Knight the Dragon Snatched a Princess Again Spoilers

Cimorene left in cloy and went out to the castle garden. She was very discouraged. It looked every bit if she were going to marry the prince of Sathem-past-the-Mountains whether she wanted to or not.
"I'd rather be eaten by a dragon," she muttered.
"That tin can be arranged," said a vocalism from beside her left slipper.

This is one of the older tropes. Anybody knows how the typical Dragon myth goes. Either a dragon steals a princess or a princess is given to that dragon equally an offer. Where the story goes from there is not always and so clear, only the beginning is where the trope lies.

For some reason, dragons simply take an attraction to princesses. Maybe majestic blood tastes meliorate. Maybe virgins gustation better. Perhaps they want someone to talk to. Maybe it's just a status symbol. Whatever the reason, they tend to show upwardly in each other's company. ^note In the Indo-European mythologies where this started, the dragon/serpentine monster usually abducts the princess to make her his wife, so the condition symbol interpretation is hopefully the more than correct one.

In some cases, the sacrifice of princesses to a dragon may exist a periodic thing, and several will take been fed to the beast before a hero comes forth and saves the latest.

In medieval stories, this oftentimes goes hand in hand with Dragons Versus Knights, as the knight must defeat the dragon to salvage the princess. This trope is often a setup for the Standard Hero Reward to whoever saves the princess.

Nowadays, this trope is about as probable to be played directly as it is to be played with. One of the well-nigh common ways to deconstruct this is to have the dragon and the princess get forth merely fine, sometimes to the point of Interspecies Romance. In situations like these, the princess may rebuff or even fight dorsum against whatever knight or other hero trying to "rescue" her.

Related to Save the Princess, Damsel in Distress, I Take You Now, My Pretty, Monster Misogyny, occasionally to Virgin Sacrifice. For another mythical beingness with a similar but less destructive taste in homo companionship, see Unicorns Adopt Virgins.

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Examples:

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    Anime and Manga

• In Fairy Tail the dragon Zirconis states that men taste horrible when he chooses to disrobe (dress also gustation bad) Lucy so he tin swallow her. He also listens to Princess Hisui and takes the title she offers him later on.
• Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: Tohru complains about this stereotype when she commencement meets Kobayashi.

  Tohru: Yesh! Don't think that all dragons are lolicons who ask for little daughter sacrifices!! Princess moe my ass!!

    Comic Books

• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In 1 story, at that place's a schoolhouse play nigh a princess who was captured by a dragon. Several accidents with the scenery forcefulness the students to rewrite the story then that a whirlwind carries the princess to the dragon's lair.

    Fairy Tales

• In The Brothers Grimm'southward "The Two Brothers", one blood brother wins a princess by rescuing her from the dragon. She'south the concluding of a long line of maidens sacrificed, a mutual element in this sort of story.
• In The 3 Dogs , the hero fights a dragon and saves a princess.
• In The Three Princes and their Beasts , the oldest prince kills a dragon and saves a princess.
• In "The Nine Peahens And The Gilt Apples", the prince rescues a princess from a dragon. When it chases after them, their horses talk, and the dragon'due south horse is persuaded to throw and kill information technology.
• In The Merchant , a merchant's son saves Princess Menechella from a seven-headed dragon which swallowed i maiden every twenty-four hours.
• In The Flower Queen's Daughter , a prince enters the service of a 3-headed female dragon with the intent of rescuing the princess that she's property captive. Unlike most fairy tale examples of this trope, the hero does not kill any dragons. Instead, he flees with her on horseback and returns her to her female parent the Flower Queen, who helps repel the dragon.
• "Prince Lindworm": Subverted. The dragon prefers maidens, but not necessarily princesses. Makes a little scrap more sense than nigh versions, considering said dragon is really a young prince.

    Fan Works

    Film — Animated

• Shrek has the major quest involve Princess Fiona locked up in a belfry that is guarded by a dragon. Of course, since this is Shrek, things aren't quite what they seem, nor practise they end that way: Donkey falls in love with said dragon and has children. Similarly, Shrek and Fiona become a couple.

    Pic — Live-Action

• Dragonslayer (1981). A kingdom chooses which virginal young woman volition exist sacrificed to a dragon by cartoon lots. When Princess Elspeth learns that the King has fabricated sure her name is never included in the lottery, she rigs it so that her name is called, and voluntarily goes to the dragon. Unfortunately she pays the price for her honesty and is eaten past the dragon'due south babies.
• Merlin (1998):
  • Invoked by Queen Mab, who convinces King Vortigern that the merely mode to keep his tower from collapsing is by sacrificing his earnest Nimue — who while not technically a princess, is the daughter of a high-ranking lord — to the Great Dragon.
  • Played with (and arguably subverted) in that, while the dragon certainly seems to enjoy barbecuing Nimue, the sacrifice itself was merely a ploy to bait Merlin into breaking his oath and use magic - especially since information technology'south later on revealed that the reason behind the tower'southward inability to stand is purely mundane in nature.
• Part of the backstory revealed in Dragonheart was that the dragon Draco had loved the queen (played by Julie Christie) back when she was princess, and so later on donated part of his heart to salvage her son, leading to tragic consequences for her in the film.

    Literature

• Enchanted Forest Chronicles: Played with. While dragons do traditionally kidnap princesses, Cimorene fled to the dragons in Dealing with Dragons to escape traditional life as a princess and forge her ain path. Most of the princesses are in fact captives and rather silly, and are mostly kept around every bit status symbols for the dragons. A subsequently book in the serial also establishes that the stereotype of dragons eating princesses is untrue (which makes sense, given that the first volume explains that in that location aren't enough princesses to get around). The kickoff book too lampshades the Standard Hero Reward attribute with 1 graphic symbol speculating that it's surprising that more princesses aren't voluntarily working for dragons, since information technology pretty much guarantees a good marriage, although some other surmises that part of the reason most don't is that their life expectancy drops significantly if the dragon happens to lose its temper.
• Tales of the 5 Hundred Kingdoms: As the books are based on traditional myths and fairy tales, most evil dragons detect themselves forced to capture a maiden, preferably a princess, at some point. This forms a major plot point in the second book, One Good Knight, which is 1/3 the myth of Andromeda, ane/iii George and the Dragon (although the dragon didn't actually have many choices in the matter, being nether compulsion at the time), and ane/3 trying very hard NOT to take the endings of either of those legends happen.
• Damsel: In this book by Elana K. Arnold the Kingdom of Harding has a tradition of the get-go-born son riding out to conquer a dragon and render with a damsel; a tradition with generations of precedent. The chief grapheme, who before long gets the name Ama, is i such Damsel who on top of trying to fit into the imperial courtroom needs to deal with her lack of a past; a total inability to call back where she came from. In that location'southward a skilful reason for this, the Damsel is the Dragon and once she'due south borne a kid the Weredragon won't be able to plough back.
• The Dragon Hoard has a Story Inside a Story almost a princess who is kidnapped by a dragon. She inadvertently wins her freedom when she tries to mollify it by spinning straw into gold; it turns out the dragon is allergic to gold, and it lets her get before she tin can practice any more damage.
• The Paper Bag Princess: Gender-inverted. A dragon carries off Prince Ronald, and Princess Elizabeth sets out to rescue him.
• In Guards! Guards!, it's mentioned that noble dragons prefer to eat females of noble blood because they taste better. (On the other hand, this being a Discworld book, there has to be a little flake of parody. There are no bodily princesses in Ankh-Morpork; the closest is its richest adult female, Lady Sybil. And people who want to offer Lady Sybil to a dragon are not going to have an like shooting fish in a barrel time of information technology. Nor are the poor souls whose idea was to ask Vetinari'south aunt.)
• In John Moore'south Slay and Rescue, dragons capturing princesses is such a common trouble that Prince Charming has rescues downwards to a fine art, fifty-fifty though he's still too young (and as well polite) to ask any of the princesses for the reward he'd actually like.
• In Erin Morgenstern's The Dark Circus, 1 figure on the clock is a princess, a dragon's prisoner — no sign of the knight still.
• In Backyard Dragon past Betsy Sterman, the mostly prissy dragon Wyrdryn, who comes from the past, admits that in his time it's simply expected for kings to occasionally offer up their daughters for him to eat. When the protagonist introduces Wyrdryn to his friends he specifically notes that the grouping's ane daughter is non a princess.
• An inversion in Dragon-in-Distress: The dragon doesn't want a princess, it'due south Princess Florinara Tansimasa Qasilava Delagordune who wants the dragon.
• In Zog by Julia Donaldson, kidnapping princesses is an essential part of dragon instruction. The dragon of the championship, who has failed everything so far and been bandaged up by a Rebellious Princess who wants to be a doc, becomes her flying ambulance instead.
• In Cistron Wolfe's Magician Knight, the dragon Grengarm from Muspel is offered the life of Princess Morgaine by the Aelf from Aelfrice. As per normal Gene Wolfe, the trope's course is utilized but nothing about the circumstances is normal. The dragon has a reason for wanting the princess (admission to Mythgarthr), the offerers have a real reason for offering her (favour from their god), and Sir Able has a reason for trying to rescue her (to continue the sword his dearest has promised him). Morgaine is a very unconventional princess, not in the least virginal or needing protection, and Able is actually a male child and non interested in Morgaine.
• The speculative-science volume The Flying of Dragons by Peter Dickinson (quite unlike from, though related to, the film of that proper name) offers an explanation of why Dragons Prefer Princesses: information technology's the diamonds. The existent-world dragons he theorizes used hydrogen gas for lift, which they got by breaking downward large quantities of limestone in special acidic stomachs. To break the limestone into chunks for easier digestion, they had a crop like a bird's, simply where birds accept gravel in their crops to grind their food, the dragons needed something harder: yep, diamonds. When humans tried offer them tribute to become them to terminate raiding their towns, they figured out that a pretty daughter bedecked in diamonds was the ticket. Too bad they didn't figure out they could take offered the diamonds without the girl. (This also explains the dragon's hoard of gold: information technology'due south the discards after the diamonds have been pried out.)
• In The Ii Princesses of Bamarre, Princess Addie allows herself to be kidnapped by and kept equally a pet/companion by the dragon Vollys, intending to stay long enough to acquire a cure for the plague sweeping the land but escape before Vollys decides to eat her. Like with the St. George example below, Vollys doesn't casualty exclusively on princesses (the previous humans she kept with her were pretty much anyone she managed to kidnap, starting with a chair maker). Addie just happened to be the latest she caught.
• The InCryptid serial takes this in a new direction. The women found effectually dragon lairs, commonly known every bit Dragon Princesses, are a species of Cryptid that happen to await human and have a symbiotic relationship with dragons. Both require gold to maintain their health for unknown reasons, so the princesses gather the aureate, and the dragons protect information technology. Later investigations reveal that the dragon princesses are actually female dragons.
• Vainqueur The Dragon: The number that a dragon possesses is one mensurate of status among them. But they release them after a time, so the population can be kept up, and find them by an ability literally called in the RPG-Mechanics Verse, as Virgin Princess Radar.
• In The Practical Princess past Jay Williams, the kingdom of Arapathia is threatened by a dragon, who threatens to lay waste to it unless he is given a princess to eat. However, when Princess Bedelia — who was given the gift of common sense at her christening — hears most this, she points out that dragons can't tell the deviation betwixt princesses and anyone else, and he only asked for her because he'south a snob. Neither, as she proceeds to demonstrate, can he tell the difference between her and a straw dummy in princess robes blimp with gunpowder.

  Bedelia got up, dusting herself off. "Dragons," she said, "are not very vivid."

• Deconstructed in the Tamora Pierce short story "Plain Magic". Non merely is the young daughter part nonsense (dragons simply come across a staked girl as like shooting fish in a barrel prey), simply human flesh makes them sick and start flaming. Nearly one-half the valley gets burned downwardly thanks to the villages giving it their daughters, and it's just stopped when a passing peddler who actually knows what she's doing manages to capture the dragon herself, saving the would-be sacrifice in the process.

    Music

• In Jonathan Coulton's "The Princess Who Saved Herself", the princess responds by tying the dragon's tail to a tree and giving him a good talking to.

    Myths and Legends

• This is plain Older Than Dirt: in Mesopotamian Mythology, a dragon named Kur kidnaps the beautiful goddess Ereshkigal and takes her to the Netherworld, forcing her to become the queen of the aeroplane for eternity. In a twist, although the dragon is defeated by Enki and she after gains some sympathetic moments in her interactions with Nergal, she is technically never rescued from her prison. Though given that she has turned it into a full-fledged kingdom, it's piece of cake to guess why she doesn't desire to get anymore.
• In Greek Mythology:
  • Andromeda was nigh fed to the ocean dragon Cetus to punish her female parent, who had bragged that Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids. (A bad motility, since Poseidon was married to one.) Luckily Perseus happened to be passing by and agrees to kill the monster in exchange for Andromeda's mitt in marriage.
  • The king of Troy cheated Apollo and Poseidon out of their payment for creating the walls of Troy. They sent a bounding main dragon to plague him until he sacrificed his daughter Hesione to it, except that Heracles happened by. Alas for the king, he then tried to crook Heracles, and Heracles sacked Troy for it.
  • A gender-flipped version exists in the myth of Sybaris, a she-dragon terrorising the countryside effectually Delphi. When the people asked Apollo how to get rid of the dragon, the god told them to cede a boyfriend to the creature. Handsome Alkyoneus was chosen past lot and every bit he was led to the dragon'south cave to be sacrificed, a dauntless swain happened to cantankerous their path who fell in beloved with Alkyoneus and demanded to be sacrificed in his stead.
• In the pop medieval legend of Saint George and the Dragon, there is a boondocks the inhabitants of which gratify a dragon living in a nearby lake by giving information technology their sons and daughters equally food. St. George, a soldier/knight, comes by only in time to rescue the king'south daughter by defeating the dragon. The dragon has no preference for royalty and eats humans or cattle indiscriminately; that the princess is called just the day George visits the town is sheer coincidence.
• Japanese Mythology: Replace dragon with mountain-alpine 8-headed mead-drinking hydra and y'all get the story of Orochi.
• Inverted in Chinese Mythology, where dragons are more than likely to rape middle-aged men. No, seriously.
  • Since dragons are oft viewed as divine beings or kind guardians, there are as well a number of happily married dragon/homo couples. For case, a legend well-nigh Amur river (Heilong Jiang in Chinese, means black dragon river) has a human-dragon hybrid protagonist whose mother is a homo. He tin can transfer into a black dragon when needed. With some assist from the villagers, He defeated an evil white dragon that lived in the Amur river, who frequently floods the local areas. The river was chosen black dragon river ever since. Interestingly, the dragon hybrid used to get bullied when he was little. His tail was cut off by his homo uncle, who threw a kitchen knife at him when angered, and earned him the nickname "baldheaded tail Li". He and then left the village (maybe to live with his dad?) and just returned when he was fully grown, and heard the hamlet was in problem. Similar folklores (without the cutting tail chip) can be establish all over Mainland china, starring many man-dragon relationships. Both male and female person dragons can be plant. Some of them have tragic endings, often feature the dragon or homo turns into stone, or their tears become a river, to make a story for the local geology.

    Pinball

• The pinball machine Medieval Madness has a ramp devoted to saving various damsels from dragons. The quality of the princesses vary.

    Tabletop Games

• The Dark Heart: The more powerful dragons occasionally practice this. However, they're typically after amusement, not food, and prefer nobility because they tend to exist improve conversationalists.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • At that place's at least one supplement that mentions a dragon who, using her natural shapeshifting, would disguise herself equally a maiden, either as a trap or to be "rescued" by a knight. This may exist inspired by Fridge Logic or the legend of Melusine.
  • Of the five varieties of evil dragons in the game, ruddy dragons are the species most likely to kidnap maidens; similar virtually dragons, they tin can eat annihilation, but they claim that female humans and young elves taste best.
  • The iii.v Edition Heroes of Horror supplemental rulebook offers options for running horror-themed campaigns and includes a section on using common monster tropes in more frightening ways. One case is to question why dragons are portrayed as kidnapping princess, and offers every bit explanation that the dragon wants to use them as Breeding Slaves to produce one-half-dragon descendants with Royal Blood.
• New Globe of Darkness: The unofficial supplement Dragon: The Embers gives a justification to this trope; in this universe, Dragons draw ability from having subordinates worshiping them, which they frequently accomplish past collecting "Maidens" to trap in a life of subservience. With a princess, they could force a lot more people to worship them than they could with just, say, a housemaid.

    Video Games

• Choice of Games: Played with. One of the choices offered to the player graphic symbol is whether to exist the kind of dragon that kidnaps princesses. Options include "Yep, because it's Traditional" and "In the interests of gender equality, half the time I kidnap princes instead". The game too explores the motives for kidnapping royalty, including "Information technology's all about companionship and good conversation" standing out from the more traditional answers.
• Super Mario Bros. deserves an honorable mention, fifty-fifty though Mario is far from being a knight and Bowser isn't a typical kind of dragon.

  Bowser: I will kidnap the princess once more and again until I get it right, and nobody can end me! Losing isn't an option, and neither is giving upward!

  • Super Mario Odyssey visually invokes a more traditional version of this. During his journey to rescue Peach, Mario must finish in the Ruined Kingdom, where he fights the Ruined Dragon, a surprisingly realistic-looking Western-style dragon. One of the outfits Mario can purchase hither is a knight'south plate armor, which he tin habiliment while fighting the Ruined Dragon.
• Dragon Quest I: The hero's beginning mission is to rescue the princess from the evil dragon that captured her. This is merely half the game, though, as you nonetheless need to defeat the Dragonlord.
• In King's Bounty The Legend, Princess Amelie fears that she may exist kidnapped past a dragon, equally she's a princess, but is certain that the chief graphic symbol will save her. At the very terminate, she is kidnapped and taken earnest by Haas, the Big Bad dragon.
• In King'due south Quest 3: To Heir Is Human, the three-headed dragon demands a maiden be sacrificed each year. King Graham decides to leave his daughter, Princess Rosella, tied at the stake to exist eaten by the dragon.
• Dragon'due south Lair, of course, has Princess Daphne kidnapped by the evil dragon Singe. Yous play as Dirk on his way to rescue her.
• Starbound: Invoked. In gild to summon the Dragon Male monarch boss, y'all need to craft a Decoy Princess in order to attract it.
• Castle Chief: The plot is kicked off when a dragon kidnaps the princess and the knight goes to save her... if you picked the knight as your character. If y'all option the princess instead, she gets to salvage the knight.
• In Hoard, one of the modes is to kidnap more princesses than any rivals.
• Played with in Odin Sphere. No dragons straight out capture princesses simply the game features a few of both interacting one fashion or some other. For i, Oswald is promised the Valkyrie princess Gwendolyn equally his wife for defeating the dragon Wagner. Somewhen, all v characters of regal blood have to fight dragons at to the lowest degree once.
• 1 side-quest in Dragon'south Crown involves you acting as the representative of The Church building to slay the dragon solo in an attempt to discourage the worship of a legendary princess who was said to have offered herself to a red dragon to save her kingdom. The Flavor Text of the Treasure Art for completing this quest reveals that, after you defeated the dragon yous found the princess' ring amidst the Dragon Horde, which gave evidence of her Heroic Sacrifice and unsurprisingly encouraged her followers to worship her even more. The church eventually co-opts this worship by canonizing her as a saint.
• Defied in Dragon's Dogma, while the dragon may occasionally kidnap the duchess for a "Leave Your Quest" Test, depending on your analogousness with the others, it is more than often for him to selection Annihilation That Moves.

    Webcomics

    Web Original

    Western Animation

• In Potatoes and Dragons, the King keeps calling for knights to impale the dragon that lives near the palace, for fear it might kidnap his girl; unbeknownst to him, the princess has befriended the dragon and is actively disappointment each attempt on its life.
• Gender Flip in Jane and the Dragon, in which the Dragon kidnapped Prince Cuthbert because he believed the prince could interpret the runes on his cavern wall.
• The villain in the DC Super Hero Girls 2-Part Episode "#TheFreshPrincessOfRenFaire" is a shapeshifting dragon who only wants to eat a real princess, and she's been starving since princesses aren't exactly common these days. Zee is in costume as a princess, so she becomes the dragon's target, but once she actual gets a taste, she declares Zee is disgusting. Luckily for her, Diana doesn't dress up in fancy gowns, just she is literally the girl of a queen and heir to the throne of her habitation nation, i.due east. a real princess.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonsPreferPrincesses