With the King of Spain recently abdicating and handing the throne over to his son, we
thought it be a good time to look in on our world's real life Game Of Thrones.
I for one have a bunch of questions?
First off, Spain has a king?
Who knew?
What other nations have kings?
Ten?
Twelve?
Nope.
WAY MORE!
45 nations have monarchs.
45 nations!
But don't get too excited.
16 of those, including the UK, are commonwealth realms like Canada or Australia that recognize
Queen Elizabeth The Second as their Monarch, so there actually aren't that many people
who could be considered "Kings", or queens, or Emirs, or Sultans...or whatever, we're
just going to say "kings" to make this simple.
In total, there are 30.
And two of them split the Kingship of Andorra.
The vast majority are part of constitutional monarchies, and largely act as ceremonial
figureheads.
But who cares about those!
Where are our real Game Of Thrones style kings?
The ones with absolute power and blood rights to the throne?
YOU WIN OR YOU DIE!
Well, Saudi Arabia's king has almost absolute power.
He has to follow Sharia Law, and take advice from a council of other family members.
Plus, the line of succession doesn't necessarily go from the father to the son.
The royal family as a whole can decide to pass someone over if there's a better fit
waiting in the wings.
The king of Swaziland technically has absolute power, but also has to manage an elaborate
parliamentary system, which is partially elected and partially assigned by himself.
Plus, there is a co-king of sorts who handles "spiritual" aspects of his reign.
But it looks like that person has little to no power.
Bahrain claims to be a constitutional monarchy, but from what we can tell, Bahrain's king
has absolute power and is committing a ton of human right's violations.
Not cool, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah.
Not Cool.
The United Arab Emirates is led by a Federal Supreme Council of seven Emirs but the Presidency
of the council is inherited, and from what we can tell, he has almost absolute power,
making them more of a hereditary monarchy in the traditional sense than a council.
The Sultan of Brunei has absolute power and is a king in the "I rule everything and can
do whatever I want" Game of Thrones type of way.
So is the Sultan of Oman and the Emir of Qatar.
All three nations have parliaments or councils that do some advising, but they are totally
controlled by the king.
The king has absolute power, and when the King dies his next of kin will take over.
There is one final King with absolute power...
The Pope.
He is technically the monarch of Vatican City, which is its own nation.
He can by decree do whatever he wants.
But when we say Game Of Thrones type king, we don't mean the pope.
Plus, the Pope can't even have kids so the heredity thing is out the window.
If you'd like to learn more fun stuff check out our video on what the true meaning of
the word "Jihad" is.
The answer is much more positive than you might think.
Or click on the other box to get up to date information on the current lethal injection
debacle.
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Oh, and a Lannister always pays his debts.