In this series, I introduce princess characters I feel defy stereotypical princess characteristics, some of which I identified in Disney’s classical princesses characters. Last week I discussed Nausicaa from Nausciaa of the Valley of the Wind, a strong-willed princess with real responsibilities and the best of intentions. I said stereotypical princesses lacked responsibilities, but definitely possess the good-hearted trait seen in Nausicaa. The princess in this post is going to be somewhat in between and takes quite the interesting character journey. You know it’s not going to be a Disney princess story when the princess’ father is a cruel tyrant and her title is taken away from her at the beginning of the story!
HER STORY
Shoukei is a princess from a book series turned anime called The Twelve Kingdoms, appearing in the book entitled Skies of Dawn and in the third arc of the anime series. As I said, she starts off as a princess living an ideal princess life in an ideal world inside the palace, all the while unaware that her father the king has become so obsessed with ridding the world of crime that he executes citizens for the smallest of crimes. After 30 years of this, some government officials rise up and kill Shoukei’s parents, unable to take the bloody reign any longer. Shoukei’s life is spared because of her ignorance, but she is, in her opinion, still unfairly punished by being thrown out of the palace to live like the average orphan at an orphanage. Believe it or not, this is the beginning of her story.
TYPICAL PRINCESS TRAITS
Shoukei begins her story the ideal princess–at least, she has a number of big traits associated frequently with dreamy princesses. For starters, she’s young and beautiful. When her father becomes king, Shoukei is only 13-years-old. In this world, the ruler is immortal and other high-ranking people are able to become immortals by being entered in a register (Of course, that means their immortality can be taken away by taking them off which becomes part of Shoukei’s punishment.) This means Shoukei had essentially been frozen in the role of a young girl for over three decades. While others may have grown mentally and become independent, she continued to act like a child and was treated as such by her parents who spoiled her. Shoukei even sings like the perfect princesses of Disney! (And like Disney songs, Shoukei’s song has meaning significant to the story.) She is fragile, doll-like, and appears to have no other responsibility other than to be pure and innocent, singing pretty songs and wearing pretty things. But that’s where things get interesting.
NON-TYPICAL PRINCESS TRAITS
Shoukei was kept inside the palace at all times by her father and was not involved in politics so that she would always be pure and innocent. If we were to go by Disney standards, Shoukei is just perfect. However, in the world of The Twelve Kingdoms, people expect more from a princess. What the king ended up creating was a girl who was completely detached from the reality of the world outside the palace, unable to live up to her title and position and who struggles to live as normal citizen after she’s dethroned and removed from the Registry of Immortals. In other words, The Twelve Kingdoms takes the traditional princess, sets her in a more realistic word, and highlights the problems. In many ways, this section could be renamed in Shoukei’s case because, while she does develop non-typical princess traits, in many ways the thing that makes this princess different is the world which expects more from her and depicts vividly how purity and innocence aren’t the best traits in someone with power. This forces Shoukei to become something more than a pretty doll.
But for those of you who are a little depressed at the idea of a naive princess’ fall from grace, rest assured there’s more to Shoukei’s journey than this. The Twelve Kingdoms has a lot of character development and, although there’s plenty of action, too, half of the story is about various characters’ psychological journey. Shoukei must cope with the past and figure out how to live this new life as a normal person. That’s the way she is different from Disney princesses; Shoukei grows and experiences many feelings over her new situation, not all of them pretty. She expresses a lot of jealousy, not to mention rage, and can be rather self-centered at times. But Shoukei isn’t a bad person; it’s just that this story isn’t afraid to show that princesses are human with all the emotions that come with it. This allows for realistic growth. Ironically, while Shoukei was punished for her ignorance, her knowledge later becomes a huge asset to some big events and, now aware of both the difficulties of a ruler and the plights of the subjects, she becomes intricately involved in a rebellion in another kingdom. Shoukei is one of many interesting and deep characters from this series (which I hope to review soon) so, if you haven’t read or watched it yet, check out The Twelve Kingdoms.
You keep picking my favourite stories. I adore The Twelve Kingdoms All the characters are great and Shoukei is definitely one of my favourites. I love how she grows up and how the series, in general, highlights strong, intelligent, and compassionate women (and men). I’m so sad that the anime never finishes the story and that the books aren’t all translated. 😦
Great post and perfect example for destroying the Disney Princess, I think. 😀
Sounds like we have similar tastes! I love the richness of the characters in The Twelve Kingdoms and it has some of my favorite female characters so, I’m also disappointed about the anime and books. I’m afraid I won’t be able to understand enough Japanese to read the books in the original language right now, but someday, if they aren’t translated in the meantime, I’d like to read the rest. I can’t let such a good series drop!
You are officially awesome for mentioning 12 Kingdoms! I love that series and was very sad that it never got the praise or popularity it deserved. I also think it had some of the best depictions of female characters in anime. I loved Shokei as a character. She was very complex and even though she was raised to be innocent, she really did have knowledge that was a huge part of the story. And I can’t wait to read your review of 12 Kingdoms 🙂
Thanks! It does seem like The Twelve Kingdoms is not an extremely well-known and praised anime so, I’m looking forward to talking about it some more.
Her character surely grew a lot. And her romance with the bear-general I ship it so badly 🙂
(Wow, this is such a great blog ! Keep up the good work !)
Shoukei’s story moved me to tears in the anime. I felt like a cheerlader in the last episodes.
Thank you so much! I also cheered Shoukei on toward the end. It’s hard not to!
The Twelve Kingdoms arc with the Youko, Shoukei, and Suzu is just awesome. I like how the characters rotate through the voiceovers at the start of each episode, and are usually recounting the story of one of the others.
It gives a sense that we’re seeing a joint storytelling around a table after the event.
I really liked that aspect of that arc of The Twelve Kingdoms, too! That’s a great way to describe the feeling it creates. As with the other arcs, there’s a richness to the story that you don’t come across just anywhere.