Rebellious Princess



"Jasmine: I've never done a thing on my own. I've never had any real friends...

Rajah: *makes a surprised and offended growl*

Jasmine: Except you, Rajah! ...I've never even been outside the palace walls.

Sultan: But, Jasmine, you're a princess.

Jasmine: ...Then maybe I don't want to be a princess any more!"

- Disney's Aladdin

To the Rebellious Princess, being part of the royal family is overrated: You have no control over the path of your life, your responsibilities are numerous and burdensome (or not burdensome enough), you're generally under everyone's thumb, or you're destined to live unhappily in an Arranged Marriage. The only options are to throw off your frilly dress and to run off with the first hero who passes through (in old fashioned stories), or set off for Action Girl adventures on her own on the sly (in the modern ones), making her a royal who actually does something while she's at it.

The Rebellious Princess is usually a teenager, typically brash (since it goes hand in hand with being rebellious), and often blonde and/or has a Tomboyish Ponytail. If she's not the hero, quite often she's the hero's love interest. This will sometimes invoke Marry for Love not only as another way for her to rebel, but to also get out of an Arranged Marriage. Sometimes the Rebellious Princess is the White Magician Girl, but not always: in video games she can also be The Archer, the Black Magician Girl or the Lady of War. May also be a Politically Active Princess.

Somewhat more common in the earlier days of the RPG genre than they are now; their population has dwindled with the reduced number of games involving monarchies.

The Spear Counterpart is the Rebel Prince. Compare Modest Royalty. For characters a little lower on the social hierarchy, see Spirited Young Lady.

Contrast Princess Classic, Idle Rich.

Anime & Manga

 * Lucia Nanami of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch is the heroine, but doesn't understand nor appreciate her position -- so she just tries to do what she wants.
 * Gundam seems to have a fair number of these:
 * Cagalli Yula Athha in Gundam Seed is de facto the princess of the neutral state of Orb but runs off to wage guerrilla warfare against ZAFT in Africa. She is much less volatile in the sequel, Gundam Seed Destiny.
 * In G Gundam, we have the tomboyish and willful Maria Louise from Neo France doing lots of un-princess-like things to get the attention of her "Knight in League" and local Gundam Fighter, George de Sand. After she actually grows up and learns her lesson, Maria doesn't lose her spirit and does what she can to aid George and the Shuffle Alliance.
 * Relena Peacecraft/Darlian in Gundam Wing. Even after, she refuses to go along with 's plans, makes her own policy instead, and when she can't fully institute it she prefers to leave matters to  rather than being a puppet and bowing to the noblemen.
 * If we count the Deikun clan from Mobile Suit Gundam as royalty, then Zeon Zum Deikun's daughter and Char Aznable's/Casval Deikun's sister  fits the trope quite well.
 * Gundam Unicorn has, formerly a figurehead used by previous Neo Zeon movements, she's now decided to go out on her own to try to stop another war from breaking out.
 * Deconstructed with Princess Marina Ismail from Gundam 00. No matter what she tries to do, she's just a figurehead and never really accomplishes much despite her struggles..
 * Princess Fala in Go Lion. She doesn't actually run away, but has to go against her advisors (who even tied her up at the start to keep her from piloting the blue lion). Later, she gets her wish to join the team as their Chick.
 * She takes it a step further in a late episode, ultimately refusing a demand from fellow planetary sovereigns that she take full command of Go Lion. She is at last confident enough to lead a planet and an alliance of planets, but still be just a team member when it comes to the Super Robot, albeit designated as Black Lion's alternate pilot. Of course, her possible romantic feelings for Akira Kogane may play a role in that as well.
 * Farnese from Berserk is a deconstruction (although she's technically not a princess). She becomes rebellious and pyromaniac because her parents never paid any attention to her (when her father instructed her to burn an old toy of hers, her half-brother Serpico remarks that it was the first time her father spoke to her in a year). This earns her the social isolation it would realistically earn her, and she  out of frustration. She then gets shipped off to a convent and becomes the leader of the Church Militant because that's all the various nobles and churchmen believe her to be good for.
 * Princess Ana Medaiyu of Overman King Gainer becomes a willing hostage to have some fun, and play along with going on Exodus with the Yapan. Later she tries to returns, but decides to stay once her father publicly disowns her to protect her from London IMA in case the Duke's line is discontinued, for allowing such a large Exodus to take place.
 * Being the top-ranked priestess and direct conduit to the Purato god, JuJu of Mahoujin Guru Guru is as close to a princess as you can get without being actual royalty. She opts to run away and seek out the heroes after a Running Gag involving a Clingy MacGuffin makes things too ridiculous to tolerate at home.
 * Flora Skybloom from Basquash!, after feeling the pure hotbloodedness of Dan and the rest of his team from their Bigfoot basketball matches, escapes from her castle, hides her identity and makes her way into his inner circle.
 * Macross Frontier's Alto Saotome, while not technically royalty (nor female), counts. The heir to a well known family of Kabuki actors, he instead went and pursued his dream of becoming a pilot. It also helps that he really does look like a Japanese princess whenever we're shown a flashback of his kabuki days (there's a reason he's known as Sakura-hime).
 * Variation: Candace aka Candy from Candy Candy plays the role quite well, but she's a member of the extremely rich and high-class Andree family only after being adopted by the leader, and against the will of several other members.
 * Lala from To Love Ru runs away, to have control over who she marries.
 * The Vision of Escaflowne has Princess Millerna, who rebels against the desire of her father of marrying Dryden Fassa.
 * Code Geass has a few. Notably, Euphemia li Britannia disapproves of the social Darwinism found throughout The Empire, and makes a point of telling her sister Cornelia something along those lines, hinting that she'd even eye the throne at one point if it meant social reform. Lelouch, meanwhile, is literally a Rebel Prince against Britannia.
 * Played with in Corsair, where Aura is the princess of a pirate clan and already has the freedom most Rebellious Princesses want. She still rebels though, to the point where Canale knocks her out during a major attempt to rescue her because she refuses to place her safety above his own and go ahead without him. She also thinks she is The Hero's love interest, until Ayace callously tells her she can't marry Canale because they're lovers.
 * of Slayers After witnessing the assassination of her mother, she ran away from home on a quest to learn the ways of the world, become more powerful (she doesn't, but that really depends on the media), and drink. The Light Novel series implies that she does return to her home sporadically, and she even stays in contact with her loved ones, but more often than not for financial reasons. The anime more or less states that she hasn't returned at all,
 * All this trouble in Sailor Moon started because a certain Moon Princess chose to be with the Earth's Prince, against her entourage's advice.
 * Defied in Windaria. Veronica is set up to be this but reluctantly carries out her mother's will.

Comic Books

 * Destrii - the Primatrix Destriianatos - from Doctor Who Magazine. A decidedly different take on the trope, in that Destrii's a Dark Action Girl rebelling against her Evil Matriarch mother, and while her people see her as their heroine, she only wants to escape her dystopian homeworld. When she finally does, she has repeated run-ins with the Eighth Doctor, which eventually see her homeworld's nobility overthrown, her mother dead, and Destrii herself slowly starting a Heel Face Turn under the Doctor's tutelage.
 * Princess Aura, daughter of Ming The Merciless in Flash Gordon was rebelling all the way back in the 1930s. She was just as determined to marry Flash as Ming was to kill him. The fact that Dale Arden was Flash's love interest simply complicated things more.
 * Princess Sally from Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic. Several times in the comics, most recently her (annulled) marriage with Patch show her dislike for the duties and protocols associated with her position as princess. And often times she will have a rather stern word about it to the powers that be.
 * Original Wonder Woman comics. After Steve Trevor crashed on Paradise Island, a contest was held to determine which Amazon would return him to the outside world. Princess Diana wanted to enter the contest but her mother Queen Hippolyta forbade her to do so. Diana entered the contest in disguise and bested all of the other contestants, winning the right to leave.
 * Ninjette from Empowered is the Rebellious Ninja Princess of her clan.

Film

 * Gender-flipped in Ever After: Prince Henry does not want to have an Arranged Marriage and take on the duties of his kingdom. See Rebel Prince.
 * Outside of the interactive electronic oeuvre, practically every female protagonist in the Disney Animated Canon since The Little Mermaid The Black Cauldron has been of this type (Ariel, Jasmine, Pocahontas, etc. etc. etc.), possibly as a response to feminists complaining about how "Disney Princesses" had been treated previously (almost exclusively) as Distressed Damsels.
 * Kingdom Hearts adds emphasis to Belle (who elbowed Xaldin, took the rose from him and laughed as she ran) & Ariel (the Chemist of Kingdom Hearts). Everyone else got the short end of the stick though.
 * Kiara from The Lion King 2
 * Also Mulan, though she's technically not a princess. Su, Mei, and Ting-Ting from the sequel, on the other hand, are a more straight example of this: At the end of the film, rather than marrying the princes that live on the other side of China, they all instead hook up with Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po, respectively.
 * Merida from Brave plays this trope very, very straight.
 * According to the adverts, Princess Kyla of the flop movie Delgo.
 * Princess Ann in Roman Holiday, who runs away for a day in the city of Rome due to the pressure put upon her.
 * Princess Vespa from Spaceballs
 * Subversion: Princess Leia may be a rebel, but so is her father Bail.
 * But she  are still rebelling against.
 * The Princess Leia Diaries has her rebelling against social norms as well.
 * Jodhaa in Jodhaa Akbar definitely fits the bill. She's a beautiful Rajput princess who's not only an Action Girl who can hold her own in a sword fight against the Mughal emperor of Hindustan, but she also refuses to marry him (and after she marries him, show him outward affection) until he shows her and the rest of India religious tolerance.
 * Jen from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, though she isn't a princess, but a governor's daughter. She longed for an exciting life of adventure and didn't want to get married.
 * Princess Yuki in Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress which is the basis for the original Star Wars. She's a tomboy who always argues against and contradicts the loyal general (Toshiro Mifune) protecting her as they travel through enemy territory in disguise.
 * In Titanic Rose feels trapped, like an insect in amber, into marrying Cal for his money so much that she'd rather kill herself out of spite.

Literature
"dy Hueltar: (having caught up with Ista after the breaking of a sorcerous siege) "Now that you are calmer, Lady Ista, surely it is time we began to think of going safely to Valenda...."
 * Mia in The Princess Diaries is extremely displeased to find out that she's a princess, largely because of all the stereotypes associated with the position. Because what she rejecting is the chance to rule see Rebel Prince.
 * Jelka Tolonen in David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series borders on this, due to an Arranged Marriage
 * Princess Eilonwy from the Prydain Chronicles, whose outspokenness and rebelliousness at times border on childish brattishness.
 * And since Disney created The Film of the Book with The Black Cauldron, Eilonwy is also part of the previously listed Disney line-up. Given the above plus the fact that she predates Ariel, the Rebellious Disney Princess trope is Older Than They Think.
 * As we see in The High King, she apparently thinks that adventures and swordplay are just what princesses do. The ladies of the Court of Mona who were trying to teach her how to act like, well, a princess... they were the weird ones.
 * Well, she does say in The Book of Three that when her kinfolk, the Sea People, went to war, the women rode out with the men.
 * Although the title "princess" is not used in the world of Patricia a McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy, the heroine Raederle certainly fits the description of a rebellious one. As do Lyra and Tristan, her traveling companions in the second volume, Heir of Sea and Fire.
 * Ista from Lois McMaster Bujold's Paladin of Souls would fit this almost perfectly were it not for the detail of being a forty year old widow and mother of the young queen. She started out guilting her keepers *cough* attendants into permitting her an incognito vacation *ahem* pilgrimage, and by the end....

Ista: "I'm not going back to Valenda. I'm going to follow the army into Jokona to hunt demons for the Bastard. Safety has little to do with the god's chores.""


 * Her other series, the Vorkosigan Saga, has Emperor Gregor, who's almost a male version of this in The Vor Game, partly because he's suicidal and afraid of going insane and being a horrible ruler. He gets over it.
 * Ce'Nedra from David and Leigh Eddings' Belgariad series certainly has the attitude and the love interest bit down, but she actually loves being a princess -- one of her major problems with marrying Garion was the fact that, as Overlord of the West, he outranked her.
 * She did run away from home with only her personal tutor though, simply because a treaty required that she present herself in her wedding gown at the throne of the Rivan King to be betrothed to him on her sixteenth birthday. She thought it was completely pointless and humiliating, because there hadn't been a Rivan King in hundreds of years. She is, of course, found by the group that includes Garion -- who is the heir to the Rivan throne.
 * Princess Andromeda (Andie) in the second book of Mercedes Lackey's Five Hundred Kingdoms novels. Subverted slightly in that Andie is led to rebellion by her intelligence and virtue, as the Queen and her Chief Advisor have nothing but bad intentions.
 * This is a world where tropes have a force stronger than law itself. The Queen and her advisor couldn't have been good, and the book says so.
 * Princess Cimorene from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles - early in the first book, she intentionally gets herself "kidnapped" by a dragon in order to escape her current life and an Arranged Marriage. Before this she insisted on her teachers teaching her things not normally covered: magic, cooking, politics, fencing, Latin, etc. She also fights off many of the princes and knights to come to rescue her herself to prevent them from bringing her home, and changes her official title (among the dragons) to "Chief Cook and Librarian" to help drive them away.
 * Princess Meg from The Runaway Princess, a typical "hates doing princessy things like embroidery" princess, starts off the book by questioning the stereotypical princess story her mother reads to her before bed, and later defies her father and attempts to interfere with the contest he set up to marry her off and help stimulate the kingdom's economy. She ends up winning the contest herself, accidentally.
 * Princess Amy from The Ordinary Princess bolts from her home after her parents and their councilors come up with a plot to hire a dragon and imprison her in a tower in order to force some prince into marrying her. Amy's deception of being an ordinary person is helped by the fact that, as a baby, a fairy actually blessed her to be ordinary -- she doesn't look or act like a stereotypical princess at all!
 * Annice of Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff. Her even being a bard  is the direct cause of her having been legally stripped of royal status   She and her brother don't talk much, even after he fixes his mistake and apologizes.
 * Anne Dare of Greg Keyes' The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone tetralogy -- though she is thwarted in her rebelliousness first by family members who are actually smart enough to predict her defiance and catch her at it, then by some (well-deserved) guilt-tripping from her friend and maidservant, and finally by, well, reality, in the form of a legion of disasters, tragedies and prophesied battles.
 * Aravis of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Horse and his Boy -- princess of the Calormene province of Calavar who prefers hunting and riding and scimitar-fighting to what princesses like her best friend Lasaraleen are expected to do. Even leaves her home rather than being forced to marry the Smug Snake of the Tisroc's Prime Minister..
 * Arya Stark from George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire is a Deconstruction of this. In order to survive in Westeros, she has to become a Dark Action Girl, and eventually progresses to being a cold-blooded Sociopathic Hero.
 * Nerilka of Pern isn't a princess, but she's the closest Pernese equivalent. She refuses to sit at home and waste her skills during a devastating plague, quietly leaving to work incognito with the healers instead.
 * Both of the "Twice Royal" Balitang girls in Tamora Pierce's the Daughter of the Lioness books. Sarai takes the traditional rebellious teenager route, while Dove becomes an actual rebel.
 * Pierce uses this for a character in The Song of the Lioness quartet. Thayet is the princess of a war-torn country who runs from potential assassination or a dreaded Arranged Marriage after meeting up with Alanna,.
 * Susan Sto Helit of the Discworld books is a reigning duchess rather than a princess but otherwise fits the bill in that she displays no interest whatsoever in using her title or position and ends up taking a job as a lowly schoolmistress. Though it must be said she has very few of the traditional personality traits associated with this trope.
 * Although Éowyn of The Lord of the Rings does not carry the title of 'princess', her uncle is the king and her brother Éomer is his heir (after their cousin Théodred died in the war); she also . Her uncle had given her the responsibility of leading the people to the safe Dunharrow in the mountains. When she was later despairing about things, she secretly rode into battle with the rest of the army disguised as a man, where she killed the Witch-king (with Merry's help).
 * More precisely, Merry killed the Witch-king with Éowyn's considerable help. Merry could not have done anything to the Witch-king until Éowyn put him on the ground.
 * Lúthien from The Silmarillion fits this trope as well. After her father sends her beloved Beren on an impossible quest and imprisons her in a treehouse to keep her from following, she escapes and helps Beren fulfill his vow.
 * Princess Miriamele from the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series disguises herself as a boy and flees her father's castle to avoid an Arranged Marriage, and also because she hates what he's doing with the kingdom. True to the trope, she ends up being the Love Interest for Simon and kicks no little ass herself. What makes her interesting is that her ultimate motivation is to return home to redeem her father, which.
 * Princess Briony from the  series also sort of qualifies. Her Father is in captivity and after her older brother Kendrik dies she is forced to pick up the crown. She is not so much adversed and seems to enjoy it in principle - if only she were a boy and not subject to the expectations of the courtiers. She does not run away but shocks everyone in the castle by wearing her twin brothers clothes most of the time. She does not want to stop beeing a royal altogether but would like to be treated like her brothers.
 * Arya, from the Inheritance Cycle. Sort of.
 * Aeriel in The Dreamland Chronicles is a minor Aversion. She is an Amazon Princess so her adventuring doesn't really make her a rebel. What makes her a rebel to her people is that she falls in love with a man and is willing to do things for him that her tribe considers dishonorable.
 * Princess Laurana from the Dragonlance series. Blond, brash, and a teenager (by Elven standards anyway.) She runs away from home to try and win back The Hero even though he has just rejected her and her family disapproves of him for being a bastard half-human. She then becomes a Lady of War, even though elven women are not suppose to take up arms. After being reunited with her family, she immediately runs away again, this time to steal a Dragon Orb, from her father and deliver it to the Whitestone Council to help them fight the evil Dragonarmies. She wins the admiration of the highly chauvinistic Knights of Solamnia for her courage and skill in battle and is given command of their army, which she leads to a series of victories through highly innovative and risky tactics. And then, ignoring the advice of Team Dad, Flint Fireforge, she abandons her army to try and rescue her Love Interest, Tanis,
 * A rare male version is present in Meghan Whalen Turner's Thief books.
 * Jame, the heroine of P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath, is not happy at all when she finds she's a Highborn lady of the highest rank and the sister of the Highlord. The rigid gender roles and restrictions chafe and she ultimately rejects them.
 * Leeana Bowmaster from the David Weber WarGod series is the daughter of a Baron rather than a King, but otherwise fits this trope to a T. Doesn't want to dress or act like a traditional noblewomen, is looking to escape an Arranged Marriage and eventually runs off to join the War Maidens.
 * A slightly unusual case in that while her parents are sad to see her go (mostly because by doing so she is no longer legally their daughter) they also acknowledge that she will be much happier with the War Maids and quietly support her choice.
 * Lady Jessica Atreides in Dune is an interesting twist. She has Undying Loyalty to the Atreides family. She is rebelling against the Bene Gesserit order by having a son(yes she can control that-she's a Bene Gesserit).
 * Subverted by Princess Sarene of Elantris. She's very much got the personality, but since she's not the heir (she's got a brother ahead of her in the line of succession) and her father finds having a strong-willed diplomat who can handle herself in a swordfight if she has to and is more than capable of planning on the fly to be a far greater asset to the nation than a pampered princess would be, nobody minds.
 * The titular princess from the children's story King Dicky Bird and the Bossy Princess, who is quite happy being unmarried and running her father's kingdom by force of will, and is deliberately rude to all her suitors to put them off - including the sincere, persistent but unhandsome King Richard. Her father consequently declares that he'll marry her to the first beggar who offers to take her. One soon does. She makes the best of things in some fairly unprincessy ways (she supports herself and her husband by making and selling items made of upcycled rubbish) and eventually finds out that the beggar is King Richard in disguise, having discovered that he's an enlightened ruler with whom she could have a good marriage. So she rebels... only to end up where she would have been had she not rebelled.
 * Jenna in Septimus Heap starts off as this, but she becomes more accepting of her role as the series progresses.

Live Action TV

 * The Baywatch episode "Princess of Tides" revolves around a princess escaping her bodyguards to get away from her pampered life.
 * In the The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode "Nice Lady", Will is responsible for taking a young British aristocrat, Lady Penelope, to an opera; she instead ends up instead running off and partying around Los Angeles.
 * Lorelai Gilmore of Gilmore Girls Lorelai became pregnant with Rory at sixteen but chose not to marry the father, Christopher Hayden. Instead, she left her privileged world and moved to Stars Hollow where she became employed at the Independence Inn. There Lorelai progressed from maid to executive manager.

Music

 * The song "Mercanti e servi" (literally, "Merchants and servants") from Italian band I Nomadi ("The Nomads") provides the above quote.

Tabletop Games
"Tanalasta: Perhaps because your style was stiff. I'll be happy to help you liven it up in a revision.
 * In the Forgotten Realms setting, Alusair, a princess of Cormyr, decided that everything may go far and fast but she would devote to her adventures (in different senses) all the time she could spare. Frequently to the point of prolonged inaccessibility via all but emergency communication means. Some people were displeased, but few dared to confront her and she was only the second daughter, not the crown princess, anyway. Earned the nickname "The Steel Princess" not just because Authority Equals Asskicking (though access to high-end equipment and elite troops doesn't hurt) but via constant training and enough experience to write "The Steel Princess' Field Guide to Tactics of the Purple Dragon". And when talking with her sister about how few less-than-elite commanders read this book...

Alusair: There isn't going to be a revision -- there's going to be an order."

"Gromph: Please, save that look of wide-eyed innocence to beguile the house guards. I know only too well the mercenary captain who boasts that he taught a princess to throw knives as well as any tavern cutthroat alive! Though how you managed to slip past the guard-spiders that Matron Hinkutes'nat posts at every turn, and find your way through the city to that particular tavern, is beyond my imagination."
 * Liriel Baenre earned this summary from the city's Archmage (before she did anything really wild):


 * Any female character with the Noble Birth feat and a chaotic alignment could count.
 * Or perhaps, in a chaotic society, a lawful alignment? (Not to mention the good/evil possibility)

Theater

 * Guinevere in the musical Camelot.

Video Games

 * In the Aveyond series, Alicia Pendragon in Ahriman's Prophecy can count as this.
 * Pretty much every character named Nina in the Breath of Fire series.
 * Not in the second, where she was exiled as a child, the fourth, where she is nowhere as rebellious, and in the fifth, where she wasn't a princess at all.
 * Extremely common in Final Fantasy games:
 * In Final Fantasy IV, the player encounters Edward/Gilbert, a rebellious prince who masquerades as a "Spoony Bard".
 * Faris in Final Fantasy V - having disguised herself as a man and become the captain of a gang of pirates, distinctly more so than the former. To her defense, she had been adopted by the pirates' captain after a tragic Hiryuu accident.
 * Another rebellious prince, Sabin, appears in Final Fantasy VI, having given up the throne for his own freedom to train as a monk.
 * Rinoa of Final Fantasy VIII is not quite a princess, but fits the trope nicely -- she's the leader of a terrorist group seeking to overthrow the Galbadian government, of which her father is the Minister of Defense. And her party nickname IS "princess".
 * Garnet from Final Fantasy IX is a borderline member -- she has a much calmer, shyer personality than most, but she's still a Rebellious Princess.
 * Marle from Chrono Trigger also exemplifies this trope, even going so far as to use a pseudonym (her real name is Nadia).
 * Princess Seraphine from Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. The player character is supposed to escort her to the court of the man to whom she's betrothed, but she begs for help in escaping. If the player elects not to force her into her arranged marriage, she joins the party and aids with future battles.
 * Princess Alena from the second chapter of Dragon Quest IV. In fact, within the realm of video games, she's probably the ur-example -- and definitely the ur-example for the Dragon Quest series.
 * Lady from the Japanese-only game Lady Stalker is a rich girl instead of a princess, but is otherwise not only a perfect example, but is so much like Alena that she's one of the pieces of evidence used to back up the rumor that the game was originally intended as a Dragon Quest Gaiden Game focused on Alena.
 * Nalia from Baldur's Gate 2 follows this trope to the letter, except that she's nobility rather than royalty. She also spouts somewhat condescending quasi-liberal about helping the "less fortunate", but in a world where even the most egalitarian governments tend to be oligarchic and the economy is a sort of capitalism, she's fighting a losing battle. She's also shown as being somewhat of a self-righteous poser. Nalia's character is somewhat vindicated about halfway through the D'Arnise hold quest, where the player character meets her aunt- a woman who is outraged that some of her servants left their posts at the castle after trolls attacked and conquered it. When the player considers that this attitude is in line with what many other noble NPCs believe, suddenly Nalia's hopeful idealism doesn't sound so bad.
 * Jelanda in Valkyrie Profile, and Alicia and Celes in Valkyrie Profile 2
 * Eclair in La Pucelle Tactics.
 * Does that really count? She heads off adventuring after receiving her mother's blessing, which was only given when the queen realized Eclair had suffered a complete breakdown due to the enormous pressure and responsibility placed on her. It had progressed to the point that.
 * Parodied in Kingdom of Loathing, in which one of the randomly encountered enemies in the "Penultimate Fantasy Airship" zone is the Spunky Princess.
 * Princess Peach in her own game, Super Princess Peach and Super Mario RPG. In pretty much any other game, she's a Distressed Damsel, though.
 * Jade Empire has, who enjoys escaping the pressures of palace life by donning a disguise that looks like a cross between a ninja suit and a harem girl outfit. Mainly, she just wants to take down the Evil Chancellor to her father. Interestingly enough, her character model is the only one that changes throughout the entire game: She removes her veil in the Imperial Palace and after the Point of No Return.
 * Super Robot Wars has not one, but three:
 * Princess Shine from the Original Generation series, who starts piloting a Humongous Mecha to liberate her kingdom and eventually ups and joins the heroes outright...
 * Princess Armana Tiqvah from the Alpha series (actually, Alpha 3), who bucks the trend by being a princess of The Empire instead.
 * One of the protagonist of the mostly forgotten Super Robot Wars 64, Manami Hamill, actually fits this despite not being a Princess, but an Ojou. She's a daughter of a high ranking family that actually supports the resistance force in attempt to liberate the Earth.
 * Princess Tiltyu of Freege in Fire Emblem 4 though her dad is a duke instead of a king. Pretty much she's the only noblewoman in the first generation who ran away from home because she disagreed with their methods (Princess Ayra of Isaac did run off from home, but she still adheres her Kingdom's ethics and it was per her brother thr King's request, since she had to keep Prince Shanan safe).
 * In Fire Emblem 6, there's Princess Guinevere of Bern who's on the run for openly questioning her older brother, King Zephiel.
 * Fire Emblem is somewhat unusual when it comes to this trope in that rebellious princes outnumber their female counterparts. Probably the most famous of these is Hector of Ostia from the seventh game; he's technically a minor noble compared to others, but otherwise hits every note of this trope.
 * Angela of Seiken Densetsu 3. While her motive might not quite fit the trope, her personality and actions are certainly a match.
 * In that game's predecessor, Secret of Mana, Purim runs off with the hero in search of her love interest, Dyluck.
 * Though she's not actually a princess, she is the daughter of a noble and she did run away from the castle.
 * Atelier Annie, along with the still-Japan-only Atelier Liese features this in
 * This pops up again
 * Is it still rebellious if Daddy was the same way? Flare of Suikoden IV is strong willed and, if not brash, at least unflinchingly true to her core principles. Then again, King Lino en Kuldes spends most of his days in sandals and a sleeveless t-shirt. C'mon. You know you want this royal family.
 * Flare runs away from home in Tactics to help Kyril and his crew defeat Iskas and his crowd. Semi-subverted because she sees it as duty to her country and her father ends up catching up with them. Also semi-subverted because she had her hypochondriac doctor guard with her throughout.
 * Princess Lymsleia from Suikoden V qualifies, although her being rebellious is aimed towards the Godwins' scheming and is trying to be as much of a hindrance to them as possible until the prince can stop them.
 * The first Suikoden also has Odessa Silverberg being a Rebellious Princess, you probably won't notice unless you read the novels. She starts out as The White Princess, but fell in love with a rebel leader, and starts seeing the error of The Empire. When her lover is about to get executed, she broke through the execution in attempt to rescue her lover, with a sword and wearing a wedding dress. Her lover still died, but at least she got him out of being executed by the enemy and he still gets to transfer his ideals to her, leading her to become the leader of The Liberation Army.
 * Suikoden III has Lilly Pendragon, the Spoiled Brat daughter of the leader of the Tinto Republic. A super-bossy Heroic Wannabe, she finds an excuse to head into the Grasslands just before things start going to hell and insists on staying there until she can complete her self-assigned mission. In the end,
 * Baten Kaitos has, who is a rebellious queen. Milly in Baten Kaitos Origins is of the rebellious rich sheltered girl type.
 * How is she a rebellious queen ? That's pretty responsible action to take for her kingdom. Not to mention that her mother, the previous queen, told her that she would need to take the action if the need arises.
 * Subverted with Milly in Baten Kaitos Origins as
 * Elise from My World My Way is a spoiled brat of a princess who goes out to become an adventurer after an adventurer rejects her.
 * Kara from Illusion of Gaia, though she does continue to act like a spoiled princess for some time.
 * from Guild Wars. The fact that she is a princess is kept secret from the player until halfway through the game, when you find her chatting away to her father, the Prince you've just spent several missions trying to get to.
 * Princess Zelda can fit this trope, depending on the incarnation in question. In some games, she's stated to frequently sneak out of her castle (Minish Cap, for instance), and when her kingdom falls in Ocarina of Time, she becomes a Ninja instead of hiding out the old fashioned way. In Wind Waker, she's the very un-princessy captain of a pirate crew who dresses like a boy and kicks considerable butt.
 * Tetra in Wind Waker is something of an aversion, however, since for most of the game she was completely unaware of her own identity.
 * Princess Zelda in Spirit Tracks would count, especially at the beginning of the game, when she has Link sneak her out of the castle so she can investigate strange goings on.
 * is forced to become one in Twilight Princess when Zant takes over her kingdom. She has the brash, stuborn personality down perfectly, though.
 * While not actually royal, Soon-to-be-Queen Isabel in Heroes of Might and Magic V definitely has these traits early on. The demons are all too aware of it and use it against her.
 * Princess Sapphire of Disgaea 3 believes that the best way to defend her kingdom is to assassinate enemies before they get around to starting a war. The player never meets her parents or advisors, but they've probably told her to stop if they aren't terrified of her.
 * From Arc the Lad: Sania of Milmana and Kukuru of Seyra: princesses and wanted terrorists: Sania is not adverse to the idea of blowing up her own capital if this means killing her enemies.
 * Wild Arms 1 gets Cecilia the princess of Adlehyde. Her rebellion against her father unfortunately
 * While only a "princess" by virtue of being the Evil Overlord's daughter, Ashelin is so rebellious that she helps the movement that's trying to knock her father out of power.
 * Elsa is only the daughter of a Baron in Quest for Glory. After being rescued and despelled in QFG1, she departs for the locale of QFG5 to become an Action Girl. According to the backstory, she resented the Baron's restrictions on her fighting lifestyle, and fled them.
 * Selphy in Rune Factory Frontier is heavily implied to have run away from her position as princess of some unnamed country. She then fulfills her dream in Trampoli, not of being an Action Girl or anything of the sort, but of being a shut-in running the library.
 * Princess Sadira of Vanguard Bandits personally heads out into combat to route out all the corruption in the Empire. Against the wishes of nearly everyone in power who is corrupt and even her own father.
 * Uriel Chuluun in Rift is the daughter of a former tribal chieftain. She'd rather spend her time studying necromancy, bitching about the way Daddy is holding everyone back, and swooning over a certain elven assassin.

Web Comics

 * Princess Voluptua in The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob has issues with her father the Emperoror, not the least of them being that he tried to marry her off to a walking jellyfish.
 * Although Princess Saffron Lachesis respects her father, she doesn't really cut most people's expectations of a modest princess. The fact that she wields a cane sword and beats up criminals doesn't help.
 * Aylia is a duchess and is legally required to obey her parents. However, as her mother has proven her incompetence to her by sending her off to college, so whilst away from the castle she continued to practice the wizardry that her mother thought was "not for ladies."
 * Jillian Zamussels in Erfworld did not get along with her father King Banhammer, and preferred to spend as much time as possible away from home on mercenary missions. After her kingdom fell while she was away, she had no interest in returning home to re-establish it.
 * Fauna in Curvy is a princess (well, her royal title is "despoina") and love interest on the run from an arranged marriage.
 * Feferi of Homestuck is next in line to be the Empress of all Trolls, but she despises the hemospectrum caste system their society has and aspires to change it into a more unified and caring system that protects weaker members of the race instead of culling them.
 * Subverted in that, whilst she despises the caste system, she doesn't shy away from becoming the Empress in order to exact her changes.
 * There's also  Meenah, who ran away to the moon to avoid becoming empress, which was a position she saw as a glorified slave.
 * Ame and Suko from Heartcore are examples of this, considering how they fought against their father Royce (A demon king) and other high ranking demons in order to escape their royal home.
 * Tanna of Ears for Elves fits this trope, though her culture doesn't have royalty. Zalanna despairs at her, but Luero comments on how Tanna likes that role.

Western Animation

 * Animaniacs sent up the above example in their Pocahontas parody with the song "Just the Same Old Heroine." ("First I tuned an aerial / Then I rang a bell...")
 * Played with in Gummi Bears. Princess Calla, a Cute Bruiser in training who loves to go adventuring, has her father discover her secret participation in a contest for the winner to become an official protector for herself. However, far from disapproving, he is deeply impressed with her physical prowess and says publicly that it's clear she needs no personal protector after all.
 * Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Not exactly a princess (her family is rich, but not titled unless you count an actual last name) and not quite a teenager (she's twelve), but other than that she fits the trope dead-on.
 * One could argue Starfire from Teen Titans being that leaving her home planet to do the hero thing on Earth, plus fighting against her sister when it was time to go back, is pretty rebellious.
 * Except that she was sold as a slave, not a runaway. They gloss over it in the series, but it's there.
 * Sam in Danny Phantom. She's not a princess, but she is rebellious and individual and filthy rich, so you get the point.
 * The creator seemed to acknowledge the trope in "Beauty Marked". Sam was placed in an Arranged Marriage with Prince Aragon, and told to behave like Princess Classic. She single-handedly destroyed her wedding feast and would have escaped... if it wasn't for Danny and Tucker.
 * In the Strawberry Shortcake episode "A Princess Named Rap", a retelling of Rapunzel, the titular princess wants to be a good ruler, but has a hard time keeping her individualistic tendencies at bay. At one point, she even sings a preteen anthem with the line "Why can't the things I love be part of royalty?"
 * Jillian, Darth Vegan's daughter from Johnny Test.
 * Princess Maya from Galaxy Rangers crosses this and Badass Princess. We first see her in Gladiator Games arranged by a two of the more sociopathic members of the Rogues Gallery, having been captured from her home world. After she and the Rangers break free, she goes back and insists on bringing modern technology to her Space Amish people in order to protect them from interstellar threats, even if she has to openly revolt against her own father to do it.
 * Princess Audrey of Kasnia in Justice League. More of a party girl ala Paris Hilton, but doomed to an arranged marriage. She strikes up a friendship with Wonder Woman to have a night on the town to go shopping and clubbing. Subverted, however, when her father is poisoned and dies goes into a coma: she immediately becomes serious about her royal duties and has the wedding take place immediately so that the Kasnian people will have assurance of the royal family's continuity.

Real Life

 * Princess Margaret of the UK, Countess of Snowdon.
 * Sarah Ferguson aka "Fergie", Duchess of York.
 * Saint Elisabeth of Hungary, either as a princess (she spent her time in direct charity rather than just making donations, which the other nobles didn't approve of and even her husband Ludwig was skeptical of, fearing her proteges would abuse her kindness) or as a widow (she left the Warburg court willingly after her husband's death so she wouldn't have to bow to her brother-in-law's regency, wanted to be a nun rather than re-marrying, went through Training From Hell to enter the Dominic Tertiaries and even threatened to disfigure herself so her power-hungry relatives wouldn't trap her in an Arranged Marriage)
 * Another famous and very rebellious Elisabeth was Elisabeth of Bavaria, Empress Consort of Austria and Queen Consort of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, better known as Sisi. Her position as the Rebellious Empress and the eccentric Bunny Ears Lawyer in the Austrian Imperial Court would bring her much misfortune, and her myth was the inspiration for the German musical Elisabeth and the Princess Sissi TV series - as well as for the Historical Hero Upgrade she went through there.
 * Princess Stéphanie of Monaco. Her mom, Princess Grace Kelly, nicknamed her "Wild Child", and for good reason. And that's not even getting into her multiple love affairs, including her terrible relationship with Mario Oliver and her very tempestuous marriage to her bodyguard Daniel Ducruet.
 * Saint Philomena. According to her myth, she was a Greek princess who spurned the affections of The Emperor because she wanted to keep her virginity vows and hated the idea of becoming a child bride just to sign the peace between Rome and her kingdom. It Got Worse, needless to say.
 * Alvilda, Alfhild, Alwilda, Alvild, or ÆÆlfhild is a possibly real example. She decided to be a pirate because she didn't like the idea of getting married or being pampered