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 Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:34 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:34 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:34 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:34 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:34 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:35 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:35 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:35 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:37 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:37 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:37 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:37 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:38 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:38 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:38 pm
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What's Up, King Dude?
Main
Laconic
Quotes
PlayingWith
Create New
- Create New -
"Please, go on in. The king will see anyone who wishes to see him."
— Adelhyde Castle Guard, Wild ARMs
The phenomenon in fiction (primarily in High Fantasy) of commoners being allowed improbably free access to the royal family.
In Real Life, access to royal families is usually tightly controlled, and in most cases commoners, unless they are friends with royal family members, are not allowed to have extended interaction with royals outside of formal events. Not in fiction, though. In fiction, Farmer Alice can go into the royal palace and give King Bob the Nth their secret handshake and a slap on the a** and say "What's up, King Dude?" Royals Who Actually Do Something tend to do this more than others, since they're already active anyway and "actually doing something" more often than not entails working with common folk.
The reason for this trope is probably the fact that, in ancient times, rulers of small clans and chiefdoms were often referred to as "kings". Later on, such as in the Renaissance, these stories were modified to better fit then-modern times (i.e. with bigger kingdoms and more powerful kings) but they forgot to edit the part about the farmer visiting his "king". Sometimes when erstwhile clan chiefs became actual royals by conquering neighboring tribes, they tried to keep their traditional open doors policy as much as possible to show that they "hadn't really changed". In most cases though, after a few foiled assassination attempts this practice will tend to be curtailed. The exceptions tend to be royals who are also Memetic Badasses. Or situations where the "King" wasn't actually all that powerful: such as Sparta.
Royal security did, however, remain rather porous; common peasants were certainly not allowed in the palace, but just about anyone who could afford a nice set of clothes and some bribes could enter freely, especially during the eras of feudalism where local lords held more practical power than the king did. It was in early days of colonialism that royals grew tremendously in power and thus allowed few of common blood into their courts. (The fact that easy access to concealed firearms suddenly made political assassinations depressingly easier certainly didn't help things.) Also, the smaller and less wealthy the kingdom in question, the more this trope is Truth in Television. It is important to remember that a King is not necessarily fantastically wealthy, they are just more likely to be if any wealth is flowing into the country at all. But for those whose kingdoms aren't on the trade routes or are otherwise out of the way, the King might be only marginally more wealthy than the commoners. In this case, unless he is truly tyrannical, he's unlikely to be overly worried about assassinations since there is very little for a potential assassin to gain. Importantly, this trope does not imply the royal in question has no security. It simply implies the royal in question is not a snob and/or not unduly afraid of the commoners. The royal guards will presumably still watch anyone who enters the king's presence very carefully, be heavily armored and armed to the teeth, and there may be additional security measures such as traps which the ruler can set off on anyone who tries anything funny.
In fiction, however, it's rather common for anyone — nobles, farmers, merchants, bribers, and military chaps alike — to be able to waltz into the palace with few or no repercussions. Many RPGs require players to consult the king before the adventure proper begins. In particular, this breaks immersion when the player is allowed into the King's presence fully armed and armored, particularly when the King is not. In Real Life this would definitely never be done, even in a very small and poor kingdom. Even clan chiefs in ancient times usually disallowed people from carrying weapons in their presence, except for their trusted guards.
If only one ruler in the setting invokes this trope though, chances are you're dealing with a Physical God who obviously has little to no need for security since there is almost nothing that could potentially threaten their power and basically no one who could kill them. That situation would make this a Justified Trope.
Compare Swiss Cheese Security, where supervillains do a rather poor job of securing their lairs; they often overlap in the case of Evil Overlords.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
Films — Animation
Films — Live-Action
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
Tabletop Games
Theatre
Video Games
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
Early U.S. presidents were fond of doing this, starting with Andrew Jackson, who often invited working-class folks to his parties, which were informal and wild and featured whiskey and roast beef instead of champagne and caviar. Grover Cleveland made sure the White House's phone number was in the phone book and answered all of the calls himself; interesting to note, he also answered his own doorbell.
"Schott's Miscellany" includes a description of Presidential meet-and-greets: everybody (from foreign aristocrats to poor folks) gathered in a waiting room, lined up. They would then file through the meeting chamber, shake hands with the President and maybe exchange a few words, and file out. To be clear, there was no vetting process, no verification of why one wanted to meet the President, or what one intended to say to him. President William McKinley was assassinated during just such an event at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, and James Garfield was assassinated while walking unguarded into a crowded train station. In fact, Garfield's assassin had earlier gained entrance to the White House and met Garfield (he was trying to get a diplomatic post).
There was a time when anyone could walk up to the front door of the White House and knock. Exactly when this stopped is up to some debate - during the Civil War or World War II, but the fact is you once could. You still can! Provided you take the tour though. The end is an exit through the front door.
For those touring the White House, from time to time, the tour group might run into a member of the First Family, usually the President or the First Lady, who are not busy and happy to talk a little with the tour group. Typically these are planned but not announced, and usually favors school groups.
Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer, once called up the Vice President while on a high school trip to D.C. and got a meeting with the Veep for his class. He wouldn't begin killing until just after he graduated high school.
As late as the 1950s, Harry Truman was taking morning strolls about town, accompanied by only a single guard. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the era of semi-unfettered (semi-fettered?) access to the President ended with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Though the Secret Service is surprisingly good at making it look like the President is mostly unguarded, don't be fooled. If you see the President, there are at least a dozen Secret Service agents close enough to tackle you and several more ready to shoot you. Also, don't be fooled by how chill the Secret Service are compared with your average goon-for-hire at an office building. They are chill because they are good at their job.
At the closing ceremony of the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Swedish King Gustav V praised American Jim Thorpe as the greatest athlete in the world. Thorpe's response? "Thanks, King!" This sort of thing tends to happen when people from countries that don't have royalty unexpectedly find themselves interacting with foreign royals. Usually more just awkward than threatening.
His son Gustaf VI faced even more informality after The World Cup in 1958: once he went down to the pitch to salute the victorious Brazilian team, the team dentist hugged him while saying "Hey King! How you doin'?".
Charlemagne to a great extent. As well as dressing very much like a commoner, it is also said of him that he would happily dine with commoners. His court was more or less a continuous feast, interrupted chiefly for sleep and prayers (if that), at which state business would occasionally be conducted; anyone making an appearance for any reason would be invited to participate in the merrymaking. Charlemagne is also said to have held education in such high esteem that he would sometimes sit in a schoolroom along with the children learning there (this is probably not true though: what is definitely true is that Charlemagne would have works of literature and such read to him while he bathed since he himself was illiterate).
Alfred the Great once had a set of petitioners follow him into his private chamber - in those days a separate building - and interrupt him while he was washing his face. He calmly toweled himself off while listening to their problem.
During the German occupation of Denmark in World War II, King Christian X took a daily ride through the streets of Copenhagen, unaccompanied. A German soldier is supposed to have asked "Who guards your King?", to which the response was "We all do."note . Despite Christian being a very autocratic man, he was beloved by doing this and mobbed daily, so it was probably literally true that anyone who tried to mess with the King would find himself facing several very angry Danes before he knew what had happened.
The original word King comes from the Germanic form meaning "leader of kin" or chieftain in other words. Germanic "Kings" were expected to party with their warriors and share out spoil with them. The poetic name for King is "ring-giver" meaning they gave out rewards to their followers including rings, items of jewelry that had a mystic significance because of their unending circularity and which were often attached to swords. The image expected was of a Barbarian Hero leading a Barbarian Tribe, rather than the center of attention at an extravagant ceremony.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a lot from his "What's up, Premier Dude" attitude in the middle of a civil war; one time, some gangbangers kicked him out of his car, the other time he was shot, fell ill because of the complications and died soon after. His successor, on the other hand, was very paranoid and a**l about security.
"Lenin and petitioners" was a stock scene depicted in Soviet art and theater. Apparently, he received a lot of petitioning and complaining peasants. The artwork probably made this appear more common than it actually was though. Lenin deliberately (and very successfully) tried to cultivate an aura of folksiness in order to appeal to the masses, because he was an intellectual and disaffected member of the former elite.
Modern Scandinavian monarchies are very austere and down to earth, and the monarchs freely mingle with their people. They do maintain protocol as far as addressing them goes. Addressing them by the folksy "Du" ("You"), as opposed to the honorific "De", will often result in a sharp rebuke. Modern Dutch monarchs—who, although not Scandinavian, tend to hang out with the Scandinavian onesnote —are similar, but replace "Du" with "jou/je" and "De" with "u".
Norwegian kings (at least, Olav and Harald), are known for their commonality:
Olav V was particularly notorious for this. A story goes that he was on a military parade, and asked for a smoke. When requested what kind of cigarette, he answered bluntly "Hell, whatever, as long as it smokes..." Olav was loved for his ability to talk and converse with (almost) everyone.
When he first came to Norway after being elected kingnote , Haakon VII (Olav's father), who was not known for this, was actually not officially addressed as "Your Majesty", but rather as "Mister King".
As for the current Norwegian queen, Sonja: she actually asked a journalist to drop the honorifics and address her with the common "du"note . After this, most journalists skirt the issue by using the third-person: "Is the Queen enjoying herself?"
Many small countries have this kind of attitude toward their top people; for example, it is not very difficult for just about anyone to meet with the Prime Minister of Iceland.
In 1991, Washington, D.C. resident Alice Frazier greeted Queen Elizabeth II with a folksy "How are ya doin'?" and then pulled her into a hug. The queen smiled and quickly backed out of it. British sticklers for protocol were horrified and outraged, for one simply does not touch the queen. But it was Ms. Frazier's custom to greet every visitor to her home with a big warm hug, and she wasn't about to make any exceptions. Also, even the Rules Lawyers will acknowledge that most of the reason for these protocols is actually to protect the Queen from the anti-monarchists in her own country: who are much more likely to mean her harm than any American. Notably though, the Queen has gone farther than simply tolerating American casualness. She's learned to be jocular right back, which is precisely the point.
Defied in 2018 France, where French president Emmanuel Macron scolded a teenager who greeted him with "ça va, Manu?" ("how's it going, Manu?" — "Manu" being an endearing diminutive based on the first name Emmanuel) and briefly became memetic. It happened during a public ceremony commemorating Charles de Gaulle's Appeal of 18 June, and the boy was part of the audience.
There's an old apocryphal story about some British King who met a Quaker. Quakers are vehemently anti-monarchist, and indeed anti-hierarchical. As a peaceful way of protesting the monarchy, Quakers refused to take off their hats to the King (or indeed, anyone else) back when that was still a thing people did. The story goes that since someone needed to take his hat off, the King took his hat off to the Quaker. This is almost certainly not true though. Something similar did happen with Prince Albert when he visited an abolitionist rally: but it should be noted that the Prince Consort has nowhere near the same status as the actual monarch in Britain. It definitely didn't hurt his already well-cemented reputation as Modest Royalty though.
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