TL;DR Legend of Zelda's monarchy is probably matriarchal, likely despite Nintendo's intentions what with the way they're always writing a reigning king.
I am once again overthinking videogame logic. Falling down a small rabbit hole this morning about the fascinating and sorta cool lore that has been (almost certainly accidentally) implied in the Zelda universe. As you do. Mostly regarding the whole titles/governance situation going on in Hyrule and especially re. BOTW Zelda's whole situation.
Recently read a Zelink fic (excellent! I enjoyed immensely!) set post-TOTK in a world where Zelda and Link got married, and the concept of monarchy had been re-established enough that they had titles, if not always used. And by sheer vibes alone, I fully agree with the assessment that Link's correct title in that scenario would be His Royal Highness/Prince Consort (i.e. not a king). That is absolutely how it would work by English rules in this scenario. The idea is that marrying someone doesn't automatically put them into the line of succession. A Queen regnant's husband becomes a Consort (e.g. Prince Consort) and a King's wife becomes a Queen Consort, etc. (Why can Kings make Queens (if not independently ruling ones) but Queens can't make kings? Honestly sexism imo but there is a logic to it that I'll get back to) But it sure got me thinking.
Because the thing is, Rhoam (and also every other Princess Zelda's Dad ever) has the title of "King" and is, by all appearances, the actual reigning monarch, rather than a regent. In a lot of other Zelda games where there's a King, there's a little wiggle room here; we're a little vague on previous generations, so it's possible that the king was in fact the inheriting ruler, the line of the goddess just skipped a generation with him, but was fully inherited by Zelda, whose mother was the one to marry into the royal line. Okay, cool, already way more thought than Nintendo ever expects us to put into it etc. etc. But then you get to BOTW, where it is canonically established that it was Zelda's mother who previously carried the legacy and powers of the royal family, and things start getting really interesting. Because that implies that it was King Rhoam who married into the family and was not previously royalty.
By English monarchy rules (to my understanding anyway), from which Nintendo is likely to be pulling a lot of their fantasy monarchy vibes, that means that Rhoam was not the next ruler in line. At most he might be governing while Zelda's still a child, but under the title of Regent, and not as a King. In addition, as I understand, Zelda would have gone from Princess to Queen the instant her mother died, title-wise, regardless of who is actually governing in practice(to avoid a succession gap; the Queen is dead, long live the Queen, etc.), and she would have been expected to take the throne once she comes of age. Canonically in BOTW, none of this appears to be true. Zelda is most definitely still a princess, and moreover, there's no talk at all of her taking the throne when she comes of age, which is implied to be at 17 (that she would, in this scenario, have been expecting a coronation on the day the calamity emerged is *also* a wild concept, btw). That Rhoam is instead treated as a full reigning king, whose rule itself resolves any succession gap, and with no expectation Zelda will take the throne until he dies or abdicates, is probably also lowkey sexist in that this fictional monarchy running entirely on vibes defaults to the actual Person In Charge being the older man by default. But if you apply actual functional monarchy logic to this situation (which was definitely not intended to support it, and is absolutely a fantasy monarchy running entirely on vibes) then you actually get some very fun worldbuilding implications to play with.
I've been of the opinion for a while that Hyrule's government, treated seriously, would lean significantly more towards the matriarchal. This is a world which worships exclusively female goddesses, in which the magical (and in more recent titles, religious) powers associated with the right/responsibilities of rule is passed down through the female line. And this whole situation actually seems, paradoxically, to support that idea! This in itself could explain how, at the very least, Zelda's dad could be called a king. Traditionally, in our world, a Queen Regnant's husband does not (usually) become a "king consort", but rather a prince consort or some other title, specifically because the title of king implies ruling, and so avoiding the title of "king" is avoided for a husband who is not supposed to ever outrank the queen or take up independent ruling power, because there is an implicit societal assumption that between a man and a woman who hold titles of equal standing, the man will be the superior. So because it's assumed that Men Being In Charge is the default state of affairs, it's important to specify that a queen in charge doesn't have a king, but a king in charge can have a queen, which doesn't threaten his power in the same way. Yeah, implicit gender bias: good times. But in, say, the world of Zelda, where this kind of implicit gendered hierarchy is pretty much nonexistent, it would follow that this society would have no such hesitations about naming the Queen's husband a king. 'Sure, the Queen can have a king. Of course it's still the Queen in charge, obviously? It's usually always a queen in charge? A king in charge is a weird outlier.'
This in itself doesn't fully answer why Rhoam could seamlessly become the actual ruler of the kingdom though. Even if he was king consort, that still wouldn't, by most real world monarchy standards, put him in the line of succession. The most likely reason he could become a king in full after his wife died, IMO, is if the couple actually had a coregency situation going on, before. Basically, in marrying him, the Queen also, then or later, decided to give her husband ruling powers. So, they were both rulers in charge. Which again, seems to be how vibes-based fantasy monarchies in general tend to just assume things work by default, but is actually super not common in real functional monarchies. Partly because it's usually a good idea to have one specific person in charge. It would explain how Rhoam could simply... continue being King after his wife died without it being treated as more of a change, though. Given that most monarchs in the Legend of Zelda franchise are single for the entire time we know them, it's hard to say whether this is actually the default MO for ruling couples (I have thoughts about Rauru and Sonia in light of all this and some other things and it would not take much to convince me to write those up, too, but that's a separate essay) but it sure is a juicy concept to think that Zelda's parents, specifically, or royal couples in general, in this world, choose to go with coregency (or have even made that the default in this specific fantasy government) partly in case of this exact scenario: to try and avoid putting the weight of rule on the shoulders of the next generation's young inheritor of the goddess powers before she's of age and had time to figure out the necessary skills. That concept sure gets complicated and interesting on a character level for BOTW Zelda who was... not well-served, in practice, by being only a princess under her father's rule, rather than a child queen in her own right.
But that situation does also imply, again, a lot of power on Zelda's mother's part. Unless (or even if) the coregency thing is the assumed default tradition for Hyrulean royal marriages, then that implies that Zelda's mother is able to either unilaterally just decide to give someone ruling power, or, if this is a constitutional monarchy of some kind, was able to get approval from some kind of parliament to do so. I tend to lean towards these fantasy monarchs just having a lot of unilateral power, given that this is also, at least at this point in the timeline, a bit of a "divine right to rule" situation, but either way, it again implies a whole lot of power held on the part of queens in general in this world, who would pretty consistently be the ones inheriting the ruling title, given that the powers and title are passed down through the female line of the royal family.
Anyway! All this to say, I'm kinda fascinated by the fact that the implications of keeping BOTW Zelda a Princess who's still a significant distance from her own coronation despite inheriting her royal powers from her mother actually circle around, IMO, to implying a fairly powerful matriarchal bent in Hyrule's monarchy when things are functioning normally, and not dealing with a dead queen and a looming Calamity.
And, to circle back to the thing that got me thinking about this in the first place, the idea that Link marrying her would only make him a Prince Consort is actually very fun in this context because it implies either:
a) Post-BOTW Zelda is incorporating some kind of parliamentary government, etc. into her post-Calamity rebuilding efforts, such that she can't just unilaterally declare someone else to have ruling power. This being a change from how things operated pre-Calamity. Which is pretty cool and consistent of her, imo, especially while trying to reintroduce a central government to a world that's been operating as independent city states for a century.
and/or
b) Post-BOTW Link looked at the possibility of having the "King" title and went "no, absolutely not. Keep that away from me. No one is calling me 'Your Majesty'. 'Your Highness' is the most I will accept, and that only because I love you." Which is also pretty funny. I also enjoy imagining Link in this scenario chafing at potentially needing bodyguards, if they're rebuilding the monarchy and therefore, he becomes a royal who really should have some security on him. Because if he complains about even one (1) time, you know Zelda is going to hit him with the driest, most unsympathetic look ever seen on this planet like "Oh? Really? You don't enjoy being followed around for your safety? You wish you could just go do what you want without clearing it with someone? Imagine that. Go figure."
