Adaptation Displacement: Most people are aware that there's a book, but certain elements of the films are so ingrained in the audience's awareness of the story that it's quite a shock to go back and discover how different the original text is. Mostly striking is that Sara's father doesn't go off to war (The Second Boer War in the 1939 version, World War I in the 1995 version), he really does die (of a combination of malaria and Brain Fever, after losing his fortune in a bad investment), Sara was at Miss Minchin's for at least ten years, and Becky isn't black.
The 1995 film and 1986 miniseries show brief scenes of Miss Minchin crying or almost losing control after abusing Sara. Notably, this happens in the 1995 film after Sara brings up the fact that her father told her she was a princess, and asks whether Minchin's own father ever did, too. Viewers are apparently meant to speculate that Minchin had a difficult childhood and perhaps a Disappeared Dad.
There are three possible explanations for Miss Minchin's hatred towards Sara. One is the scene when Sara unwittingly embarrasses her, where she reveals she's fluent in French. The second is stated towards the very end, when her sister says that she couldn't stand the fact that Sara saw through her from the very beginning, suggesting that Miss Minchin felt inferior to her, even when she lost everything. The third is more substantial: Miss Minchin thought that Sara would be the key to a lot of money. Instead she ended up with a lot of debts. Miss Minchin seems to resent Sara's precocious self-possession, intelligence and ability to read people, even adults.
Sara can be viewed a little more cynically in terms of her Spoiled Sweet nature. In the book she even states that she's kind because she's never had any reason not to be, and when she loses her wealth she struggles to remain kind. In fact, one has to wonder that if it weren't for Becky, Lottie and Ermengarde, Sara could have ended up bitter and broken. Another way to look at her is to suggest that she remains kind because her kindness is her only weapon against Miss Minchin.
It's possible to read Sara as mixed-race in the book. Phrases like 'her little brown hand' and 'small, dark face' are ambiguous, and her belief that she is not pretty because she is dark, as compared to the blonde, blue-eyed prettiness of a childhood friend, makes all the more sense if she is a non-white child in white society. This may have been Burnett's original intention, based on historical facts which had been all but buried: We are in 1905, a century and more past Indophilia (English admiration and respect for Indian cultures) and the days of the White Mughals. Nearly all British men in India went native to the point of converting to Islam, marrying high-born Indian women and having children who were accepted in both worlds. A crackdown by later officials, influenced by Evangelical Christianity, established institutionalized subjugation. What is possible is that Captain Crewe was the grandson or great-grandson of such a couple. Had Sara been perceived to be one of those children, it would add to her perceived alienness and "uncanny" ambience. It would also mean that she actually had royal ancestry and was, in that sense, a princess. Miss Minchin's hatred of Sara being fueled by bigotry would also make a lot of sense in the text as written - that she is made furious by the wealth and 'uppity' behaviour of this non-white girl.
Sara's treatment from her fellow servants would similarly make sense. Their resentment seems extreme if their only point of irritation with Sara is that she used to be pampered. If you imagine Sara is from a demographic these low-status women are used to seeing as being the only people they can comfortably feel superior to, their resentment of Sara's wealth and their schadenfreude at her losing it makes a lot of sense. Although it's worth noting that Victorian writers referring to someone as "dark" could just mean Sara is tanned from growing up in an arid climate.note A tan was considered very unattractive before the 1950s as it usually indicated lower class (someone getting a tan from working out in the Sun all day).
It's mentioned that Sara's mother was French (which is how Sara herself learned French), and it's possible that her mother was from the south of France, near the Mediterranean, where a good number of the residents have Greek ancestry and tend to have black hair and olive skin. Probably not what we would consider "mixed-race" today, but certainly enough to cast suspicion on Sara during the time of the book's setting.
Esoteric Happy Ending: Coupled with Values Dissonance. The book ends with Sara being restored to her wealth while Becky becomes her personal attendant. Oh, and Miss Minchin gets away with treating them like prisoners. However, if one takes into context the period the story is set in (Victorian London) then Becky going from little better than a slave to a powerful position in the household (with a kind and generous mistress too) where she would get a roof over her head and financial security, it's a happy ending for Becky indeed. And while Miss Minchin doesn't get an over-the-top instant comeuppance (save in the film adaptations, which pretty much need one) it's worth remembering that not only has she irrevocably lost her chance at a pupil who could've single-handedly ensured her school's success and her own financial comfort for life; once Sara's story becomes common knowledge in her social circle—as it inevitably will—Minchin's reputation will be in tatters and her school likely ruined. There's also a What Happened to the Mouse? for Melchisedec the rat and his family; one hopes kindhearted Sara will remember them and send Ram Dass over there with bread crumbs.
Hilarious in Hindsight: In the book, there was a passage where Sara once read a story about dolls being able to come to life when humans leave the room, because if humans found out they were sentient, they would make them work and wouldn't be able to have fun anymore. Sara tries to test this by seeing if her doll comes to life, by closing and quickly opening the door to catch the doll in the act. This becomes hilarious after Toy Story and many children who grew up watching the film series would try similar tricks on their toys like Sara did. Not only that, but Toy Story and an adaptation of A Little Princess both released in 1995.
Hollywood Homely: Early in the book, when Sara encounters Becky asleep in her room, she sees her as “. . . an ugly, stunted, worn-out little scullery drudge.” While the accompanying illustration depicts Becky dressed as a scullery maid, her face is actually quite pretty, if not a little dirty.
Lavinia, despite knowing Sara was starved, is the one who told Miss Minchin about her attic party, knowing that Sara would be punished severely with the possibility of being thrown out.
Miss Minchin's reaction to the attic party qualifies as this, if not her treatment of Sara upon her sudden poverty.
Nightmare Fuel: From the original book, Sara's fate at the hands of Miss Minchin. Sara had no clue she hated her until her father dies and Miss Minchin no longer has to treat her like a parlor boarder anymore. She had sensed earlier, however, that Miss Minchin fawned on her mainly because she was rich. Nonetheless, Miss Minchin is definitely one of the cruelest Sadist Teachers in fiction.
Less a casting issue than a hairdressing one, but Sara in the book feels she is ugly specifically because of her lack of blonde curls. The two most well-known film adaptions cast Shirley Temple and Liesel Matthews respectively, and gave them blond curls. But as the films lack Sara's internal narration, I Am Not Pretty is not brought up.
Applied much more in the case of the first ever adaptation. Mary Pickford played Sara Crewe. She was a slight woman, but she was still 25 years old when she played the schoolgirl, and looked - well, like an adult. Mary Pickford would play a lot of little girls despite being in her twenties, and silent audiences were more forgiving of this kind of Dawson Casting (as it was done frequently on the stage too).
Stoic Woobie: When she falls on hard times, Sara does her best to maintain her dignity and inner strength, not letting on that she is suffering to any of her friends. The anime adaptation takes this trope up to eleven, showing how she bravely accepts her fate, but many adaptations, particularly those made in the States, make her a Spirited Young Lady, so that she doesn't seem passive. It's worth noting that Sara's stoicism is shakey. She's got a lot of courage and foreberance, but she's not the perfect angel of lesser Victorian books (or even the unbearably angelic little heroines of Dickens). In fact, Burnett flat-out states "She was not an angel." Her 'stoicism' at first is as much pride as anything and it makes her isolate herself further and treat her friends unfairly. She has fits of anger and despair and struggles to do the right thing in the face of her own privations.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Almost all the adaptations have this with regards to Sara's redecorated room. In the book, Mr. Carrisford and Ram Dass secretly decorate Sara's quarters and leave her things like hot food, warm blankets, and a fire in the grate. Most films (the 1917, the 1939 and the 1995 amongst others) have Miss Minchin discover this, assume that Sara and Becky have stolen the finery, and this event prompts the climax of the story. In the book, Miss Minchin never sees the room. And when Carrisford sends over a lot of packages with beautiful clothes, delivered at the front door, he includes a note. Minchin correctly concludes Sara has a rich relative or friend, and resumes acting obsequious toward her.
Several minor details that seem odd, like the greenishness of Sara's eyes being some kind of huge obstacle to her ever being considered a traditional beauty. Sara "sees herself as ugly" because with her slender build, short dark hair, green eyes, and olive skin she does not in any way match the Victorian-Edwardian image of child beauty; she compares herself to another child in her father's regiment, who has "dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long hair the color of gold." Black hair was also not a good hair color to have in 19th-Century British India — as it suggested Sara might be mixed-race. Also at various points we get mentions of Sara's "brown" hand and "small dark face".
The situation involving Becky coming along as Sara's maid may be due to the fact that, as a lower-class member, Becky doesn't have the education to gain other employment or respectability in her era. This trope is likely the reason the 1995 film implies that Sara's father has adopted Becky at the end. Plus the fact that social class was largely cast in concrete at that time. Becky could not rise above her station even if she wanted to. In this rigidly stratified environment, the best Becky could hope for would be to secure a place in a nice house with a kind-hearted mistress who would make sure she was well-fed, clothed, and sheltered...which is exactly what she gets (and the ending strongly implies that Becky's place in the household is more a companion to Sara than a servant, anyway). By the time the first film adaptation of the book was made (the Mary Pickford version), a mere twelve years after publication, this inequality had already become less palatable to audiences: in the 1917 version, Becky ends up as an equal adoptee instead of Sara's maid.
. Nearly all British men in India went native to the point of converting to Islam, marrying high-born Indian women and having children who were accepted in both worlds. A crackdown by later officials, influenced by Evangelical Christianity, established institutionalized subjugation