The Princess Blog

For this year's National Princess Week , I am reopening a new discussion on an old topic. If you haven't read my "Damsel in Distress" Stigma post  from when I started this blog five years ago, I recommend starting there. ( Has it really been five years? ) Since then, it seems like the decline of femininity in mainstream media has gotten increasingly worse. Every new princess is either a Mary Sue warrior princess clone or a "corrected" version of a relatable flawed character from our childhood. Once upon a time, the damsels in distress were the characters we rooted for onscreen, but now they are us, the regular flawed human audience who need to be rescued from poor storytelling. Let's start with the most anticipated upcoming movie, Disney's remake of The Little Mermaid . The original 1989 animated film is my favorite movie of all time, and Ariel will always be my favorite princess. She is a vivacious and energetic redhead who rescues her own prince...

There has been a growing trend among princess shows over the past few years. Princesses always forgive the ones who hurt them the most . Though the Warrior Princess archetype  has grown more popular now than ever before, it is still an inborn characteristic of a princess to choose the path of the lover over the fighter unless she is given no other option. The parallels between the endings of Tangled: The Series and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power this year are so prominent that they could have been written by the same person. Both shows feature a princess who is betrayed by her best friend and end with the two frenemies working out their differences and confessing their love for each other with the fate of the world at stake. Even though both Cassandra and Catra chose to lash out against their former princess allies with violence, Rapunzel and Adora proved to be the bigger person by refusing to fight back because violence only leads to more violence. This is an important and p...

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there during this tough time. I don't usually write fanfiction, but I've heard so many people making Tangled references about the coronavirus that I thought I'd have a little fun with it. This story takes place after the ending of Tangled: The Series and the "Tangled Ever After" short . Enjoy! A Virus in Corona One sunny day in the kingdom of Corona, Shorty went out exploring and found something he had never seen before. A purple mushroom with green polka dots had sprouted near the area where the Sun Drop and black rocks had appeared. Many people would have been afraid to come near a mysterious new formation in such an ominous spot, but not Shorty. In fact, as soon as he laid eyes on it, he wondered what such a rare and exotic mushroom might taste like. He was disappointed to find that it didn't taste very different from any other mushroom and decided to go to his favorite pub, the Snuggly Duckling, to find...

"I'm not one to walk away from a fight when my friends are in danger, no matter what the odds. Just something I picked up from Rapunzel." Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is a theme that was heavily encoded into the storytelling DNA of Plus Est en Vous , the series finale of Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure. The show formerly known as Tangled: The Series  reached its ultimate conclusion today, neatly tying up loose ends to make way for the "Tangled Ever After" short , where we see Rapunzel and Eugene tie the knot at last. All in all, Plus Est en Vous  was a mediocre finale for such a strong series, but that was primarily due to how the third season was dragged out. In general, I find that shows tend to lose their traction after the second season, which is why many of my favorite shows, such as Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders , ran for two seasons or less. Destinies Collide , the season two finale of Tangled, was the pinnacle of suspense and emot...

Today marks the last multi-part special on Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure  before the series finale on March 1st. I had high hopes that Cassandra's Revenge  would resolve Cassandra's heartbreaking betrayal arc once and for all, but it looks like that is being saved for the finale. Though there were some revelations in this special about Rapunzel and Cassandra's powers, they weren't quite as big as I was hoping. The special brought back Varian for a gorgeous new Alan Menken duet  with Cassandra. It also progressed the sinister plans of the mysterious blue girl, who is the true antagonist likely has some sort of connection to Zhan Tiri, the show's final boss. It was an enjoyable special in terms of art and music, but I felt let down by the fact that they are saving all the big resolutions for the finale. Cassandra is beginning to feel like a broken record, saying the same things over again until the plot allows her story to progress. The special kicks off wi...

There are few season premieres  as anticipated as the third season of Tangled. The season 2 finale, Destinies Collide , left fans with chills as Cassandra betrayed Rapunzel within the final seconds of the episode by snatching the Moonstone Opal right out of her hands. I avoided jumping too deep into the fan theory vortex since only one explanation for Cassandra's actions would ever truly be canon. That explanation came within the opening minutes of today's season premiere, Rapunzel's Return . It was a shocking twist of events, but not one that was completely unfounded . According to series creator Chris Sonnenburg , the final season of this series had been planned since the beginning, which is made clear by Cassandra's character design as well as some subtle foreshadowing in the second season. Let's just say Rapunzel and Cassandra have a lot more in common than they may have thought. For me, the most disappointing thing about Rapunzel's Return  was learn...

Yesterday was the long-awaited season finale of Tangled with a two-part episode called Secret of the Sun Drop . After 22 episodes, the season has finally come to a close. The hour-long special was a terrific payoff for a fairly inconsistent season. It was everything the previous  Queen for a Day  special was building up to. At last, learn the truth behind those mysterious rocks from the first episode and the connection they have to Rapunzel's magical hair. Varian's story, which has been foreshadowed since the previous special, also comes to fruition here, though I hope that this isn't the last we see of him. The season finale boasts two fantastic new songs, one of which I would love to see become the new theme song, as the current one could use some improvement. It also builds the groundwork for the second season, showing us that Rapunzel's story is far from over. Secret of the Sun Drop  takes place on Rapunzel's 19th birthday, marking a full year since her ...

The wait for more Tangled episodes  ends tomorrow. During the interim, Disney rewarded us for our patience with something unexpected. Rapunzel and the Lost Lagoon  by Leila Howland bridges the gap between the Tangled  movie and the Tangled: Before Ever After  special from the television series. The book was a pleasure to read because it was written in a way that anyone could enjoy, as long as they are at least at a middle school reading level. It is written in first person and switches between the perspectives of Rapunzel and Cassandra. I read the ebook version and found it very informative and enjoyable. I highly recommend it if you want to know more of the backstory behind the series. Rapunzel and the Last Logoon  reveals all of the juicy details that were missing from the Tangled series about how Cassandra became Rapunzel's lady-in-waiting . Since half of the book is written from Cassandra's perspective, it answers a lot of questions we might have, such ...

This year, we've been gifted with not one, but two new animated princess series. There's  Mysticons , which began this week, and  Tangled: The Series , which started in March, based off Disney's 2010 movie of the same name . This is far from the first time Disney has made an animated series from one of their movies. In 1992, they made a fantastic  Little Mermaid series  and followed it up with an Aladdin series , a Hercules series , a Tarzan series , and more . With most of these averaging at around two seasons each, there's no way of knowing if Tangled will outlast its predecessors at this point. As Disney Channel is prone to do, the series is currently on an unannounced hiatus that will last at least a month, making this a good time to look back at what's happened in it so far. The Tangled series takes place after the events of the movie Tangled , but before the  "Tangled Ever After" short , which showed us Eugene and Rapunzel's wedding. This ...

Let's say a princess asked you to be her best friend. Would you jump at the chance? That was precisely the role that a lady-in-waiting was hired to fill. You would have to be of noble birth, of course, but let's imagine that luck was in your favor. Considering how many stories, films, and shows are about princesses, it's surprising how few of them acknowledge their esteemed companions. If a princess is a superhero, her lady-in-waiting would be her sidekick. Is being a sidekick so bad? You would still get to be part of the all action at court. Only in recent years has the lady-in-waiting role made a comeback in the media. There are  many benefits of being a lady-in-waiting . Though it was an unpaid position, ladies got free room and board in the castle and beautiful gowns to match their status. Let's face it. Those are two of the best perks of being a princess. The position comes with esteem and honor for yourself and your family, and you get a royal best friend who co...