The Princess
supporting · human
She watches a stranger get hauled out of a river in somebody else's suit and decides, more or less on the spot, that this is the one. She turns out to be right, for reasons nobody in the carriage understands.
What they are like
- Kind
- 7/10
- Brave
- 6/10
- Clever
- 8/10
- Honest
- 8/10
- Curious
- 9/10
- Patient
- 4/10
How we meet them
Sitting in a carriage watching her father be delighted, and looking twice at a young man who has just been fished out of a river.
Personality
Quick, direct and considerably harder to impress than her father. She is impressed anyway, which she finds mildly annoying and does not mention.
What they want
She has been shown a great many suitable young men in good order. This one arrived by accident, soaking wet, and did not talk at her once.
How they change
The only person in the story who chooses something and then gets the thing she chose.
How they speak
Two lines in the entire story, and one of them is the only accurate observation anybody makes. She notices that her father is not the only person being kept in the dark.
How the story treats them
Her father treats her as a prize to be awarded. The cat does not factor her in at all. The miller's son is the only one who answers her honestly, because it is the only question he can answer.
One surprising thing
Perrault gives her no name. The princess in the older Italian version by Straparola does have one, Elisetta, and she is the only woman in either story who gets to be called anything.
If they were real today
She would be the person who works out on the second date exactly how much you are not saying, and marries you anyway.
Things they say
- “Nobody has told you anything either, have they.”
- “Good.”
Key moments
The second look
She looks at the young man in the borrowed suit twice. The second time she does not look away, and the whole marriage plot turns on it.
“Nobody has told you anything either, have they.”
Good
She works out that he knows as little as her father does, tells him so, gets a one word answer, looks out of the window, and decides that she approves.
“Good.”
Who they know
The Miller's Sonromance
She looks at him twice. He agrees with everything anyone says. Somehow this turns out to be the most honest relationship in the story.
Characters like The Princess
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