Basic Trope: A wealthy girl loses everything and falls to a spot well below her position.
- Straight:
- Princess Alice of Tropestan loses her position after a successful coup in her father's kingdom, and she's left penniless.
- Alice is the daughter of a wealthy industrial family, and has grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth. When her parents' fortune is lost during a recession, she loses the comforts she was used to and has to learn to live without being waited on hand and foot by staff.
- Alice is part of the dominant social clique at her school, but loses her status in a major scandal and finds herself relegated to the edge of scholastic society alongside the nerds, outcasts, and general weirdos.
- Exaggerated:
- Queen Alice is taken prisoner by Tropestan, is thrown in King Alan's prison, and left to languish in a barren cell.
- After being overthrown by a coup, Princess Alice is forced to flee to a distant city and become a lowly beggar.
- Downplayed:
- Princess Alice loses most of her money, but keeps enough to live.
- Princess Alice, the heiress apparent to the throne of Tropestan, loses her place in the line of succession but is still a valued member of the royal family.
- Justified:
- Princess Alice used her status incautiously and made it possible for others to take advantage of her.
- Princess Alice made a bargain with her Fairy Godmother to solve a problem she was facing, but the godmother decided that the haughty princess needed to learn a little humility first — and what better way than by rubbing shoulders with the common folk for a change?
- (for Downplayed #2) To the king and queen a son is finally born.
- Inverted: Claire, a lowly peasant girl, is given a large windfall, and becomes the Princess of Wikiria.
- Gender Inverted: Prince Bob loses his position.
- Subverted: Princess Alice regains her position…
- Double-Subverted: …and then loses it again.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Some princesses fall, others keep their positions, and some poor girls rise to unexpected riches.
- Princess Alice loses and reclaims her position several times during the story.
- Averted: Princess Alice never loses her position.
- Lampshaded: “Not so high and mighty now, are you, Princess?”
- Invoked:The Decadent Court plots against Princess Alice in order to throw her out of power.
- Implied: The Five-Man Band stumble upon Alice, the Sole Survivor of a burnt-down kingdom. While she’s in a filthy, but still evidently fancy dress, and doesn’t seem to know how to cook or clean by herself, she never goes into enough detail about her past to confirm that she was royalty.
- Deconstructed:
- Princess Alice relies on her wealth and power in order to remain the selfless, compassionate girl she is. The trauma of losing everything turns her into a Fallen Hero who is much worse.
- Princess Alice doesn't know how to survive on the streets. Stealing is completely alien to her, and begging doesn't help, as passersby ignore her. It doesn't take long for her to begin starving.
- Reconstructed: Alice manages to find a sympathetic thief who teaches her the basics of stealing food for herself. Or she finds other ways to make money.
- Played for Drama: Princess Alice is a young, beautiful woman who's now penniless, on the streets and, worst of all, defenseless. The possible scenarios for rape or slavery speak for themselves.
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