Ok, so after listening for a modest amount to "Die With a Sword in my Hand" (8k or so), I noticed something.
Because the McFife boys are *Prince* of Fife, and Fife is a Kingdom, not a Principality. Which means that the highest rank would be King.
Now, I can see an argument that Angus I & II are both technically king, but use Prince for kingdom reclaiming reasons (the crown having transferred immediately on their predecessor's death).
But Angus V and XIII are both in reasonably stable eras when their adventures start - which would suggest that in both cases at least one parent is still alive. Probably both.
Besides raising the horror of those parents never finding out what happened to their sons, it also raises the question of where ARE they? Not even a video call considering that there is an eldrich thing running around in the body of a long time friend of the crown, and a great (something) grandfather (uncle) visiting?
Okay I've somehow managed to fight off both Thursday's new release sugar rush and yesterday's unexpected headache, so lemme see what you've got for me.
The way I see it, the "King" of Fife is only the king if he has a Fife to rule over, so it's possible that all the princes are just princes until they go through your time honoured rite of passage of liberating Fife from under Zarg's control OR rebuilding it after he blew it up tae fuck. There are Prerequisites.
I'm just making shit up as I go along here, but "For the king of Dundee" might mean less "for the actual king who exists out there somewhere" but more "for the future in which I'll get to be the king" or something like that. The king is like a symbol. The presence of one implies peace and stability.
For V, it's possible that he either isn't king yet in his time (living parent, older siblings) or automatically downgraded to princehood upon bailing out of Dundee to accept his destiny. XIII probably also downgraded when Zarg got defrosted. Essentially, kingly privileges revoked until you fix this mess, spaceboy. Notice that I'm not suggesting that he has older siblings to rule in his head - this man gives me MAJOR only child energy even if he does sing "I am the one, the chosen son." It might imply brothers, but to me personally it's just fancy speak for being destiny's favourite chewtoy which, as he'll later find out, isn't a good thing to be.
As for their parents, they're either deceased from old age, get killed at the beginning of album 2, or have ceded the crown to their offspring and kinda accepted that any kid named Angus will run the risk of having to poof somewhere to do something ridiculous. They probably went "you're destined to die in space hundreds of years from now? Yeah in hindsight we probably should've named you something else. Welp, good luck with that! Thank gods we had more children."
