Disney Princesses

Of the nine "official" Disney Princesses, only five have royal parentage. Snow White, Cinderella, "the one from Sleeping Beauty," the Little Mermaid, and Jasmine are the daughters of kings.

Belle and Tiana marry, or at least fall in love with, princes.

Mulan and Pocahontas became Princesses in short ceremonies made possible by Liberal Guilt.

If we make you a Princess, will you forgive us for dying from your poison toys?

It's true that you can't have an entertaining movie without drama and conflict, and that someone has to make that first misstep to get the ball rolling, but Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are worse than usual.

Snow White: Minutes after seven people each warn her that there's a psychopath on the loose with the exclusive goal of killing her, Snow White accepts an apple from a strange woman who journeyed deep into the forest for no other reason than to hand out apples in a place nobody should be living.

Sleeping Beauty: Having been told all her life that touching a spinning wheel will put her in a coma forever, the first thing she does when encountering a spinning wheel is touch it and fall into a coma. Toddlers with peanut allergies manage to not touch thousands of peanuts every day. Sleeping Beauty encounters exactly one spinning wheel, and touches it almost immediately.

All Disney Princesses go through a token rebellious phase. Ariel and Pocahontas, though, take it just that one step further, actively seeking out and ultimately siding with a group they know will eventually kill all their friends.

Ariel: Before giving up her legs forever in order to live with humans, the Little Mermaid knows exactly two things about them. Some of them pose attractively on boats, and, oh, yes, they eat fish. In Ariel's world, fish can talk, swim, and stage elaborate musical numbers, and yet she completely fails to run for the beach in horror when Prince Eric attempts to eat her mentor and friend. By film's end, she's fully converted, standing around and chuckling while her best friend races madly to escape being murdered.

"Guys, that was a lovely performance of Les Mis. Now, get in the pan!"

Pocahontas: I'm going to ignore that Pocahontas fell in love with Mel Gibson. It was 1996, and he was still a little more "Mad Max," and a little less "Embarassing Uncle." What I'm not going to ignore is that Pocahontas ended up mostly on the side of the people that literally everyone in her life warned her about.

Magic talking tree that is always, always right: "Beware of the new people. They're going to genocide us and give you syphilis."

Pocahontas: "I don't care! I love him, and I'm going to pretty much let this happen, then I'm going to go on their boat to England and learn to wear underpants!"

Mulan's pretty much perfect, right up until Mulan II. She's a Disney badass you can get behind as a role model. Disney's watered down version runs away from home, disguises herself as a boy by chopping her hair off with a sword, joins the army, and eventually saves the Empire by tricking the main bad guy into exploding.

Mulan II spends the entire movie dithering about whether to be a soldier or a wife. Apparently, in the Disney Universe, you can't be both.