Basic Trope: A female ruler of a realm is addressed as a princess rather than a queen.
- Straight: Princess Mary is the ruler of her Principality.
- Exaggerated: Mary is the mature, independent, and politically active ruler of the entire world or a vast intergalactic empire, but is still addressed as a princess.
- Downplayed:
- Mary's official title is "queen", but she doesn't mind people calling her "princess".
- King Reginald is still the nominal ruler, but because of his advanced age, he's given his daughter Princess Mary increased authority in the day-to-day operations of the kingdom.
- Justified:
- Mary's realm is explicitly a principality, not a kingdom.
- Mary is a minor, and they are waiting until the princess comes of age, at which point she will be crowned queen.
- Mary has inherited the throne but her coronation hasn't happened yet.
- Mary is only acting ruler, as regent for her father the king, her mother the queen, or her son the king.
- Mary is ruling a feudal fiefdom granted by and subordinate to her parents (who are still the reigning monarchs overall).
- Mary is co-ruling with her sister Anna in a diarchy, and one of them becoming queen means one has power over the other.
- Mary has overthrown her mother Queen Alice in a revolution but retained the title "princess" instead of "queen" to maintain her public image as the "good" figure.
- In Mary's native tongue, the title for all royal women is the same word, which has no direct translation into English but is usually rendered "Princess" for the sake of convenience.
- The elder queen retired to be a figurehead but left ruling to her daughter. Out of respect, "Queen" is reserved for her even though the ruling is done by a princess.
- Inverted: Mary is clearly not the ruler of her realm (nor is she the wife of the ruler) but is referred to as a queen.
- Gender Inverted: Mark is the ruler of a realm, but he is addressed as a prince rather than a king for any of the above reasons.
- Subverted:
- Mary comes of age, at which point she is crowned queen.
- It turns out there actually was a king the entire time, but we never met or heard of him before.
- The kingdom does have a king or queen, but they have been kidnapped by Emperor Evulz, and thus, the heroes don't meet them.
- "Princess" Mary is technocally President Mary, the Just the First Citizen Benevolent Dictator of her country. But, by way of Historical In-Joke, she's commonly known as "The Princess".
- Double Subverted:
- After being crowned queen, Mary can't get used to her new title, so she requests that people refer to her as a princess again.
- The king or queen dies after being revealed, and Mary becomes the ruler, still being referred to as a princess.
- Parodied: Mary is 80 years old and has been the queen for decades, but then she becomes senile and demands that everyone call her a princess.
- Zig Zagged: Princess Mary begins ruling the realm after the king dies, but then a new heir with a better claim to the throne shows up and becomes the king. However, he is cruel and gets overthrown, and Princess Mary is installed in power once again.
- Averted: Mary is called a queen.
- Enforced: "Queens have an evil reputation!" "We need Mary to be a princess to appeal to young girls!"
- Lampshaded: "Why does everyone call her 'Princess Mary', anyway? Shouldn't she be 'Queen Mary'?"
- Invoked: "Really, just call me a princess like you always have."
- Exploited: Mary deliberately styles herself "princess" to make her seem less imposing to her subjects and so her enemies frequently underestimate her ("but she's only a princess!")
- Defied: "I'm not a princess anymore! You shall address me as 'Queen Mary'!"
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Because Mary is a princess instead of a queen, her subjects think of her as just a Royal Brat and don't take her seriously as a ruler.
- Reconstructed: But as Mary's reign goes on, people realize that she really is a good ruler.
- Played For Laughs: Princess Mary insisted upon the title because she was worried that queen would make her sound old.
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