Unclear Description: Prince On A White Horse

So what's the trope? What makes it distinct from other tropes. The trope mentions two types. The first one seems eerily similar to Prince Charming Wannabe. The other resembles Prince Charming or just anyone who saves a princess and hooks up with her. Some passages are outright headscratching:

Isn't that implied by being a prince? Or can you be a non royal prince?

edited 18th Mar '12 8:17:06 AM by Ghilz

Given that it mentions Horseback Heroism, I'm guessing it's about the culturally ingrained fairy tale image of a prince or Knight in Shining Armor mounted on a white horse.

I think White Stallion already covers it, though.

This is basically Prince Charming + White Stallion.

Actually, I was wrong.

Now that I think about this more:

Prince Charming: Male counterpart to Princess Classic. Either a royal prince or a "a young man with the charm of a rich boy." Either way, tends to be well off, romantic, idealized, and charming . Stock character for fairy tales and medieval romances, but can also be found in other works. Often rescuses a young lady from distress, but that is optional.

White Stallion: White horses associated with heroism, purity, goodness, etc.

Prince on a White Horse: Princly young man that saves a damsel in distress or attempts to save such a damsel. May be a literal prince, but that is optional. Traditionally depicted as riding a White Stallion, but that is optional. The important thing is that he is the man trying to rescue the damsel in distress, in the context of a fairy tale, medieval romance, or similar such story.

See also Prince Charming Wannabe and Princely Young Man.

edited 19th Mar '12 12:19:42 PM by Catbert

That's Knight in Shining Armor.

No, Knight in Shining Armor is an general trope for an idealized depiction of medieval knights. Rescuing ladies is just one of many things that a Knight in Shining Armor may do. Just as rescuing damsels in distress is just one of the many things a Prince Charming may do.

Prince on a White Horse is the specific role of rescuing the damsel in distress.

edited 19th Mar '12 4:30:25 PM by Catbert

Incorrect. Knight In Shining Armour, this trope, and Saint Chevalier are all the same trope. They're only split as the result of vandalism.

edited 19th Mar '12 4:37:40 PM by shimaspawn

From the description of Knight in Shining Armor (Emphasis mine)

edited 19th Mar '12 4:45:01 PM by Ghilz

Huh, really? How did that happen?

I agree there's not enough to tell them apart.

A Single-Issue Wonk Troper with a strange fixation on making Knight/Prince/Princesses Themed Tropes whose definitions barely make sense to anyone but her chopped Knight in Shining Armor into multiple parts, amongst other questionable edits me and Shimaspawn have been trying to track down and fix.

edited 19th Mar '12 4:51:54 PM by Ghilz

Ohhhhhhhhh kaaaaaaaaayyyyy....

At least we'll have this incident for reference if something like this comes up again.

Well, shouldn't the articles be merged back into one trope?

No, you are incorrect. You are looking too closely at the similarity between names and are getting hung up on the irregular creative history of the pages.

You are not paying attention to the full details of the definition.

Going back to some older, simpler version of Knight in Shining Armor.

• The medieval knight who fights baddies, woos ladies and saves the day with his big sword; but also, any hero who behaves similarly. Lately has a very high incidence of having a Bodyguard Crush and Rescue Romance.... A cultural trope in Europe since medieval times, most good knights practice something called chivalry. See: Samurai for a Japanese equivalent.

Or look at the current description of the trope. Either way you cut it, the Knight in Shining Armor does a lot more that rescue ladies. That's just one of the many things he does. He might also fight in battle. He might hang out a court an woo the ladies there, without having to rescue them. He might go fight dragons, or do any number of other things.

Prince on a White Horse is specifically the guy that rescues a woman, or at least attempts to. He doesn't have to be a He might be any number of other character types, such as Knight in Shining Armor, Prince Charming, Prince Charmless, etc.

If I might make an analogy:

Suppose for a moment that we had a page on birds. Suppose we had a page on flying. Would it make sense to merge the page on birds and the page on flying? Of course not. Because not all things that fly are birds, and not all birds fly.

Not all police officers are snipers. Not all snipers are police officers.

Likewise, not all "Princely Rescuers" are medieval knights, and not all medieval knights are princely rescuers.

These are distinct tropes that can be kept separate. The descriptions could use some improvement though. Like so many tropes here, the description suffers from a lack of proper topic sentences and succinctly define the core of the trope before going on to talk about all the details and variations etc. Also like so many trope descriptions, its comparisons to other tropes fail to adequateness define the distinctions.

EDIT PS

You all are also reading The Dulcinea Effect wrongly.

• The Dulcinea Effect is the strange compulsion many male heroes have to champion, quest for, or even die for, girls they met five minutes ago. Dulcinea is the name Don Quixote gives to the (blissfully unaware) woman he has made himself The Champion of, for whom he is willing to risk his life. So much reading of chivalry books left him that crazy. In the Spanish of the time, Dulcinea means something akin to an overly elegant "sweetness". To this day, to refer to one's "Dulcinea" is to refer to the object of one's hopeless devotion and idealized love.

Prince on a White Horse would not necessarily be this. The Dulcinea Effect is about fighting as a champion for a girl you just me. Prince on a White Horse can be about (and indeed usually is) rescuing a girl you never met.

You all are not taking the time to understand these tropes. It feels like you all are reading nothing but badly written laconics.

It is exactly this type of rushed assessment that results in bad decisions like people thinking that a prototype is the same thing as a custom job.

edited 19th Mar '12 5:20:54 PM by Catbert

Read Prince on a White Horse. He doesn't always rescue ladies. Sometimes he just seduces them. So in that aspect both Tropes are the same.

Also several of the examples on the page don't involve rescuers (In fact, most of them focus on Horse color).

This trope is literally about someone who rides a white horse, judging by the example the person who wrote the page put there

So what you are proposing may not be Knight in Shining Armor, it's certainly not Prince on a White Horse either.

edited 19th Mar '12 5:25:57 PM by Ghilz

"Sweeping maidens of their feet" in this context does not equal seducing. It is more of a Rescue Romance sort of thing.

The White Stallion is an image that is classically associated with the role, just as a Magic Staff is classically associated with the wizard.

However, just being guy on a white horse isn't enough. It also has to involve coming to the aid of a lady in distress.

Except that nothing of the description, example or even the title supports your definition. What you're talking about is an entirely new trope. Valid yes. But not this. The trope clearly says the rescue aspect is optional - like for Knight in Shining Armor (See the aforementioned might? You presented the same thing kind of writing to point out that the rescue aspect was optional to Knight in Shining Armor) Almost all the examples focus on horse color of some sort. Not on rescue. And lastly, the title makes no reference to rescuing.

edited 19th Mar '12 5:46:38 PM by Ghilz

I like your trope idea, Catbert, and you should take it to YKTTW and make it because nothing in this trope is what you're talking about.

Plus the Prince who rescues princess tropes pretty much is Prince Charming.

I'm quoting the trope page. It is talking about princely rescuers. First line. Last line is also talking about "Classically he would exhibit Horseback Heroism where he's coming to her rescue on a real White Stallion."

This may not be the best organized description, but the description is saying exactly what I say it means.

Prince Charming "often" rescues damsels in distress, but not always. Consider the Prince Charming in Cinderella that just danced with Cinderella and then went around having people try on shoes. Not exactly the stuff of daring.

Also worth noting that if you look at the history of that page Prince Charming was, as the first sentence of the trope defintion suggests, intended to be literally about characters called Prince Charming. Everything else is misuse from Trope Decay.

Sort of the difference between Big Bad Ass Wolf and The Big Bad Wolf.

edited 19th Mar '12 6:11:54 PM by Catbert

Clocking due to inactivity.