Thursday, September 19, 2013

The King of America

Okay, this sounds like a bad idea, historically speaking. We're a fairly young country, with a long history of independence and rebelliousness, and we even fought off King George and more or less spit in his eye. Why in the WORLD would anyone suggest that we should have a King

Okay yes. Back in the day when kings were all crazy and powerful, and commanded armies and made weird stupid proclamations demanding impossible things, we were kinda right to throw off the shackles and stand apart from the oppressive... er ...oppressors.

But if you look now, the British Monarchy looks like a romantic, noble, sometimes scandalous, but always entertaining family with a long and amazing history. Every time one of them gets married, divorced, starts dating, takes an alleged bong hit, or anything really it generates headlines for weeks. I would bet that most Americans don't know the name of the British Prime Minister, but can tell you ALL about Prince William, and Kate, and the baby, and oh holy crap people love the royalty.

And here in this day and age they do make a valid contribution to the country. There's a great YouTube video about this, but basically it works like this: They own a lot of land; They rent (or lease) that land to the government; The Government makes money from that land; British taxes go down. But more than that interest in the Royal Family accounts for a HUGE amount of the British, especially the London, economy, due to tourism. People come from all over the world to see where the Royal Family lives, plays, the Crown jewels, and all the royal themed attractions that start with "Ye Olde."

And that got me thinking: Why should they have all the fun? We could have our own American Royal Family, couldn't we?

Okay let's think about this. Kings were originally charismatic and aggressive leaders who led armies, and protected their people from harm, and gained glory and honor from battle, and believed mightily that they were given the right to rule through Divine Providence. After that, they just passed the title down from generation to generation, not out of any deference to the descendent's prowess or skill or charisma, but rather because they were born.
And this is understandable, as we have a built in desire to protect our offspring and provide every advantage possible for their survival and prosperity. Being King is a really good way to do that, unless you screw it up by being really dumb and causing a revolution, and maybe getting your head chopped off. But hey, nobody's perfect right? The important thing is that they started as nobody, but took what they had and forged a kingdom sweat, blood, steel, and will.

So then, what if I told you that deep in the south there was a long, nearly forgotten line of noble blood that is heir to the Lost Throne of the Americas? Tracing it's lineage back through the Civil War, further back to a family of royalty that had been banished to America for the crime of being Catholic, which disqualified them the succession. (A real thing apparently, look it up.)

The Nobleman arrived quietly, and mostly did things without fanfare, or fervor, but made a difference in the lives of his people, and protected them. His lineage is still alive today, and the most direct of the eldest descendants is a humble construction worker in North Carolina, unaware that he is the rightful King of America.

None of that is true of course, as far as I know. But it makes a good story, it has the ring of truth, and don't people just love the idea of lost and hidden royalty? It is a fascinating idea.

See it's not like he/she would have any real power or authority, per se. Maybe they find out that they're the beneficiary of some land grant back revenues that the government could never pay back, so they set up a trust that they'll pay back over several hundred years or so, to the family and their heirs. Other than that it's just a big PR thing. "Hey look at us, we have our own King!"

So yeah, might make a good story. Kind of a rags to riches story about a nice guy, single, who suddenly finds himself the heir, not only to an incredible fortune (which he can't have, but no one cares,) but also the title of King of America (which means nothing, but no one cares.) Suddenly women who wouldn't give him the time of day are throwing themselves at his feet, companies are offering him jobs as their spokesman, businesses are changing their names in his honor, Matt Lauer won't stop calling to ask him to be on the Today Show. It goes on and on.

And the whole time he's just trying to live his life, and figure out what he wants to do, now that he doesn't have to have a job any more. But of course it turns out that being King is a full time job, making public appearances, meeting important people who's only interest is his fame, and so on and so on.

Then he meets a girl, the only one who is not impressed by his fame, has never heard of him, doesn't care about his money, etc etc, and of course isn't too impressed with him either.

The rest should be fairly obvious to anyone who's seen King Ralph, or any romantic comedy where the guy has to work to impress the girl. She sees him in a moment of kindness, instantly falls in love with him, then some other complication keeps them apart until they can be thrown together at the end of the movie while some funny yet touching, song plays in the background. Start credits, then show the wedding scene during the credits along with bloopers, and so on.

Yeah, I think we could do better than that though. What if being King turns into a huge chance for him to bring out his diplomatic side, and become an unofficial goodwill ambassador for the US and Canada, travelling extensively to talk to important people about how their people can get along better, and basically be a really nice guy via interpreter. Then suddenly he gets embroiled in an international incident, and suddenly we're in a suspense action movie, in the vein of Air Force One, or any of the Die Hard movies, where it turns out that the King has a military service record, and a way to contact someone on the outside. He uncovers the plot, takes out the bad guys, saves the day, then gives a one liner about how it's good to be the King, or something equally cheesy. Credits roll to a Lynard Skynard/Elvis  mashup, encompassing "The King" and "The South."

Yeah, that sounds like a blockbuster hit by Michael Bay.

Well this is what Brainstorming, and Spit-balling are for, you toss everything at the wall, and see what sticks. I'll probably go to TV Tropes and see if an idea occurs to me, but this one will have to sit on the back burner for a while, after all I've got 2 other stories to make some progress on.

Anyway, as ever comments and suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks for reading!

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