Every Thursday Nathan from the Fantasy Review Barn invites us to go tough travelling through the tropes of fantasy.  This week the topic is KINGS:

KINGS come in four kinds: Puppet Kings, Bad Kings, Good Kings (rare), and Long Lost Kings

So, let’s face it – there are no shortages of Kings in epic fantasy.  To narrow it down I’ve tried to get an example of each from the same book.  Yes, Lord of the Rings!  It had to be done!!

Puppet king – Theoden – King of the Mark or King of Rohan – endured a brief spell as a puppet with Grima Wormtongue seemingly having the majority of sway in the kingdom.  Of course Grima operated under instructions from Saruman.

Bad king – The Witch King of Angmar.  Leader of the Nazgul, formally a king of men, one of the nine kings given a ring of power by Sauron and eventually became corrupted by it’s power.

Good king – Elrond King of the Elves – the elves are a singular bunch of characters and quite single minded but I’m putting Elrond as a good King because he fought in the last alliance of elves and men that originally destroyed Sauron and he tried to convince Isildur to destroy the Ring.

Lost king – Aragorn or Strider – starts the story as a ranger but concludes the story as king.  Heir of Isildur.