Basic Trope: A girl wants to be a princess at some point in her life.
- Straight: Alice likes to dress up in a Princess Classic costume (complete with a tiara) and have tea parties with her "subjects" (dolls and stuffed animals) or other girls dressed as princesses. She also daydreams about Prince Charming, curtsies to everyone she meets and likes to be called "Princess Alice".
- Exaggerated:
- Alice does the same things every single day.
- All the girls in this setting go through this phase, and plenty of them stay in that phase even after becoming women.
- Downplayed:
- Alice sometimes dreams of being like the princess heroine of her favorite TV series, Bethany of Troperia, who may be a competent diplomat, a skilled fighter or just an active royal.
- Alice doesn't bother acting out princess fantasies, but sometimes writes stories about herself as a princess and otherwise likes to be called a "little princess".
- Justified: Alice is drawn to stories about heroines who are princesses or who marry into royalty. Naturally, Alice seeks to emulate this.
- Inverted: Princess Alice wants to lead a normal life. She wants to run around outside and get her hands dirty making mud pies, go to school (instead of being taught by a private tutor), play with other kids who aren't royalty or nobility, and doesn't care about Prince Charming.
- Gender Inverted:
- Bob goes through a superhero phase and he may or may not grow out of it.
- Alternatively, Bob goes through a phase where he wants to be a prince.
- Subverted:
- Alice is referred to as "my little princess" by her parents, but then it's revealed that she likes making mud pies outside.
- Alice is a teenage girl, who gets embarrassed when her dad refers to her as "Princess" in front of her dates.
- Alice is described as princesslike, but then she's revealed to be One of the Boys.
- Double Subverted:
- In her princess costume. And when she finds a frog in the mud, she tries to kiss it in hopes of turning him into a prince.
- She does have (and wear) a T-shirt that says "Princess" on it.
- She always ends up playing the role of a princess (albeit a Rebellious Princess) when she plays make-believe with her friends.
- Parodied: Alice fantasizes about engaging in actual duties as a head of state that most children would find boring, such as setting tax rates and discussing trade relations with foreign diplomats.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice is obsessed with princess fairy tales as an elementary schooler, and grows out of that as a middle schooler. Upon becoming a high schooler, she starts reading fantasy novels about Warrior Princess characters who go off having adventures and saving the day, and dreams of being like them. By the time she finishes high school, Alice realizes that studying and pursuing a career are actually more realistic ambitions. At university, she becomes enamoured of a charming foreign student who happens to be Prince Bob of Troperia, so maybe being an actual princess looks like a good idea. They marry and return to Prince Bob's country, but the now-Princess Alice finds royal life to be full of official engagements, charity work and producing a potential heir for the throne; this leads her to believe that it is not fun to be a princess. Alice may or may not learn that she is the long-lost heir to the throne of some small state, and this may boost her self-esteem.
- Some little girls want to be princesses, some would rather be other things.
- Averted:
- Alice shows no interest in princess-related stuff In-Universe.
- The idea of princesses is not mentioned.
- Enforced: The company that sell princess-related merchandise requested the writers to include a character who goes through a princess phase for the sake of advertising their merch.
- Lampshaded: "A lot of girls my age want to be princesses too."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Alice gets engaged to Bob as an adult. All the bridal magazines, the venues she checks out, the bridal salon where she buys her Fairytale Wedding Dress, her mother, and her wedding planner all push the Princess for a Day concept on Alice.
- Defied: Alice decides she doesn't want to be a princess, or her parents discourage this fantasy in favor of other things.
- Discussed: "My little daughter loves princesses, is that normal?"
- Conversed: "Unlike on TV, not all little girls want to be princesses."
- Implied:
- Little Alice is always seen with atleast a tiara, if not a full princess outfit.
- Alice mentions once that she loved princesses as a child, but details are never given.
- Deconstructed: Alice is a bored, lonely child who is constantly picked on or ignored by her peers because of her fantasy. To cope with this, she retreats into her private make-believe world where everything is beautiful and good and she can imagine herself as someone important and admired. Depending upon the cultural values of the setting, everyone might frown upon Alice for supposedly being "too feminine" or for supposedly having "unrealistic expectations" simply because she is a mere commoner pretending to be royalty.
- Reconstructed: Alice perseveres. She does the research, dispels the myths, and determines the facts and duties of a princess. She surrounds herself with supportive people while ignoring the whims and wishes of her critics. She knows that simply fantasising won't do her any good, and as such, she takes action and formulates a long-term plan to pursue her goal of being a princess. One step at a time, Alice's fantasy eventually turns into reality. The last scene has her triumphantly placing a tiara on her head, knowing that her hard work was ultimately Worth It.
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama:
Back to Princess Phase
