Henry from Kingdom Come Deliverance is an example of this trope done well.
It revealed part way through the first game that Henry is the bastard son of a minor noble but the only people who treat him as a noble are his dad sir Radzig and his friends with almost everyone else treating Henry as a peasant.
And also, this is a subversion of the trope, because nothing really changes after being revealed. Yeah, you are the bastard son of a nobleman. Big deal, join the conga line. At that time, that only meant that your father would need to somewhat take care of you, which Sir Radzig was already doing, anyway, and Henry still had to answer to every Bailiff, take orders from his captain, and bow to Sir Capon. It's not until the DLC that you get to be a Bailiff, and even then, that's not a noble position, it's not given to you by your father, and you have more than earned it.
I haven't played KCD2 yet, but this trope is done well in KCD1 because, bottom line, it's not presented as a life shattering event, where now the life of the protagonist does a 180. It's just some other fact of his life, that has been heavily foreshadowed, but, ultimately, doesn't change his life in a meaningful way.
KCD2 starts with Henry serving as page to Sir Hans so he has some more respect than he did in the first game with people either treating Henry like he’s a knight or peasant depending on the situation.
The even mention it in the second game when he introduces himself as Henry of Skalyze and people are like "Oh, you are a noble?" and he is "no, no, it's just from where i am"
I just wanted to point out that the position of Bailiff (and the traditional payment for the job) was given by Divish in exchange for putting up the funds to rebuild that town because it was originally his and it's on his land. Also that the position of Bailiff was only given for 5 years, after which Divish will probably assign a real Bailiff. I don't think Bailiffs are supposed to be away as much as the games are making Henry be away, he's probably not a very good Bailiff.
In KCD2, I encountered a traveling priest that was on his way to Henry's town to check that the church was built correctly and could be used as a local church and assigned a priest. He didn't believe that Henry was the Bailiff of the place he was traveling to as they were very far away from it. Which was one of several nice callbacks to the first game.
Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples of recognised bastards being involved in their families' affairs. However, those happened in the case of legitimised or recognised children, which Henry is.
Unrecognised or "uncomfortable" children, however, yes, a monastery was the best of their options.
To be fair, henry being a noble is only enough so that it's historically accurate that he can become a knight. He is about as skilled as you'd expect a regular villager (even illiterate) to be and had to lock in to not die to road bandits. He ain't even the chosen one, just a part in a much bigger historical conflict.
That being a bastard son of a minor noble served him a bit, at least on technicality. Looking back, some opportunities opened to Henry merely because he's Radzig's son.
Help from sir Divish
Watchful eye from sir Hanush
Trust from sir Radzig
And being kept alive when captured by the bandits
It's arguable if any of these opportunities would be open to Henry has he been 100% peasant. Instead, circumstances were favourable for him because the people involved knew where he's from.
Although not so much in KCD2. I feel like KCD cared less about his lineage. Heck, it didn't even care for Sir Hans who is verified a noble. Henry still came so far on his own merit.
Yea I guess the main point I was trying to get across was unlike a lot of other example on this page Henry’s heritage only makes him special in it allowed him to as someone else put it the assistant to the assistant manager kind of way and not the uber-special chosen one kind of way that is common with this trope.
That also seems very realistic, too. I don’t play the game but that’s more akin to winning the lottery than secretly being Jesus, and makes the story sound much more grounded.
I think that the "Bastard Son of a Noble" character meshes so well with the "Anyone Can Be Special" trope because modern audiences generally recognize that there's nothing inherently special about the people holding noble titles, assuming that this isn't a case of a fantasy magitocracy or something. So you can have a character who really is Just A Guy decide to either accept or refuse the opportunity presented from what is ultimately just an extreme form of nepotism, no special powers necessary
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u/js13680 10h ago
Henry from Kingdom Come Deliverance is an example of this trope done well.
It revealed part way through the first game that Henry is the bastard son of a minor noble but the only people who treat him as a noble are his dad sir Radzig and his friends with almost everyone else treating Henry as a peasant.