http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/AbdicateTheThrone
Playing With / Abdicate the Throne
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Basic Trope: A monarch decides that s/he doesn't want to be monarch anymore.
Straight: King Bob the Nth announces one day that he is stepping down as king.
Exaggerated: This happens at his coronation party.
Downplayed: King Bob the Nth sees his kingdom reformed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one, retaining power but not absolute power.
Justified:
King Bob the Nth realizes he isn't suited for the role.
Tropestan is an Elective Monarchy, and Bob was elected king...except he never even wanted to be (or tried to get) elected in the first place.
King Bob the Nth wants to marry a commoner named Alice, but his advisors won't have it, and he chooses her over the throne.
Being king is hard, and King Bob the Nth decided it was too much work and too much stress.
King Bob the Nth has health problems, and decides to step down so he can focus on getting better, instead of running the country.
King Bob the Nth is getting elderly, and has decided (or his advisors have decided) that he is too old to rule effectively.
Due to an impending revolution, the King decides it is better to step down to quell revolutionary anger and preserve his life.
King Bob the Nth steps down and retires from public life rather than continue to preside over a population and parliament that have lost confidence in him after a devastating defeat in a war.
Troperia's parliament is about to pass a law that clearly has popular support but King Bob the Nth staunchly opposes for personal reasons. Rather than leave his country's government deadlocked potentially for years and realizing he is only delaying the inevitable since the other side can just wait until he dies and pass it anyway, King Bob decides to spare his country the headache and abdicate so that he won't have to personally give royal assent to a law he can't support.
Inverted: Rags to Royalty
Subverted: King Bob the Nth is just going on vacation.
King Bob the Nth is leaving Queen Alice in charge, to prevent a Succession Crisis.
King in the Mountain
King Bob the Nth offers his friend and advisor Dave the crown.
Double Subverted: He decides to make it a permanent vacation.
He's divorcing her, and giving her the kingdom to protect it, so that he can go off and marry The Mistress without the country going to pieces as a result.
He's a long time coming back.
Dave refuses, but King Bob the Nth steps down anyway.
Parodied: The position of King of Tropestan has a High Turnover Rate.
Zig-Zagged: King Bob the Nth decides he doesn't want to be king anymore, so he announces that he is stepping down.
Averted: Tropestan has no king in the first place.
King Bob the Nth never leaves the throne.
Enforced: The actor playing King Bob the Nth leaves the show, and killing him off won't work due to the plot or because it's a show for young children.
Lampshaded: "I don't want to be king anymore!"
Invoked: The pressures of being king are getting to be too much for King Bob the Nth, and it's taking a toll on his health and appearance.
Exploited: Charles the Evil Chancellor tries to get King Bob the Nth to quit, so he can become king instead.
Defied: King Bob the Nth knows that just up-and-leaving would be detrimental to the well-being of his country and the people in it, so he just makes an effort to carve out more time for rest and delegates some tasks to his advisors or royal court.
Discussed: "Oh well, His Majesty was always an Action Hero — never the one for the crown."
Conversed: "The film has told us republics are better. Nine times already. What else do you expect?"
Deconstructed: King Bob the Nth abdicates the throne, plunging Tropestan into a Succession Crisis. This sets off a chain of events that results in the fall of the kingdom.
Reconstructed: ...Until the Rightful King Returns (in whose favor Bob has abdicated).
Implied: When Alice addresses Bob as "Your Majesty", he says, "No longer."
Return to Abdicate the Throne
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