Basic Trope: An otherwise powerful council is bogged down by nonstop arguments.
- Straight: Queen Alice has a Council of Royal Advisors to help guide her. The problem is, these advisors rarely come to a decision because they're always arguing. This slows down progress and makes them more of a hinderance than a help to Alice.
- Exaggerated: The Council's arguments get so disruptive they end up trading blows.
- Downplayed:
- The Council is full of deadpan snarkers who can be quite curt with each other, but they're able run the country together more or less smoothly.
- The Council squabble, but Steve is a skilled mediator who stops their arguing from getting out of hand.
- Justified:
- Queen Alice is a historical drama based on a real council beset by arguments.
- The advisors' personalities simply do not mix well.
- The advisors have very different political or religious beliefs.
- The Council is mostly made up of two ancient families who have been rivals for centuries. Each faction sees the other gaining influence as blocking their own, so they seek to constantly undermine each other.
- The Queen knows if she can encourage her council to fight, they won't have the time or energy to challenge her own power. Therefore, she's always playing them off against one another.
- Inverted: ???
- Subverted:
- A crisis - such as war, famine, or plague - forces the Council to put aside their differences for the good of the kingdom, and they start making progress.
- One faction ousts the other and replaces them with yes men who agree with all their proposals.
- The Queen forces the Council to find common ground on pain of dismissal or death.
- Double Subverted: When the kingdom's crisis is resolved, the council go back to bickering.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- The Council agree on most things and are able to find a compromise when they don't; they're decisive and get things done.
- The Queen is an autocrat with no Council.
- Enforced: Queen Alice is a political satire meant to serve as a metaphor for the writer's views on their real-life government.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: We never see the Council of Royal Advisors, but when Prince Bob suggests Alice should ask for their help, she says they'd only make things worse.
- Deconstructed: Unable to put aside their differences and enact any policies, the kingdom falls into financial ruin. Subjects starve and a neighbouring kingdom, observing their weakness, invades.
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