• Part of Leonmichelle's plan inDog Days. She's strictly speaking a regent anyway, but she plans to leave the throne early in an attempt toScrew Destiny. Things never really get that far, though.
• In the anime ofFate/stay night, a flashback scene shows Saber (akaKing Arthur) fighting with a knight who demands to know why she won't abdicate the throne. The credits identify the knight character asMordred.
• The absolute first thing thatHikaru does after becoming ruler of Cephiro in the second season ofMagic Knight Rayearth is abolish the monarchy. Sinceshe had been present when the previous ruler hadbeenDriven to Suicide by the emotional strain of having to continuously care for everyone and everything equally without caring for any single person or thing as an individual — including herself — or else the bits she doesn't care for will start falling apart, you can understand why. In the manga,she not only does this, but she gives the power to everyone in the world, even the reader, whom she asks to rename Cephiro.
• InNaruto, the third Hokage retired to give the title over to the fourth. Unfortunately, the fourth's suddenHeroic Sacrifice forced him to take up the reins again.
  • This trend continues inBoruto,where we learned that the fifth Hokage retired for the sixth, who later gave up the position for the seventh. We also learn that the third Tsuchikage, the fourth Raikage, and the fifth Mizukage all also gave up their positions for their successors.
• InŌoku: The Inner Chambers, Shogun Yoshimune steps down in favour of her daughter Ieshige. However, she remains in Edo Castle and becomes a shadow ruler whose policy suggestions are more often followed by senior councilors than the actual Shogun's.
  • Ieshige later does the same thing for her daughter Ieharu, but is far less influential in retirement.
  • Tokugawa Harusada passes herself over in the succesion and allows Ienari to ascend to the post of shogun in her place. She later explains that since she already has a child she's content to use Ienari as a breeder while she remains the power behind the scenes.
  • TheSuccession Crisis that threatened to brew during Ienari's reign ended when Ienari abdicated in favor of the son of his choice.
• Prince Juda Haspirupi does this towards the end ofRed River (1995) to finally bring an end to Queen Nakia's continuous attempts at getting her bloodline to rule the Hittite Empir. Also done as his way tofinallycall out hisMy Beloved Smother of a mom on all the shit she had pulled on Kail, the new King and Juda's half-brother, and his wife Yuri.
• InUtawarerumono, theOruyankuru gives his daughter, Urutorii, his title just before the final invasion.

• WhenAquaman isn't forced off his throne, he's likely to abdicate, as being a rulerand superhero is often too much stress.
• At the end ofBlack Panther (2016),T'Challa steps down and makes Wakanda a constitutional monarchy, with the goal of transitioning to democracy.
• At the end ofInhumans vs. X-Men,Medusa steps down and abolishes the monarchy, allowing New Attilan to become a democracy instead. This allows her to finally return to Black Bolt after a good year of strife between the two.
• ThePrince Valiant series started with Valiant and his father King Arguar of Thule being forced to flee by Sligon the Usurper. When they return to take back the throne years later, Sligon announces that he is tired of power and will exchange the kingdom for their little island in Britain. Some years after that, Valiant runs into Sligon, who has grown old and dotty and has never regretted giving up the kingdom for a second.
• The Sandman (1989): A king decided that enough was enough, he was tired and fed up, so he closed his kingdom, gave away the key, and left. Later he opens a piano bar in Los Angeles. The king in question?Lucifer.
• Thorgal:The Fall Of Brek Zarith has Thorgal helping prince Galathorn reclaim the throne. Galathorn is the rightful heir, his cousin Shardar killed his uncle to get the throne. Along the way they enlist the help of a Viking army in exchange for treasure. After much fighting, they finally make it to theTreasure Room... where Shardar abdicates in favor of his cousin, wishing him good luck with theintrigues and backstabbing that comes with it. The storywould end there, except Shardar intends to leave with Thorgal's wife and psychic son in his luggage... Asskicking ensues.
• Warlord of Mars: John Carter is proclaimed the titular warlord for his heroic deeds, having united the warring races of Barsoom at great cost such as the death of his grandfather-in-law and his son, who previously ruled his city-state. When the original king Tardos Mors mysteriously returns to life, Carter willingly surrenders the crown to him, reasoning that a civil conflict could erupt between those who supported him against those who prefer Mors and being a veteran from theAmerican Civil War, he'd rather avoid having another war being fought in his adoptive home.
• Wonder Woman (1987): Toyed with. Hippolyta greatly reduces her own power as queen voluntarily and starts having long absences from Themyscira, but while she does talk about abdicating, in the end she is forced from the island after she jumps to conclusions about the Bana and attacks them for things they were framed for because she didn't listen to her advisors.

• Be There Waiting Hoping Praying This Light Will Guide You Home: When Ned, Catelyn, and Robb return to Winterfell, Jon yields his crown to Robb.
• Breaking the generational cycle: Downplayed. At the end Ruby makes the Kraken kingdom a constitutional monarchy. She is still queen but now the krakens have an elected president.
• Code Geass: Numbers Reshuffled: Several years after Duel Monsters exploded in popularity, Maximilian offered to forgo any claim to the throne in exchange for 95% of the profits the game made. This actually saved his life as the Emblem of Blood Period happened a year later.
• Compass of Thy Soul (Naruto): On several occasions, a person would retire from their position in the Uchiha clan in favour of a younger or better-trained relative.
  • The position of Homeguard Head, in charge of dealing with the clan's economical and internal affairs, goes from Ohabari, Madara's aunt to Kita, Madara's fiancé, and then to their cousin. First, because Ohabari gets pregnant and Kita's has both completed her training and has greatly contributed to the clan's economy with her various ideas (non-combat-oriented seals, giving jobs to widows, producing their own silk, starting a pottery business, etc.).
  • Due to its size, the clan is divided into Mangekyou lineages — there are several types of Mangekyou Sharingan, each with their own power set and way of awakening. Whenever an Uchiha gets their Mangekyou, they become the Head of their respective lineage. For instance, Kita is moderately removed from her lineage's main family, but when she awakens the Toyotama Mangekyou, she becomes the head. Other than the Mangekyou beingvery powerful, this custom is a way to honor those clan members who have suffered the most.
• Corruption at Nightfall: Either mares or stallions can rule the Crystal Empire. The two sisters among the five Quartz siblings have absolutely no desire to get involved in succession politics, and both Rose and Iolite Quartz deliberately renounce their claims. This in particular keeps Rose Quartz alive when her youngest brother Crimsonmerges with the Shadows and becomes Sombra.
• The Crown Atomic: Kaiser Wilhelm IV abdicates his throne in favor of his brother Louis Ferdinand after the scandal concerning Wilhelm's love affair with Dorothea von Salviati.
• dC/dt≠0: After Chrysalis'failedattack on the ponies, and after failing to discoverwhy it was failed, she abdicated in favour of Morpheus.Third Eye is highly sceptical that she actually did this, whatever Morpheus thinks, given that she didn't tell him some stuff she should have if she actually surrendered the throne.
• Deus Ex: Equine Revolution: At some point during theTime Skip, Twilight Sparkle renounced her status as princess in order to run her aug company.
• Distorted Reality: The Earth King, Kuei, did it before the start of the story, and hasn't been seen in five years. Ba Sing Se is led by the Council of Five and the new Grand Secretariat, Wu, instead.
• DNA (Fairy Tail): The premise is that aDNA test reveals Erza Scarlet to be the long-lost daughter of Queen Irene Belserion, the previous queen before the Fiore royal family. Due to Erza now having a greater legitimacy to the throne, the Fiore Royal Family initially chooses to hand the throne to Erza because by both law and ethics and personally inform the girl of her heritage. However, Erza chooses to decline the offer because she has no training to run a country like Toma and Hisue and doesn't want to put Fiore at any risk, instead opting to stay in Fairy Tail and maintain a close connection with the current royal family. Both of their decisions to abdicate in the name of what's rightwould boost both the Fiore's family and Fairy Tail's reputation.
• Dragons of Ice and Fire:Jon Snow eventually abdicates his titles as King in the North and King Beyond-the-Wall to his half-brother Bran, both because he knows that he's better at fighting than ruling and would make a better general than king, and because he believes that the North would be better unified under a trueborn son of Ned Stark.
• The Elements of Friendship: This pops up at the end of Book 1: Zecora, having become Queen of Pundamilia after her mother Malkia's death, stands down in favor of a democracy she helps set up, and then emigrates to Equestria to live in Ponyville with her friends.
• Fallout: Equestria: This happened in the backstory. After years of war with the zebras, Princess Celestia became convinced that she could no longer lead Equestria effectively. The final straw was when Big Macintosh died defending her from an assassin. She abdicated the throne to her sister Luna, who immediately recruited the Mane Six to help her.That caused a lot of problems, but the biggest problem was one that didn't become clear until hundreds of years later.A thousand years before the war, Luna was corrupted into Nightmare Moon andbanished to the moon. She returned and was cured, but the zebras didn't believe it. They thought she was still as evil as ever. So when she was put in charge of Equestria, they were absolutely horrified and thought that they would be completely annihilated if they lost the war. From then on, any attempts at peace were just tricks to try to kill Nightmare Moon, and when they were on the cusp of defeat they unleashed themegaspells because it couldn't possibly be worse than what Nightmare Moon would do to them.
• Fantasia Times: Elsa apparently stepped down as queen of Arendelle so she could stay in Fantasia with Andi.
• Fire Emblem Fates: Aftermath: Azura decides that she's not cut out for being the queen of Valla due to her aversion of socializing and lack of charisma, so she tells Corrin that he can have the throne.
• The Fox of Marseille: After Gabriel is outed as Le Papillon and sent to prison, Adrien inherits everything, including the family fortune, the mansion, and Gabriel's fashion empire. Rather than keeping it, he gives away the company, has the house converted into a school, and donates much of his fortune, keeping just enough to live comfortably as he becomes a teacher himself.
• The Golden Age of Apocalypse: After everything that's gone on, including the nobles trying to impeach her and politically attacking others for their ties to the royal family, Celestia has finally had enough and abdicates her royal titles entirely, while simultaneously making Luna the firstQueen of Equestria since their mother.
• The Great Temporal Step-Sibling War!: The Arc family used to be royalty, but they gave it all up to better serve the people, becoming "land-rich, money-poor." Isabel Arc, Jaune's mother, is the first person to try to reclaim the family's fortune... by converting the old castle into a hospital and collecting funds to expand. Jaune still grew up on a farm. His friends are shocked that they didn't know this.
  Ruby: Why didn't you tell us!?
  Jaune:[annoyed] Idid.
  Yang: Hehe... I guess we weren't really listening.
• Grief is the Price We Pay: Defied.As penance, Twilight wants to resign, but can't due to her connection to the cutie map and the elements, both of which are incredibly important and poorly understood. Instead, she is stripped of most of her power that doesn't directly involve her duties as a Princess of Friendship.
• A Growing Fire in My Heart: Downplayed, but in the final chapter of the storyTwilight temporarily steps down from her title as Princess due to Spike being exiled, refusing to be the Princess of Friendship without all of her friends by her side. Though she plans to take it back once Spike's exile is over, she implies she plans to start the School of Friendship in the meantime.
• Ill-Omen's Light: Non-royal example. After Jinx's Progress Day attack, Jayce tells Caitlyn that he's leaving the Council to more directly combat Piltover's corruption either in his labs or on the front lines. Caitlyn puts together that he was always planning to step down and that Progress Day was supposed to be his announcement.
• Kili's Promise: By the epilogue, Fíli has abdicated the throne in favor of his eldest son Hael.
• Lesser Evil: Non-royal example —in the end, after the Matrix is removed in a medical operation overseen by Ratchet and Shockwave to see if taking it out will disconnect his spark bond with Megatron (it doesn't), Optimus declines to take it back and states he no longer wants it because of the harm it causes by forcing its divine will onto others. He steps down from the Primacy and delivers a speech to his Autobots, telling them their destiny is theirs to choose now that the war with the Decepticons is over.
• The MLP Loops: Usually played for laughs.
  • Celestia was a bored immortalGod Empress in baseline; she gets much worse after she starts looping. She often abdicates the throne, though it's less "abdicates" and more "dumps everything on Twilight and friends while she goes off surfing." She also has a tendency to forget to check if Twilight and her friends areAwake first.
    Twilight: B-Bu-wha-how-huh-bwa-wha...COULD SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE HAY IS GOING ON!
  • In "Daughters" loops, Twilight is the mother of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who are all alicorns. She always abdicates the throne to them so that she can take a thousand-year vacation. The first time they had a loop like this, they only remembered she'd be coming back at the last minute.
    Princess Diamond Tiara: In just a few hours, Queen Twilight Sparkle will return to Equestria. She is a threat to our way of life.
    Rarity: Define threat?
    Princess Nyx: She doesn't approve of noisy, fun, all night parties.
    Pinkie:[gasps]
  • Once Chrysalis discovers that she can do the whole "share the love" thing years early, thus freeing her species of theirHorror Hunger and her primary responsibility to keep them fed, Chrysalis usually abdicates as fast as possible.
    Chrysalis: Good work, Thorax. Now, two decrees, to take effect simultaneously. Firstly, I abdicate. Secondly, you're promoted to King. Enjoy.[teleports away]
    Pharynx: Thorax? What happened to us? How come you're... tall?
    Thorax: I'm what?[looks down at himself] ...huh.
    Carapace: Did she say you're king now? I guess youare taller than everyling else, and I always thought that's how we picked who was in charge.
• No One Mentions Fear: Mipha ultimately ends up doing this, noting that by this point her brother Sidon has had a century's worth of experience being trained to rule their people compared to her, and that she doesn't have any desire to take the throne anyways. Fortunately, her father Dorephan doesn't contest the point, and she has full confidence that Sidon is capable.
• Of State: Elsa is asked to step down from power by the Emrysian Order, since their laws forbid monarchs to possess magic.
• Power Rangers GPX:Eruvanda is forced to when Ragnar tries to kill her.
• Queens of Mewni: Queens areexpected to abdicate once their heir apparent marries. The only ones that didn't were those that died before they could abdicate (Hemera cuts it close as she was poisoned literally thenight she abdicated, and Helia died of mysterious causes the day her daughter was to be married/crowned),Eclipsa, who technically ran away, expecting to leave aSuccession Crisis since she believed her heir dead, and Celena, who waited ten more years before abdicating so her heir Diana had a few more years of freedom before having to take onThe Chains of Commanding.
• RealityCheck's Nyxverse: InAlicornundrum, one of the main concerns that Twilight immediately faces after her Ascendancy is that she (and by-extension her daughterNyx) are now both Royalty; and that there is literally nothing that she can do about it since Ponies will invariably try to make her into a leader right now. Turns out at the end of the story, this was part of aBatman Gambit engineered by Celestia and Luna in order for themall to Abdicate the Throne and transform Equestria into a new form of government where Alicorns like them are no longer in total control over everything just because.
• Request and Receive Saga: The ending forSo desperate! hasChrom pass the crown to a younger sibling in order to supportSumia's dream of raising pegasi, which she thinks would be impossible if she became queen.
• Sonic Origins (Ri2): Combined with adoption, this is what Cosmo is doing to make Blaze queen.
• Summer Crowns: In both this fic and itsSpiritual SuccessorChasing Dragons, Robert Baratheon hands the Iron Throne and the crown of Westeros over to his brother Stannis so that he can lead the hunt for Rhaegar Targaryen'scourt in exile in Essos. In both stories, this ironically eventually leads to him becoming a king anyway after conquering Myr and establishing a new kingdom.
• Sunest Reset: Princess Celestia does a comically overcomplicated case of this — when she has to make a royal visit to Griffonstone, she wants her daughter, Sunset Shimmer, to be regent, but declaring a regency is a long and complicated affair so she instead just declares Sunset her successor and abdicates. It's generally understood that Sunset will return the throne upon Celestia's return, but Celestia is planning to leave the throne to her in a decade or so anyway so if she doesn't want to give back the throne, she'll just enjoy retirement.
• A Thing of Vikings:
  • Cami successfully argues for the Bog Burglars to renounce their independence and join the growing Berk, knowing full well this demotes her from future chieftess to future clanhead.
  • After he is captured by Hiccup, Dagur renounces his title as Mormaer Murchadh in favor of his sister Heather.
• Triptych Continuum: Done inPost Negative Comments Only as Cadance's answer to the finalArmor-Piercing Question below:what makes her different from Sombra is that she's willing to give up power — and as it turns out, she truly never wanted it in the first place. Which is part of what ultimately leadsthe crystals to request that she return, because they've decided the ponies best-suited to hold that power are the ones who don't desire it — along with needing somepony who knows the world as it isnow to help them catch up.
• True Potential:
  • Before theTime Skip,Hiruzen Sarutobi retires again from being Hokage following the Kiri Civil War, with Jiraiya replacing him by having proven his leadership skills.
  • After the time skip,Hinata relinquishes her position as clan heiress to her cousin Neji.
• Twilight Gets a Puppy:Sombra never really wanted to rule, and thus abdicatesthe throne of the Crystal Empire as part of his parole.
• We're a Miracle:
  • Eclipsa abdicates the throne of Earthni to Star after the latter turns 22.
  • Eventually, Star and Marco give the throne to Soluna.
  • Tom and Janna gave the Underworld throne to Mandy at some point, and they now run an Underworld bar where souls can have tangible bodies again.
• What is a promise worth?: Once the war is over, Tywin intends to haveJoffrey say that the war took such a toll on him that he has to give up the throne to Tommen.He never gets the chance, as all three of them are poisoned by Cersei once it becomes clear they're going to lose the war to Daenerys.
• White Devil of the Moon:Nanoha Takamachi, here the reincarnation of Princess Serenity, steps down from her role (which she had no preparation fornor the inclination to take over), allows the Sailor Senshi to live normal lives and formally dissolves the Moon Kingdom. Luna is the only one tonot take it well.

• Bambi: Implied in the ending — the final scene shows a now full-grown Bambi watching the presentation of his newborn twin children, with his father the Great Prince at his side before the latter turns and walks away, leaving Bambi in charge of the forest.
• A Bug's Life: After the grasshopper threat is ended, the Queen Ant abdicates in favor of her daughter Atta (whom she's been training to succeed her) and Flik.
• Frozen II: At the end of the film,Elsa passes the crown on to Anna while she herself retreats to the Enchanted Forest.
• The Princess and the Frog: Prince Naveen choses to stay with Tiana in New Orleans rather than become the next king of Maldonia. It then turns out that his younger brother was more suitable for becoming the next king.
• Wreck-It Ralph: Once King Candy is removed from "Sugar Rush" and the game's original program is restored, Vanellope Von Schweetz discovers that she's actually a princess. She decides to set up a constitutional democracy instead.

• InThe Black Room, Gregor gives up the barony to his brother Anton to avoid being overthrown. He then kills his twin and takes his place.
• InElection, Tammy Meltzer basically calls the election a sham and announces the first thing she will do if elected isdismantle student government so the students don't have to sit through another assembly that none of them care about. She moves from people jeering at her before the speech, to thunderous applause of most of the student body.
• InJohnny English, the villain, Pascal Sauvage, needs the Queen to abdicate. She initially refuses, but relents when one of her corgis is held at gunpoint. In fact, she abdicates her entire line, forcing the British government to look elsewhere for an eligible heir.
• As an adaptation ofKing Lear, this naturally is what starts off the plot ofAkira Kurosawa's epicRan. Warlord Hidetora Ichimonji elects to retire and divide his kingdom among his three sons, a rash decision that unleases a series of disasters as the sons fight amongst each other.
• King Ralph: Ralph I decides to do this when his actions shamed the country and cost workers badly needed jobs. However, instead of handing it over to Lord Graves, he instead hands the throne over to Sir Cedric Willingham, who also is a Windom.
• The King's Speech: This tells the story of the Duke of York's struggle with his own stuttering which inhibits his ability to communicate with people, and the mounting pressures on him as it becomes clear his brother the Prince of Wales and then King Edward VIII is not a man who is a good ruler who can set the Country's needs above his own.
• Lost in a Harem: After Peter and Harvey steal Nimativ's hypnotic rings, they use them to hypnotize Nimativ into promising to abdicate the throne he'd stolen from Ramo. Unfortunately, he soon breaks free of the hypnosis.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • InAvengers: Endgame, after some soul-searching anda heart-to-heart with his late mother, Thor realizes that he isn't suited to be king of Asgard. As the film ends, hejoins the Guardians of the Galaxy, andasks Valkyrie to become Asgard's new ruler.
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: After T'Challa passed away andRamonda is killed by Namor, Shuri is crowned queen of Wakanda during their war with Talocan. However, at the end of the movie, she does not show up to her official coronation. Instead, she passes the mantle of ruler to M'Baku.
• Nicholas and Alexandra: Being aBiopic of Tsar Nicholas II and his queen Alexandra, this film shows Nicholas being forced to abdicate when the Russian Revolution erupts and his train can't get to Petrograd because of all the mutinous soldiers running around.
• The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement has Mia's grandmother stepping down from the throne so Mia can be queen now that she's 21 years old and graduated from college.
• The main protagonist inVikingdom is a Norse king who dies in combat and in his dying breath passes the crown to his younger brother.He is resurrected shortly after, but instead of reclaiming his throne back, he decided to live as a hermit in the wilds for the next decade.

• In theMercedes LackeyBardic Voices series, Kestrel was the rightful king of Birnam after his uncle deposed his father. It turned out that the father was taxing the people heavily and wasting it on personal luxuries while the uncle was ruling the kingdom wisely. Kestrel, knowing that he wasn't really competent to take it, publicly renounces all claim to the throne, and ensures it sticks by marrying the Gypsy Bard he is in love with.
• A Brother's Price has the queens of Queensland, aging, transferring more and more responsibility to their surviving daughters. They won't abdicate the throne until the princesses have married and produced at least one child, but are expected to do so when that happens.
• When the emperor Gastern loses his mind inThe Chronicles of Magravandias, he is forced into abdication. His son is pre-emptively forced to abdicate as well, as everyone knows he will only be worse.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: Tasia implicitly gives up her throne at the end. She was believed dead, and rather than return, proving she's alive, stays that way to most people. Instead she happily retires to live a humble life with Joslyn.
• Conan the Barbarian — InRobert E. Howard's "The Scarlet Citadel", Conan isoffered freedom and gold if he will do this.
• John C. Wright'sCount to the Eschaton: InCount to a Trillion, Menelausrealizes that this is one possible solution to Blackie's dilemma — but he won't do it.
• Abir gives up being queen at the second lottery inDirge for Prester John as part of the new system of government she has put in place.
• Discworld:
  • Tomjon inWyrd Sisters probably holds the record for fastest abdication on record, when he abdicates after a grand total of about five minutes as king in favour of his half-brother.
  • Pteppic does this at the end ofPyramids, giving the throne of Djelibeybi over tohis half-sister Ptraci so he can go back to Ankh-Morpork.
  • Carrot pre-emptively abdicates his position as the rightful King of Ankh-Morpork, and has even gone as far as killing someone who attempted to put him on the throne inMen at Arms and the subsequent novels in the City Watch sub-series.
  • Cohen the Barbarian, who became Emperor Cohen inInteresting Times, does this shortly beforeThe Last Hero. That said, it's a little ambiguous whether Cohen actually technicallyabdicated or just scarpered off. Given that his plans were to return the fire that was stolen from the gods (in the form of a large keg of the Discworld's equivalent of dynamite), bothering about formalities would have been rather overly pedantic.
• At the end ofDune Messiah,Emperor Paul Atreides leaves the throne after being overwhelmed by Chani's death and losing his prescience abilities when his twins were born. As per Fremen tradition, he walks toward the desert alone after he was blinded by a stone-burner during a failed assassination attempt. His sister, Alia, becomes regent for his children.
• The "Sheltered Aristocrat" called Chivalry does this at the beginning ofRobin Hobb'sFarseer trilogy, out of shame in having anillegitimate child.
• Forest Kingdom: In book 4 (Beyond the Blue Moon), Prince Rupert effectively does this by refusing to take the throne in his brother's place. His father, King John IV, also did so by faking his death in the aftermath of the Demon War and becoming a hermit.
• TheForgotten Realms novelCormyr includes the story of a Cormyrian king who was thoughtful and well-intentioned, but not strong enough to hold the throne. When he realized that even his own steward was plotting against him, he decided to screw tradition and abdicate in favor of his much more popular and better-suited sister.
• InThe Goblin Emperor, Lord Chavar and Sheveän try to force Maia to abdicate in favor of his nephew. It goes badly when Idra doesn't want the first thing to do with it.
• In theGone series, the leadership of Perdido Beach is like a game of musical chairs.
  • Caine waltzed in and took over, but left after the end ofGone. Sam then took over forHunger, and then got tired of the responsibility and gave the leadership to the Town Council inLies, run by Astrid. That turned out to be a disaster, so Sam returned as ofPlague. Sam then left again for the Lake Tramonto settlement at the end, so Caine came back and became the absolute ruler of Perdido Beach. That works for a little while, but only untilLight — Sam and Caine both leave to look for Gaia, so Edilio becomes the final Mayor of Perdido Beach, and actually maintains that position until the barrier comes down.
• Heralds of Valdemar:
  • In theMage Winds trilogy, Princess Elspeth abdicates her position as Heir in favor of her two younger half-siblings, reasoning that, as the first Herald-Mage in centuries and the only one currentlytrained to use magic, she will be obligated to take on duties that will be far too dangerous for the Heir.
  • At the end of the third book of theHerald Spy trilogy of the same series, King Kiril announces his intention to abdicate the throne in a few years' time in favor of his son and Heir Prince Sedric. By the time of the sequel trilogy (Family Spies), this abdication has taken place, making Kiril the first monarch of Valdemar in recent memory to ever retire from his duties and Sedric the first monarch to take the throne without the death of the previous monarch happening.
• This marks the start of the story inHow a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom when King Albert abdicates in favor of our protagonist Kazuya, believing his knowledge can greatly improve the kingdom. He even betroths his daughter Liscia to Kazuya to make it more official, making him theirHeir-In-Law. Kazuya indeed does a great job.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • In the Second Age, the Kings of Númenor normally abdicated in favor of their heir well before "laying down their lives" (i.e.: voluntarily dying). This is because as Númenóreans didn't get diseases and lived for hundreds of years, their sons would be old men by the time they died, so it became tradition to abdicate when their heir reached his full manhood. It is a sign of the kingdom's moral deterioration when they cease doing this.
  • 3,000 years after the fall of Númenor, their distant descendant Aragorn (who is the last heir of the royal house of Gondor, in turn descended from a cadet branch of the royal house of Númenor) restores this tradition as High King of Arnor and Gondor, abdicating the throne to his son Eldarion before voluntarily dying.
• The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess:
  • Prior to the story, Princess Anisphia of Palettia renounces her claim to the throne. Between being aMuggle Born of Mages, the resultant bad reputation, her desire to focus on her magicology research, and her brother Algard being a magical prodigy, she thought it best to step aside and smooth the way over for her younger brother to take the helm. Unknown to her or anyone else, Algard greatly resented this decision, and would lead him to take actions that would kick off the plot, first and foremost ending his engagement to Euphyllia.
  • Following the failure of Algard's schemes, and his subsequent banishment from the kingdom, Anis is placed back into the role of heir to the throne, whether she likes it or not. Euphie, knowing Anis doesn't want the throne, considers the drastic step ofcontracting with the Spirits, an act that will give her a claim to the throne as well asmake her immortal, but gradually cost Euphie her emotions and humanity. The two fight a duel over the matter, withEuphie winning and claiming the throne. After all is said and done, not only doesAnis not have to worry about ruling, her parents are also able to abdicate and the former king takes up gardening like he always wanted to do.
• Max & the Midknights: The Tower of Time: After her father, King Rotgut of Klunk, is made Cap'n Scab's new cabin boy, Emeline is able to inherit his throne. However, she turns it down, saying that the people of Klunk can choose their own leader, and that she wants a change of pace.
• Muddle Earth (Stewart):The Horned Baron does this at the very end of the novel, so that he can be with hisOld Flame Fifi. He passes his horned crown to his assistant Benson, who also gets Ingrid. However, this appears to have been ignored in the sequel, which establishes that the wizards of Muddle Earth rose up to fill the ensuing power vacuum, and that the Horned Baron's castle is now being used as the headquarters of Randalf'sWizarding School Stinkyhogs (with Ingrid still being the school's landlady).
• InThe Priory of the Orange Tree, several Berethnet queens have abdicated before death in Inysh history. Sabran contemplates the possibility herself.In the end, after the Nameless One is permanently defeated, Sabran decides that she will spend the next ten years restructuring the government into something like a republic and then abdicate, using the public justification that the Berethnets have fulfilled their holy responsibility (even though privately they know that the line wasn't holy after all).
• Record of Lodoss War: The Crown of the Covenant: Crown Prince Creed of Marmo refuses to take the throne in the first chapter, preferring to remain a priest of Falaris. Second Prince Alucia is crowned King of Marmo in his place.
• Red Queen:After fending off an invasion by the Lakelands, Cal chooses to abdicate and abolish the Nortan monarchy, turning it into a republic. This is partly because he wants to bring democracy to Norta, and partly because he wants to be with Mare, who has explicitly rejected the possibility of becoming his queen.
• Safehold: In book 9,At the Sign of Triumph,King Rahnyld III of Dohlar is forced to abdicate in favour of his teenage son byLywys Gardynyr, Earl of Thirsk, who takes the position of First Councillor and throws the Inquisition out of the kingdom. Also in book 9,Grand Vicar Erek XVII steps down and Rhobair Duchairn becomes the new Grand Vicar, though it's not clear if this was a forced abdication or voluntary.
• Son Of A Liche: King Handor mentions "There’s nothing left for me now but to confess my sins and abdicate the throne.” after a failure in Chapter 16.
• InA Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Discussed. Robert Baratheon confesses to his friend (and current Hand) Ned Stark that he would like to cross the Narrow Sea to Essos and live as a highly paid sellsword (mercenary). What's stopping him?The thought of his son Joffrey as king, though it later turns out Joffrey isn't Robert's son. Robert dies before finding out. Considering the fact that Joffrey made a mess of the kingdom, Robert was in the right not to give up the throne to Joffrey, tragically, though only delayed the disaster Joffrey caused, and his death led to the ruin of the kingdom.
  Robert: Let me tell you a secret, Ned. More than once, I have dreamed of giving up the crown. Take ship for the Free Cities with my horse and my hammer, spend my time warring and whoring,that's what I was made for. The sellsword king, how the singers would love me. You know what stops me? The thought ofJoffrey on the throne, withCersei standing behind him,whispering in his ear.
  • A variant with Prince Duncan Targaryen, the eldest son of Aegon V and a one-time heir apparent to the Iron Throne, who willingly gave up his claim so he could marry Jenny of Oldstones, a commoner from the Riverlands. Like so many other tropes, the series deconstructs this; by deciding toMarry for Love, Duncan directly caused a rebellion from House Baratheon (he was previously betrothed to a Baratheon lady, and her father was pissed that he suddenly broke the deal) and indirectly caused the fall of House Targaryen (the throne passed to Duncan's immediate younger brother, Jaehaerys II, who would conceiveAerys II).
• Space Brat: Effectively what Skippy does at the end of book 4 — he'd been the Grand High Dip, but since the other Dips believe they have their Lost Lord of Silliness back, they don't have any problem with Skippy leaving with Blork and co. (or even notice him doing so, really) once the crew's ship is repaired.
• Star Wars Expanded Universe: In "Master & Apprentice" Queen Fanry abdicates the Pijali throne after her attempt to seize absolute power failed. She was succeeded by her cousin Lamia, who herself only reigned as Queen long enough to sign treaties setting up a new government, freeing slaves in the system, outlawing slavery, and then abolishing the monarchy forever.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Jedi Apprentice hasThe Mark of the Crown, in which a ruler is converting her planet from a monarchy to a democracy. She will abdicate in favor of whomever wins the election. It's not going as smoothly as planned, so she calls in some Jedi to help with the process.
  • InStarfighters of Adumar, due to the Adumari honor code theperator of Cartann refuses to surrender in order to end the war. He is convinced to abdicate in favor of his son, whoalso refuses to surrender, but who does agree to a peace treaty.
• The Stormlight Archive:
  • Words of Radiance: When King Elhokar goes on a rant about how he's a terrible king, he asks Kaladin what he should do. Kaladin bluntly tells him that he should abdicate in favor of his uncle Dalinar. Even in his drunk and self-pitying state, Elhokar finds that a step too far. Kaladin, it should be noted, was having an even worse day than Elhokar; normally he's notquite so blunt, and he lateraccepts that Elhokar is at least trying, and doesn't deserve to be assassinated by one of Kaladin's subordinates.
  • Ironically, Elhokar does end up abdicating... for about fifteen minutes.Kaladin hid him in The Lopen's house, and Elhokar abdicated so thatthey could say that King Elhokar was not in the building. The Lopen was king for those fifteen minutes before abdicating in favor of Elhokar again.
  • Oathbringer: Adolin spends much of the book worried about his place in the world, since his father is close to abdicating control of the princedom to him. This gets worse whenElhokar dies, and Adolin realizes thatwith his father removing himself from the line of succession and Elhokar's son too young, Adolin is going to end up as king. He has a discussion with Azure, a woman fromanother world who gave up her throne, and she says that sometimes the most responsible thing is to give up a responsibility that you know you can't handle.In the end, Adolin refuses the throne, and Elhokar's older sister Jasnah (who was originally skipped in the line of succession) becomes queen.
• In Fiona Patton'sTales of the Branion Realm, it is illegal for the sovereign to abdicate, since he is theavatar of a god and the avatar is automatically the secular ruler as well. One sovereign does abdicate, but he's an apostate who turned to a different religion, and the followers of the original religion regard this as shirking his duty. In another book, the Crown Prince offers to abdicate, knowing full well it would mean execution.
• The finalWham Line ofThe Uncommon Reader thatElizabeth II abdicated so that she could write a book.
  Queen Elizabeth: (to her assembled cabinet) Why do you think you're all here?
• Warrior Cats:
  • Pinestar, leader ofThunderClan, left the Clan to become a kittypet (house cat) near the end of his life. (This is also one of the motivations behind his son,Tigerstar's hatred of kittypets.)
  • InShadow, Bramblestar is haunted by his experience in the Dark Forest and struggling to get through each day, so knowing that he isn't a good leader forThunderClan anymore, announces his decision to step down from the leadership role and retire to the elders' den.
  • InThe Elders' Quest, afterSkyClan votes to demote Leafstar, she willingly decides to step down before the other leaders can vote on it.
• InThe Westmark Trilogy as soon asMickle remembered that she was heir to the throne, she expressed a wish to abdicate.She doesn't actually abdicate until the end of the third book, because before then she didn't trust any individual with running the country; after the common citizens of the country spontaneously rose up to ousta usurper, she decided to abdicate in their favor and turn the kingdom into a republic.
• InThe Wheel of Time,the Queen of Andor secretly abdicates her throne in favor of her daughter,Elayne, after being forced to abandon her nation. It contributes nothing to the plot (since everyone thinks she's dead anyway) —Elayne still has to deal with aSuccession Crisis — but it adds a little bit of secret justice to the cause, from the reader's point of view, anyway.
• Occurs several times in theXanth series.Good Magician Humphrey served as king for several decades before tiring of the job and abdicating to the Storm King. Magician Trent (the Storm King's successor) would later abdicate to his son-in-law, Dor.
• Young Wizards: InWizards at War, King Nelaid of Wellakh abdicates his throne because he's had enough ofThe Chains of Commanding and being a target for assassination just for existing, even though his family work hard to protect the planet... so he gifts all of that to his 15-year-old son. Nice, Nelaid.

• Edward VIII's real-life abdication of the throne of the United Kingdom is a constant background event for the first three seasons ofThe Crown, a shadow looming over the Royal Family until Uncle David finally died. One episode of the first season even opened with a dramatisation of his broadcast after abdication (which provides the page quote).
• Doctor Who: "The Beast Below" sets up an impossible choice for Queen Liz X: abdicate her thronein order to free the star-whale providing the ship with its propulsion and doom her citizens or forget what she has learned and continue her rule.Fortunately, Amy realizes that the whale will stay because it wants to help them so she forces the queen to hit the "abdicate" button, but nothing changes.
• In the season six finale ofGame of Thrones, Tommenfalls into despair after the Great Sept of Baelor is destroyed in a wildfire explosion. He realizes that he had failed as a king. Once he is alone, he quietly removes his crown and leaves it behind for whoever is foolish enough to want it.Then he calmly walks out the window.
• Goodbye My Princess: In the epilogue Cheng Yin abdicates and gives the throne to his nephew.
• In a moment of panic, Prince Arthur fromMerlin offers to give up the throne in order to save Guinevere from beingburnt at the stake.
• The Other Kingdom: Petrithon was next in line to be the ruler of Athenia once, but he stepped down in order to stay together with a woman in the mortal world and permanently adapted his human alias Peter Quince, leaving his younger brother Oberon to be the next king by default.
• Near the end ofStar Trek: Deep Space Nine,Worf becomes Chancellor of the Klingon Empire after killing the increasingly corrupt Gowron. His chancellorship lasts about a minute before he places the cloak on the shoulders of hisblood brother,General Martok.
• Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms: Long before the series starts, Dong Hua Dijun abdicated in favour of the current Heavenly Lord. He still lives in the Nine Heavens and keeps an eye on things, though.
• At one point inThe Windsors, Prince Harry fundamentally misunderstands the concept. After he becomes aware of "Edward of Vee-One-One-One's" abdication to marry Wallis Simpson after watchingThe Crown, he becomes convinced he's going to have to abdicate and move to France to marry Meghan Markle, not getting it's only something an actual crowned head can do.

• The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ:
  • An interesting example when King Mosiah voluntarily discontinues the Nephite monarchy entirely so that the people can instead be ruled by elected judges. He does this after having seen a local Nephite offshoot state being made slaves to the Lamanites, having lost God's protection when they fell into sinful ways following the example of a single wicked king. He technically doesn't abdicate himself, since he remains king for the (fairly short) remainder of his life, but that was mostly to ease the transition.
  • Alma, the first chief judge (essentially the elected president) of the Nephites gives up his position after only five years. He does this to focus his time and energy on teaching the people to repent seeing how they are lapsing into sin because of pride and wealth again, and they need God on their side to defend against the repeated and intensifying Lamanite invasions.
  • Alma's great-grandson Nephi later does something similar, handing over the judgement seat to Cezoram and going out to preach with his brother Lehi.

• The second half ofKing Charles III sees various forces trying to getPrince Charles to abdicate before his official coronation. He does, when faced with the combined prospect of his sons publicly disavowing him & cutting off all contact with his grandchildren, and with Parliament stripping away the minuscule sliver of executive power left to the monarchy. The throne passes to his son William, but not before Charles makes a scene at the coronation and totally subverts what was meant to be anAwesome Moment of Crowning.
• Oedipus the King: Oedipus at the end of his play has to abdicate after discoveringhe murdered his father and married his mother. The resulting power vacuum this leaves results in war, the deaths of his sons, and the plot ofAntigone.
• William Shakespeare:
  • BothRichard II andHenry VI Part 3 have forced abdications.
  • The plot ofKing Lear is kicked off when the king decides to abdicate (in fact if not in name) and must decide how to divide the kingdom among his potential heirs. To a Jacobean audience this would be disturbing as many people considered the King the link between man and God, and the play shows the natural order being disrupted.
  • Likewise, when Henry VI is placed back on the throne, he does the same as Lear: abdicatesde facto and gives the ruling of the state to two of his supporters.

• InRocket Age some Martian Principalities have ways of doing this without losing face, such as deliberately losing a duel to a "challenger".

• Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore:During her coronation in the ending cutscene, Arzette thanks everyone for the various ways they helped her on her quest to defeat Daimur, and announces she's not accepting the position of Queen, and will instead be instilling democracy in Faramore.
• BloodStorm:Fallout's ending has him, about to become the new High Emperor, instead wander off and be never heard from again. This causes the provinces he was meant to lead from tearing each other apart in a violent global war.
• BlueSkies: When it turns outSkye is the true prince of Gemeid, Caven willingly gives up his status as crown prince to Skye and acts as his champion. However, in the epilogue, Skye passes the throne to Caven in order towander the planet as a traveling healer.
• InDark Souls II and beyond, the First Flame that keeps the universe alive is referred to as a throne, both literally and metaphorically. Each time a hero rises up to become the Lord of the world, they must sacrifice themselves to that throne. Dark Souls 2 is a story of King Vendrick, who refused to take that throne, while Dark Souls 3 requires the player hunting down previous lords who have wandered away from their thrones. To the credit of the Lords of Cinder from 3, two of them (The Abyss Watchers and Yhorm the Giant) had gone mad due to the Abyss in the former case and the destruction of his homeland in the latter, while Aldrich is an evilBlob Monster dedicated to his Age of the Deep. Prince Lothric refused to sit on the throne in the first place, sparking the plot of the third game (the awakening of the aforementioned previous Lords and when all but one wandered away, the awakening of the Ashen Ones, including the protagonist.)
• Dragon Quest III, after returning his stolen crown to the King of Romaly, he declares you the new King and abdicates. Unfortunately, as King, you have no power to do anything or even leave the city limits to continue your quest. The only thing you can do is find the former King gambling in the casino and ask him to retake his throne. Pointless diversion from the game, or lesson about how having power doesn't make you important? You decide.
  • The first time this happens his advisor reveals thisisn't the first time it's happened, and that he himself has been made King five times. You can come back later and ask the King to give you the crown again (which of course means eventually you have to abdicateagain in order to leave), as many times as you'd like.
• Not quite a monarch, but inFallout 3, depending on how you choose to complete it, a quest half way through the game where you return to Vault 101 can lead to the overseer giving his position up to his more reasonable daughter. Although this doesn't change the fact she still has to forbid you from returning to live in the vault,reluctantly.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Nanamo Ul Namo, the sultana of Ul'dah, becomes disillusioned at the fact that she is essentially a ruler in name only, unable to help her people while the Monetarist factions prioritized profit over the well-being of their fellow citizens. To that end, she plans to abdicate the throne, dissolving the Royalists and Monetarists and paving the way for a democratic Ul'dah.Her plan, unfortunately, is halted by a Monetarist plot to assassinate her. While she survives the attempt, other pressing matters prevent her from abdicating the throne for some time.
  • Gulool Ja Ja, the Dawnservant of Tural, plans to step down from rule due to his advancing age. He is hosting a contest to select his successor; whomever finds the fabledCity of Gold will become the next Dawnservant.
• Fire Emblem:
  • At the end ofFire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, Sheena, Nyna, and Minerva all renounce their thrones to Marth, leading him to unite the continent under his rule.
  • At the end ofFire Emblem: Radiant Dawn:
    • Micaiah discovers that she is actually Sanaki's long-lost older sister and the rightful Empress of Begnion, but abdicates that throne to go restore order in Daein.
    • If Pelleas is still alive, he abdicates the Daein throne to Micaiah. Justified since 1. his claim to the throne, that he was the prior king Ashnard's long-lost orphan, was a lie (albeit one that he himself genuinely believed) and 2. despite his good intentions, he was... well, completely unfit to actually be the King, which nearly led to the complete annihilation of Daeinand pretty much destroyed his life. Since Micaiah ismuch better cut for the job, Pelleas chooses to stay around but as one of her advisors, which fits him much better.
    • If Skrimir is alive at the end, his uncle Caineghis abdicates the throne of Gallia after the end of the war so he can pass it on to Skrimir. If Skrimir is dead, Caineghis remains king of Gallia.
    • Renning, by technicality. He was supposed to be next in line for the Crimean throne before his niece, Elincia, was born. The court decided to keep Elincia's existence hidden from the public eye in order to prevent a succession crisis from happening in Crimea. However, when the Mad King's War began, he was thought to be killed and Elincia eventually becamequeen. It is eventually discovered that he was alive, albeit controlled by aPsycho Serum and under the name Bertram, and is cured by a galdr. However, despite his return and the possibility of him claiming the throne, he steps down and instead serves as Elincia's adviser.
  • Fire Emblem Fates:
    • In theBirthright route,after Xander's death in the war, his half-sister Camilla is next in line for the throne. However, she chooses to abdicate and leave the throne to her younger brother Leo; it's implied that she feels sheisn't cut to be the Queen, whereasLeois.^note Interestingly, one of the alts for Camilla inFire Emblem Heroes is a version of her thatdid become Queen of Nohr, hinting that in one timeline she didn't relinquish her claim...orcouldn't.
    • In theRevelation path,Corrin's best friend Azura has the greater claim to the Vallite throne than Corrin him/herself, being the true princess rather than the child of a usurper. She decides to pass the Kingdom over to them, though, unless Male!Corrin marries her; in that case, he gains the throne by marriageand they rule together.
  • InFire Emblem: Three Houses:
    • If Claude is still alive at the end of the game, he renounces his title of Duke Rieganand returns to his homeland Almyra to become its king. In his paired ending with Lysithea,he renounces the Almyran throne and goes on a journey to find a way to cure her shortened lifespan; in his paired ending with Shamir,after completing his goals of reform, he renounces the Almyran throne and vanishes on a journey with Shamir.
    • If Petra is paired with Male!Byleth at the end of the game, she renounces the Brigid throne to be with him.
    • Most of Edelgard's paired endings mention her eventually abdicating as emperor and passing the throne to an unnamed successor.
• Galaxy Angel: If you follow Shiva's sub-route, at the end of the game she will forgo taking the throne in favor of continuing to train under Shatoyarn in the White Moon, and the Transbaal Empire will reform as a republic with Comodore Luft as its first president.This scenario is rendered non-canon in subsequent installments, as Shiva is shown to have taken the throne and the Transbaal Empire continues to exist as such.
• Several of the nobles' schemes inKing of the Castle include an option to force the King to abdicate in favour of their chosen claimant if they succeed; this isn't always a bad thing for the King.
  • The Ascension scheme entails the Counts of the East persuading the King to join a secret society of immortal vampires in exchange for the crown. If the scheme succeeds, the King is won over by the idea thatLiving Forever Is Awesome and happily yields the throne to the Counts' claimant.
  • Multiple schemes, including the Modernization scheme (in which the Barons of the March reform the military and then leads it on the capital), the Conspiracy scheme (in which the Patricians of the Coast bury the Kingdom in debts it cannot repay), and the Subterfuge scheme (in which one of the factions gradually replaces the King's inner circle with their own nobles), can result in the King being obliged to surrender the throne, but the winning region will offer them a subsidised existence as a sheep farmer. If they accept, the King finds the pastoral life hard work and secretly misses being on the throne at times, but ultimately decides their new situation has its pleasures.
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has two examples:
  • Sometime between now and theprevious game, Impa retired as head of Kakariko Village and named her teenaged grandaughter Paya as the new chief, with Paya's diary mentioning that the act was very spontaneous on Impa's part. Much of Paya's story revolves around her doubts about her ability as a leader.
  • Kaneli, the elder of the Rito, retired and left his position to Teba.
  • The conclusion of the Zora's Domain quest seesthe elderly King Dorephan abdicate the Zora throne. His son Sidon and his new wife thus ascend as the new Zora king and queen.
• Like a Dragon
  • InYakuza, Kiryu maneuvers his way into becoming the Fourth Chairman of the Tojo Clan just long enough to stop the clan civil war before he resigns and gives the title to Terada. Even if he was only Chairman for all of fifteen minutes, he's still treated with massive respect by other ranking members of the Clan.
  • An even bigger version of this happens inYakuza: Like a Dragon, where Daigo Dojima and Masaru Watase,Chairmen of the Tojo and Omi respectively both not only step down butoutright disband their organizations with plans to reform their organizations into private security firms, partly because they believe the time of organized crime remaining in power is coming to an end as well as to avoid remaining under the thumb of the Governor of Tokyo.
  • Another example fromYakuza: Like a Dragon happens with Tianyou Zhao of the Yokohama Liumang.After Mabuchi's treachery leads him to defect to the Omi Alliance, taking a considerable chunk of the Liumang's manpower with him, Zhao decides to step down and let Seong-hui take the reins of what remains of both the Liumang and the Geomijul.
• Some of the possible endings ofOgre Battle: March of the Black Queen haveTristan give up the throne in favor of the player character, because the people wanthir (their liberator) to serve.
• Pokémon:
  • Pokémon Gold and Silver: In the three-year timeskip between these games andRed and Blue, Red (the player character of Red and Blue) decided to quit being the champion and go live as a hermit on Mt Silver. In his absence, the strongest of the Elite Four, Lance, was promoted to Champion, and remains such until he is defeated by Ethan, the player character of these games. In a bizarre player-driven example ofGameplay and Story Integration, Lance is generally considered to be among the easier champions in the series. Which is appropriate because he's the only one who didn'tearn it, only having the title because the guy whodid earn it got bored and quit.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield:Sordward and Shielbert, who claim to be descended from Galarian royalty, upon being defeated for the final time by the player character, relinquish their claim to the Galarian throne to the player character. Rather downplayed as by this time there hasn't been a throne to claim in centuries.
• In theQuest for Glory series of games, the character Rakeesh is the rightful ruler of the land of Tarna, but gives up the throne to become apaladin.
• RomancingSaGa 2: In theRevenge of the Seven remake, the current emperor is able to abdicate, allowing the player to pick a new one from a selection of heirs. The drawback is that the player can only do this once per generation and not twice in a row. There's alsoone of the possible results of the Comroon Island scenario: should the emperor fail to prevent/allows Mt Comroon to erupt destroying Tsukjima and Zemio in the process, they will abdicate after taking full responsibility for the disaster.
• In10 Days with My Devil, Kakeru Kamui is the heir to the throne of the demon realm, and his younger brother Meguru is theSpare to the Throne. When their father the Demon King sentences Kakeru to death for meddling in the lives of humans, Meguru abdicates his claim on the throne, forcing the Demon King to spare Kakeru in order to avoid aSuccession Crisis.
• InTriangle Strategy, Lord Symon steps down due to his failing health, making Serenoa the ruling Lord of House Wolffort a bit sooner than originally planned.
• InTyranny, with sufficient Lore skills (or if you founda legal document mentioning this law) this can be invoked as a form ofLoophole Abuse in order to end a royal line with comparatively little bloodshed. Specifically,when it's revealed that the ruler of Stalwart has an infant grandchild, you can tell the child's mother that since she's technically the regent she can abdicate on her daughter's behalf and thus avoid having to murder an infant. Your superiors will note that while you certainly got the job done via the letter of the law, they do not appreciate your blatant dismissal of the intent.
• Undertale: During some Neutral endings of the game (especially if you've killed some monsters) lead Undyne, if she was left alive, to lead a revolution against Toriel and her new practices. When Toriel realizes this, she peacefully abdicates and banishes herself back to the Ruins. Depending on whether or not Papyrus is alive, he'll either welcome you to come back, or Sans will essentially tell you to go to Hell.
• Xenogears: After former King Bart liberates Aveh from the ruthless dictator Shakahn, he decides to abdicate the throne in favor of a republic according to his late father's will.

• InDino Attack RPG,despite being next in line as alpha of the Adventurers' Island T. rex pack, Rex knew that this would conflict with his duties to Dino Attack Team, and so Abdicated the Throne in favor of letting Chompy, his oldest sibling, rule in his stead.

• Drowtales:
  • In Chapter 49, Vala'drielle decides to abdicate the leadership of the Kyorl'solenurn clan to Anahid. Played with in that the position was always rightfully Anahid's, but Valla'drielle had been appointed before Anahid could properly claim it by the Judicators, who at this point are almost all dead.
  • Quain'tana Val'Sarghress also expresses a desire to do this and go out adventuring in the world one last time before her body gets too old.She never gets the chance.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: Sometime during theUniversal War, oneDemiurge — aMaster Swordswoman, peerless general, and despoiler of twenty thousand worlds — abandoned her throne for unknown reasons towanderThe Multiverse as the drunken mendicant knight "Auntie Maya". Her successorIncubus is disrespected by the other Demiurges for not winning power the "proper" way in a tide of blood and carnage.
• King Jeff of Hilla abdicates to an impatient barbarianas an excuse to go on vacation inLatchkey Kingdom. At the end of the arc, the barbarian decides to abdicate in turn, or at least not seek to reclaim the crown — realizing that while the throne's given him the opportunity to solve everyoneelse's problems, he hasn't had any time to solve hisown.
• League of Super Redundant Heroes:Kurgh the Conqueror discovered he had very little opposition to rule Shitropolis. The abdication consisted of the mayor gleefully saying "this mess isyour problem now!" and running away laughing and clutching aBriefcase Full of Money. Kurgh's actually been quite a decent mayor since.
• A Magical Roommate: the rulers of Umbria abdicate the throne to their children when either the king or the queen dies, since it's a rule that the royalty may not rule without a companion.
• InSailor Moon Cosmos Arc, after Usagi becomes Sailor Cosmos and ascends to godhood Endymion relinquishes his claim to the throne to take Helios's place as priest of Elysion, so Helios could be with Chibiusa.

• Alfred J. Kwak:Frans Ferdinand, who never wanted to be king in the first place, eventually steps down to turn Waterland into a republic.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • A semi-example: on two occasions,Iroh has a chance to challenge his brother,Ozai, to be Fire Lord: right after their father's death (the audience knows for a fact that the father wanted Iroh to succeed him), and during the final battle at the end of the series. Both times he refuses: the first time most likely because he's stilldevastated by the death of his son, and later because he feels Ozai's son,Zuko, should be Fire Lord instead, officially renouncing his claim to the throne.
    • Played With again during theGrand Finale, whenFire Lord Ozai passes the title of Fire Lord toAzula; however, this is because he intends to conquer the entire world and give himself a new title,Phoenix King.
  • InThe Legend of Korra (Sequel Series to the above), Zuko's daughter is Fire Lord, whileZuko, now an old man,abdicated to become a worldwide ambassador of peace instead.
    • Also, in the second seasonTonraq apparently decides not to contest hisniece and nephew's right to the Northern Water Tribe throne, despite now knowing thattheir father stole it. He is selected Chief of the Southern Tribe instead, but at least he's allowed to return to his homeland anytime he wants, and has done so once.
    • At the end of the the fourth season,Prince Wu abandons his claim to the Earth Kingdom throne, with the intent of letting it become a republic with elected leaders. The sequel comicsThe Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire explores it further;Prince Wu comes to realize his country is in a precarious state, and he was forcing the Earth Kingdom into democracy too quickly so he resolves to keep the throne to help manage the transition, even if it will take his whole lifetime.
• Prince Wally does it so that he can run for President on an early episode ofKim Possible. It is a big case ofProphecies Are Always Right: It has been foretold that his country's royal line will end at Prince Wally. Instead of being assassinated as the characters assume, he opts to abdicate after being impressed with American democracy.
• In the season one finale ofThe Legend of Vox Machina, Sovereign Uriel, after being manipulated byGeneral Krieg and flat out mind controled bythe Briarwoods, decides to succede control of Emon to the city council, having decided that it'd be harder to manipulate a council of leaders than a single absolute ruler.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Gauntlet of Fire": Torch starts the contest for the new Dragon Lord because dragon customs dictate that he must abdicate the throne after having ruled for the time that he has. At the end,Spike completes the challenge and thus lawfully becomes the new Lord himself, but passes the Bloodstone Scepter to Ember as she is more capable of being Dragon Lord than he is and he has no desire to stay in the dragon lands. Spike only participated in the first place because he wanted to make sure Torch's successor wouldn't wage war on pony kind for petty reasons, which he knows Ember won't do, and he was only able to obtain the scepter in the first place because she held off Garble for him.
  • In "The Beginning of the End: Part 1", Celestia and Luna announcing their retirement as rulers and dub Twilight as their successor. The original plan was to do this effective immediately, but the episode's events — including Twilight's own panic, as she had no inkling of these plans until this point — convince them to delay the abdication until Twilight has finished preparing herself.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: Season 2's "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie" serves asA Day in the Limelight for theCerritoss chief engineer, Andy Billups...who is actually Prince Andarithio of the planet Hysperia (which is home to dragons, and apparently got colonized by a bunch ofRenaissance Fair enthusiasts). But hehated being a prince, and prefers being an engineer in Starfleet, much to the annoyance ofhis mother,Queen Paolana. Their succession laws are that, if the crown prince has sex, he immediately accedes to the throne; ergo, Paolana hasrepeatedly attempted to get her son to have sex (which Billups has steadfastly avoided; it's quite possible he might beasexual). This time around, she fakes technical malfunctions and then causes part of her flagship to explode, seemingly killing her and forcing Billups to take the throne. Tendi and Rutherford, however, serve as aSpanner in the Works and end up uncovering the plot. Fortunately for them, Billups had trouble"rising" to the occasion (his mom had bragged earlier that her bodyguards were trained to skip foreplay, so that probably didn't help), and remains onboard theCerritos.
• Steven Universe:"A Single Pale Rose" revealed that Pink Diamond's assassination six thousand years ago was actually an elaborateFaking the Dead plot so she could abdicate and hand control of Earth to humanity. She previously tried to abdicate normally, but her fellow Diamonds overruled her.
• The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries: Some lions wanted to depose their King because their food reserves (read: game) were running low. The King wouldn't mind abdicating except that it wasn't allowed. He had to die before a new King rose. He instead tricked Sylvester into switching places with him. (Which was posible thanks toPaper-Thin Disguise)The food was eventually found inside the cave of a lion who planned tousurp the throne but decided the current King wasn't all that bad when compared to Sylvester.
• In theTeen Titans (2003) episode "Betrothed", it is revealed that Starfire is the crown princess of her planet, Tamaran, as she was in the comics. After agreeing to an arranged marriage (a Tamaranian custom, as she is quick to inform Robin of), finding out that her husband is a slimy, flatulentEldritch Abomination, that the whole marriage was engineered by her criminal older sister, Blackfire, who seized the throne and agreed to trade Starfire to the blob people for aMacGuffin to boost her powers, and finally taking the throne back from Blackfire by force and banishing her from the planet, Starfire abdicates the throne and gives the crown to her male nanny, Galfore, "the hands that raised her when she was very small".
• In theTom Terrific story arc "Go West, Young Manfred," Tom and Mighty Manfred are in the old west helping a prospector get to the California gold rush. Manfred is taken in by a tribe of Indians from a dance of pain he did after landing on some cacti. He abdicates after Tom sways him with some goodies and an extra-soft mattress.
  Manfred: Dear fellow native Americans...it behooves me on this great occasion to leave the home of my redskin blood brothers for the home of tiny paleface Tom Terrific, who needs me on his next really great adventure. Farewell, kemosabes!
  Indian: Kemowho??

• TheUnited Kingdom:
  • Edward VIII abdicated in 1936, less than a year into his reign. He was determined to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson and keep the throne. Not only did divorce carry great stigma at the time, but the King was supposed to be the head of the Church of England, who taught that marrying after divorce was wrong if the divorced partner was still alive.^note Bear in mind that neither of the two previously "divorced" English kings remarried while their divorced queens were still alive. The two wivesHenry VIII had "divorced" (Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves) actually had their marriages annulled (declared void from the start) rather than terminated by divorce (accepted as valid but declared ended). (His marriage to Catherine was annulled on the grounds that she was his brother Arthur's widow, which was questionable at best as the Pope had granted an exemption from the rule against such marriages; this is a big part of why Henry was so keen to reject Papal authority, since if the Pope lacked power to give dispensations then the annulment of his marriage to Catherine was not just possible but required. The annulment regarding Anne was on rather firmer grounds of non-consummation, as he was apparently unimpressed by her after meeting her in person). Meanwhile,George I (who had divorced his wife Sophia Dorothea sixteen years before inheriting the throne) never remarried after the divorce, choosing instead to take mistresses—well,a mistress, Melusine von der Schulenberg, who was to all intents his wife and whom he made Duchess of Kendal in her own right to have an excuse to seat her near him at social events. Moreover, no English or British monarch since the Reformation had attempted to marry a divorcé(e); indeed, until Edward VIII's great-nephewCharles III married Camilla in 2005, the only confirmed instance of a British or English monarch or heir apparent taking a previously-married consort with a living ex-spouse is the marriage ofHenry II toEleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor having previously had her marriage toLouis VII of France annulled. (An alarming number of pre-Reformation — indeed, mostly pre-Conquest — consorts were widowed before marrying the king — sometimessuspciously soon before marrying the king — but none save Eleanor were divorcees or annullees.) He didn't really fancy being King anyway, and for its part the British establishment didn’t fancy him being King either (he was known to have Nazi sympathies, but the wider public didn't find out until decades after). So that's OK.Here is his speech announcing the decision to his former subjects.
    • This is probably why Britain is just about the only country where any talk of abdication is considered a bad thing.Elizabeth II lived to be 96, far older than everyone below, and had no intentions whatsoever of abdicating, pledging at 21 that "[her] whole life, whether it be long or short", would be devoted to the service of her country — a pledge she fulfilled until her dying day,^note Extremely literally—she diedtwo days after receivingLiz Truss to kiss hands, meaning she performed the main political role of the monarch during her final illness. and an example which her son, KingCharles III, has rather emphatically declared that he is going to follow. We should also note that Elizabeth remembered Edward VIII's abdication, as she was not only alive at the time (she was 10) but made acutely aware of the fact that this was why she was Queen (her father, King George VI, was Edward's younger brother, who never expected or wanted to be king and quite possibly died before his time because of it), or at least why she was Queen in 1952 rather than, say, sometime in the 1970s. Most sources indicated that she was not entirely happy with the circumstances that led to her eventual accession.
    • Also compounding the issue of abdication in Britain is the fact that technically, the monarchcannot abdicate without the consent of Parliament -- and of every one of the parliaments or governments of the other Commonwealth Realms — because of the old British and typical Commonwealth rule that Parliament alone is permitted to decide the succession to the throne, and that includes who currently sits on it. It's unlikely that a monarch intending to abdicate would be denied, but even if they were just trying to retire and there was no hint of scandal, the effort it would take to get all the necessary approvals would be, if not daunting, then very annoying.^note If you want an idea of how annoying it could get, it tookfour years after the Perth Agreement decided to change the succession laws for all the realms to agree to it — Australia being the holdout because one of the states (ironically, Western Australia, i.e. the one whose capital is the very city of Perth where the agreement was made) justdidn't get around to debating it until 2015, their explanation being more or less "erm, we forgot". The same approvals to change the succession laws would be needed for any royal abdication to be effective — the latter merely being a species of the former in the Commonwealth law of royal succession.
    • Finally, the issue of abdication in the UK is complicated still more by the fact that the United Kingdom is the only extant European monarchy to still practice a true coronation rite (as opposed to the secular investiture or oath-swearing now used elsewhere). In essence, Elizabeth II andCharles III are monarchs anointed and consecrated to God and to the service of their kingdom, and Their Majesties take that oathvery seriously. (No anointed English or British monarch has ever willingly abdicated;^note Coerced abdications are another matter Edward VIII abdicated before he was formally crowned and therefore before he was anointed or took any of the major holy oaths, thereby making the abdicationslightly less unforgivable in the eyes of Palace tradition.)
    • In fact, Edward was explicitly warned by Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin that if he went ahead with marrying Simpson, then the government wouldResign in Protest, triggering a constitutional crisis.
  • Other English/British monarchs have abdicated, but only under duress:
    • Edward II abdicated in 1327, at swordpoint after a coup orchestrated by his wife Isabella of France and her lover Sir Roger Mortimer. The pair had led an invading army from the Netherlands that met little resistance after landing in England, largely because the English aristocracy was heartily sick of Edward. Parliament quickly ratified the coup and sent a deputation to the king giving him a choice: Voluntarily abdicate, and have your son recognised as King and yourself given a pension befitting a retired monarch, or refuse to abdicate and not only be killed but also possibly see your son set aside in favour of Mortimer as King. Edward swallowed his pride and abdicated. (He was later assassinated, likely on Isabella and Mortimer's orders.)
    • Officially, Richard II willingly abdicated in favour of his cousin Henry IV Bolingbroke. Unofficially, Bolingbroke had led a successful revolt against Richard, and Richard was a prisoner in the Tower of London when he supposedly relinquished the throne. Super-unofficially it's not even clear if Richard II actually consented to any act of abdication, and in any case he was executed within six months of being deposed.
    • James II was deemed to have abdicated (by fleeing the country and tossing the Great Seal of the Realm in the Thames) in 1688at gunpoint after a coup orchestrated by his daughter Mary and her husband William, Prince of Orange. The pair had led an invading army from the Netherlands that met little resistance after landing in England, largely because practically everyone in England was heartily sick of James. Parliament had actually pretty much invited William and Mary to invade, and when James ran off they ratified the coup by declaring that the flight plus the thing with the seal had legally amounted to an abdication, whether or not James intended it as such. This one was later called the "Glorious Revolution" because it permanently sealed Parliament's right to settle the succession, at least practically (legally this would not be established until the Act of Settlement 1701) and is largely seen as the origin point of the modernBritish Political System, even if it did lack some of the key features (e.g. the office ofPrime Minister would not appear for another 30 years, and then only because George I barely spoke English).
• Sweden:
  • Queen Christina abdicated her throne in 1654 in favor of her cousin Charles X Gustav to convert to Catholicism and go live in Italy.
  • Queen Ulrika Eleonora abdicated in 1720 after having been Queen of Sweden for little more than a year. She still remained a queen after abdicating, however — the abdication agreement with the Riksdag made herhusband, Frederick I, the reigning king, making her the queen consort (and heir to the throne if he predeceased her, although that did not happen). All indications are shewanted to be a reigning queen, but she wanted her husband to be officially involved with affairs of state even more, so when a co-monarchy was denied an abdication was agreed upon.
• Queen Wilhelmina ofThe Netherlands abdicated in favor of her daughter Juliana in 1948. Decades later (in 1980), Juliana did the same for her daughter Beatrix; who in turn stepped down in 2013 favor of her son Willem-Alexander. Considering Willem I's abdication in 1840 in favor of his son Willem II (like Edward VIII, there was a woman involved), far more post-Napoleonic Dutch monarchs have stepped down than died in office and this may safely be considered a tradition.
• TsaristRussia:
  • Ivan the Terrible also pulled this once, but it was actually aBatmanGambit to get the non-boyars to acquiesce to his boyar-slaughtering Oprichnina.
  • TheFebruary Revolution of 1917 gives us two exampleswithin 24 hours, 15-16 March (2-3 March Old Style) 1917:
    • The reigning Emperor,Nicholas II, realized on 15 March that he had no practical choice but to abdicate. However, he did not abdicate and leave the throne vacant; after some heming and hawing, he abdicated in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, hoping to preserve the Tsarist regime.^note The heming and hawing this time taking the form of him first abdicating in favor of his son Alexei with Michael as regent, at around 3 p.m., and then changing his mind a few minutes short of midnight and giving the throne entirely to Michael. This kind of indecision wasexactly why he just wasn't a great emperor. At the time, this didn't seem insane; many had joined the revolution primarily because they thought Nicholas (and his wife) had runthe Russian war effort incompetently, and were at least in theory fine with the continuation of the Romanov monarchy in some form. If he (and not the regime) was the problem, then his abdication was the solution (and thereby preserve the regime). Though it pained him—as he'd spent his whole lifeconvinced that he had beenchosen by God to reign in Russia—even Nicholas could see the logic, andever loyal to the institution of Russian monarchy, he abdicated, handing the throne to the Grand Duke.
    • The Grand Duke—a much savvier political operator than his older brother—nevertheless recognized two main points: (1) Even the people who were OK with a continued Romanov monarchy "in some form" wanted that form to be constitutional (not necessarily full parliamentary monarchy, but with a far stronger role for the ministers and the elected Duma than Nicholas had ever allowed). (2) Revolutionary politics being what it is, the question of Russia's political constitution would have to be committed to some kind of popularly-elected convention (barring any major changes). Therefore, the day after his brother's abdication, Grand Duke Michael proclaimed that he would not accept the throne until an elected Constituent Assembly had offered it to him, and that in the meantime the Provisional Government that had coalesced around the former Imperial Duma would run the country and war effort.^note Further proving that he was far too out-of-touch to be governing, Nicholas saw this proclamation as a craven capitulation to the mob rather than a calculated move to save the monarchy. It's clear that Michael hoped that the eventual Constituent Assembly would settle on a Romanov-headed constitutional monarchy with himself as Emperor and Nicholas and his family living quietly in the countryside;^note Or, at worst, somewhere in their cousins' realms of England or Denmark, or maybe Canada, if needed to convince the public that Romanov absolutism really was gone for good. indeed, as of early 1917, this seemed like the most likely outcome. Even if that didn't work, all indications were that a republican regime in Russia would probably leave the Romanovs alone—at worst, they'd be exiled to live with their cousins in Britain or Denmark. But events remained tumultuous, and then the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, and things only went downhill for the Romanovs from there...
• Diocletian, the EasternRoman Emperor. The resignation was the capstone of reforms aimed at making the transition of power more orderly. It didn't work, and the generation after him was plagued by civil war.
  • When begged to come out of retirement and end the conflict, he refused saying "If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed."
• Charles V,Holy Roman Emperor, who was also Charles I of Spain, retired to a monastery in Extremadura in western Spain when he was tired of beingThe Emperor- not to be a monk, for he continued to live in unmonastic luxury. Rather, because the area also made a rather decent ad-hoc villa and perhaps because he liked the company of monks more than that of courtiers. He left the Spanish throne to his son Phillip II and the Holy Roman Empire to his brother Ferdinand I.
• Lucius Cornelius Sulla, who as a Roman dictator was king in all but name, "retired" after a while, but only after securing that his legislation wouldn't be challenged and making sure the majority of the Roman senate were chosen by himself.Julius Caesar said that he was politically illiterate for doing so, but we know what happened to him when he showed no sign of giving up the post... This trope, in any case, was required of dictators in the Republic, and Cincinnatus earned fame and admiration for doing so earlier than required.
• A number ofpopes in the Catholic Church have resigned:
  • TheLiberian Catalogue, a list of popes from Popes St. Peter to Liberius, cites St. Pontian as the first pope to resign, stepping down on 28 September 235 after being exiled to Sardinia by emperor Maximinus Thrax.
  • Pope St. Celestine V stepped down on 13 December 1294, citing a desire to return to life as a hermit and lack of administrative experience. It is said thatDante Alighieri had him in mind when pointing him out as the damned soul who made the "Great Refusal" because his abdication made way for Dante's most hated arch-nemesis, Pope Boniface VIII, but that cannot be known with certainty.
  • Pope Gregory XII became pope on the express condition that he resigns the papacy if Antipope Benedict XIII does so too. This is so aconclave would elect a new pope and end the Western Schism. He stepped down on 4 July 1415.
  • Pope Benedict XVI was the most recent pope to resign, abdicating the papacy on 28 February 2013, leading to the election of Francis. He was the first to do so since Pope Gregory XII, and the first to do so voluntarily since Pope St. Celestine V.
• Ottoman EmperorMurad II resigned in 1444 in favor of his12-year-old sonMehmed. A couple of years later the latter realized he was in over his head and sent a message spelling things out for his father:
  "If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan, I hereby order you to come and leadmy armies."
  • Mehmed did prove himself eventually; he didn't earn the sobriquet "The Conqueror" for nothing, after all,having ended theByzantine Empire in 1453 among other accomplishments.
• In 2013, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani ofQatar stepped down and turned the throne over to his son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
• Belgium has had two abdications since World War II:
  • In 1951, King Leopold III abdicated in favor of his eldest son Baudouin in order to avoid the outright abolition of the Belgian monarchy. Leopold was widely suspected of having collaborated with the German occupation during the war, and the installation of his more popular son as King was needed to avert catastrophe for the royal family.
  • In 2013, King Albert II, the second son of Leopold III, (who had succeeded his older brother Baudouin when he died childless in 1993) stepped down effective in favor of his eldest child Philippe/Filip/Philipp. Unlike his father, who abdicated in response to a precarious political situation, Albert was 79 at the time and cited health reasons for his decision, which is easy enough to believe, though it also may have had to do with a paternity case involving his illegitimate daughter^note then known asJonkvrouw Delphine Boël, she was granted the status of a Belgian princess and the style of "Her Royal Highness" after Albert II was confirmed to be her biological father following DNA testing. at the time.
• Dom Pedro I, the founding emperor of Brazil did it twice, in two different countries. He was originally the Portuguese Crown Prince who was left in charge of Brazil after the Napoleonic Wars (during which the Portuguese monarchy took refuge in its Brazilian colony). After reorganizing the country based on liberal principles, Pedro declared Brazil independent and made himself its constitutional monarch. This did not keep him from succeeding to the Portuguese throne in 1826, but, after a short while, he abdicated the Portuguese throne and passed it on to his daughter. He abdicated from the Brazilian throne, however, when his daughter in Portugal was overthrown by the reactionaries in 1831 and went to Portugal to lead liberal forces. He is known as "the Liberator" in both Portugal and Brazil, but his tendency to suddenly abdicate caused much confusion in politics of both countries, to say the least, and contributed to the reactionary rebellions in both countries.
  • His sonDom Pedro II was also forced to abdicate the Brazilian crown in a highly unusual situation: after implementingabolition of slavery he had lost the support of the rich and wealthy class, who began pushing for a Republican government to replace the Empire. Pedro II did not resist, as he himself grew tired of ruling for over 50 years (he was crowned asa 14-year old) and so the Republic was established in a practically bloodless coup, despite him having the full support of both the people and the recently freed slaves (who equated the monarchy with freedom for his role in the abolition) who did not wish to see him deposed.
• Effective 19 June 2014, then-76-year-oldKing Juan Carlos of Spain, who had reigned since 1975, officially handed the reins over to his son Felipe (VI). This had less to do with feeling his age (unofficially) than a growing discontentment with allegations of lavish living (including big game hunting in Africa) and corruption. He now lives in an unofficial exile in the United Arab Emirates, which haven't exactly helped with the allegations of corruption.
• Subverted with KaiserWilhelm II of Germany. In the final stages ofWorld War I, the German government were fearing revolution could break out, as the German people might be inspired by the Russian revolution against the tsar. Therefore, they made the announcement the Kaiser abdicated the throne, in favor of a new German republic. Unfortunately for Wilhelm, this happened without his permission. When he heard the news at his retreat in Belgium, he knew everything was lost. Fearing for his life as his home country might hand him over to the allies to be tried, Wilhelm fled to the neutral Netherlands to live out the rest of his days there. He died in exile in 1941, while the Netherlands were under occupation byNazi Germany.
• This happened repeatedly in Japanese history. Reigning emperors would rule for a few years, get tired of the endless rituals they were required to perform, and retire in favor of a son to live in luxury and actually wieldmore power thanthe current Emperor. Sometimes there would be three or four such retired Emperors around,all of them running their own schemes.
  • For much of Japanese history, the Emperor's "rule" was a fiction; shoguns and other lords for centuries ruled large swaths of Japan (albeit in the Emperor's name) while the Emperor himself was more often seen as areligious leader and icon than a temporal ruler. Indeed, so much of the Emperor's time was spent on rituals that were, in honesty, so repetitive and boring that they didn't leave much time for actual rulership. Many times, an Emperor would abdicate in favor of a pubescent child who would go through the rituals because the adults told him to, who would then be allowed to abdicate himself sometime in his late teens or early twenties to a well earned retirement so that he could do something productive with his life.
    • After decades of consolidating power in Sengoku-era Japan,Tokugawa Ieyasu was officially appointed Shogun in 1603. After just two years he abdicated and passed on the shogunate to his son to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Though he officially retired, Ieyasu still had power until his death in 1616.
  • In modern days, the situation of Japan's monarchy has vastly shifted. In centuries past, Japan was flush with eligible nobility to succeed to the crown, with succession guidelines being very fluid, at times following a Saudi Arabian-like system where brothers or cousins of the late monarch would gain the throne rather than said monarch's own children. This system led to the creation of several cadet branches of the Imperial family, along with entirely separate eligible families. With Japan's defeat in World War II, however, the Constitution was rewritten to eliminate many traditional aristocratic privileges, with succession to the crown limited to direct male-line heirs of the reigning Emperor, the abolishment of Imperial status of all other cadet families, and the removal of Imperial status from all female members who marry outside the royal family. This had the unintended side effect of drastically reducing the available pool of possible successors, as many members of the royal family had no children, or very few, and many of them female^comparisonTo compare with the United Kingdom, with all the children and grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth eligible, along with descendants of her sister, those of her uncles, those of her grandparents and their children, and so forth back through the generations, the number of those eligible for the British crown, even if only technically, numbers several thousand. As of 2025, assuming no changes to the laws of eligibility, the number of possible successors to reigning Emperor Naruhito is exactlythree: His younger brother, his nephew, and his uncle, a man already in his late 80s. Emperor Akihito caused waves worldwide when he made a televised address containing blatant hints that he wished to abdicate in favor of his son due to health reasons, not only because this would require a change in the existing law while post-WWII Constitutional custom makes it not only discouraged but nearlyforbidden for the monarch to comment on the laws and politics of his country, but because there were so few members of the royal family eligible to take his place. The Japanese government eventually passed a one-off bill in the Diet that began the process of Akihito handing over responsibilities to Crown Prince Naruhito, with the formal handover occurring in 2019.
• Since being raised to a Grand Duchy, Luxembourg has, like the Netherlands, seen more monarchs retire than die "in harness".^note Being in a personal union with the Netherlands had relatively little to do with it, since that ended after only three rulers. Adolphe (having inherited in 1890 when he was well into his 70s) and Guillaume IV (who outlived his father by only seven years) reigned for life, but since then? Marie-Adélaïdeabdicated under a cloud afterWorld War I when she was not quite 25 (1919), her kid sister Charlotte was pushing 70 when she quit 19 years after returning home with the exiled government afterWorld War II (1964), and the latter's son Jean handed things over to his son Henri in 2000 at the age of 79. In turn, Henri announced in his 2024 Christmas speech to the nation that he will abdicate in favor of his oldest son, who will become Guillaume V in October 2025, by which time Henri will be 70.
• Victor Emmanuel III ofItaly abdicated in 1946 (after having ceded the actualpowers of the king to his heir in 1944), probably in a ploy to boost the monarchy's popularity in face of the impending republican referendum. If so, it didn't work — Umberto II was king for forty days,accepting the results and peacefully stepping down.
• Queen Margrethe II of Denmark announced her intention to abdicate the throne in favor of her son and heir, Crown Prince Frederik (now Frederik X), on December 31, 2023 in her yearly televised New Year's address to the nation, stating that her abdication would formally take place two weeks later, on January 14, 2024, the 52nd anniversary of her accession to the Danish Throne. The announcement came much to the shock of the Danish public, as Queen Margrethe had repeatedly stated over the course of her 52-year reign that she intended to remain on the throne until she fell off it. In her New Year's address she said that a major back surgery she had in February 2023 had given her time to reflect on her reign and whether or not she could continue into the future, which she evidently felt she could not.
  • Before her, the only other Danish monarch to abdicate voluntarily was Eric III Lamb in1146, before his death later that year. It is understood that he may have done so either from an illness which eventually killed him, or due to a realization of being unable to govern. In any case, his abdication triggered a war of succession in Denmark, fought between claimants Sweyn III, Canute V and Valdemar I.

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Billups Was a Prince

Billups reveals he abdicated his birthright as prince to be an engineer in Starfleet. His mother has been trying to undo that decision.

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