Updated October 1, 2023 23.3K votes 3.6K voters 275.3K views
Over 3.6K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of 20 Interesting Things You Didn't Know About Disney Princesses
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Vote up the Disney princess facts that took you by surprise.
If you're a Disney fan, you might also love the Disney princesses who star in many of the animated, timeless films. But even if you spent your whole childhood dressed up like Belle or Jasmine, you may still not know all there is to know about them.Â
Let's start with something basic: did you know that even though there are a ton of Disney heroines with royal heritage, there are only 12 official princesses? We're including two who didn't make the cut on the list, Anna and Elsa from Frozen. They were originally intended to be princesses and were eliminated because their film was so popular that they didn't need additional marketing.Â
Vote up the things you didn't know about Disney princesses that you found the most fascinating.
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1,991 VOTES
Mulan Has The Highest Body Count Of Any Disney Character
Most people would expect the character who's taken the most lives to be a villain, not a princess, but this dubious honor goes to Mulan. She started an avalanche and covered an entire army in the snow, snuffing out most of the soldiers' lives in an instant. Along with Tiana, she's also one of the only princesses to personally destroy the antagonist.
1,991 votes
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1,893 VOTES
Tiana Was One Of The Only Disney Princesses To Defeat A Villain Herself
In most Disney movies, the villain either loses their life through an accident, their own actions, or is defeated by a prince or some other character. It's incredibly rare for a princess to defeat the villain of her story herself. Tiana was one of the few to do this. During a confrontation with Dr. Facilier, she smashed the amulet that would have allowed him to continue paying off his debt to the Loa, which results in his being dragged off to their realm.
The people behind Moana put a lot of care and effort into her hair. They wanted it to appear to move realistically and allow her to change hairstyles or get her hair wet. The movie uses 3D animation, which presented a unique challenge. To deal with it, they actually developed new software called "quicksilver" in order to animate her hair and the ocean that most of the movie is set on.
While Disney is working on becoming more diverse, most Disney princesses are white. The first princess to break this pattern is Jasmine. Jasmine is an Arab, as she hails from a fictional Arab nation called Agrabah.
1,830 votes
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1,327 VOTES
Only Two Princesses Had More Than One Love Interest
Having more than one love interest is so rare in the world of Disney princesses that it's almost unheard of. There are only two exceptions to this rule: Anna from Frozen, and Pocahontas from her titular film. In Anna's case, she starts off with feelings for Hans before being betrayed by him, and then ultimately develops feelings for Kristoff. Meanwhile, Pocahontas develops a relationship with John Smith in the first movie, but ends up with John Rolfe in the sequel film, as she did in real life.
Why is Belle so desperate to leave her life as a peasant behind? It might be because she once actually lived a different life. In Beauty and the Beast'sopening song, Belle claims that she moved to her home village - it wasn't her hometown. She never says where she moved from, but both the live-action remake and the book Belle's Discovery state that she hails from Paris. It's also possible that she has a whole lot more money than she appears to. Books were an expensive luxury item in 1700s France, and Belle had plenty of them even before she met the Beast.
Where might this money have come from? In the musical, Belle's father sings the line, "You are your mother's daughter; therefore you are class ... crème de la crème," which implies that Belle's mother might have come from a higher social class.
