Headscratchers / The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

• In the first film, Baron and Baroness von Troken are the ones to become rulers of Genovia if Mia abdicates but they're nowhere to be seen in the second movie and another character is set to become the ruler if Mia loses her right to the throne. What happened to the Baron and the Baroness?
  • They do make an appearance in the movie, and offer to ascend the throne when Nicholas gives up his claim. It's possible that Nicholas always had the better claim but either didn't realise it or was too young around the time of the first movie. The Baron and Baroness are much older, so they could feasibly have been waiting for an opportunity to seize power for longer and jumped right in with a bid for the throne once Rupert and Philippe died so suddenly without heirs. I'm not sure how a barony works, but maybe it was the Baroness who had the claim and Nicholas as a man outranks her?
  • For what it's worth, in the first film, the Baron says to the Baroness "your face will be on the postage stamp", which could suggest that she's the one who has the claim and so Nicholas being a male would outrank her.
• Why didn't Mia just choose to marry Nicholas Devereaux so they could rule together?
  • So, this film has played rather loose with the rules of ruling, but this Troper is under the impression that if Nicolas married Mia, he wouldn't actually become king. At best, they would bump his title up to Prince Consort, and his uncle was dead set on Nicolas being...king. After the movie, where Nicolas has refused his rights and Mia has been crowned queen, they could probably still get married, but he wouldn't likely have as much official say and act more as an advisor to Mia.
    • This is accurate as in most European monarchies a spouse of the current monarch cannot outrank them and a king automatically outrank a queen based on Patriarchal laws of succession. So a reigning king's spouse can be a queen, but a reigning queen's spouse can only go as high as a prince.
  • Nicholas and Mabrey don't get Mia to try and marry Nicholas for the reasons detailed above, but also because Mia's claim to the throne would become null and void if she didn't marry - and they possibly felt a young woman with her whole life ahead of her (especially one raised outside the life of royalty) would give up the title rather than get married so young. So they felt there was a good chance of Nicholas getting the throne without having to marry at all. And with Mia being the last heir of that line, Nicholas would be better off marrying someone with a better title to forge an alliance as opposed to some nobody from San Francisco.
  • And Mia doesn't marry Nicholas because a) at first she hates him because of his campaign to dethrone her and b) opting to marry him would be giving in to the outdated law that a woman can't rule without marriage. It makes for a more empowering message for Mia to get them to repeal the law so she can rule on her own, rather than do something she feels is horribly sexist and terrifying for a young girl.