There are certain bad tropes common in media including games.

First, most games and novels set in a high magic low tech environment almost always have some kind of royalty if a government system is mentioned at all. And this royalty is almost always portrayed as either a good thing in the world, or neutral but necessary. Some stories even go as far as to say if the royal family is killed by whatever evil force, a whole nation will crumble, like these parasites are somehow a necessary stabilizer for the people under them. But it also just seems to be a convenient way to assign quests to people and get rewards for doing those quests because the person giving the quest is somehow the king and they have endless power to reward you. In many asian reincarnation into another world stories a MC will often save a carriage filled with some lesser nobility who will then be very grateful for MC and thus aid MC in getting all they want in their rise to wealth and power.

Like the game For the King, which even has serving royalty in the title.

A exception to this is if there is a queen but no king, for example Queens Wish game. Such Queens are vast majority malicious, power hungry, trying to usurp the 'natural order of things' in their greed for power, unlike Kings somehow. Decent odds that the Queen arranged for the death of the King directly. So a big exception to 'aristocracy is good or at least necessary' is a sexism clause. Sometimes this Queen like character is not actually in power yet, just a evil force plotting for power no matter what evil things they need to do.

Another partial exception is where a uncle or upper royalty do a power grab against the 'rightful' rulers. A Main Character may need to be smuggled away from the evil forces trying to take away that 'rightful' rule and MC may grow up in ignorance of their royal nature, only to learn latter as a teenager or something and set right the world by gaining their 'rightful' place as rulers. Implications sometimes that MC is smarter, stronger, more skilled etc. because they are royalty, because royalty is naturally better.

Note: You may notice in that last paragraph I put ' around 'rightful' each time since all 'royal bloodlines' start with someone taking power with violence. No royalty is ever truly 'rightful' and the concept itself is sickening.

Also in games you will find enemies with royal additions to their names to indicate being stronger, like "King slim" boss etc adding to the whole concept that royals are inherently better than everyone else.

In general MC often find out they have royal roots thus have a 'inherent greatness' you as a reader can live vicariously through.

Subnote: the toxic concept of 'princesses' that Disney pushes hard. To their credit they will sometimes 'girl power' put a female in actual ruling position in a small amount of more recent stuff.

Also while with high magic and low tech you may get the inane argument that royalty is a necessary 'realism' for the genre, (like pay no mind to the magic, monsters, it being nothing like Earth or Earth history etc.) this toxic genera trope is not limited to low tech. There is plenty of media set with high tech, with or without magic, and this nobility crap, and those same people who argue that low tech must have royalty for 'realism',. never seem to mind this.

Also a side note that idea that some people are just better than others can also be found in other stuff like in many super hero stories.

And that takes us to capitalism and cyberpunk. There are very few authors who imagine a utopia future, a future with a working socioeconomic system that isn't royalty or capitalistic. I watched a YT video awhile back about a female author I think the name is Ursula K. Le Guin because I sort of remember Earthsea being one of her series. Who imagines other utopiac systems free of the rule of aristocracy or capitalism, even one where a alien society is imagined free of the concept of "gender". The YT video talked about the sexism involved in the sci-fi genera and how hard it was for her to get published and taken serious.

But aside from Ursula K. Le Guin, alot of authors seem to be pessimistic about the future and about better ways of doing things. Even Startrek is very vague on their utopia future. Which is why much Cyberpunk stuff has a very grim decayness to it. Even to the point where in political discussion about socio-economic systems the term "utopiac" is sometimes weaponized as a way of saying something is unrealistic. A alternative vision of "cyberpunk" is called "solarpunk" because it imagines a world where people are more equal and free while being mindful of the environment, and "solar" probably stems from photovoltaic use, but it isn't just about that

I am saying to all future writers and game designers, please consider these factors in your next work and to all readers and RPG game players, please consider these matters as well even slightly as you digest your mental media meal.

So, some counters to the "solo queen is evil" or "queen wants to take over".

This will have some spoilers, including some for Dragon Quest 5 and Wizardry 8, maybe also SaGa 1 and Final Fantasy 2.

Dragon Quest 3: There is a castle town, Isis, ruled by a woman who is not evil. (This was before certain real-world events tarnished that name.)

Dragon Quiest 4: There's a castle where only women are allowed to live. (This trope has appeared in a few other games, including Crystalis and StarTropics, as well as, from what I hear, 7th Dragon.) That castle does not appear to be evil, even though you are framed for a crime you didn't commit.

Dragon Quest 5: This gets a bit complicated. The queen of one castle doesn't appear to be evil, though she does make a bad decision to have her child kidnapped by evil. She apologizes later in the game, but not until after you free her and the kingdom from an imposter. (Note the first time there's been a monster impersonating a ruler; DQ3 does this as well.)

Wizardry 8: There's an evil kingdom, ruled by a king. It turns out that, as you discover, the queen of that kingdom is not evil, and has been imprisoned. You can free her (though she never leaves her prison because the developers didn't have time to finish that plot thread).

SaGa 1: There's what I believe could be considered a gang, though interestingly not an evil one. You end up rescuing a woman (Sayaka) from that gang early, then the boss (So-cho) sends you on a mission that results in his death, complete with some sad music (the game over theme) and you getting his band (which is actually a very useful piece of equipment). Then, when you finish what you need to do in this world, you will be at So-cho's grave, and when you talk to her, Sayaka says "I'm the next So-cho".

Final Fantasy 2: There's an evil empire. The rebellion against that evil empire is led by the princess, as the king is injured at the start of the game and dies shortly thereafter. (There's a lot of death in this game.) The princess then leads the rebellion for the rest of the game, aside from that one part where she gets kidnapped, and that part where a monster impersonates her. I've heard of her, but haven't read any of her books.

Another science fiction author I've heard of is Terry Pratchett. I don't know how he handles socioeconomic systems, but he does play around with gender roles in some of his books. (There's one where, for example, female dwarves typically have things like beards, but then some of them decided they wanted to be a bit more "feminine" (in the sense that humans on modern Earth would interpret that), or something along those lines.)

(By the way, forgot to mention something: That sequence in SaGa 1 is definitely *not* medieval. The game starts out that way, but by the time you get to that part of the game, it's clearly post-apocalyptic Tokyo at that point.)

Wow, man, I admit I had never thought of that before! Really, how could a royal bloodline have started? Who was the first to establish a royal bloodline, if not someone who had made himself king by force?!!
We could take it a step further and say that the first "king", could be a local gang leader at first (or a gang member who killed his leader and made himself the leader of the gang), who made wars/battles with other gangs, "united" them into one big gang and, having created a small army, started attacking settlements of simple citizens, taking over them and proclaiming himself "leader of all", a.k.a. king.
On the other hand, however, I can't stop thinking that the kings of (very very) old, were really the best at many different things, not just soft sops and dandies (as they are in the later years). If you read the Iliad and Odyssey, for example, you'll find out that, no matter how those kings (or their ancestors for that purpose) had taken control of their city-states (as it was back then), but they were really the best fighters among their armies, the most hard-working people (Ulysses talks about plowing his fields himself), the most fit (in terms of physical strength), and of the most knowledgeable (in the terms of studying and reading books). Yes they (or their ancestors) might have taken the leadership by force, but one could say that they, by using their skills, could benefit their people and the common good (comparing with what's happening today).

Ok, first of all, you know nothing, Jon Snow!

Second, drama sells. Utopia + drama = Not Utopia.

Third, suspension of disbelief. The fantastic needs a grounding in reality to attract the reader. Less grounding, less interest from readers.

Fourth, morality is a recent addition to our society gained through education and general well-being. You can afford to talk about how sickening the concept of royalty is because you've been educated enough to understand the excess and abuse. But that excess and abuse exists even now, in every facet, and there's no royalty to blame. So you're sickened by a symptom that no longer exists while ignoring the still present cause. Weird that.


Fifth, i plead it. Cheers.

so you say eh... but it seems women always dig the bad guy..... makes one ponder.... about nothing really ;-) opportunists favor the best option and men are created equal? or not. Like a soap Operah. ----- < Stay away from your neece Richard!!! or your best friends 3d marriage!!!

Indeed, in the original For The King (years ago available here on GOG), the king had already been murdered. But the widow queen wasn't evil and indeed is the one who hires the adventurers to go on their heroic quest to avenge the murdered king and save the kingdom.

Fun fact about it I just learned about: In For The King II, the queen has become corrupted and evil and players must fight against her tyrannical rule. So, she joins the "evil queen" canon, despite the first title having none of this...

Lowest common denominator pop culture generally makes things revolving around the status quo, i.e. fantasy is based on D&D/Tolkien/fairy tales and is therefore "medieval" in the loosest sense of the term, so there's always kingdoms instead of republics, monarchy instead of democracy even though such things have always existed somewhere in one way or another, but I guess those don't gel with the aesthetic of kings and knights IN MUH FANTASY WITH DRAGONS AND ORCS! HOW'S DEMOCRACY GOING TO SOLVE THE DRAGONS AND ORC PROBLEM, EH?

As for capitalism, capitalists will promote capitalism. If there's a buck to be made, they might sell you anti-capitalism, but it'll probably be sanitized.

There's also the fact that Tolkien has a low magic, or at least rare magic, feel to it. As a result, it doesn't really have much of a fantasy feel.

Medieval Europe, from my understanding, really was a land of kingdoms and monarchies. It's only if you look at pre-medieval stuff that you find republics and democracies. The thing is, the medieval setting is common in fantasy, while ancient settings are comparatively rare. (I remember playing the Romancing SaGa remake, and even with its kingdom and its (non-evil) empire, the game had more of an ancient/mythical feel to it, complete with the gods taking on human form and visiting mortals.)

Side note: I can't think of any game with an evil Empress, at least not off hand.

Fantasy can be whatever you want it to be. Magic isn't a requirement. The idea of fantasy having to be pigeonholed into a series of familiar tropes is a failure of creativity, not a function of the genre. Dishonored 2 immediately comes to mind. The empress is deposed in a coup and is replaced by an evil empress. You can play as the empress and regain your status, or you can play as her bodyguard. Fun game if you like first person immersive sims.

think you need to really start understanding and researching some history.

So, do you have any examples of representative goverments in Europe (not the Ottoman Empire, and not on other continents) from the fall of Rome to before the Renaissance? (In particular, it has to come before that one country declared independence in 1776.)

If the setting is realistic without magic or anything similar at all, I can't really call it "fantasy".

Sounds like a lot of woke whining.
As usual, someone with little or no understaind of historical or literary context of things they bring up signalling their moral rightousness by judging everything as if modern concepts of ethics and politics and their own views were some divine absolutes inexplicably applicable to everything.

Read some books, why don't you, instead of ranting nonsense on the Internet. If you actually read LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness (one of the greatest books ever written by the way), you'd know her "society free of the concept of "gender" was anything but a utopia. And in her other book about a utopia "free of the rule of aristocracy or capitalism" the very title of the book calls it an "An Ambiguous Utopia", and it's a pretty horrible society too.

I speak broadly of trends and not saying there aren't exceptions. Exceptions for sexism with queens become more common with modern time where as the romanization of royalty if mentioned at all has been more steadfast.

Are are some examples.

Robinhood, it is a old story but in older stories it does not have this factor I mention, this is a newer part to the mythology. Robinhood, that is when the 'rightful king' comes back, Robinhood puts down arms.

In Lord of the Rings Strider turns out to be royalty. There is a fair amount of other talk about royalty. Even say Gandalf was not royalty, but no mere human either.

In the HBO series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. There is alot of this. (it's been a good awhile since I watched early episodes of it)

minor spoilers ahead

We hear humans grumble that the elves keep peace, justice, and order asking nothing in return and they wistfully wish for a human king to call their own, you know someone to take their stuff through taxes and really push them around, but as long as they are human.

There is alot of effort to track down a person who is a surviving member of royalty to convince him to take up the mantel of king to unite the humans to face the great evil coming. Like there is no other way but to make this obscure person king because bloodline makes them a better more worthy person and thus others will follow.

And it comes to little surprise but lots of disappointment when it is confirmed that this maid in the story that is strong, smart, clever, and bullheaded, is actually a chosen one of royal blood destined to be key to stopping the great evil and only playing the role of maid to keep them hidden. Well at least this destined great royalty person is female.

Similar in the Netflix Witcher show where the destined person to save the world from evil is royalty. And not because they have anyone to command with her royalty because they are all dead.

In Chronicles of Narnia the children don't start out royalty, but they are granted royalty status by lion jesus Asilan affirming the idea that Kings and Queens are inherent;y great and if you are "great" while you don't start out as royalty, there will likely be social mobility to becoming royalty.

Lots of Japanese, Chinese, and SKorean stories often place great emphasis on royalty in comics and anime IMO.

This sounds like moral signaling of a right wing extremist that judges everyone.Your words have alot of built in irony. Do you think of "owning the libs with facts and logic"?

You mean like pushing to ban abo-rtion (for some reason this word seems to be masked so a post won't post if present) or outlaw homosexual marriage or general desire for allowance for prejudice against LGBTQ individuals, you mean like that kind of morale pushiness based on divine absolutes found in people who tend to use "woke" as a insult or criticism. Considering the good odds of extreme right wingers basing their philosophy on religion, using the word "divine" is extremely ironic.

In my OP I spoke of trends, I actually did not speak much to morality at all. The trends of nobility being romanticized in media, not the horrors that actually accompanied real nobility. So this is a strawman, you are pretending I said something I did not to argue against me.

That said, you should pick a lane in your argument. Do you believe that morals are something we just pick for ourselves? Like if a person decides that slavery is morale then slavery is morale. Who are you to tell them otherwise? Like that? If morality actually exists independent of whether a person decides whether a action is morale or not, than morality is also timeless. Regardless I am talking about stories and media much sooner than "ancient times" or whatever, so stuff your "modern concepts" BS.

It is true that I have not read these books. But I did not argue the bit with a society with no gender was "utopic" or that Leguin said it was. But it is a interesting idea of discarding that worthless concept of "gender". Doing so will not make "utopia". but would probably lead to people in general leading a bit less shitty a life. How ever LeGuin portrayed it does not matter to that.

Maybe you are right or wrong in your interpretation of the book. If you are right, then that just goes to more of the argument that people don't bother to question the the shit in life. Authors who imagine a future with grand technology but can't imagine a society that has gotten past capitalism like it's some inherent quality of being human that we can't get past. Or even imagining a advanced technological society fully in feudalism.