Snarky loser hero meets snarky haughty girl. They either fall in love, or they snark. And usually both.
This is essentially a satire of the standard Magical Girlfriend, which describes a beautiful, classy, good-mannered, loyal girl - the logical result being she should actually be somewhat critical of her loser boyfriend. She makes no attempt to ignore the fact that he is the Loser Guy, and frequently calls him on it, criticizes him, and rarely if ever fawns over him like some Fangirl. She expects better from him and pushes him to improve, while still expecting to be taken care of. However, the guy usually takes it in stride, mocks her in return, or just says, well...
A series usually says Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other to avoid portraying her as a total ball buster. Often appears in Love Comedies, depending on how satirical the story is.
A mild version of the Devil in Plain Sight. See also Tsundere. Related to Belligerent Sexual Tension. Compare/Contrast Surrounded by Idiots.
If it involves an actual Princess Princess, see Royal Brat. The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask can make similar demands.
The trope name comes from the old The Legend Of Zelda cartoon, where Link would quite often retort to Zelda's nagging with those words. Although more people probably identify this as one of Han's more memorable lines towards Princess Leia, which predates the Zelda cartoon.
Princess/Queen Mashiro Blan de Windbloom from Mai-Otome starts as this character type, but matures and reforms over the course of the series. Partially gender flipped, since the "loser guy" in her case is The Heroine, Arika Yumemiya.
Ai Amano of Video Girl Ai twists this trope in that she wasn't supposed to be the girlfriend, but fell for the lovable loser she was trying to improve.
Poor Asuka Tenjoin of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX has to be like this if she wants to get respect from her universe of admirers and people trying to pimp her out as an Idol Singer.
William and Miyako in Private Princegenderflip this, as he is the prince and she's the commoner with low patience.
Louie and Melissa in Rune Soldier Louie, as Melissa constantly criticizes Louie and tries to turn him into a 'champion'.
This pretty much sums up Koji Kabuto and Maria Grace Fleed's relationship in UFO Robo Grendizer, which might be one of the (if not the) earliest examples in anime. Then again, considering that Koji is being, well, himself, Maria's behavior is understandable.
In Oregairu, its a notable element of the chemistry between Hachiman Hikigaya and Yukino Yukinoshita. Although compared to the average person, it's debatable if Hachiman is a loser. Still with Hachiman compared to Yukino this trope is likely to apply. Yukino is described as incredibly beautiful, a strong first academically and, in Hachiman's words (LN), the "epitome of nobility". On the other hand, Hachiman is described as having an unpleasantappearance, academically variable at best and socially awkward.
Princess Eilonwy in the Disney animated version of The Black Cauldron, who patronizes Taran quite a bit when she learns that he's not a warrior or a lord, but an Assistant Pig Keeper. And when Taran pats himself on the back for enabling their castle escape, she takes him down a few notches by reminding him not only that her knowledge of the dungeon passageways allowed him to break out of there, but that Taran's magic sword did most of the work. She initially found him "fascinating" for being an Assistant Pig Keeper in the original Chronicles of Prydain because she had never met an Assistant Pig Keeper before. In fact, she held a persistently casual attitude towards most everything. Though there was an element of the stated trope present, she didn't judge him less for his station. Except when she is Brainwashed and Crazy.
Ham Salad actually says 'Well excuse me!' to Princess Anne-Droid in the '70s Star Wars parody Hardware Wars.
Come to think of it, this seems to be a running gag in Star Wars...
Added to it the fact that Canderous refers to Bastila specifically as "You spoiled little Jedi princess."
Don't think the fans haven't noticed. Canderous/Bastila is an ascended Crack Ship, popularized when a fanfic writer (who actually writes romance novels professionally) took a whack at it.
For a while after Star Wars, Harrison Ford was practically typecast for this kind of storyline. The number of movies with the premise "Harrison Ford is forced together with haughty woman, they hate each other but eventually fall in love" is considerable.
In Princess Diaries 2, Mia and one of her suitor constantly bitch at each other. Its like they just WANT to hate each other.
Slightly weirdly used in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time with Dastan and Tamina since Dastan (as the adopted son of the King of Persia) should be higher ranked than Tamina (as princess of a smallish city state). Sure Dastan was born an urchin but after spending most of his life as a prince the interaction comes across as kind of odd. He defers to her (when he's not selling her to bandits) because he's a gentleman, and she's rather overbearing.
Also, the overbearing attitude was more or less an act because she nearly escapes (and kills) Dastan because of it.
Literature
In David Eddings' Belgariad, this is Garion and Ce'Nedra's relationship condensed down to four words. Unsurprisingly, she's pretty pissed when she finds out that he isn't just a farm boy, but actually the long-lost heir to the Rivan Throne and hereditary Overlord of the West... in other words, actually more royal than she is.
Worse, she also finds out that she's due to marry him.
Nope, for her..the being out ranked by her future husband was worse then having an arranged future husband.
Belgarion has the foresight to find a way to make them equal to preserve his own sanity after the marriage.
Josua and Vorzheva's relationship looks like this for most of the first and second books.
Aravis to Shasta in C. S. Lewis's The Horse And His Boy. This defines their relationship from the very beginning. Their first words to each other: "Why, you're only a girl." "And you're only a boy. A rude, common little boy. A slave probably who's stolen his master's horse!" The Lemony Narrator even jokes about this at the end, when he tells the readers that they continued to affectionately bicker and eventually decided to get married so they could continue to do so more conveniently.
Elizabeth: My behavior to you was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now, be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence? Mr. Darcy: For the liveliness of your mind, I did.
Winterbourne: I wish you would flirt with me, and me only. Daisy: Ah! thank you—thank you very much; you are the last man I should think of flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of informing you, you are too stiff. Winterbourne: You say that too often. Daisy: If I could have the sweet hope of making you angry, I should say it again.
Christine of The Phantom of the Opera (the original novel by Gaston Leroux, at least) never lets Raoul push her around and has no problem telling him to mind his own business.
Good lord, Kitai of the Codex Alera is made of this trope. She wanted to bond with a horse, and continues to remind Tavi at relatively regular intervals. She doesn't just look down at him for personal reasons, but also detests his species. She snarks it up with some of the best and, yes, they do eventually fall in love.
Super extra bonus points for being described as insanely, exotically beautiful, yet Tavi first mistook her for a boy. She can hold that over his head for a very long time.
She gets a Quip to Black to end out the series that doubles as this trope.
Mild inversion: Tavi's actually royalty, Kitai's just the daughter of the head of one tribe, and her people's diplomat (appointed by Tavi).
She's so good at this that she manages to hide her pregnancy from Tavi by just playing this trope straight Up to Eleven.
Precious Stone is this to James Bond at the start of the Young Bond novel Hurricane Gold.
Arya of the Inheritance Cycle tries to do this to keep Eragon at bay, because even though he's an adult by human standards, by the standards of the semi-immortal Elves and Dragon Riders he's the youngest of kids. She's the child of the queen, more or less being groomed for leadership, her people's diplomat, a warrior, and he's a moonstruck fledgling rider who is their only hope and doesn't need the distraction. In retrospect, she's right and he's still finishing puberty.
Priscilla in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Narrative Poem "The Courtship of Miles Standish". Her snarky, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" has even achieved meme status.
On the same show, Allan-a-Dale's priceless reaction◊ to Kate snapping: "My NAME is KATE!" by way of an introduction. His expression alone is the embodiment of this trope.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Both of Xander Harris' girlfriends, Cordelia and Anya, had a strong tendency in this direction. By the time he's going with Anya, he's more competent at arguing back, and so the trope is sometimes lampshaded in dialogue.
Star Trek example: Let's not forget the Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed! For non-Trekkies, that's Lwaxana Troi, Deanna's mom. Marched around the Enterprise and Deep Space Nine like she owned the place, and looked awesome doing it. At least once per appearance, would say her full title when letting some unfortunate schmo know who they were dealing with, in a way that would evoke the local equivalent of "Well, excuuuuse me, Princess!" if not for the diplomatic incident it would cause. And she wasn't shy about poking around in people's minds. She wanted to be Picard's Love Interest, but he wasn't interested... though she claims otherwise, and she would know.
Made all the more hilarious that Lwaxana was played by Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and therefore almost quite literally owned the place (the idea, anyway).
Later appearances had her blow through the titles like she was sick of saying it, generally when she honestly expected people to not be impressed. Her introduction to a certain constable springs to mind...
Kaitama the First Monarch in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Precious Cargo". She starts off as a kidnapping victim Girl in a Box. When she is removed by Trip Tucker, she spends the episode being this to him while they escape from the kidnappers, leading to the inevitable squabbling, torn clothing, and passionate clinching.
This trope is explored in the iCarly episode "iDate Sam and Freddie".
Joey had this kind of relationship in an episode of Friends with his co-star in a play. After much snarking they realised they were attracted to each other, but after they had sex they realised the UST had been driving their performances in the play.
In Once Upon a Time, when Charming and Snow White get properly introduced for the first time, this is thrown around with abandon.
Theater
Roxane of Cyrano de Bergerac is an intellectual who needs a guy with eloquence and creative genius, and if you can't deliver, she'll show you the door.
The Neverwinter Nights mod The Bastard of Kosigan has the player's relationship with Alex look something like this.
Clarine of Reglay in Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals, especially in regards to Rutger the myrmidon and Lance the cavalier. She eventually warms up to them and to the female Archer Dorothy, not always putting status before everything. (And Rutger admits in their A support that he likes her better like this. Awwww.)
Serra from Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, who is very similar to Clarine, but is actually quite more straightforward and blunt. She's also not a noblewoman, her personality stems more from years of loneliness andParental Abandonment.
L'Arachel from Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones, her very... "special" interactions with people like Ephraim, Innes, and Rennac.
The eponymous Prince of Persia (in his recent 3-D incarnations, anyway) has this sort of a relationship with the various female sidekicks he works with.
Farah: WHY DID YOU PUT YOUR SWORD AWAY?!
Almost every girl Jimmy from Bully takes interest in, with the exception of Zoe, even though she is definitely snarky.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Tetra and Link have their moments as well - Which is funny, considering the former Actually is Princess Zelda herself.
Tales Of The Abyss: Luke fon Fabre will say "well, excuuuuuse me!" to Tear, complete with a somewhat whiny tone, on a few occasions.
Visual Novels
Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright thinks this exact line (complete with a drawn-out "excuuuse") after one of Franziska von Karma's foolishly foolish lines for foolishly foolish fools.
Given that the Ace Attorney series is laden with Shout Outs, this is probably just another one.
There's also one in Ace Attourney Investigations when you are examining Lance Amano's testimony.
In the DS game Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors, in the kitchen when checking out one of the plates, Junpei says this line to Lotus complete with a drawn-out "excuuuuuuuse".
Junpei: Those 9 plates look pretty expensive. Lotus: They're plates for appetizers. Remember appetizers usually come on square plates. Junpei: Okay, okay. Well excuuuuuuse me, princess.
Kim Possible attempting to fix best friend Ron Stoppable. Considering how pathetically You Suck he was through Season 1 and 2, she probably didn't go far enough.
Kim: Last night he had to take off his shoes to count to 12, now he's taking a genius aptitude test.
Thomas the Tank Engine was probably thinking this exact quote when Emily began trying to "advise" him in one episode. Then there was that time she took over Gordon's express and began throwing her weight around. Not to mention that one time when she visited an old castle and proclaimed her Queen Emily.
Subverted beautifully in Daria, where most of the guys don't want to have any sort of relationship with her and they either didn't mind her snarkiness or didn't notice it. This was later justified as part of Daria's defenses against being emotionally hurt - she'd hit them, so they couldn't get close enough to her to get a chance to hurt her.
The Canadian series Stickin' Around has Bradley and Stacy involved in this, especially considering Bradley's air headed nature and Stacy's witty sensibility.
While they aren't in a love relationship (well, except if you are one ofthem), Gwen Tennyson often would have this attitude toward her cousin Ben in the original Ben 10 series. This happens less often in the sequels series.
