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Fallen Princess: Difference between revisions
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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 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]].
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
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]].
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{{examples}}
== [[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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== [[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.}}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Princess Tropes]]
[[Category:All the Tropes Superhero Team]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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