"Listen: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you. I mean, if I went 'round, sayin' I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!"
— Dennis the Peasant, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
In some forms of government, power derives from the mandate of the people. In others, it's derived from Royal Blood. In yet others, it's derived from killing the previous guy or being the baddest mutha around.
Then there are governments where it's decided by who holds the MacGuffin (the Sword In The Stone, the magic amulet, etc). In some instances, it isn't even a Only the Chosen May Wield item but something anyone can stumble upon and pick up. This may not protect them against Prestige Peril, however. An Evil Chancellor or sinister Cardinal may want to "permanently relieve them of their rule".
See also Heroism Equals Job Qualification.
Examples:
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Anime And Manga
- In Nichijou, the two wooden cubes Mio wears in her hair is shown to be this, though it may or may not have been All Just a Dream
Comic Books
- In Tintin: King Ottokar's Sceptre, according to tradition, the rightful king of Syldavia must not lose possession of the sceptre of King Ottokar IV, which he must present on St. Vladimir's Day every year. So, of course, it's lost, and Tintin must recover the sceptre before the ceremony or the king will have to abdicate. (Note that there are no indications that having the sceptre would make you ruler, just that the king has to keep the sceptre to keep the throne.)
- The Golden Helmet of Harold Hardrotta in the Disney Ducks Comic Universe confers the rulership of the entire continent of North America to whoever has it. It crops up at the worst times and in the worst hands. (Until a later comic had even more ancient pieces show up!)
- Played with in Swordquest: Waterworld, when the protagonists give the two halves of the Crown of Life to the leaders of two warring factions so they can work together and reunite their world.
Film
- Babylon 5: In The Beginning: Londo tells a little boy that the person possessing the Imperial seal is the emperor. Of course, Londo is quite drunk at the time.
- In Little Nicky, rulership of Hell apparently belongs to whomever is sitting on the throne.
Literature
- Council Wars - Membership in the council is contingent on possessing a Key.
- Discworld, unsurprisingly.
- Parodied in a footnote in one book where the person that found the magic sword consisting of two bits of wood nailed together is acclaimed king, because they also appear to have found several thousand heavily armed men along with it.
- In The Queen's Thief, the MacGuffin is a stone carved with runes, said to have been dipped in the water of immortality. Whoever has it has claim to the throne of Eddis, which is exactly why Sounis wants Eugenides to steal it for him.
- In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sun Jian finds the Imperial Seal in a well during the sacking of Luoyang. This gives him the "Mandate from Heaven" - in other words, the divine right to rule over China. However, he is killed shortly after leaving Luoyang, and the seal falls into the hands of Cao Cao.
- In Queen Zixi of Ix by L. Frank Baum, the king dies without an heir, and the rules state that the crown goes to the forty-seventh person to walk through the city gates the next morning. Naturally, the story follows the ordinary boy who is the forty-seventh person that day.
- In L. Sprague de Camp's The Reluctant King series, the kingdom of Xylar chooses its next king by throwing the head of the previous king into a crowd—the catcher gets the throne. The catch is that in five years, the process is repeated... which is why Jorian, who had no idea about all this, is very much the titular Reluctant King, and spends the trilogy running away from Xylarians who want to drag him back so they can perform the ceremony.
- The Founder of the Kingdom in the backstory of the Branion series appears to be this. She travels to the birthplace of her religion, meets her god, makes a pact with it, and becomes its avatar, a God in Human Form. Since it's a god of fire, this enables her to conquer the realm and become its first ruler.
- In Patricia C. Wrede's Shadow Magic, the crown of Alkyra, a potent magical artifact, has been missing for hundreds of years. One of the characters finds it and puts it on in a moment of desperate need, and is somewhat dismayed to realize that this automatically makes her Queen. (The fact that what she needed the crown for was to defeat an invading army headed by demonic beings does incline other people to think this is a good idea.)
- In Robin Jarvis' The Oaken Throne, a prequel to his Deptford Mice books, a Silver Acorn pendant literally falls into the paws of a squirrelmaiden named Ysabelle. It is the symbol of office for a line of squirrel monarchs known as Starwives. The previous Starwife had been betrayed and in a moment of desperation right before her death entrusted it to a falcon to carry it to safety. The falcon was subsequently attacked by an army of bats and dropped the pendant right above the place where Ysabelle was standing. As a result, she became the successor to the throne and the rest of the book describes her perilous journey to the land of Greenreach to take her place as the new Starwife.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5:
- In the episode "Coming Of The Shadows", Centauri noble Lord Kiro plans to use the Eye, a lost piece of crown jewelry, to unite the Centauri populace in his efforts to lay claim to the throne. Londo refuses any part in it, explaining why the idea won't work: while the Eye was linked to the throne via the first emperor, who came from House Kiro, the Eye was linked more to his own House than the throne and the then-current emperor Turhan was well-liked by the people (even the Narn, who hate all the Centauri, grudgingly respected him). When Lord Kiro goes for it anyway, the raiders that are supposed to help him heavily mock him before announcing they'll sell him and the Eye to the Centauri government.
- The Drazi have an unusual method of determining their government leaders by splitting into two separate factions—Green and Purple—and having the two sides fight, with the winning faction becoming the leaders of the Drazi until the next time of the fight. The factions themselves are led by individuals with the leader sashes, whose only qualification is that they have the leader sash: when Ivanova grabs the leader sash from one Drazi, the others immediately begin to follow her.
Ivanova: You're saying just because I'm holding this right now, I'm Green leader? But I'm Human!Sheepish Green Drazi: Rules of combat older than contact with other races. Did not mention aliens. Rules change... caught up in committee. Not come through yet.note
- In the Mission: Impossible episode "The Seal", the team tells a man in possession of a gold and jade seal that if a person can remove the seal from its nation of origin and hold onto it for ten days, then the owner is the rightful ruler of the nation - and if the person isn't worthy, the seal will remove itself from his possession. It's part of a plot to manipulate the man into doing things that will allow Barney to lift the seal so that it could be returned to its rightful owners.
- The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett expand upon the Darksaber introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (see the Western Animation section below). The Darksaber is a symbol of the ruler of the Mandalorians but it must be earned in combat. The one time it was given to someone by popular support ended in the destruction of the Mandalorian homeworld. This makes Din Djarin the Reluctant Ruler of the Mandalorians.
Mythology
- The Odyssey ends on something of this note, with Queen Penelope announcing that whoever can thread her husband's legendary bow, and successfully use it to shoot an arrow through a dozen axe-heads will be named King of Ithaca (conveniently forgetting to tell there was a trick on how to thread that bow, and only Odysseus knew it). Of course, what no one knows is that Odysseus himself, who has finally managed to reach his home after a journey of ten years, is secretly one of the contestants...
- Arthurian Legend: The original Sword In The Stone is introduced this way, and some adaptations run with it. Note that the original legend actually subverts this; nobody cares when Arthur loses the sword and switches to Excalibur. Although in that case, it had less to do with the sword itself, and more with the fact that Merlin said that the person who could take the sword would be the rightful king (which was just a flashy way of introducing Arthur, who was rightful king by birth).
Tabletop Games
- In Exalted, one of the greatest and wealthiest nations of the South, the city-state of Paragon that has over a million people (not all of them in the city, some are just farmers) is ruled by the man who found an artifact of great power from the First Age. Additionally, there is a second part of that artifact that would allow whoever finds it to share that rule and impose his own will on the populace. Needless to say, it's still lost and it makes for a fine story hook/plot device/MacGuffin
- Yu-Gi-Oh!: Usually, the "Mermails" are led by their queen "Abysstrite" with their king nowhere to be seen. Some say that the person who manages to obtain a certain bracelet will become the "Mermail" king, but no one except the queen knows where that bracelet is. As a way to break the standstill between them and the "Fire Kings", the "Atlanteans" turned their eyes to the "Mermails", who had lost their home and had nowhere else to go. Seizing the legendary treasure the "Mermails" had sealed deep under the ocean, "Poseidra" reigned over them as their new king with the treasures' power, and ordered them to beginning a torrential assault on the "Fire Kings". However, getting too full of himself, "Poseidra" put on the bracelet, and instantly his body began to change. The "Mermail" King spoken of in legends appeared in the form of "Gaiobyss".
Video Games
- Little King's Story begins with the player character finding a crown and putting it on, proving himself to be the destined ruler.
- Hilariously used in Knights of the Old Republic. The Mandalorians had a special helmet that was the symbol of leadership. Revan permanently shattered them as a united force by beating the current leader and stealing the helmet (he gave it to a Mandolorian friend to rebuild them years later).
- The Elder Scrolls:
- In Morrowind, a main quest plot point is proving that the Player Character is the reincarnation of the ancient Dunmeri hero, Lord Nerevar. (Whether this is actually true or not is left up to the player's interpretation, as the game never confirms it.) At one point, you must acquire Nerevar's Iconic Item - the Moon-And-Star ring - blessed by his Daedric Prince patron, Azura, to kill anyone who tries to wear it other than Nerevar. Downplayed in that simply being able to wear the ring doesn't automatically make you the Hortator (a Dunmeri war leader, Nerevar's old role), but it does make you the most legitimate candidate to date. You'll still need to jump through numerous hoops to get the Great Houses and Ashlander tribes to recognize you as such.
- One of the most important items to the Empire of Tamriel is the Amulet of Kings. According to legend, it was created as the "Chim-el Adabal" by the Ayleids out of the crystallized blood of the "dead" creator god Lorkhan (also known by many other names), which was collected after falling from his heart as it flew across Tamriel, having been cut out by the Aedra (in vengeance for Lorkhan supposedly tricking them into sacrificing large parts of their divine power to create Mundus, the mortal plane), tied to an arrow, and fired across the continent. Following the Alessian Revolt, in which St. Alessia and her Nedic peoples (precursors to most of the modern races of Men) overthrew the (primarily) Daedra-worshiping Ayleids with the aid of the Nordic Empire, rebel Ayleid lords, and the Aedra themselves, Alessia made covenant with Akatosh, the draconic Top God of the Aedra. Akatosh imbued Alessia with his "dragon's blood" and placed her soul in the central stone of what is now known as the Amulet of Kings, symbolizing his pact with mankind. The Amulet of Kings can only be worn by those of royal blood, recognizing them as Alessia's (and Akatosh's) metaphysical heirs to the Ruby Throne of Cyrodiil and confirming those who can wear it as The Chosen One. The Amulet shows up in Oblivion where, true to lore, the player character cannot wear it, getting a message that it simply "slips off" your neck if you try. It eventually makes its way into the hands of the Emperor's Hidden Backup Prince, Martin, who performs a Heroic Sacrifice at the end of the main quest with it. The Amulet is destroyed, but it summons an avatar of Akatosh who banishes Mehrunes Dagon and saves the world.
Web Comics
- In How I Killed Your Master, whoever possesses the governor's imperial seal can issue his orders, making its bearer the effective ruler of the province. Subverted when Wong finds it by accident and asks if this makes him the governor. Fang Lin assures him that if he tries to use it, the factions hunting for it will just kill him and take it.
- In How MG Works
, whoever has the crown on their head gets to be the king. On top of that, the crown also morphs into an appropriate appearance of the person whose head it rests on.
Western Animation
- One episode of Inspector Gadget had Gadget sent to a Middle Eastern country to find a stolen sword that the Crown Prince of that country needed in order to be made King.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Gauntlet of Fire", when the prior Dragon Lord steps down, the first dragon to retrieve his Bloodstone Scepter from the interior of an active volcano becomes the new Dragon Lord.
- Played With: The wielder of the Darksaber of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels is said to have the right to rule the Mandalorians. However, all Mandalorians see the saber as just a symbol. It's not enough to simply find or be handed the saber. It must be earned in combat. The one time they break the rule doesn't end well.
