Basic Trope: A (usually royal) couple who rule jointly.
- Straight: Queen Alice and King Bob are joint rulers of Troperia who are Happily Married to each other. They are both their own most trusted advisers, never making a decision without consulting the other, hold audiences jointly sat on two equal thrones, and are often shown discussing affairs of state in the bedroom.
- Exaggerated: Not to mention they lead their armies into battle together (from the front!) and just to rub it in, are not above holding impromoptu audiences or otherwise dealing with pressing matters during a sustained bout of lovemaking when urgent.
- Downplayed: One of the two is technically the consort but still wields considerable power, acting as adviser to the reigning partner and acting as regent in their stead.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob were both reigning monarchs of their own separate kingdoms before arranging a dynastic marriage to unite them. To make one a mere consort would be to demean the position of the other which neither of them (or their respective subjects) would accept.
- Alice and Bob are non-identical twins in a country which does not recognise the primacy of one twin over the other during multiple births and tends to prefer royal marriages between close relations to ensure a "pure" bloodline.
- Troperian custom requires that both marriage partners be equal in all possible circumstances, even ones which would be unusual in Real Life.
- Whichever of them is the monarch trusts their spouse more than anyone else in the court and thus considers the other to have de facto equal status (possibly raising it to the de jure level because screw tradition, they're the king/queen and their word is law).
- Inverted: Alice is a glorified bedwarmer for Bob.
- Subverted: Alice seems to be on equal status to Bob, but then he overrules her decision.
- Double Subverted: Then Alice reveals he can overrule Bob's decisions.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice is a consort with little political power.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Alice proposes to Bob not only because she's crazy about him, but also because she wants to rule together and she thinks having him by her side will greatly aid her.
- Exploited: With effectively two heads of state who work well together at the top, the kingdom is much harder to topple or its monarchy and court thrown into chaos by incapacitating just Bob because Alice can still rule effectively by herself if necessary.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Ruling Couple.
