How did "prince rescuing princess from a tower" become such a universally referenced trope?

Rapunzel doesn't get rescued by the prince. Actually none of the classic tower folktales I can think of (Canary Prince, Daughter of the Sun, Zal and Rudabeh, Maid Maleen etc.) actually involve the princess being rescued from the tower by the man.

How did this become a thing?

#storytelling #folktales #folklore

@TarkabarkaHolgy Also kiss frog -> prince. She throws him against the wall!

@TarkabarkaHolgy

Maybe @juergen_hubert has some insights on that?

@tschenkel @TarkabarkaHolgy

I suspect it's part of the pro-monarchy push that started when those folk tales were transformed into literature during the National Romantic period, and later on into other media.

I mean, using royalty as protagonists allows you to use fancier costumes, which would be a non-malicious explanation.

Still, I think that has done some real damage, leading to pervasive #monarchy worship in the modern day, and extremist movements like the #DarkEnlightenment .

I _really_ need to write that German folk tale collection where nobles are clear villains, as an antidote to all that.

@TarkabarkaHolgy I even read that rescue-style fairy tales (usually with a quest to find things for the rescue) traditionally had female protagonists. I only know Jorinde und Joringel, though.

@TarkabarkaHolgy Didn't Perrault's version of Sleeping Beauty feature a tower?

My guess is that people rely more on movies nowadays. Douglas Fairbanks freeing Lady Marian in the 1922 Robin Hood was iconic enough to influence lot of later motion pictures. I think this, along with Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty, which also added a dragon protecting the tower, is more than enough to make people think that towers and princesses usually come bundled together.

@david_bardos Sleeping Beauty is a fair point. Although I never thought of that as a tower, I always pictured a whole castle...

@TarkabarkaHolgy A castless tower in the nowhere? Beware, the fair-haired one in the topmost room might be Saruman.

@david_bardos Gurl just wanted Aragorn to rescue her

@juergen_hubert @tschenkel @TarkabarkaHolgy do you think similar politics are behind the one where the princess is identified by placing a pea under her many duvets and pillows? I've always found that one unsettling and an incredibly bad decision point.

(Now read it again and also suspect that the whole thing was just a cover story for the princess' lack of sleep, which would make much more sense?)

@buherator @tschenkel @TarkabarkaHolgy

Well, "The Princess and the Pea" is a literary fairy tale, so we should expect the pro-monarchy bias.

@buherator @tschenkel @juergen_hubert
ACTUALLY
In the Swedish folktale Andersen based this story on, the princess is faking it, to pass as royalty (which she is not). It's a female Puss in Boots tale.

@TarkabarkaHolgy @tschenkel @juergen_hubert TIL! Still, I find the test incredibly stupid both from the perspective of the future relationship and country governance.

@buherator @tschenkel @juergen_hubert yeah, to me that's the point of the story: if you are gonna use a stupid test to determine blood royalty, then you gonna get scammed