Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Mistress and Servant Boy

Go To

Basic: A young man kept under the heel of his typically older, always more powerful, female employer.

  • Straight: Young Alexander is the servant of Bellima, a rich woman who enjoys teasing him.
  • Justified:
    • Bellima's servant had to be a younger boy because a man her age would fall in love with her, a woman her age would take offense at being subordinate to her equal, and a young girl would likely resent her.
    • Or, in Bellima's society at the time, all men are fighting in a war, all women have to stay home and have babies, and all young girls have to go to school.
    • Bellima is a Wicked Witch who demanded Alexander as payment from his parents.
  • Gender Inverted: Bob, an older rich man, has a young girl, Amy, as his servant.
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted: It appears that Alexander is Bellima's servant, but turns out he is her son and she is an abusive mother.
  • Double Subverted: But Carl, another young servant boy, does serve Bellima.
  • Parodied: Alexander is supposedly Bellima's servant, but actually he just lies around with Bellima all day ordering other servants to do things.
  • Deconstructed: Bellima gets annoyed with the young servant and often gripes about how she's practically babysitting.
  • Reconstructed: Before Alexander is sent to serve Bellima, he goes to servant school, where he learns how to be a good servant and not annoy his mistress.
  • Zig Zagged: Young, rich Prince Alexander has Bellima as a servant. Then Bellima takes over the castle and makes the prince her servant as revenge.
  • Averted:
    • Bellima has a man, woman, or young girl as a servant.
    • Bellima has no servants.
  • Enforced: In the middle of The High Queen, a show about royalty, the producer notices the popularity of student-teacher romances in fiction. He wants to include one in his show, but he realizes that he's already established the lack of schools in his setting and didn't just want to Ass Pull something, so he went with the next best thing- this trope.
  • Implied: Alexander is onscreen talking to main character Daphne. An older, female-sounding voice cries "Alexander! I told you to get my pancakes!" from offscreen.
  • Played for Laughs: Alexander is hilariously bad at his job, getting (and giving Bellima) many Amusing Injuries and failing to do the simplest of tasks.
  • Played for Drama:
    • Bellima grows to love Alexander like a son. Then, he is killed in an attack on the palace. Bellima is heartbroken, and to make matters worse, no one understands her grief.
    • Or, Bellima reveals to Alexander that he reminds her of her own deceased son, Elijah.
  • Played for Horror: Alexander is a Creepy Child who is slowly poisoning Bellima, her family, and the rest of the servants.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Bellima is the queen, and Alexander is a homeless boy straight off the streets.
    • Bellima is 90 years old, and Alexander is barely out of infancy.
  • Downplayed: Bellima is a twenty-something middle-class woman, and Alexander is a teenager.
  • Lampshaded: "And there's Bellima, with her young serving boy of the week. I swear that woman is a pedophile."
  • Invoked: Bellima specifically asks for young boys as servants.
  • Exploited: Daphne, aware that Bellima's closest servant is young and naive, uses him as a spy without his knowledge.
  • Defied: Bellima gives her lieutenant specific instructions not to hire any boys under eighteen as servants.
  • Discussed: "I don't care what movies you watch, I'm not hiring some scrappy kid of the street to be my servant because you think it's cute."

Now, Alexander, back to Mistress and Servant Boy, and get me my coffee while you're at it.

Top