Aristocrat
He was born into the rooms most heroes have to break into — and the rooms aren't what they look like.
The aristocrat hero comes to the story already inside it: a lord, a duke's son, a noble of the third tier with a small estate and large debts. Tyrion Lannister, the assorted dukes of K. J. Parker's quietly murderous setting, every Regency-flavored fantasy with proper titles and improper magic — the archetype works because his class gives him access the genre's outsiders have to fight for, and the fight changes shape: now it is over inheritance, over influence, over which fork is the salad fork at a state dinner that ends in poisoning.
The appeal is the manners and the menace under them. Expect dynastic intrigue, marriages calculated to the copper, drawing-room scenes with knives under the table, and a hero whose weapons are letters of credit and family debts. He is not necessarily a good man, but he understands his world from the top. This is the archetype for readers who want their fantasy in silks, with a hero born to the very politics the genre usually breaks open.
- Dynastic and drawing-room intrigue
- Manners with menace underneath
- Inherited access and inherited cost
- Silks-and-knives political register
