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{{trope}}
{{quote|To have learnt to live on the common level
Is better. ...
To be rich and powerful brings no blessing;
Only more utterly
Is the prosperous house destroyed, when the gods are angry.
|'''Nurse, ''[[Medea]]'' '''}}
She's got everything: brains, good looks, perfect hair, shiny white teeth and a body most people would kill for. Of course, this genetic good fortune comes with social
But then something happens. She turns out to be [[The Chosen One]], perhaps, or gets covered in [[I Love Nuclear Power|radioactive]] [[Green Rocks|green goo]] that
▲She's got everything: brains, good looks, perfect hair, shiny white teeth and a body most people would kill for. Of course, this genetic good fortune comes with social perks -- so it is that our beautiful heroine is on the cheerleading squad of her local school and dating a jock. She also does her best to avoid the nerds and outcasts, though usually just because she can't afford to lose credibility in her peers' eyes rather than because she's a bully. This is usually emphasized by making her best friend the [[Alpha Bitch]].
Alternatively, the '''Fallen Princess''' can be a secondary character who is initially portrayed as the [[Alpha Bitch]], but who is [[Lovable Alpha Bitch|revealed to be insecure or to have other sympathetic traits that make the audience like her]], prior to her taking a leap down in the social strata.▼
▲But then something happens. She turns out to be [[The Chosen One]], perhaps, or gets covered in [[I Love Nuclear Power|radioactive]] [[Green Rocks|green goo]] that gives her [[Freak Lab Accident|superpowers]], or whatever. For whatever reason, the very thing that makes her a hero also makes her an outcast. Now she sits [[How the Mighty Have Fallen|on the outskirts of her school's peer groups]] with [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|a rag-tag bunch of fellow 'losers']]. At first she regrets not being able to rejoin the jet set, but her drop in status opens her eyes to the goodness and decency of the people she once rejected. She becomes a better person, the ([[Hollywood Nerd|suspiciously attractive]]) geeks get a cool friend and all of them save the world and solve mysteries together. Awww, bless.
This trope appears a lot in science fiction and fantasy shows, since their target audience is generally exactly the same kind of geek that the princess ends up hanging out with. Thus they can simultaneously [[All Guys Want Cheerleaders|fetishize the cheerleader image]] while assuaging their perceived audience by confirming their beliefs that all cheerleaders (and people in the higher strata of the school system) are [[Slobs Versus Snobs|stuck up snobs]], with few exceptions. It also lionises the viewer by showing the geeks to be more interesting and 'cool' in their own way than the cliques. Of course, the character doesn't ''have'' to be a cheerleader for it to work - just someone who's in a clique of [[The Beautiful Elite|attractive, desirable and deeply unpleasant people]].
▲Alternatively, the Fallen Princess can be a secondary character who is initially portrayed as the [[Alpha Bitch]], but who is [[Lovable Alpha Bitch|revealed to be insecure or to have other sympathetic traits that make the audience like her]], prior to her taking a leap down in the social strata.
▲This trope appears a lot in science fiction and fantasy shows, since their target audience is generally exactly the same kind of geek that the princess ends up hanging out with. Thus they can simultaneously [[All Guys Want Cheerleaders|fetishize the cheerleader image]] while assuaging their perceived audience by confirming their beliefs that all cheerleaders (and people in the higher strata of the school system) are [[Slobs Versus Snobs|stuck up snobs]], with few exceptions. It also lionises the viewer by showing the geeks to be more interesting and 'cool' in their own way than the cliques. Of course, the character doesn't ''have'' to be a cheerleader for it to work - just someone who's in a clique of [[The Beautiful Elite|attractive, desirable and deeply unpleasant people]].
Also ''could'' work perfectly with [[Royal Blood|actual princesses]] (or just an [[Blue Blood|upper-crust]] heroine). A low-life "peasant" or modern equivalent may fall in love with her. But in a random wave of unsurprising angst, says this line, most of the time word-for-word:
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Contrast [[Alpha Bitch]], [[Princess in Rags]]. Compare the [[Ojou]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* The [[Gundam]] series has a long history showcasing this trope.
** Sayla Mass of [[Mobile Suit Gundam]] and is the [[Ur Example]] in [[Gundam]]{{spoiler|. She was once Artesia Som Deikun (whom, next to the Zabi family, is considered to be Spacenoid/Zeon royalty), sister of Casval Rem Deikun (The Char Aznable), and heir to Zeon via it's founder, Zeon Zum Deikun.}}
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* Yoruichi Shihouin from ''[[Bleach]]''.
* Shoukei from ''[[The Twelve Kingdoms]]''.
** The King of En, Shoryuu, was a ''male'' example, as a Japanese warlord who was in the losing side of a feudal war. He then was contacted by Enki, the kirin of En, and accepted to become the sovereign.
* {{spoiler|Lamda Nom}} from ''[[Dangaioh]]''.
* Another male example: Mamoru Takamura from [[Hajime no Ippo]], disinherited by his rich family because of his violent behavior. He finds solace in boxing and a sort-of adoptive family in the Kamogawa gym.
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== [[Fan Works]] ==
* ''[[Ultimate SpiderWoman
== [[Film]] ==
* The movie ''[[Heathers]]'' revolves around the sole non-Heather member of a clique of girls named Heather, who, with the help of an attractive but weird loner, decides to get back at them for their bullying ways with pranks which, though initially innocent, quickly turn into a killing spree.
* A male example, Simba from [[The Lion King]]. Once a naive, curious cub, now a [[It's All My Fault|guilt-ridden]] lion who's [[Heroic BSOD|lost faith in himself]]. Fortunately he's encouraged by his father's ghost ([[Crowning Moment of Funny|and getting hit with a stick]]), and pulls through.
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== Folk tales ==
* In "[[Adalmina's
* According to Kabbalah mysticism, the Shekhinah ("Presence"), a feminine divinity, was cast out when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and now wanders the world disconsolate. Jewish fairytales involving exiled princesses may be seen as metaphors for this idea.
* The Grimm's fairy tale "King Thrushbeard" has an example of this. The main character is a princess who is such an [[Alpha Bitch]] that she doesn't consider any of her suitors worthy of her hand. Eventually, her frustrated father forces her to marry a poor peddler. One [[Humiliation Conga]] and a "[[My God, What Have I Done?]]" later, the peddler is revealed to the eponymous king, whom the princess had mocked earlier, and who officially marries her once she has learned her lesson.
== [[Literature]] ==
* A basic example is ''[[A Little Princess]]'' when Sara feels like she's lost everything, ending when she remembers again that she is still a princess.
* Sansa Stark from ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' is literally a fallen princess. {{spoiler|The sister of a now dead king and the former betrothed of another king (also now dead), she has been reduced to [[Jerkass Facade|pretending to be an absolute bitch]] for her own safety and under the orders of her [[Evil Mentor]] - and [[Character Development|has become a smarter, better person]] for it.}}
** Also her tomboyish sister Arya, who {{spoiler|has become a pre-teen [[Dark Action Girl]] and member of a murdering cult.}}
** Myrcella Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell may have just entered the ranks of the fallen at the end of ''A Feast For Crows''.
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* Wallace Wallace in [[Gordon Korman]]'s ''[[No More Dead Dogs]]'' is a rare male example of this trope: he's a benchwarmer who accidentally scored the winning goal of the football final. The next year, he gets detention and can't play for the team. He ends up hanging out with the theater nerds and... you can figure out where it goes from there.
* In Joan D. Vinge's ''The Snow Queen'' and its sequels, BZ Gundhalinu is a male example: coming from the upper level of an extremely hierarchical society, he's thrown into unfamiliar circumstances by bad luck, attempts suicide because of the dishonor of it, and then realizes that life is actually better outside his former world.
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' novel ''Honour Guard'', Kolea tells Curth that in joining the Ghosts, she has become this, since the two of them were not of anything like equal status back
* Neone Delft of [[Stationery Voyagers]] discovers she is actually {{spoiler|Princess Wendim Shinroff}} of Neomlot, and that Hidicky Delft was only some kind carpenter that adopted her after a particularly lazy [[Evil Sorcerer]] merely [[Ripped from the Headlines|abandoned her in a dumpster to die]]. She is finally reunited with her biological parents; only she views her new life as a Voyager as her true [[Mission
* Laurana in the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' novels is a [[Spoiled Sweet]] elven princess with a [[
** She's better off without 'em anyway - ''Dragonlance'' elves [[Can't Argue with Elves|are almost all a bunch of insufferable, arrogant, hypocritical pricks]] (case in point: the civil war that split the elves millenia ago was fought because a royal elven prince had the gall to take a human bride. Guess who Laurana is descended from.)
* In [[Patricia A. McKillip]]'s ''The Book of Atrix Wolfe'', Saro, after the magic renders her mute and dazed, ends up a [[Scullery Maid]].
* Princess Vivenna of ''[[Warbreaker]]''. Leaves her country behind to rescue her little sister from an arranged marriage to {{spoiler|someone everybody thinks is}} a [[Physical God]] [[Evil Overlord]], falls in with a pair of mercenaries working against said [[Physical God]] who agree to help her {{spoiler|only they turn out to be working for the ''real'' [[Big Bad]] and Vivenna has to run for it, at which point she spends several chapters as [[Princess in Rags|a beggar and amateur pickpocket]] before finally getting back on her feet with a little help from [[Wild Card|Vasher]].}}
* In [[Josepha Sherman]]'s ''[[The Shining Falcon]]'', Maria and Vasilissia, as [[The Exile
== Live Action TV ==
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* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' doesn't have any superpowers, but when her sheriff father arrests the town's benefactor for the murder of his own daughter, Veronica's best friend, pretty much everyone in her clique of high school elite friends turns against her, resulting in her being date-raped. This in turn leads to her transformation into the Veronica we know. As she pours her energy into solving her friend's murder, she, perhaps a tad implausibly, rapidly gains the super detective skills and world-weary attitude of a professional PI twice her age.
** ...except she already had those skills (her father taught her), she just hadn't really used them. Throw in some [[Properly Paranoid|paranoia]] and a nothing-to-lose attitude, and it makes more sense.
* Variation: Ashley Kerwin in ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]''. In the first season, she's the most popular girl in school, but she must constantly guard against her rival [[Alpha Bitch|Paige]]. In the first season finale, she falls from grace. She doesn't becomes friends with the geeks in the second
** Later seasons we have Holly J, a full fledged [[Alpha Bitch]]. During most of Seasons 7 and 8 she's a [[Jerkass Facade|complete bitch in social groups]], but in one on one interactions she's almost personable. Her family suffers a three season long [[Broke Episode]], her attempts to cover that up destroy her social circle entirely, and her only friend is her boss at the local coffee shop. It turns out she has trouble letting people get close. Over Season 9 and 10 she builds a new social circle, but still has very few close friends.
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'', "Geek Like Me." Sabrina used magic to make Libby become a geek, intending that this fall from popularity would teach her to become a nicer person the way most Fallen Princesses do. However, she quickly proved that her usual personality was [[In the Blood]], too strong to be changed by magic. Before long, she had given herself a hot new [[Nerds Are Sexy]] look, and had made the science club into the same kind of exclusive clique (with herself as the boss) that the cheerleading squad used to be. And she was now picking on Sabrina for not being nerdy enough. This change was no better than the way things were before, so there was nothing for it but to [[Status Quo Is God|change Libby back]].
* Skylar Stevens in ''[[Jericho]]'' starts out as a spoiled rich kid, and then warms up to local misfit Dale Turner.
* On ''[[Glee]]'', [[Alpha Bitch]] Quinn becomes pregnant despite being president of the celibacy club. She is then embarrassed in front of the school, kicked off the cheerleading squad, and forced to move in with her boyfriend after her parents kick her out of the house. And it's only bound to get worse since the news that the baby's father is actually her boyfriend's best friend is starting to leak out.
** She later subverts the [[Character Development]] that you usually get from this trope - after she gives the baby up for adoption, she does her damndest to get her status back, and her goal of season two is to become prom queen, no matter what the cost - even if it means cheating on her boyfriend and, when she {{spoiler|doesn't become}} Prom Queen, {{spoiler|conspiring to get the Glee club disqualified from Nationals out of spite and jealousy}}. Strangely, she could still count as a
* Averted in ''[[Lost]]''. Boone comes from a wealthy family and gave off the overall impression of a young man who had never worked a day in his life and had stuff handed to him. From the very start, he takes to island living easily and is probably the most likeable moral character in the series, characterised by his helpful attitude. Played straight with his sister Shannon though.
* Caroline Channing from ''[[Two Broke Girls]]'' is the daughter of a wealthy investor who was arrested for perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme. With the family assets frozen, she is left homeless and penniless, eventually forced to work as a waitress in a [[Greasy Spoon]]. Now she is trying to build a cupcake business with her fellow waitress Max, using the skills she learned from party planning and business school.
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** {{spoiler|Princess Tiltyu of Freege}} became one of these in Fire Emblem 4. {{spoiler|She still got to live in her older brother Blume's palace with her daughter Tinny, but was branded as a traitor by her people and horribly abused by her bitch of a stepsister, Hilda. And if Tiltyu dies child-less, she's mentioned to have died in the war, and her younger sister Ethnia is the one who takes her place as fallen princess alongside her daughter Linda.}}
** Heck, ''Celice'' is a fallen prince too. His grandfather {{spoiler|Byron}} was killed in a conspiration by his fellow noblemen, {{spoiler|his dad Sigurd is killed off and falsely branded as a traitor post-mortem, his [[Missing Mom]] Diadora becomes the Empress of Grandbell but only after being brainwashed and later she dies too}}, and he's living in a very secluded environment before becoming a [[Rebel Prince]] and starting to fight to conclude his father's mission.
*** And his army includes another fallen prince: Shanan of Isaac, who as a child witnessed the horrible deals that brought the huge mess that Jugdral is into alongside his aunt Ayra, and now is physically strong enough to fight back and help those in deed.
** ''Thracia 776'' has more fallen noblemen: {{spoiler|Galzus was the prince of the small kingdom of Rivough, which was destroyed and annexed by Isaac years ago; he barely escaped from all of it alongside his daughter, Mareeta. Then we have Princess Miranda of Alster, forced to hide and run away when her land is invaded as well.}}
* The female Human Noble Origin from ''[[Dragon Age]]'' could also apply, depending on how you RP the character. You are not a princess, but you are daughter of the second-highest ranking noble in the country, so that should count for something. {{spoiler|Especially because you lose your entire family and become a Grey Warden.}} Of course, by the end of the game you can {{spoiler|become the Queen of Ferelden...not a bad trade-off, there.}}
** This may actually apply to the female Dwarf Noble Origin more, as you actually ARE a princess in that origin. {{spoiler|However, you don't get to become Queen at the end of that game. You do get to become a Paragon, though, which is much more awesome.}}
* ''[[Mitsumete Knight]] R: Daibouken Hen'' has a male example with {{spoiler|1=[[The Reveal|none other than]] [[The Hero]][[The Reveal|, Christopher MacLeod]]: he's actually Prince Conor of the fallen Parmet Kingdom, thanks to the schemes of [[The Empire|Orcadia]], an [[The Empire|Empire]] bent on the conquest and domination of Zardos Continent. Conor is on a quest of [[Revenge]] again Orcadia, ''not'' because of his fallen kingdom and the loss of his parents (he was 4 at the time, thus too young to remember them), but because when he was 12, Orcadia's men discovered him and his beloved little sister Melinda, captured and atrociously tortured them, to the point that [[Kill the Cutie|Melinda died]] [[Cold-Blooded Torture|under the torture's shock]]. If the right conditions are met in your playthrough, Conor can achieve his revenge, destroy Orcadia, and become the King of the restored Parmet Kingdom.}}
* Princess Zelda fits this category in a few games. In the Ocarina of Time, she spend seven years in exile as Sheik; in Wind Waker, she is the last heir of the fallen royal line; And of course, in Twilight Princess, her throne is stolen by Zant right before her coronation, though Midna's exile from her own kingdom overshadowed that.
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' is the captain of her school's cheerleading squad, the person with the highest grades and the person of choice to do school chores, but is still practically an outcast from everyone but her <s>geeky friends</s> two friends.
** This might apply even more to Shego - she's got everything mentioned in the entry's first sentence, yet she still fell from hero status into the criminal underworld. [[Good Is Dumb|When being the good guy usually means being a total idiot]] she preferred to stay smart.
* Parodied in ''[[The Oblongs]]''. The matriarch of the family, Pickles Oblong, is a former
** Well, except for the alcoholism.
** In the episode "Disfigured Debbie," one of the school's [[Girl Posse]] of [[Inexplicably Identical Individuals]] falls all
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' had Valerie; a shallow [[Rich Bitch]] who lived off her father's money until a ghost dog cost him his job. Fallen out of grace, she took up [[The Hunter|ghost hunting]] for revenge before making it a full-time job. Eventually, she starts to abandon her shallow views of the people she once rejected and even falls for [[Dating Catwoman|the unpopular Danny]].
* Rhonda from ''[[Hey Arnold!]]!'' became this when she realizes she needs to wear thick eyeglasses.
** Even further when her family goes temporarily broke.
* Caitlin from [[
* The ''[[Doug]]'' episode "Beebe Goes Broke", in which...[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Beebe goes broke]].
* Less shallow than the trope description, but same general pattern in fantasy setting, with a male: Prince Zuko was the season one villain, a spoiled brat in the sense that he yelled at people when they or the universe didn't give him what he wanted and had no use for tact. Still had some moments of awesome, and his most impressively evil moment involved holding a piece of jewelry hostage. Near the end of the season, his ship was blown up. Early in Season Two, he wound up a fugitive from his own nation, living as a faceless refugee for the horrible crime of...not successfully [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|Punching Out Cthulhu]], apparently. He spends most of that season learning humility and otherwise having [[Character Development]], and by the series finale is one of the [[True Companions]].
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Princess Tropes]]
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