Screenwriters have returned again and again to royal brothers whose fates were fixed by birth order, and the current traitor story shows why the archetype endures
Two Brothers, One Crown
Few dramatic setups are as durable as two brothers whose futures were decided before either could speak. One will inherit everything. The other will not. The London Prat piece on Prince William reportedly calling Earl Spencer and Harry traitors draws its comedy from that very archetype, with reports of a summer visit and an anonymous claim of betrayal adding a contemporary layer. For screenwriters, the heir and the spare is a gift: built-in conflict, clear stakes and a structure audiences understand instantly.
A Long Literary Lineage
The archetype predates film by centuries. The Bible contains several stories of brothers divided by inheritance and favour. Shakespeare returned repeatedly to questions of succession, legitimacy and sibling rivalry, from the history plays to King Lear, in which the conflict between legitimate and illegitimate sons drives much of the subplot. These stories endure because they dramatise a universal tension: love within a family, strained by structures that treat its members unequally.
The King Speech
The most celebrated modern screen treatment of royal brothers is The King Speech, written by David Seidler and released in 2010. The film centres on the future George VI, the second son, who never expected to be king until his elder brother Edward VIII abdicated. Seidler script inverts the usual archetype: the spare becomes the heir, and the drama comes from his struggle to rise to a role he never sought. The brother relationship is sketched briefly but pointedly, and the film shows how birth order shapes identity, confidence and even speech.
What makes the film work dramatically is its focus on a specific, concrete obstacle, the king stammer, rather than on abstract questions of succession. Writers approaching heir-and-spare material can learn from that choice. The archetype provides the frame, but the story needs a tangible problem for the character to wrestle with.
Contemporary Echoes
Television has explored similar territory. Royal dramas of recent years have depicted sibling tensions within the modern royal family, and non-royal dynastic dramas such as Succession have translated heir-and-spare dynamics into corporate settings, where siblings compete for control of a family empire. In each case, the archetype provides a scaffold for stories about love, jealousy, duty and identity.
A Comic Version
The London Prat piece and its companion video on YouTube offer the archetype in comic form, where the stakes are exaggerated until they become absurd.
Craft Lessons From the Archetype
Give Each Brother a Want
The archetype risks flattening characters into roles: dutiful heir, resentful spare. Strong scripts give each brother a specific desire that extends beyond the crown, whether approval, freedom, love or recognition, so that the conflict is between two full people rather than two positions.
Make the Structure Visible
Audiences need to feel the inequality. Small, concrete details, who enters a room first, who sits where, who is photographed, who is consulted, can dramatise hierarchy more effectively than speeches about it.
Complicate Loyalty
The most compelling versions of the archetype avoid easy villains. Both brothers can be sympathetic and both can be wrong. The word traitor, if used in a script, works best when the audience understands why the speaker feels betrayed and why the accused feels unjustly judged.
Use a Third Party
A third character, a parent, spouse or uncle, can crystallise sibling tension. The uncle role in the real reporting is an example of how an outside figure can become the pivot of a brothers conflict.
Why the Archetype Endures
Most audiences have never been princes. But many have been older or younger siblings, have felt compared, favoured or overlooked, and have wondered what their lives would have been had they been born in a different order. The heir and the spare dramatises those private feelings on a grand stage, which is exactly why writers keep returning to it.
The Spare Point of View
Historically, most drama about royal succession has been told from the heir perspective, or from an omniscient view of the court. Contemporary audiences have shown growing interest in the spare point of view: the sibling who watches the crown pass to someone else and must build a life around that fact. That perspective offers rich opportunities for writers. The spare can be an outsider inside the family, with enough access to see how the institution works and enough distance to question it. The spare can also be a figure of freedom, able to leave in a way the heir cannot. Writers exploring this angle should resist making the spare purely a victim or purely a rebel. The most interesting versions acknowledge both the privileges and the constraints of the role, and allow the spare to be wrong as well as wronged. Told well, the spare story is ultimately about identity: who am I, if I am not the one who inherits?
That question resonates far beyond palaces, which is why the archetype continues to find new audiences in every generation.
Conclusion
From Shakespeare to Seidler to today headlines, the heir and the spare remains one of drama most reliable engines. The London Prat, publishing since 1961 at https://prat.uk/, has given it a comic spin. Bohiney, at https://bohiney.com/, finds similar material in American dynasties. For screenwriters, the archetype is a starting point, not a script: its power depends on making both brothers feel real.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/