettered ruthlessly amoral]] beyond belief. The man signed off on a pointlessly aggressive war ''he knew Barrayar would lose'' to topple his political enemies and [[OffingTheOffspring kill his own son]] in a UriahGambit. Said son, Prince Serg, was a twisted sadist who probably would have destroyed the Imperium if he'd been allowed to take the throne. (Too bad about the grunts.)
** Serg's son Gregor inherited the throne at age five when Ezar died, and, remarkably, grew up sane and stable thanks mostly to his adoptive parents, [[{{Cincinnatus}} Aral Vorkosigan]] and [[WarriorTherapist Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan]]. But Gregor became so paranoid about the genetic insanity in his family line that he refused to consider marrying anyone even ''distantly'' related to him. Since that equated to all the nobility on the planet, there was no clear line of succession[[note]](of the four with the closest blood right, two would cause mass revolts if they even looked at the camp stool whilst the other two would sooner eat plasma arcs than take the job)[[/note]], and Gregor's death would have caused a massive and probably final civil war...this posed a bit of a problem.
*** Fortunately, Barrayar has recently gotten a handle on genetic engineering, eased up on the social stratification, and annexed another planet with its own unrelated set of merchant nobility (one of whom Gregor eventually married), so that nasty strain of ''[[CanisLatinicus nutjobbus maximus]]'' is likely to be cleansed from the line in the future. Much to the relief of Gregor, Aral, Cordelia, and every planet anywhere near Barrayar.
[[/folder]]

* RealLife/RoyallyScrewedUp

[[folder:Real Life]]
Every monarchy has ''something''. Arranged (roughly) by country:
* UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}:
** [[TheMentallyDisturbed Henry VI]] had a mental illness of some sort which left him near-catatonic for long periods. It may have been hereditary -- his grandfather Charles VI of France is also on this page -- but some theories suggest his mental health declined significantly as England's losses mounted in the final stages of UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, culminating in the loss of Bordeaux in August 1453, to which he responded with a [[DrivenToMadness complete mental breakdown]] that left him [[HeroicBSOD totally unresponsive for more than a year]]. Henry's madness in turn led to the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, which effectively purged the English royal line of insanity by almost exterminating it.
** UsefulNotes/HenryVIII started out as a good king -- tough and ambitious, which people liked in a monarch back then. However, as he got older, he grew more cruel and egotistical (as many of his wives discovered). Theories differ on why, but they generally point to something happening to him that pushed him off the deep end, whether it be illness, a CareerEndingInjury (he's often portrayed as [[AdiposeRex a large man]] but was very fit in his youth), or his [[HeirClubForMen inability to produce a male heir]].
** The sanity of Henry VIII's daughter [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Mary I]] (the historical "Bloody Mary") is a question historians have never settled. She sought to re-establish the Catholic church, after her father had dispensed with it in the English Reformation as a way of divorcing her mother, who was then dying of cancer. She responded with a campaign that led to an unusually large number of brutal executions in her six-year reign and brought the country to the point of outright rebellion. She may also have had a "hysterical pregnancy" -- ''i.e.'' she was convinced she was pregnant when she really wasn't -- which makes sense, because [[MyBiologicalClockIsTicking she was 38]] and desperate to produce an heir to head off her very Protestant half-sister UsefulNotes/ElizabethI. For centuries it was assumed to have been extreme wishful thining, but evidence now suggests she had ovarian cysts, or possibly uterine cancer.
** George III is considered the archetypcal "mad king", although the exact extent of his madness is now disputed. It is believed that he suffered from porphyria, based on contemporary accounts of his urine being bluish purple, but some modern scholars attribute this to a [[HealingHerb herbal sedative]] (the kind of thing that [[WorstAid passed for medicine back then]]). Porphyria is hereditary, and although its onset often occurs late in life, there was no evidence of it in any of George's Hanoverian ancestors. He certainly wasn't ''always'' mad; he was considered quite charming and reasonably well-adjusted when he was younger, so his "madness" may have just been garden-variety dementia. The famous incident where he [[TalkingToPlants conversed with a tree]] thinking it was the king of Prussia was isolated, happened late in his life, and could well have been made up by his son [[TheHedonist George IV]], who resented having to rule as prince regent in his father's latter years (and had his own share of issues what with the incessant partying and gambling -- ''Series/{{Blackadder}} the Third'''s portrayal of him isn't ''that'' exaggerated). Thankfully, by this time, Parliament had enough power that a "sane-ish" monarch was good enough.
* UsefulNotes/{{France}}:
** Philip IV "le Bel" was famous for effectively disbanding UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar, and much of the misfortune that visited the French monarchy since then (note that [[UsefulNotes/FrenchPoliticalSystem it no longer exists]]) is said to be the result of a {{curse}} by the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who was burned at the stake in 1314. Philip himself perished in a hunting accident eight months after the execution, and none of his three sons would succeed him as king for long enough to produce a surviving son. By 1328 Philip's house was extinct in the male line, laying the foundations for what would become the Hundred Years' War.
** Charles VI was commonly said to have been DrivenToMadness by two traumatic events: the first a case of sunstroke, and the second was the notorious "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_des_Ardents Ball of the Burning Men]]" in which he [[ManOnFire was almost set on fire]]. He was the grandfather of Henry VI of England, and Britons tend to blame Henry's madness on Charles, but Charles' French offspring was quite rational and intelligent (at least by the standards of the day).
** The Duke of Angoulême, son of Charles X, is more on the pathetic side. Unlike his father and his more charismatic brother, the Duke of Berry, he was frail, prone to nervous tics, and probably impotent, which at least prevented him from having even more screwed up offspring with his wife and first cousin, Marie-Thérèse, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. He did ascend the French throne during the July Revolution... for all of 20 minutes, and even then most Legitimist partisans refused to acknowledge his claim to the throne.
* UsefulNotes/{{Spain}}:
** The Trastámara family was known for its history of oddballs, although they had a lot of enemies who were prone to exaggerating the family's eccentricities. Peter I was known in Old Spanish as ''Iusteçero'', roughly meaning "bringer of justice", which had a double meaning of excellence in execution of policy and [[OffWithHisHead of people]]. As ''ComicBook/TheCartoonHistoryOfTheUniverse'' put it: "I'm Pedro el Cruel! What can I do to you?" He wasn't actually a member of the House -- it was founded by his half-brother, who was sane but illegitimate -- but he still gets lumped in with them.
** The by-word for Spanish royal insanity is Queen Joanna of Aragon and Castille, commonly known as "Juana la Loca" -- "Joanna the Mad". The extent of her madness is a matter of debate. Scholars suggest it derives roughly equally from genetics (she is theorised to have at least some form of hereditary depression) and her [[AbusiveParents unhappy family life]] -- which, given the nature of royal families, is heavily intertwined with politics.
*** Joanna was the product of a very strategic political union. Her father Ferdinand was King of Aragon and from the House of Trastámara (which produced the aforementioned Peter I). Her mother [[TheWomanWearingTheQueenlyMask Isabella]] was Queen of Castille in her own right, and Joanna inherited both and was a legitimate queen. However, being a woman, she became a catalyst for all the men in her life trying to exert power through her. Ferdinand basically considered himself king of both Aragon and Castile and was particularly intent on exerting power.
*** Joanna's husband was Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, the son of [[UsefulNotes/HolyRomanEmpire Holy Roman Emperor]] Maximilian I. Philip was from the House of Habsburg, a famous and powerful royal family -- so much so that they engaged in ''extensive'' RoyalInbreeding to prevent power from falling into the wrong hands. They wouldn't marry non-royalty (it was beneath them), they wouldn't marry their enemies (of course), and after the Protestant Reformation, they wouldn't marry non-Catholics either (unless they converted). All of this drastically reduced the pool of possible marriage partners, so they kept [[KissingCousins marrying their cousins]] as the only people they could trust. Philip's marriage to Joanna was a strategic union, and a politically shrewd one, but it only bought them a little time (especially as the Trastámara family was already pretty inbred, so it wasn't a great source of genetic diversity).
*** As it turned out, it was a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, and much of Joanna's "madness" can be traced [[ExcessiveMourning to Philip's untimely death]]. Philip provided ample competition for Ferdinand in the game of "Control the Damsel", and "husband" usually trumps "father" in that game -- Philip declared himself King of Castille ''jure uxoris'' (by right of marriage) to try and talk some sense into Ferdinand, but to no avail. Joanna much preferred Philip to Ferdinand, and when Philip died, she kind of [[HeroicBSOD lost it]]. After several attempts to reopen her husband's casket, and a few political and military defeats, Ferdinand had her [[MadwomanInTheAttic locked up in a nunnery]] and exercised as much control as he could. That lasted until Joanna's son Charles I -- who was Holy Roman [[TheEmperor Emperor Charles V]] -- was old enough to exert himself in his own right. Charles' successors split into Austrian and Spanish branches, who kept intermarrying, leading to problems down the line.
*** There's a sort of interesting [[WhatCouldHaveBeen divergence point]] in history here. Joanna's younger sister was Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England. Their daughter Mary, in the grand Habsburg tradition, married her cousin Philip II, Charles V's son. They never had children (and Philip eventually remarried his niece Anne of Austria) -- but if they had, and England had managed to stay Catholic, that could have given the Habsburgs control of damn near half of Europe if things had shaken out right -- but perhaps at the cost of the integrity of the English royal bloodline.
** [[RoyalBrat Don Carlos]] the rebellious son of Philip II and grandson of Charles V, was insane to the point of being physically dangerous and would take swipes at passing servants with a knife. Philip ended up removing him from the line of succession on the basis that he was unfit for the throne, and he spent the last six months of his life under house arrest.
** Charles II of Spain was the last Habsburg King of Spain. They called him "Carlos el Hechizado" or "Charles the Bewitched", and it's not hard to see why -- that's his portrait in the page image, and that's as ''flattering'' as they could make it. He was severely physically ''and'' mentally disabled, mostly as a result of the extensive RoyalInbreeding practised by the Habsburg family -- he was descended from "Juana la Loca" ''fourteen'' times. That chin is the most prominent example of the famous "Habsburg lip", which he had so prominently that he couldn't close his mouth (that's why his tongue is poking out). [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] describes Charles as "short, lame, epileptic, senile, and completely bald before 35, always on the verge of death but repeatedly [[WhyWontYouDie baffling Christendom by continuing to live]]." Since Charles had no heir (and possibly was incapable of reproducing)[[note]]The contemporary autopsy report is [[BodyHorror very revealing]] -- it claims that Charles' body "contained not a single drop of blood, his heart looked like the size of a grain of pepper, his lungs were corroded, his intestines were putrid and gangrenous, he had a single testicle which was as black as carbon and his head was full of water." The accuracy of that report is disputed, but he never did produce an heir, so maybe it was[[/note]], his death sparked the UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession, where two competing branches of the family in Austria and France[[note]]The French branch was led by Charles' grand-nephew, who also happened to be the grandson of UsefulNotes/LouisXIV of France, so most of Europe basically ganged up on the French to prevent them from gaining control of Spain as well[[/note]] fought for control of the Spanish crown. About the only non-Habsburg genes Charles had received in the last four generations were from [[{{Squick}} his father's syphilis]], which by then was like throwing swamp water up a backed-up sewage line.
* UsefulNotes/{{Austria}}'s most famous emperors came from the House of Habsburg, which was notorious for RoyalInbreeding:
** Ferdinand I wasn't the head-choppy kind of crazy, but he was definitely epileptic and had a hydrocephalus. They called him ''Ferdinand der Gütige'', or "Ferdinand the Kindly" -- or more accurately "Ferdinand [[AuthorityInNameOnly the Benign]]". Much of the work was done by his MagnificentBastard Prime Minister, Prince Metternich. Austrians famously consider him to have made one coherent order in his entire reign: "''Ich bin der Kaiser und ich will Knödel!''" ("I am the Emperor and I want dumplings!")[[note]]They told him he couldn't have them because he wanted ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marillenknodel Marillenknödel]]'', which requires apricots, which were out of season[[/note]]. He was eventually forced to abdicate in the Revolution of 1848[[note]]leading to a variant of his nickname, ''Gütinand der Fertige'' -- "Goodinand the Finished"[[/note]] -- legend has it that when told that the people were revolting, his response was, "Yes, but are they allowed to do that?" (in a distinct [[UsefulNotes/GermanDialects Viennese dialect]] that Germans often associate with amiable cluelessness). As Ferdinand had no children (and again may have been incapable of it), his disabilities didn't continue down the line, and he abdicated in favour of his saner (and {{workaholic}}) nephew Franz Joseph, who would reign until 1916.
** Franz Joseph, meanwhile, married his first cousin Elisabeth, popularly known as Sisi. She is speculated to have suffered from some sort of ''anorexia nervosa'' -- not a good combination with a {{workaholic}} husband. Their only son Rudolf was a total playboy -- which, given the famous Habsburg restrictions on marriage, did ''not'' sit well with his parents. Rudolf was reported to keep a carefully detailed ledger of his many sexual conquests, brought a lover to his wedding, and asked at least three women to die with him in a SuicidePact. One of them, his lover Mary Vetsera, eventually obliged him, and they were both found dead in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerling_incident Mayerling Incident]]. It devastated his parents' marriage, in part because they were already split on the question of whether Hungary should be allowed to split, and Rudolf's death accelerated nationalist sentiment in the Empire. Meanwhile, Rudolf had left no heir, and the heir-presumptive became Archduke UsefulNotes/FranzFerdinandOfAustria, who himself had a falling-out with Franz Joseph over not marrying a royal in the Habsburg tradition (he married a Czech countess). Franz Ferdinand never got to be Emperor, as he was famously assassinated in 1914 in an event that triggered UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.
* Modern UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} is made up of different places who used to have kings:
** UsefulNotes/LudwigIIOfBavaria was considered by many to be mad. He was known as the "fairytale king", in part because his particular brand of "insanity" was an obsession with building elaborate castles, swans, opera music, and beautiful men (he was believed to possibly have been [[BuryYourGays gay]]). His brother Otto was also considered mad and institutionalised -- some Bavarians claim they inherited their madness from their Prussian mother Marie, pointing to the case of her uncle Frederick William IV, also commonly believed to have been mad[[note]]Modern scholarship suggests he was not mad, but rather suffered a stroke in his later years, which his Bavarian consort Queen Elisabeth tried to hide from the public[[/note]]. Ludwig was the last "real" King of Bavaria -- he was deposed by his government (based on a "remote diagnosis" by Bernhard von Gudden, the validity of which has since been drawn into question), then mysteriously died the next day (along with Gudden). This left his brother Otto king, even though he had already been institutionalised -- he spent his entire "reign" in an asylum.
** Frederick William I of Prussia had porphyria, and also liked to carry a wooden cane, [[CaneFu much to the regret of everyone around him]] (who naturally couldn't defend themselves without being accused of treason). He was known for chasing his children around the palace and randomly attacking commoners in the streets of Berlin, hollering, "You're supposed to love me, not fear me!" This seems to have had a negative effect in his relationship with his son, UsefulNotes/FrederickTheGreat, although the mutual intense antipathy between the two surely didn't help.
** Countess Anna de Coligny (1624-80) was distantly related to the Kings of England and Prussia. She suffered from an illness of ''some'' sort, although it's not certain what it was. Her problems started young, when was reported to have tried to climb up the tapestries hanging from a wall after a seizure, and she did not get better. Four of her five daughters also went crazy (one had to be locked up in an apartment with padded walls). Her surviving son, while not insane, was very promiscuous and thought it would be a good idea for some of his illegitimate children to marry their half-siblings.
* UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire absolutely had its share of lunatic emperors -- everything we saw in ''Literature/IClaudius'' was just the tip of the iceberg. But historians are split on exactly ''why'' they were nuts. Was it inbreeding? Was it a lust for power? Was it [[ProperlyParanoid well-seated paranoia]] for fear of being offed in a KlingonPromotion[[note]]Only 29 out of 88 Byzantine Emperors died of natural causes, and at least a dozen were murdered by their own relatives[[/note]]? Was it [[ArtisticLicenseHistory exaggerated -- or even invented]] -- by much later historians like Tacitus and Suetonius as a sort of [[PoliticallyCorrectHistory historical revisionism]]? Were they the victims of undiagnosed lead poisoning that gradually eroded their mental faculties? All this is a matter of debate, although it is interesting how relatively few Roman Emperors inherited their job; Romans were so acutely aware of the possibility of the natural heir being completely off their rocker that they often adopted someone they preferred as their successor (or the army installed someone ''they'' liked).
* UsefulNotes/TsaristRussia:
** It seemed like no Russian tsar trusted anyone in their family. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_III_of_Russia Ivan "the Great"]] started a brutal war because he clashed so hard with his brothers. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible Ivan "the Terrible"]] had a particular brand of crazy that caused him to go through [[SerialSpouse wives]] -- [[OffingTheOffspring and children]] -- at an impressive rate. UsefulNotes/PeterTheGreat, despite being the man who modernised and Westernised Russia, had a notoriously difficult relationship with his son Alexei. But none could surpass UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat. She married into the family, but turned out to be more capable than her husband [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_III_of_Russia Peter III]], whom history portrays as a {{manchild}} with a military fetish who was [[BoomerangBigot essentially an ardent Russophobe]] -- [[TilMurderDoUsPart his death is commonly believed to have been at Catherine's orders]], allowing her to become Empress in her own right. She also had a ''very'' contentious relationship with her son Paul, who was an extraordinarily difficult person himself (he would exile officers [[ReassignedToAntarctica to Siberia]] for a [[FelonyMisdemeanor misplaced coat button]]) and likely organised ''his'' assassination to ensure the throne to her favourite grandson, Alexander I. (Alexander probably consented to all this, at least tacitly, but he did feel [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrendously guilty about it]] and perhaps never intended for him to be assassinated outright.)
** The latter years of the Romanov dynasty were notable for the prominence of haemophilia, a hereditary trait which could be traced back to the British UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria -- she was a carrier, three of her children got the gene, and from there it spread to many other European royal houses. Nicholas II's son Alexei, the last legitimate heir to the Romanov dynasty before they were [[UsefulNotes/RomanovsAndRevolutions all executed]], was a notable sufferer, and the faith-healer UsefulNotes/RasputinTheMadMonk quickly built his reputation on his ability to "treat" it. The haemophilia gene would become such a prominent genetic marker of royalty that the 1950s BMovie ''Queen of Blood'' decided that the extraterrestrial must be royalty solely because she was a haemophiliac. That is one impressive little allele.
* ImperialChina:
** UsefulNotes/QinShihuangdi, the very first emperor, started an unfortunate trend of [[ImmortalitySeeker emperors and noblemen seeking "immortality elixirs"]] that were [[{{DeathByIrony}} dodgy enough to be fatal]]. Shihuangdi experimented extensively with mercury, which turned him from a [[SanitySlippage suspicious but fundamentally sound monarch]] into a [[TheCaligula total paranoiac]].He eventually took it a step too far by taking pills containing ''pure'' mercury, which killed him in 220 BCE. And yet, for over a thousand years after that, people kept experimenting with mercury, thinking that it was just too a high a concentration that killed Shihuangdi (technically correct, but not especially helpful), and dismissing the side effects as signs that the medicine was working. This is how the ''exact same thing'' happened to the last good Tang Emperor Xuānzong, who similarly degenerated into a paranoid wreck, except he died of chronic rather than acute mercury poisoning in 859 CE. The last Chinese emperor to die of mercury poisoning was the Qing Emperor Yongzheng, as late as 1735. In fact, the only dynasty to be completely unaffected by mercury poisoning is the Yuan dynasty (the Mongol dynasty of Kublai Khan, which tended to look down on Chinese alchemy in general when it wasn't making gunpowder).
** This led to the downfall of the Northern Qi. Gao Wei, the second-to-last Northern Qi Emperor, was infamously corrupt and badly damaged his own army by killing its best commanders. In 573 CE, he became convinced that his much saner and more popular cousin, Gao Chang Gong, was plotting against him, so he had him poisoned. Gao Chang Gong happened to be the Northern Qi's ''greatest'' general, having famously defeated 100,000 Northern Zhou soldiers with an army of only 500. Without him, when the Northern Zhou attacked again, the kingdom didn't stand a chance; Gao Wei was overthrown and [[RulingFamilyMassacre murdered along with most of his relatives]].
** When Zhou Emperor Zhen Ding died, he was succeeded by his oldest son, who became King Ai. King Ai only reigned for three months before he was murdered by his younger brother, who became King Si. Five months later King Si was murdered by ''his'' younger brother. King Kao, the third of the brothers, managed to stay on the throne for fourteen years. He had a younger brother, Prince Jie, but luckily for Kao -- and the kingdom, which had already endured the deaths of three kings in one year -- Jie was content with the title of Duke of Western Zhou and didn't murder his brother to become king.
** The Liu Song dynasty lasted only 59 years, in which time it had an astonishing number of tyrannical emperors:
*** Crown Prince Liu Shao [[DealWithTheDevil paid a witch]] to curse his father Emperor Wen [[SelfMadeOrphan and cause his death]].When Wen found out about his son's plot, he decided to depose him, but Liu Shao struck first, had the emperor assassinated, claimed the throne, and promptly executed many of his cousins. Liu Shao's half-brother Liu Jun raised a rebellion, overthrew him, and had Liu Shao and his sons beheaded and forced Liu Shao's wives and daughters to commit suicide.
*** As Emperor, Liu Jun was embroiled in multiple scandals. He slept with many of his female cousins, forced several of his brothers to commit suicide, and reportedly even [[ParentalIncest slept with his mother]].
*** Liu Jun was succeeded by his teenaged son [[TeensAreMonsters Liu Zi Ye]]. Shortly after taking the throne, Zi Ye had his great-uncle executed, gouged out his eyes, and kept them preserved. Then he started an affair with his aunt and personally murdered her husband. [[FromBadToWorse Then he killed officials who tried to stop him.]] Finally, a surviving official had enough and assassinated Liu Zi Ye.
*** Liu Zi Ye was succeeded by his uncle [[EvilUncle Liu]] [[TheParanoiac Yu]], who became increasingly paranoid and killed almost all of his brothers and nephews. Officials who displeased him were executed, often by being disembowelled or having their hearts cut out.
*** Liu Yu's son, also called [[EnfantTerrible Liu Yu]], took the throne when he was only nine. He quickly became as violent as his father. He personally cut people open, and even became depressed if a day went by without killing someone. He was eventually assassinated by an attendant he had threatened to kill.
* UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}:
** Yoshihito, known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Taisho Emperor Taisho]], was known for his bizarre behaviour in his later years, likely due to a combination of historic inbreeding and a bout of meningitis he suffered when he was weeks old and probably left him brain-damaged. During a parade, he reportedly hopped off the royal float and hugged a random trumpet player in the accompanying band, and also behaved rather weirdly during the inauguration of the Japanese Parliament in 1913. As a result, he was kept out of view of the public as much as possible.
** Over a thousand years earlier [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Yōzei Emperor Yōzei]] was even more screwed up. His actions including feeding live frogs to snakes, chasing people while wielding a sword, and murdering one of his servants. In 884 his advisors decided to dethrone him. That didn't stop his insanity; during his cousin's reign he started murdering women and trampling people with his horse.
* The [[UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} Ottoman Empire]] was known for this not because of genetics, but rather because of their upbringing. It started with Sultan Ahmed I, who decided to protect his heir, his younger brother Mustafa, from potential threats to his ascension -- by [[GildedCage locking him in a corner of his palace]]. This took an enormous toll on the young prince, who by the time of Ahmed's death was a psychological wreck with severe neurosis and hallucinations. He lasted barely a year before the courtiers locked him up again (only to bring him out a second time, again lasting barely a year). He was succeeded by Ahmed's sons, who were barely saner, heavily paranoid {{Mood Swinger}}s. Ahmed's first son Osman was a RoyalBrat who used courtiers for target practice with his longbow. His second son Murad was a choleric KnightTemplar who had almost all of his viziers executed and imprisoned a lot of Istanbul's population for [[FelonyMisdemeanor trivial offences like drinking coffee]]. His last son Ibrahim was straight-up nicknamed "the mad", not for being AxCrazy but for [[AnythingThatMoves how many women he impregnated]] (which was better than the alternative, because Murad had no children and [[CainAndAbel slaughtered almost all of his half-brothers during his reign]]). Most historians today consider this one of the main reasons for the gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
* UsefulNotes/{{Denmark}} gives us the Oldenburg dynasty. It was fine until [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_VII_of_Denmark Christian VII]], who suffered from mental illness, hallucinations, and paranoia. He had to rule by proxy for long periods of time, and his illness led to the ''Struensee affair'', in which his own physician took control as his proxy and turned out to be the most sensible ruler Denmark had had for decades -- until he was toppled in a coup and executed. Christian's son Frederick VI had to rule as regent from that point onward, and he was basically set up for failure, having to steer Denmark through UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars and screwing up enough to be partly responsible for the UsefulNotes/NorwegianConstituentAssembly. The dynasty died out with Frederick VII, and the Glüksborg branch turned out to be a ''lot'' more sensible, but then they were constitutional monarchs.
* UsefulNotes/{{Sweden}} gives us the Wasa family, and in particular [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_XIV_of_Sweden Eric XIV]]. He started out okay, if kind of bloody and super-efficient at consolidating power from the factionalistic Swedish nobles. Then he got more and more AxCrazy, finding more and more enemies to execute, culminating in the Sture murders, after which he was effectively deposed and imprisoned, where he died shortly thereafter. Interestingly, when he was exhumed centuries later, his bones were found to have been loaded with arsenic, which was a sign that he may have been poisoned -- but arsenic was also a traditional component of the green dye used to make Scandinavian pea soup. So he may have been murdered, or he may have been suffering lifelong arsenic poisoning to explain his erratic behaviour.
* UsefulNotes/{{Norway}} has seen enough of it that King Harald V was widely suspected of having married a commoner in part to head off the prevalence of this trope. His parents and paternal grandparents were first cousins, and his maternal grandparents were first cousins once removed. When a journalist innocently asked him if part of his desire to marry a commoner included expanding the family's gene pool, Harald responded, "Well, haven't you noticed that everyone in this family is a little weird?"
* UsefulNotes/{{Ancient Egypt}}ian pharaohs made something of a habit of marrying their eldest sisters, to the extent that archaeologists thought for a while that the claim to the throne passed through the oldest ''daughter'' of the late king (keeping male primogeniture would thus have required marrying your sister). The current theory is that it was in fact male-line inheritance and many of these marriages were symbolic, meant to prevent princesses from marrying other men and establishing cadet branches of the royal family. But not all of them were -- the Egyptians ''really'' wanted to preserve the bloodline and had a general distaste for marrying non-Egyptians. The Ptolemaic dynasty (which was ethnically Greek but very quickly assimilated to pharaonic tradition) in particular had a Möbius family tree, which showed in some of the later Ptolemies, Berenices, and Cleopatras[[note]]UsefulNotes/CleopatraVII, the one everyone remembers, was considered unusually charming and savvy by her family's standards, which had raised the odd eyebrow for centuries -- genetic lottery win, a more distant Ptolemy than adverised, or an outside contractor entirely?[[/note]]. Some archaeologists and historians believe that the inbreeding was so severe that the Ptolemaic royal family was medically ''worse'' than the Habsburgs, with descriptions of obesity, swollen necks, proptosis (bulging eyes), and a recessive trait remarkably similar to the "Habsburg jaw". They were also ''morally'' screwed up in several ways:
** Ptolemy VIII murdered his nephew to gain the throne, married the mother of that nephew, had an affair with his stepdaughter, and killed his son when the same mother proclaimed him the new Pharaoh. He was described by one Roman writer as having an unattractive face and a belly more like an "animal" than a man.
** Ptolemy XI was forced to marry his stepmother and half-sister (also possibly his [[ParentalIncest biological mother]]) and murdered her nineteen days later after the marriage.
** UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} was revealed to be a petri dish of diseases, including the very rare Köhler disease II, which likely factored into his death. He was also said to have large front incisors, a trait passed down from the Eighteenth Dynasty royal family (1543–1292 BC). Skeletal deformities afflicted the two stillborn fetuses, identified as his daughters, which were entombed with Tut as well.
* UsefulNotes/{{Nepal}} doesn't have a monarchy anymore because of this. The Nepalese monarchy had lasted 240 years when in 2001, Crown Prince Dipendra went AxCrazy, gunned down most of his relatives -- including [[SelfMadeOrphan his parents the king and queen]] -- and then shot himself. By law, Dipendra was crowned Nepal's new king, despite being comatose and accused of multiple murders. Dipendra quickly succumbed to his injuries, and his uncle Gyanendra was crowned king, despite being widely suspected of having orchestrated the massacre -- so whether it was Dipendra or Gyanendra, Nepal made at least one mass murderer its king. Gyanendra went on to become particularly authoritarian and tried to abolish the Parliament, which so pissed off the Nepalese people that they abolished the monarchy and established a republic (making peace with the [[DirtyCommunists Maoist rebels]] to do so).
* Ancient Korea:
** King Hyeonjong had the [[SarcasmMode brilliant]] idea of marrying three sisters (among many other women, including [[KissingCousins his cousin]]). That's not really unusual in a polygamous society. What is unusual is what followed: when his children were old enough for marriage he decided to [[BrotherSisterIncest marry them to each other]]. And because of the aforementioned marrying-sisters thing, the children were both half-siblings and cousins.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunghye_of_Goryeo King Chunghye]] of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goryeo Goryeo dynasty]] was infamous for his habit of abducting, raping, and murdering women. This made him very unpopular with everyone and ultimately caused his downfall. He raped at least two of his late father's concubines. One of them, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Gyeonghwa Bayankhutag]], was a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuan_dynasty Yuan]] noblewoman. After Chunghye raped her, the Yuan emissary arrested Chunghye and dragged him to Beijing, where he spent the rest of his life as a prisoner.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gongmin_of_Goryeo King Gongmin]], Chunghye's half-brother, was every bit as screwed-up. He came to the throne by having Chunghye's fourteen-year-old son deposed and poisoned. During his reign, he raped five underage boys (that we know of). He finally died after he discovered one of his concubines was having an affair with another man; afraid of being executed, the concubine's lover murdered Gongmin in his sleep.
** UsefulNotes/YeonsangunOfJoseon had the dubious honour of being the worst tyrant in all of Korean history before North Korea became a thing. When he first took the throne, he seemed competent and mentally stable, but that quickly changed. Yeonsan had an [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas obsession with restoring his late mother's reputation]], which led him to launch two purges of the scholars who were even tenuously connected (if at all) to his mother's deposition and execution. He went as far as to punish officials who weren't in the palace when his mother died, on the grounds that [[InsaneTrollLogic they did nothing to stop it]]. Two of his father's concubines considered most responsible for his mother's execution were beaten to death. He fatally injured his grandmother during an argument and murdered an official who confronted him about his behaviour. In his later years, he drove people from their houses to build his hunting grounds, [[DisproportionateRetribution exiled a minister for spilling a drink]], and kidnapped a thousand women and turned a former university into his personal brothel. His people finally had enough, staged a coup, and overthrew him. It's no coincidence that even though he reigned as king, he's remembered only as "Prince Yeonsan" (the literal translation of "Yeonsan-gun") and not as "King Yeonsan" (which would be "Yeonsan-wang").
** King Yeongjo and his son [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prince_Sado Crown Prince Sado]] had a difficult relationship, to say the least -- Yeongjo was [[WellDoneSonGuy never happy with anything Sado did]] and went out of his way to publicly humiliate him. Sado, for his part, was already mentally ill, suffering from hallucinations and a bizarre phobia of clothes. Over time, his mental state deteriorated, and he became violent. In 1757, he beheaded a eunuch and carried the severed head around with him. He started killing palace servants, raped ladies-in-waiting, was abusive toward his wife, threatened to kill his sister, and beat his concubine to death. In 1762, Yeongjo dealt with Sado by ordering him to climb into a rice chest, [[CruelAndUnusualDeath locking him inside, and leaving him to starve to death]].
* UsefulNotes/NorthKorea officially doesn't have a monarchy, but for all intents and purposes they are run by the [[UsefulNotes/TheRulersOfNorthKorea Kim dynasty]], which is a pretty damn messed up family. In accordance with their country's insane propaganda, all three Kims are portrayed as [[GodEmperor gods among men]], who at various times are said to have magic powers, never urinate or defacate, have invented the hamburger, and have shot a perfect golf game. Their foreign policy amounts to an extreme isolationism and desperate attempts to develop nuclear weapons to keep all the "enemies" at bay. And their fickleness certainly matches the extremes:
** Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il both are known to have had children by multiple women. Il-sung at least has the excuse that his first wife died during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII fighting the Japanese, but Jong-il was known to be a playboy who got into relationships his father disapproved. He was widely suspected of having {{Sex Slave}}s and could [[BatheHerAndBringHerToMe essentially summon any woman who caught his eye]]. One of those women, the mother of current leader Kim Jong-un, was born in Japan and was part-Japanese, a fact which is a state secret in North Korea because of how much they ''particularly'' hate the Japanese.
** Kim Jong-il's succession wasn't entirely clear-cut. His original pick was his oldest son Kim Jong-nam, but Jong-nam turned out to be a bit more of a bleeding heart than Jong-il liked, and he eventually fell out of favour with his father in 2000 when he was caught using a fake passport to enter Japan so he could go to Tokyo Disneyland. Jong-nam eventually went into effective exile in Macau, while the succession filtered to Kim Jong-un, at that time a teenager who was a complete unknown. When Jong-il died in 2011, Jong-un became the leader and made a name for himself by assassinating everyone he perceived as a threat (including his own uncle, by some reports [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill with an anti-aircraft gun]]), and in 2017 he had his own half-brother Jong-nam assassinated in broad daylight at the airport in Kuala Lumpur using VX nerve agent. Communism may have eliminated royalty, but it does nothing to court intrigues.
* UsefulNotes/SaudiArabia is run by the House of Saud. It's one of the few countries named after a guy, said guy being UsefulNotes/AbdulAzizIbnSaud. Every king of Saudi Arabia since then has been one of Abdul Aziz's many many sons, reflecting the country's peculiar succession laws that more or less require going through all the sons before going to the grandsons. The last few kings have all been increasingly aging and haven't lasted that long, which is why they agreed in 2017 on one of Abdul Aziz's grandsons, Mohammad bin Salman (popularly known as "MBS"), to be the new heir. The Saudi monarchy has had a reputation for being startlingly backwards and promoting religious extremism -- the country was long known for its frequent public executions for trivial offenses, its ''mutaween'' or religious police, and its bizarre religious prohibitions -- women famously weren't allowed to ''drive''. All of Abdul Aziz's sons had their own levels of extremism, leading to factionalism among them -- for instance, in 1975, King Faisal was assassinated by his own half-nephew (ostensibly for being too progressive -- this four years before a group of extremists invaded the Grand Mosque itself seeking to overthrow the House of Saud for ''still'' being too progressive). MBS, for his part, was widely lauded as the young, progressive world leader who would bring Saudi Arabia into the 21st century -- he championed legislation that allowed women to drive, for instance. But then he turned around and arrested and tortured most of his rivals in an "anti-corruption" campaign[[note]]They were all probably guilty as hell -- the boundaries between "state assets" and "royal family's personal bank account" are pretty blurry -- but MBS was clearly being selective in whom he chose to pursue[[/note]], imprisoned women's rights activists, engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign in Yemen, and was likely responsible for the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, so it's likely he's not going to be much of a change. But hey, oil money buys you a lot in this world.
* Creator/IbnKhaldun, in talking about North African bedouins, made the observation that basically every monarchy is dooned to go through this, especially when they engage in conquest. The first generation is tribal and not quite civilised, but also tough and a natural leader. The second generation can see what made the first great, but growing up in a castle lacks a little perspective. The third generation goes soft, and subsequent generations get softer and softer until someone else sees an opportunity for conquest and takes over. He had the experience of being close enough to the Islamic dynasties of Spain, which were an excellent example of this paradigm, but it's a startlingly appropriate observation -- practically every great dynasty was essentially started by a rough hick whose descendants became more and more educated.
* Some Biblical scholars believe that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul King Saul]] may have been schizophrenic. He shows a jealous obsession with his eventual successor UsefulNotes/KingDavid and tries to kill him several times, and he throws a spear at his own son [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_(1_Samuel) Jonathan]] for merely asking why his best friend David had to die (1 Samuel 20:30). [[Literature/TheBible The text]] also suggests that he had severe migraine headaches, which can cause memory loss and very irrational behaviour -- it especially dovetails nicely with the idea that his doctors prescribed music to help him relax (1 Samuel 16:23), which is why David was brought there, and ancient Israel would have seen the headaches as a sign of their king's prophetic power rather than a medical condition.
* UsefulNotes/{{Thailand}}:
** Before the twentieth century the Chakri dynasty was right up there with the Pharaohs for the title of "most in-bred royal family". Not only were they polygamists, they practiced BrotherSisterIncest. The first king, Rama I, had thirty-two consorts (it's unknown how many were his sisters or cousins) and forty-two children. That's a TangledFamilyTree all on its own, but it just got worse from then on.
** Rama II married fifty-three women, including his cousin and at least one of his half-sisters, and had ''seventy-three'' children. Three of his sons became kings after him. Rama III had forty-two consorts and fifty-one children, but didn't choose any of his children to be successors. So when he died the throne went to his half-brother Rama IV (better-known as Mongkut; yes, the King in ''Theatre/TheKingAndI''), who chose another half-brother, Pinklao, to be vice-king. Pinklao had fifty-eight children to an unknown number of consorts. Mongkut outdid him and all of his other relatives: he had sixty-one consorts, including three of his great-nieces, and ''eighty-two'' children.
** Rama V (better-known as Chulalongkorn) had ninety-two consorts, including five of his half-sisters and three cousins, and seventy-six children.
** Things became slightly saner when Vajiravudh took the throne as Rama VI. He only had four consorts, three of whom were his cousins, and only one child. Prajadhipok, [=AKA=] Rama VII, was the first monarch in the dynasty who wasn't a polygamist. His only wife was also his cousin, and they had no children -- probably a good thing considering the amount of incest in their family tree. After that the Thai royals stopped marrying such close relatives. Unfortunately some of them became screwed-up in other ways; Rama VIII died under very suspicious circumstances, in what looked like a murder clumsily disguised as a suicide. And Vajiralongkorn, the currently-reigning king, is notorious for being the most unpopular king Thailand has ever had. Among other things he has a history of marrying women then divorcing them acrimoniously, and in the 1990s he abducted his own daughter after her mother took her to live in Britain.
* UsefulNotes/GeorgiaEurope:
** George [=II=] of Kakheti (modern-day eastern Georgia), nowadays known as [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast George the Evil]], really wanted to go to war against the neighbouring kingdom of Kartli. So in 1511 he murdered his father, blinded his younger brother, seized the crown, and immediately declared war on Kartli. He was promptly defeated. But George wouldn't let a little thing like that stop him. He declared war again two years later. Once again he was defeated, and this time he was imprisoned and killed.
** George II's son Levan was a good king but a very poor father. His eldest son Alexander should have been his heir, but Alexander was TheUnfavorite and his half-brothers were treated better. When Levan died Alexander and his half-brother El-Mirza both claimed the throne, leading to a civil war that ended with Alexander's victory and the deaths of El-Mirza and two of his brothers. Alexander later faced yet more family troubles. His son David seized the throne and forced him to abdicate. David died a year later, Alexander took the throne again... and three years later was murdered by his younger son Constantine. At the same time Constantine also murdered one of his brothers and several nobles, but he never got to rule because he was killed in the ensuing rebellion.
** Darejan of Kakheti wanted to hold onto her power as Queen of Imereti after her husband's death. To do this she had to deal with her stepson, Bagrat V of Imereti, who didn't want to share his power. First she arranged for him to marry her niece Ketevan. Soon that wasn't enough for her, so she forced Bagrat to divorce Ketevan and attempted to marry him herself. Bagrat refused, so Darejan had him arrested and blinded. It didn't end well for Darejan; Bagrat survived the blinding and eventually regained his throne, and he may have personally killed Darejan and her new husband.
** King (yes, [[SheIsTheKing King]]) Rusudan was more interested in [[ReallyGetsAround sleeping around]] than ruling her kingdom. This led to trouble for her kingdom (repeated Georgian defeats when the Khwarezmians and Mongols invaded, and Rusudan was forced to pay tribute to the Mongol Khan) and her family (her husband objected to her adultery and she was afraid her nephew would overthrow her).
* UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}:
** Vittorio Emanuele III was the product of generations of RoyalInbreeding (his parents being first cousins, with three of his grandparents being ''also'' first cousins), owing to this his short stature and poor health. In addition to this he suffered from the traditional spartan education of House Savoy, severe parental neglect, and [[HarmfulToMinors at nine he saw the prime minister getting seriously wounded when he put himself between his father and a would-be assassin]]. As a result he grew up shy and withdrawn, and somehow missed that, in an effort to keep his descendance from being inbred, [[ShipperOnDeck every single royal house in Europe agreed to set him up with Elena of Montenegro, that wasn't related to the House of Savoy in any way]], eventually resulting in appointing one UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini as his prime minister and [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly twenty years of dictatorship]]. His saving grace was that he was conscious of his flaws, and purposefully caused the failure of his betrothal to a German princess out of fear of inbreeding (resulting in the "conjure" to get him married to Elena of Montenegro) and let his wife raise his son less harshly than he himself had been.
[[/folder]]

• his nephew Jaehaerys I -- Best king Westeros ever had,\\

• his son Aegon II -- Paranoid—although for good reason—but lustful, unpleasant, and vengeful,\\

• his son Daeron I -- Eager to war but not actually crazy,\\

• his son Aegon IV -- Obese, corrupt, and horribly ineffectual,\\

** UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} was revealed to be a petri dish of diseases, including the very rare Köhler disease II, which likely factored into his death. He was also said to have large front incisors, a trait passed down from the Eighteenth Dynasty royal family (1543–1292 BC). Skeletal deformities afflicted the two stillborn daughters who were entombed with Tut as well.

** UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} was revealed to be a petri dish of diseases, including the very rare Köhler disease II, which likely factored into his death. He was also said to have large front incisors, a trait passed down from the Eighteenth Dynasty royal family (1543–1292 BC).

** Henry VI had a mental illness of some sort which left him near-catatonic for long periods. It may have been hereditary -- his grandfather Charles VI of France is also on this page -- but some theories suggest his mental health declined significantly as England's losses mounted in the final stages of UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar, culminating in the loss of Bordeaux in August 1453, to which he responded with a [[DrivenToMadness complete mental breakdown]] that left him [[HeroicBSOD totally unresponsive for more than a year]]. Henry's madness in turn led to the UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses, which effectively purged the English royal line of insanity by almost exterminating it.

** The sanity of Henry VIII's daughter Queen Mary I (the historical "Bloody Mary") is a question historians have never settled. She sought to re-establish the Catholic church, after her father had dispensed with it in the English Reformation as a way of divorcing her mother, who was then dying of cancer. She responded with a campaign that led to an unusually large number of brutal executions in her six-year reign and brought the country to the point of outright rebellion. She may also have had a "hysterical pregnancy" -- ''i.e.'' she was convinced she was pregnant when she really wasn't -- which makes sense, because she was 38 and desperate to produce an heir to head off her very Protestant half-sister UsefulNotes/ElizabethI. For centuries it was assumed to have been extreme wishful thining, but evidence now suggests she had ovarian cysts, or possibly uterine cancer.
** George III is considered the archetypcal "mad king", although the exact extent of his madness is now disputed. It is believed that he suffered from porphyria, based on contemporary accounts of his urine being bluish purple, but some modern scholars attribute this to a [[HealingHerb herbal sedative]] (the kind of thing that [[WorstAid passed for medicine back then]]). Porphyria is hereditary, and although its onset often occurs late in life, there was no evidence of it in any of George's Hanoverian ancestors. He certainly wasn't ''always'' mad; he was considered quite charming and reasonably well-adjusted when he was younger, so his "madness" may have just been garden-variety dementia. The famous incident where he [[TalkingToPlants conversed with a tree]] thinking it was the king of Prussia was isolated, happened late in his life, and could well have been made up by his son George IV, who resented having to rule as prince regent in his father's latter years (and had his own share of issues what with the incessant partying and gambling -- ''Series/{{Blackadder}} the Third'''s portrayal of him isn't ''that'' exaggerated). Thankfully, by this time, Parliament had enough power that a "sane-ish" monarch was good enough.

** The by-word for Spanish royal insanity is Queen Joanna of Aragon and Castille, commonly known as "Juana la Loca" -- "Joanna the Mad". The extent of her madness is a matter of debate. Scholars suggest it derives roughly equally from genetics (she is theorised to have at least some form of hereditary depression) and her unhappy family life -- which, given the nature of royal families, is heavily intertwined with politics.
*** Joanna was the product of a very strategic political union. Her father Ferdinand was King of Aragon and from the House of Trastámara (which produced the aforementioned Peter I). Her mother Isabella was Queen of Castille in her own right, and Joanna inherited both and was a legitimate queen. However, being a woman, she became a catalyst for all the men in her life trying to exert power through her. Ferdinand basically considered himself king of both Aragon and Castile and was particularly intent on exerting power.

*** As it turned out, it was a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage, and much of Joanna's "madness" can be traced [[ExcessiveMourning to Philip's untimely death]]. Philip provided ample competition for Ferdinand in the game of "Control the Damsel", and "husband" usually trumps "father" in that game -- Philip declared himself King of Castille ''jure uxoris'' (by right of marriage) to try and talk some sense into Ferdinand, but to no avail. Joanna much preferred Philip to Ferdinand, and when Philip died, she kind of [[HeroicBSOD lost it]]. After several attempts to reopen her husband's casket, and a few political and military defeats, Ferdinand had her [[MadwomanInTheAttic locked up in a nunnery]] and exercised as much control as he could. That lasted until Joanna's son Charles I -- who was Holy Roman Emperor Charles V -- was old enough to exert himself in his own right. Charles' successors split into Austrian and Spanish branches, who kept intermarrying, leading to problems down the line.

** Don Carlos, the rebellious son of Philip II and grandson of Charles V, was insane to the point of being physically dangerous and would take swipes at passing servants with a knife. Philip ended up removing him from the line of succession on the basis that he was unfit for the throne, and he spent the last six months of his life under house arrest.

** It seemed like no Russian tsar trusted anyone in their family. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_III_of_Russia Ivan "the Great"]] started a brutal war because he clashed so hard with his brothers. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible Ivan "the Terrible"]] had a particular brand of crazy that caused him to go through wives -- and children -- at an impressive rate. UsefulNotes/PeterTheGreat, despite being the man who modernised and Westernised Russia, had a notoriously difficult relationship with his son Alexei. But none could surpass UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat. She married into the family, but turned out to be more capable than her husband [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_III_of_Russia Peter III]], whom history portrays as a {{manchild}} with a military fetish who was [[BoomerangBigot essentially an ardent Russophobe]] -- his death is commonly believed to have been at Catherine's orders, allowing her to become Empress in her own right. She also had a ''very'' contentious relationship with her son Paul, who was an extraordinarily difficult person himself (he would exile officers [[ReassignedToAntarctica to Siberia]] for a [[FelonyMisdemeanor misplaced coat button]]) and likely organised ''his'' assassination to ensure the throne to her favourite grandson, Alexander I. (Alexander probably consented to all this, at least tacitly, but he did feel horrendously guilty about it and perhaps never intended for him to be assassinated outright.)

** UsefulNotes/QinShihuangdi, the very first emperor, started an unfortunate trend of [[ImmortalitySeeker emperors and noblemen seeking "immortality elixirs"]] that were [[{{Irony}} dodgy enough to be fatal]]. Shihuangdi experimented extensively with mercury, which turned him from a suspicious but fundamentally sound monarch into a total paranoiac. He eventually took it a step too far by taking pills containing ''pure'' mercury, which killed him in 220 BCE. And yet, for over a thousand years after that, people kept experimenting with mercury, thinking that it was just too a high a concentration that killed Shihuangdi (technically correct, but not especially helpful), and dismissing the side effects as signs that the medicine was working. This is how the ''exact same thing'' happened to the last good Tang Emperor Xuānzong, who similarly degenerated into a paranoid wreck, except he died of chronic rather than acute mercury poisoning in 859 CE. The last Chinese emperor to die of mercury poisoning was the Qing Emperor Yongzheng, as late as 1735. In fact, the only dynasty to be completely unaffected by mercury poisoning is the Yuan dynasty (the Mongol dynasty of Kublai Khan, which tended to look down on Chinese alchemy in general when it wasn't making gunpowder).

*** Crown Prince Liu Shao paid a witch to curse his father Emperor Wen and cause his death. When Wen found out about his son's plot, he decided to depose him, but Liu Shao struck first, had the emperor assassinated, claimed the throne, and promptly executed many of his cousins. Liu Shao's half-brother Liu Jun raised a rebellion, overthrew him, and had Liu Shao and his sons beheaded and forced Liu Shao's wives and daughters to commit suicide.

*** Liu Jun was succeeded by his teenaged son Liu Zi Ye. Shortly after taking the throne, Zi Ye had his great-uncle executed, gouged out his eyes, and kept them preserved. Then he started an affair with his aunt and personally murdered her husband. [[FromBadToWorse Then he killed officials who tried to stop him.]] Finally, a surviving official had enough and assassinated Liu Zi Ye.
*** Liu Zi Ye was succeeded by his uncle Liu Yu, who became increasingly paranoid and killed almost all of his brothers and nephews. Officials who displeased him were executed, often by being disembowelled or having their hearts cut out.
*** Liu Yu's son, also called Liu Yu, took the throne when he was only nine. He quickly became as violent as his father. He personally cut people open, and even became depressed if a day went by without killing someone. He was eventually assassinated by an attendant he had threatened to kill.

* The [[UsefulNotes/{{Turkey}} Ottoman Empire]] was known for this not because of genetics, but rather because of their upbringing. It started with Sultan Ahmed I, who decided to protect his heir, his younger brother Mustafa, from potential threats to his ascension -- by [[GildedCage locking him in a corner of his palace]]. This took an enormous toll on the young prince, who by the time of Ahmed's death was a psychological wreck with severe neurosis and hallucinations. He lasted barely a year before the courtiers locked him up again (only to bring him out a second time, again lasting barely a year). He was succeeded by Ahmed's sons, who were barely saner, heavily paranoid {{Mood Swinger}}s. Ahmed's first son Osman was a RoyalBrat who used courtiers for target practice with his longbow. His second son Murad was a choleric KnightTemplar who had almost all of his viziers executed and imprisoned a lot of Istanbul's population for trivial offences like drinking coffee. His last son Ibrahim was straight-up nicknamed "the mad", not for being AxCrazy but for [[AnythingThatMoves how many women he impregnated]] (which was better than the alternative, because Murad had no children and slaughtered almost all of his half-brothers during his reign). Most historians today consider this one of the main reasons for the gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire.