Basic Trope: Dragons like to kidnap princesses or be offered them as a Virgin Sacrifice.
- Straight:
- Draco the dragon kidnaps Princess Mary and carries her off to his lair. Only Sir George may save her.
- Draco the dragon is terrorizing the kingdom, and a desperate King John sacrifices Princess Mary to appease him, presumably before Sir George turns up, slays the dragon and frees her at the last minute.
- Exaggerated:
- Draco the dragon carries off every female member of the royal family, and has a vast collection of princesses from all over the world as part of his Dragon Hoard.
- All dragons, everywhere, kidnap and imprison princesses; searching out the daughter of the local authority figure and carrying her off to its lair is literally the first thing a dragon does when it moves into a new territory.
- Downplayed: Draco the dragon kidnaps the first high-status girl he gets his claws on. He's not picky about princesses, just no peasants.
- Justified:
- Draco is a very picky dragon and only eats high-status victims (possibly as they're better-fed). Also, female victims are weaker and resist less.
- Draco wants a princess to add to his "collection".
- Draco is in fact an Evil Sorcerer who can assume dragon form, and now that he has her, he'll do worse than eat her.
- Dragons love gold. Princesses are rich and important enough for him to demand a hefty ransom.
- The princess is also a dragon, and he's taking her off to elope, despite the king of dragons saying their love is forbidden.
- Inverted:
- Princess Mary captures Draco and makes him her pet dragon (or her mount).
- Princess Mary hunts dragons as is typical for royalty and lesser nobility. She prefers dragons because wild boars and wolves are far too easy.
- Draco is a friend/pet of the royal family and/or Sir George. When the Black Knight kidnaps Mary, Draco immediatly heads out with Sir George to save her.
- Gender Inverted: Draca the dragoness carries off Prince George to her lair. Only Dame Mary can save him.
- Subverted:
- Draco makes as if to carry off Princess Mary... then takes one of the maids.
- Princess Mary is actually a dragon disguised as a human, and the attack by Draco is just a cover for her to return to the cave she grew up.
- The "kidnapping" story is a lie the King made up to get the princess back. Actually, Draco was helping Princess Mary escape her abusive family.
- Double Subverted:
- It was actually a ploy to fool the princess into thinking she's safe, then BAM! Didn't see that coming, did she?
- Or he wasn't fooled. He knew the princess and maid switched clothes as soon as they saw him coming.
- Mary is a disguised dragon...a dragon princess (or the rough equivalent of such) and was taken by Draco because of her status in draconic society.
- The "rescue" story, in turn, is a lie Draco made up.
- Parodied:
- He just had to kidnap a princess from a long line of mage kings. And he just had to pick the one with Shock and Awe powers. The flight to his lair is literal Electric Torture.
- Mary and the dragon are lovers, and this is one of their kinky BDSM games.
- Draco discovers the local government is a Democracy instead of a monarchy, meaning there is technically no such thing as a "princess," much to his immense frustration.
- Zig Zagged: Draco the dragon breaks into the tower containing the princess Mary's quarters and reaches in to snatch her. Except, he reconsiders and grabs one of her maids instead. This is because he knew the maid was actually the real princess and the girl in the Pimped-Out Dress was her Body Double. After returning to his lair, he is shocked and disappointed to learn that "Princess" Mary is actually the king's legal ward and the daughter of one of his vassals, who died saving the king's life. The king's daughter-by-blood is on her way to his lair with a company of knights. This creates a Hostage Situation where Draco tries to exchange the sort-of-but-not-really princess for the genuine article.
- Averted:
- Draco isn't interested in Princess Mary.
- Draco kidnaps/eats an ordinary peasant girl.
- Enforced: The producers need a way to give Sir George a Save the Princess reason for his quest, or else the Standard Hero Reward won't feel earned.
- Lampshaded: "Why is it always a princess who needs to be sacrificed to the dragon? Won't the housemaid do?"
- Invoked: Princess Mary lets herself be kidnapped (or gets her draconic friend to stage a kidnapping) in order to escape an unwanted marriage.
- Exploited:
- Sir George uses the kidnapping as a way of marrying into the royal family and improve his status. If he enters the castle on foot with Princess Mary riding his horse and said horse dragging a dead dragon's body behind it, no one could deny his knightly prowess and chivalric virtue.
- The fact that Princess Mary was taken by Draco while her older sister Princess Lindsey wasn't despite Draco having ample opportunity to do so in his raid casts doubt on whether Lindsey is truly of royal blood at all, leading to political intrigue on top of the crisis regarding Princess Mary's abduction.
- Princess Mary needs a particular artifact from Draco's hoard, so she sets herself up to be "kidnapped" by Draco knowing he won't be able ot resist taking her to his lair. Once inside, she steals the artifact and escapes while Draco is sleeping.
- Defied:
- Draco attempts to carry off Princess Mary... but she kills him with a well-aimed crossbow bolt, sends her personal guard to do it for her, or is forewarned and hires a professional dragon-slayer who works strictly for money.
- Draco refuses to kidnap a princess because they're too heavily guarded. He goes for shepherdesses instead.
- The ruling family that Mary is a part of abdicates and the realm is transformed into a republic, or a peasant revolution happens to overthrow the monarchy and the land becomes an anarcho-communist syndicate. Mary herself, if not the whole family, at minimum doesn't put up much of a fight and just leaves, because that way there's no more royal family anymore and thus no princesses for Draco to abscond with.
- Discussed: "I hear there's a dragon roaming this area. If it attacks, it will definitely go after Princess Mary instead of Lady Candance, Dame Emily or the milkmaid from the corner. Just like humans, dragons collect status symbols."
- Conversed: "In those stories about dragons kidnapping princesses, do you ever wonder how the dragon tells the difference between her and a commoner?" "It's easy, the princess hasn't got shit all over her, so she smells better. All that gold jewelry makes her stand out better, too."
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