Characters / Princeless

Main Series Characters

Main Characters

Princess Adrienne Ashe

The 16 year daughter of King Ashe. She does not want to wait in a tower for years to be saved, so escapes out and saves herself. She decides to save her sisters too.

• Action Girl: Pretty kick ass for a 16 year-old girl with only second hand sword fighting knowledge. So far the only person she's has trouble with Gahiji.
• Damsel in Distress: Invoked by her father on her 16th birthday when he imprisons her inside a tower. Only a worthy suitor, who can slay Sparky and "save her" shall marry her.
  • Damsel out of Distress: Until she has enough of sitting around and frees herself by faking her death and running away.
• Deadpan Snarker: As a child, she called out the various flaws inherent to a classical fairytale where a prince rescues the princess from a tower. She is still going strong when sixteen years old.
• Dragon Rider: Rides Sparky.
• Faking the Dead: By burning her tower, Adrienne misleads everyone who'd be looking for her into thinking she was burned as well.
• Important Haircut: Important enough to have an entire comic about it, were she reveals that her hair has always been a major point of angst to her. By cutting it short she claims she has freed herself for a second time.
• A Minor Kidroduction: She's first seen as a small child.
• Mistaken for Gay: Ship Tease aside, Angiosse and Raphael both refer to Bedelia as her "Girlfriend".
• Mistaken for Own Murderer: Adrienne's Dad thinks she was killed by the mysterious knight who destroyed her tower. The knight is Adrienne.
• Oblivious to Love: She takes Raven's flirting as her just being nice. Even mentions how nice it is to hear compliments without it being from a guy trying to hook up.
• Oh, Crap!: When the soldiers surround her at point blank of their raised swords in issue #3.
• Samus Is a Girl: Happens several times in the first few issues, first when Devin realizes who she is after she breaks into the castle and then again when Bedelia makes her remove her helmet.
• Tomboy Princess: She's sarcastic, direct, easily annoyed; doesn't wear pink clothes, clads herself in armor, begins sword-fighting, and questions her supposed role as a Princess Classic.

Bedelia Smith

The daughter of a blacksmith, she gets excited when hearing about Adrienne's quest and decides to come along.

• Abusive Parents: Downplayed, but her dad is more concerned about drinking and money then his own child.
• Ambiguously Bi: She easily swoons over famous or attractive people male or female, and made an entire line of female armor that left little to the imagination.
• The Blacksmith: Her father taught her the craft. Unfortunately, due to double standards, nobody takes Bedelia serious to make armor for "real", which equals in the story's universe to "male", knights, so she creates "women armor" as a front so that nobody guesses it's actually her who's creating the shop's real armor and keeping their shop alive.
• Fiery Redhead: Very excitable, with orange hair to match.
• Girls with Moustaches: She will quickly grow a beard (not like that; literally) if she doesn't shave every morning.
• Half-Human Hybrid: She's half dwarf.
• I Choose to Stay: When she was young her mother had enough with her fathers alcholisim and decided to run away in the middle of the night with Bedelia, but the young girl believed her father needed her. Ironically Bedilia too ends up running away.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She has always wanted to travel and have adventures.
• Missing Mom: Left when she couldn't take her abusive husband, and Bedelia refused to go with her. Beledia clearly has issues with it to this day, despite the majority of the dwarves who knew about the situation feeling her mother's actions made total sense.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: She mostly takes after her mother but she is still much stronger than a human, grows hair fast and has a intuitive knowledge of metalwork.
• Wrench Wench: Naturally, being a woman blacksmith.

Sparky The Dragon

Adrienne's Guardian beast turned best friend.

• All Animals Are Dogs: Generally behaves like a somewhat-intelligent, flying, fire-breathing dog (for example, licking as a greeting).
• Breath Weapon: Breathes fire.
• Dragon Hoard: Has a trove of gold somewhere. She gives some to Adrienne to pay for the armor.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Up until leaving the castle her normal diet was human men, so Adrienne and Bedelia have a hard time getting her not to eat people.
• Lazy Dragon: Downplayed, but has some elements of this.

The Ashe family

In General

The ruling family of Ashland.

• Alliterative Family: All of the girls in Adrienne's family have names starting with the letter A.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Played With, Adrienne usually only has bad things to say about her sisters, and they her, but underneath it all they all still love each other.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: So far each member of the family who's gotten focus has had this.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Adrienne and her brother Devin.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Adrienne is one of seven girls, in addition to their brother.
• Polar Opposite Twins:
  • Outspoken Tomboy Princess Adrienne and her In Touch with His Feminine Side sensitive poet brother Devin.
  • Adrienne's twin sisters Andrea and Antonia also try to be this, including dyeing their hair different colors.

King Ashe

The King. Wants the best for his family, which he thinks includes putting his daughters in towers and manning up Devin.

• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the traditional fairytale king who locks his daughters in towers. His reasoning is rooted in dual-sexism—his daughters cannot rule, while he sees his son as too weak to rule.
• Knight Templar Parent: Do not, under any circumstances, hurt his children. When he learns that somebody supposedly burnt Adrienne in her tower, he wants the ones responsible to die.
• Noble Bigot: Loves his children and his wife dearly, but feels that his daughters are absolutely unfit for anything stereotypically masculine, such as combat. He prefers to keep them safe in towers until a strong man, preferably a prince, can rescue them.
• The Patriarch: Of The Ashe Family
• Scary Black Man: His subjects don't want to face him alone.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was a lot nicer, and more prone to joking around as a kid. In fact he was a lot like Adrienne.

Queen Ashe

The Queen. Mostly stays silent and encourages her husband, but she's got some secrets of her own.

• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the woman who stands by her man. She was able to tolerate it to a point, but upon realizing the serious amount of sexism faced not only by her children but others (when overhearing Bedelia's father) she decides to do something about it and does so by going behind her husband's back. Despite standing by him for years, she has no faith he will listen to her.
• Mama Bear: It would do well of you not to threaten her family in front of her.
• Samus Is a Girl: It is heavily implied the she is the black knight.
• Secret-Keeper: She learns what Adrienne is up, and takes a more active role in making sure it stays secret.

Princess Angelica Ashe

The prettiest in all the land, her tower is the centerpiece of an artist village. She's very vain.

• Character Development: She comes to realize that her village of artisans should do more than just make stuff for her or about her. She even starts to take up dress making in a short story.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: A combination of World's Most Beautiful Woman and The Muse. Angelica's beauty has made her a target since she was barely more than a toddler, and the massive following this attracted led to her effectively holding her own court at a young age. "Rescue" attempts are portrayed as a greedy brawl between many knights fighting over her as a prize, and the artisans who worship her do little else until directed, showing her influence once she thinks to actually use it instead of staying idle.
• Deliberately Distressed Damsel: Unlike Adrienne, Angelica enjoys her "captivity" given her unique position.
• Hates Being Touched: With good reason. Touching her will activate her "guardian spirit", a giant spectral tiger. It was put on her by King Ashe due to the reasoning that if any man wants Angelica's hand in marriage, he'd better be strong and/or clever enough to defeat it.
• Hidden Depths: Quite a few;
  • She may be vapid and condescending to Adrienne, but she also loves her dearly, enough to attack her own guardian spirit at that.
  • At the end of her arc she decides to change the village into working for the good of others less fortunate then herself
  • She takes up dress making and despite being bad at it and getting hurt a lot she becomes more serious about it after failing, in fact she counts failing as a plus.
• The Muse: Angelica serves as one to a whole village of artisans camped outside her tower.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Angelica is described as this. So much so that the first spiteful witch tried to curse her at age three, and she got her first marriage proposal from a besotted knight at age six.

Prince Devin Ashe

Twin brother of Adrienne and only son of King and Queen Ashe. A non-traditionally masculine boy, he prefers smarts and poetry to swords and violence.

• Arranged Marriage: With Kira, not that he or Kira knows, still the King and Leader put some stipulations on that arrangement. The hope seems to be that some of Kira's warrior instincts will rub off on him, while his calm tactical mind will rub off on her
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of Inadequate Inheritor, showing what it's like to be on the receiving end of the trope not due to actually being unfit to rule, but due to being seen as weak due to not being a Manly Man. Devin actually has many skills that would be useful to a king, such as deductive reasoning, not jumping to conclusions, compassion, tactical thinking, and diplomacy, but these are all seen as things that make him weak instead of useful traits. We also see how his father's obvious disapproval hurts him.
• Guile Hero: He may not be good with a sword but he makes up for it by being smart.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Devin insisted that his father should release Adrienne after he helped to put his own twin into the tower. One day he got so angry, he said he'd run away with their youngest sister Appalonia. King Ashe had her taken away by the next day, assigned to her the meanest guard, and even said to his son that because of him, she'll be never rescued.
• Odd Name Out: The only one of his siblings without a name starting with A, further emphasizing how out of place he is among them.
• Secret-Keeper: He is the first to learn that the knight who "killed" Adrienne is Adrienne herself who faked her death.
• Ship Tease: With Tempest, at least according to Wilcome.
• Twin Telepathy: Apparently, he can feel his sister's presence even without seeing her.

Princess Angoisse Ashe

The "middlest" of the Ashe children. Always felt inferior, she searches for affection in the form of boys. Her tower is in a swamp.

• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of Boy Crazy girls. Angoisse seeks attention from men as she feels her own family ignores her. This leads to her putting up with abuse simply to get the attention and falls into deep depression when they leave her. The cycle is broken when she finally gains self confidence.
• Everyone Has Standards: Her boyfriend wants her to poison Adrienne so he can return her to the king and be named Heir, but despite some animosity between the two Angoisse wont hurt her sister.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Turned into one by her latest boyfriend but unlike him retains her friendly attitude.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She feels that compared to her sisters she's nothing special, and because she was born between Angelica and the twins she is starved for attention, which resulted her into seeking it from men.
• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Has a habit of being attracted to unsavory men, some who abuse her, all who eventually leave her.
• Perky Goth: A bit to happy and bubbly to be full goth, the depression usually only follows a break up.
• Power Gives You Wings: Being a Vampire gives her huge bat like wings that she can make appear and disappear.

Princesses Antonia and Andrea Ashe

Twin sisters who fight a lot and want to be better than each other. They have adjacent towers in a snowy land.

• Always Identical Twins: Look very similar to each other.
• Coordinated Clothes: Wear basically the same clothes, just different colors.
• Fire/Ice Duo: Their powers serve to contrast them.
• An Ice Person: One of them mastered this power.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Wear different colored clothing, and have opposite powers.
• Playing with Fire: One of them mastered this power.
• Polar Opposite Twins: Implied.

Princess Appalonia Ashe

The youngest Ashe sister. Her tower is in a labyrinth.

• Princess Classic: Looks this way, with a Bluebird of Happiness and a pink dress.

Ashland Knights

The six knights assembled to find the "Princess Killer" after Adrienne is assumed dead.

Sir Gahiji the Hunter

• Would Not Hit a Girl: Stops fighting the minute he finds out the "Princess Killer" is the princess herself. This is because he simply wants to go inform Ashe and claim his reward. The Black Knight stops him.
• Wife Husbandry: When allowed to ask for one of Ashe's daughters should he win, he decides to pick Appalonia and marry her when she's of age.

Sir Zachary the Pure

• Bishie Sparkle: Hoo boy does this boy sparkle.
• The Fundamentalist: His rants on peoples' proper places in the world have a religious zeal to them as he wants to bring more souls closer to "The Gods." Especially his ones on how women should act.
• Jerkass: As soon as he realizes the knight he allowed to try and rescue Raven first is a woman, this side comes out in full force.
• Paper Tiger: One of the five greatest knights in the kingdom, tames wild beasts with a touch of his hand...and loses to a girl who smacks him on the ass and pokes him in the eyes.
• Pure Is Not Good: Believes there is a place for everyone in the world, people and monsters...by which he means everyone has a role to play and better well stick to it.
• Twin Threesome Fantasy:: Averted. While he thinks he'd like to be rewarded with one of the twins, his musings on how they're inseparable makes the other knights think he was going for this. He wasn't.

Sir Raphael the Handsome

• Disney Villain Death: Averted, he tackles Adrienne out a window specifically because as a vampire he can survive a fall from a tall tower. Luckily, Angoisse is also a vampire and can fly.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: He looks good, but he is a vampire who tricks and abuses Angoisse into doing what he wants.
• Something about a Rose: He is "rumored to have seduced and killed a siren, both with the same rose".
• Take That!: Twice he does that "watching the heroine sleep" thing from Twilight and even Angoisse says it's creepy.

Sir Rocks the Migthy and Sir Walsh the Braggart

• Eating Contest: Sir Rocks is said to have beaten a troll in an eating contest and a wrestling match at the same time.
• Fat and Skinny: Decide to pursue the "princess killer" together.
• Refuge in Audacity: It's outright stated that the majority of Walsh's amazing feats were performed to get him out of trouble he got into. He admits that "the heart wants what the heart wants" even if what the heart wants is putting a chicken on a duchess' head.
• Stay in the Kitchen: If rewarded with a princess, Rocks wants Alize as he assumes being the oldest means she has the most experience with chores like cooking.

The Black Knight

King Ashe's most trusted ally...or is he?

• Foreshadowing: There is a hell of a lot implying that "he" is the queen:
  • He disappeared after the king's wedding day.
  • When the queen's carriage burned, he made off with her clothes. Ashe thinks this means he kidnapped her.
  • He does not take it well when Gahiji goes to tell the King Adrienne is running around as a knight, or that Rapahel seduced Angiosse to use her. Mama Bear perhaps?
• Samus Is a Girl: Heavily implied to be the queen.
• The Voiceless: In all of the years the King has known the Knight he has never spoken.

The Pack

The Pack Leader

The leader of a werewolf pack in the Dark Forest, and thats all you need to know

• No Name Given: His name is unpronouncable by humans, so Pack Leader will suffice.
• Papa Wolf: Literally, when King Ash threatens his daughter he angrily states that if Ash ever does that again he better bring an army
• Secret-Keeper: He is fully aware of who the Black Knight is but he ain't telling anyone, not the King and not even Kira

Kira

• Action Girl: She is the scout leader of the dark woods wolf pack.
• Affectionate Nick Name: Noni calls her "Kiki"
• Arranged Marriage: With Devin, not that she or Devin knows, still the King and Leader put some stipulations on that arrangement.
• I Owe You My Life: After realizing that Tempest saved her and Noni from the worms, despite having no real reason or incentive to do so, Kira begrudgingly tells the young elf this. Though she is quick to state that her loyalty to the forest will trump her life debt.
• Proud Warrior Race Girl: Very proud of the fact she is a werewolf.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She is forced to join Devin on his search for the missing queen as his bodyguard and she is less then thrilled about it.
  • Similarly with Tempest.

Others

Prince Wilcome

An unlucky prince who tried to rescue Adrienne in the first Issue. Sadly for him she was in a bad mood, Luckily Sparky was full, unluckily King Ash was also in a bad mood. While in the dungeon, he meets Tempest and the two become traveling companions.

• Butt-Monkey: Getting roughed up by Sparky was the least of his problems.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: At least when it comes to Tempest.
• Mistaken for Racist: Adrienne wasn't in the mood to let him get off with poor word choice. To his credit he didn't really mean anything by it, and his friendship with Tempest proves he's pretty open minded.
• Shipper on Deck: He notices that Tempest and Devin get along well and encourages her to become friends with him.

Tempest

A Forest-Elf girl Wilcome meets in the dungeons. After escaping, the two become travelling companions.

• Fantastic Racism: As an elf, she is often subject to this. She also gets it from elves who don't understand her interest in humans.
• Green Thumb: She has an extremely powerful magic over nature.
• Martial Pacifist: She is extremely skilled in hand to hand combat, but doesn't like using it. She only learned because she was even more against using weapons.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: It has been hinted a few times that Tempest is an important person in elven society and in Raven's spin-off, Sunshine says that the only forest elves capable of magic are royalty.
• You Can't Go Home Again: She is an Elf outcast because she dared to not think humans were vile monsters, and even decided to go live with them.

Princeless - Raven: The Pirate Princess

Raven and Her Crew

Raven Xingtao

A girl Adrienne and Bedelia meet in their travels, who is actualy an exiled pirate princess who was locked in a tower after her brothers convinced the pirate king to do away with old traditions.

• Action Girl: She is a pirate after all.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Flirts outrageously with Adrienne but the princess doesn't notice. Has had a huge crush on Ximena since they were little, but she also doesn't notice, both tell Raven she is like a sister to them. Funnily enough Raven herself doesn't notice her attraction to Sunshine is more than mutual.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Becomes horribly distracted when Sunshine dances at a bar Raven is meeting potential crew members in.
• Experienced Protagonist: Has been a cool pirate long before the other characters started adventuring.
• Pirate Girl: The pirate princess in a long line of pirates.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Averted, while angry with her brothers she has pointedly said she has no plans to kill them because "they are still my brothers."
  • Though that may have changed after meeting up with them where her brothers try to kill her and her crew, then badly hurt Ximena.

Sunshine Alexander

A half-elf pickpocket/bar dancer whose first meeting with Raven is rather violent, they get over it and become fast friends with Sunshine developing a less-than-subtle crush on Raven.

• Affectionate Pickpocket: She bumps into Raven, and then hugs and kisses her to get her wallet.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She doesn't like Ximena because she sees her as competition for Raven.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Half human, half desert elf.
• In a Single Bound: She can jump very high due to being half-elf.
• Percussive Pickpocket: She bumps into Raven, and then hugs and kisses her to get her wallet.

Ximena Santos

A girl Raven and her father tricked to be a willing hostage on their ship so her father the Duke would stop hunting pirates, she grows up with Raven but is abandoned on an island two years prior to the story. She is a skilled map maker and star charter.

• Action Fashionista: A girl on a Pirate ship who loves clothes.
• Actual Pacifist: She refuses to learn how to swordfight because she does not want to take another person's life, much to Raven's chagrin.
• Dark and Troubled Past: As if being suddenly abandoned by people you thought were your friends was bad enough, she later finds out that everything was a lie and the reason she was abandoned by the Pirate Kings crew is because her father had been executed and she was no longer needed.
• The Navigator: She is a very skilled mapmaker and had a mapmaking shop on the island, so she acts as the navigator on Raven's crew.
• Oblivious to Love: Much like Adrienne she really can't tell that Raven is flirting with her most of the time. She also has no idea why Sunshine dislikes her so much, something that both amuses the half-elf and frustrates her.

Katherine "Katie" Kling

The first person Raven recruits for her crew and her first mate. She's part of a tabletop gaming guild/book club, and she recruits most of them to be a part of Raven's crew of all-women pirates.

• Amazonian Beauty: She's very muscular. Ximena has even nicknamed her "Muscles." Her entire crew has a crush on her with one of them even claiming that there are a lot of men and women who would love to be wrapped in her muscular arms.
• Genki Girl: She's so endearingly excited about everything to do with getting to be a part of a pirate crew.
• Nice Girl: She's a very sweet person who wants everyone to be treated nicely. She even asks Raven to establish a rule banning all insulting of other people on the ship.

Jayla

Daughter of Cookie, who was a member of Raven's father's former crew. She is highly intelligent and loves practicing science. She also despises pirates, but she joins Raven's crew to prove to her dad that she can survive outside his home without him.

• Black and Nerdy: She's of African descent and she is a science genius.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Was this to Cookie, as she tends to be quite rude.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's a bit abrasive, but that's because she's used to being underestimated and not taken seriously. She does care about the other people on the crew, though, as she shows by making Sunshine a cure for her seasickness, and once Raven establishes a rule that everyone on the crew has to take Jayla's advice on anything science and health related, she mellows out somewhat.
• Science Hero: Jayla isn't much of a fighter, but she is very good at applying her chemistry knowledge to save the crew on multiple occasions.
• The Smart Girl: She is highly intelligent and the most academically gifted of the crew.