“Everyone belongs somewhere,” a college freshman tells Marissa Cooper.
“Maybe not everyone,” Marissa replies. “Maybe some people just get lost.”
It’s melodramatic, and more than a little cheesy, but that’s what we’re here for. It’s 2006, and the third season of the hit show The OC is coming to an end. In a few episodes time, rich-girl-in-distress Marissa Cooper will be killed off in a car crash. An untimely end that is all-too-common for her archetypal character; the tragic princess.
The tragic princess is a trope that has existed almost as long as storytelling itself. Beautiful girls in need of rescue, whose heroes race to reach her in time. She is often partnered with a ‘diamond in the rough’ white knight, a bad boy who saves her over and over again – until he doesn’t. We see her pop up over and over again in film, TV, and in real-world tabloid stories, because if anything draws a crowd more than a beautiful girl, it’s watching her destroy herself.
Marissa Cooper is beautiful, popular, smart and powerful, but she isn’t happy. Her parents are too consumed with their own problems to notice hers, so she finds small rebellions to comfort herself. By the end of The OC’s first episode, Marissa is passed out in her driveway after drinking too much stolen vodka. Three seasons later she will have overdosed on painkillers, been held at gun-point by a lonely sociopath, narrowly escaped a rape, shot the man who was strangling her boyfriend, and witnessed a friend fall to his death after professing his undying love to her, before finally being run off the road by another jilted lover. Misfortune seems to follow her wherever she goes, and while she is certainly unlucky, what makes her character so compelling for viewers is the fact that she seems to dive headfirst into many of these situations herself. She ignores red flags, and refuses to learn from her mistakes. She is recklessly optimistic about the outcome of her actions, and usually, her white knight Ryan arrives just in time to rescue her.
Other iterations of the tragic princess allow us to see her rise before the fall. Daenerys Targaryen is scarcely a teenager when she is married off to the fierce Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones. She tames him, Beauty and the Beast-style, and becomes increasingly influential and beautiful as she conquers man after man, city after city, becoming an all-powerful queen. But like Marissa Cooper, Daenerys seems destined for tragedy. She is not control of her emotions, and lacks the self-awareness to truly acknowledge the consequences of her actions. She flies into a murderous rage after seeing her friend killed, torching an entire city and the innocent people inside, and is killed by her lover when he realises what she has become.
Grimm fairytales feature mini versions of the tragic princess story. Rapunzel is shut away in a door-less castle when she reaches puberty, visited only by an enchantress who climbs up her long hair, and eventually a brave prince who does the same. Most versions of the story end with Rapunzel being rescued, but not before she blabs to the enchantress about the prince’s plan, and the enchantress blinds him in retaliation.
What makes a tragic princess?
- She’s beautiful
In many iterations of this archetype, the tragic princess is breath-takingly, show-stoppingly, fall-all-over-yourself beautiful. Rapunzel has her long golden hair, Marissa Cooper has her long golden hair, Daenerys Targaryen has long golden hair AND purple eyes (in the novel). In Riverdale, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge are both tragic princesses, but blonde Betty seems to end up in peril far more often. Her blondeness conveys her innocence, and her beauty makes her even more tempting to save.
- She doesn’t have a healthy home life
Betty’s mother commits her to a mental institution, Veronica’s father tries to kill her boyfriend, Daenerys’s brother sells her virginity to the highest bidder in order to further his own royal aspirations, and Rapunzel’s parents conceive her with the knowledge that they will need to give her away to an evil enchantress. Marissa Cooper’s father defrauds the richest people in town and abandons the family twice, and her mum sleeps with Marissa’s ex-boyfriend. The tragic princess does not have a model of healthy relationships and unconditional love, and she is doomed to seek out drama and passion, rather than a true loving relationship.
- Men feel compelled to rescue her, but she almost destroys them
The life of the tragic princess would be shorter, if not for the slew of white knights lining up to rescue her. The chance to be a hero is irresistible to the men in her life, but most of them are not able to maintain a relationship with her once the danger is gone. Some of her rescuers grow tired of her drama as she consistently lands herself in peril, while others have their lives destroyed in their efforts to save her, only to wind up losing everything. Ryan twice leaves Marissa for more down-to-earth brunettes, whereas Jorah Mormont eventually dies for Daenerys. Rapunzel’s prince spends two years blindly wandering around the forest, having lost everything in his quest to have Rapunzel’s hand. For those who do stick around, the tragic princess will often grow tired of them once the initial fire of the relationship subsides. She seeks out another suitor, or another adventure, because she only recognises love when it is accompanied with passion.
The tragic princess is a time-honoured trope, but she has evolved over time. Grimm fairytale princesses were passive, and largely victims of their circumstance. Versions in the 90’s and early 2000’s gave her more agency, but destined her to repeat her fatal flaw, unless the right man could come to save her. More modern versions of the tragic princess have their own set of skills, and do their fair share of the rescuing. Both Betty and Veronica in Riverdale have saved their white knights, just as often as they have been saved themselves. Betty is a skilled investigator and journalist who goes head to head with a serial killer, and Veronica is a powerful persuader and business woman who holds her own against her crime-boss father. They toy with the dark side and make mistakes like the traditional tragic princess, but you won’t catch them sitting around and waiting to be saved.
Because, that’s the irony of the tragic princess. Her story is often about the man who tries to rescue her, but the only person who can save the tragic princess is herself. She needs to learn from her experiences, embrace who she is, and begin to take control of her own life. Otherwise, no matter how many times she is rescued, she will always be lost.
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