After a Gladiator Winner learns he was abandoned from inheriting the throne, he searches for his banished parents to re-take the kingdom from their own kin.
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After a Gladiator Winner learns he was abandoned from inheriting the throne, he searches for his banished parents to re-take the kingdom from their own kin.
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“When he discovers he it the true ruler of the kingdom, a lowly gladiator, must find his exiled parents and retake the throne.”
Is this set in Rome or a fictional empire of old?
If it is Rome, you could leverage common knowledge of the political and military tensions the Roman empire was known for, much like in the film Gladiator, and not need too much explaining.
Secondly, while I think Richiev’ssuggestion is good, the inciting incident needs to be more powerful. Again considering Gladiator the inciting incident was big – the MC’s family where tortured and killed. I think your MC needs as strong a motivator, perhaps his brother is killed and that motivates him to seek revenge through which he discovers he is royalty etc…
The challenge is that this story will inevitably be compared to “Gladiator”. ?And one thing ?that the protagonist in “Gladiator” had going for it is he’s is not power hungry. ?Though he could become the most powerful man in Rome, Emperor if he wanted to, he doesn’t want to. ? He’s just a regular, and pious, family guy.
And although Maxiumus’s objective goal is ?initially to avenge the murder of his family, it transmutes into fighting for a more worthy cause, killing a despotic Emperor and restoring the Republic.
Why should we want the protagonist to seize power in this story? ?What makes him a better ruler than the one he is trying to dethrone??
After all, how bad is the reigning emperor if he allowed the person he overthrew to live when it was SOP in those less kinder and gentler times to kill the rulers who were overthrown — not allow them to ?go into exile, perchance, to fight another day?