A Defense Of Snow White’s Prince Florian

A Defense of Snow White’s Prince Florian

“He kissed a random corpse in the forest!”

“He’s preying on a child!”

“He stalked her!”

Please, please, you guys, I’m begging you to actually WATCH the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

WATCH.

THE.

MOVIE.

Because the Prince kissing Snow White is, to me, one of the most heartbreaking scenes in Disney history.

And here’s why.

First of all, the Prince is clearly close to Snow White’s age. He is both drawn and voiced as very youthful. He looks and sounds about 16 or 17, at the oldest. He is NOT a “predator”. He’s a boy who loves a girl, like in any good fairy tale.

Secondly, the Prince meets Snow White early in the movie. She’s NOT a complete stranger to him at the end. And their first meeting is significant. The Evil Queen makes a big deal out of Snow White’s looks, being “the fairest of all”, etc. But the Prince is first drawn to Snow White’s VOICE. He’s captivated by her singing and her kindness to the birds. He sees beyond her looks. He sees past the rags she wears and recognizes that this is a good person, a beautiful person on the inside. Then when she’s startled by him, he’s very polite and soft-spoken, apologizing for frightening her. He’s a total gentleman. Then he serenades her, letting her know how much he admires her. (Words that she has NEVER heard from ANYONE else in her life, by the way.) Then he even smiles at and is kissed by a dove that lands on his finger, hinting he has a connection with animals somewhat like hers.

And then there’s a fade to black. So we actually don’t know if she came out again, if they talked for a while. Maybe they didn’t, but maybe they did. The film doesn’t clearly tell us one way or another. But there is a possibility that they did get to know each other a little there. And if they didn’t, something is still beginning between them. They share warm smiles and affectionate looks. They both feel it, and they both hope to pursue it.

Then Snow White finds out her stepmom wants her dead and has to run away. Which means the Prince noticed her absence.

And the narrative text later tells us that he “searched far and wide” for her after she disappeared. (This guy walked so Fiyero could run, let’s be real.) Imagine the person you’ve been thinking about, hoping to get to know, wondering if they may be the one, suddenly vanished without a trace. And she’s the Princess of your neighboring kingdom. And then the Queen of the same kingdom also suddenly disappears. Wouldn’t you be alarmed? There’s a chance the huntsman may have gone to the Prince’s kingdom for help, and warned him of the Queen’s horrible actions. There’s also a chance that the Queen already had a bad reputation in the area, and the disappearances were a confirmation of what was already suspected. So the Prince nobly tries to find out what happened to his newfound love, worried about her safety. Snow White sings about her hope that she will see him again and tells the dwarfs about him … but the full truth of the situation is that he’s been thinking about her too. It’s a mutual young first love, pure and innocent.

Then the Prince FINALLY finds his beloved… in a coffin. After a “far and wide” search, there she is, apparently DEAD! All his hopes and wishes for a possible relationship with her are dashed. A 17-year-old who once dreamed of reuniting with his first love has just found her dead. He knows absolutely nothing about the poisoned apple’s spell or its cure. He doesn’t know a kiss will save her. He thinks she’s gone. Forever. All he knows is that he has found the girl he loves too late, and he couldn’t help her, despite all his searching. So, he kisses her goodbye. He kisses her as an apology, a sign of regret for lost dreams, a chance that he seems to have been denied. A 2-second touch of her lips to show his devotion. Then he bows his head and grieves.

This moment demonstrates than in him, Snow White has found the genuine love she’s been yearning for. While her stepmother tried multiple times to murder her, now she has someone who genuinely values her, so much so that he searched everywhere to find her when she went missing. Who was so heartbroken and crushed at the notion that she was gone forever that he gave her what he thought was a goodbye kiss, his one and only way of showing what she meant to him before he became haunted by the ghost of her memory, of his failure, of his lost chance at love.

This is a deeply and tragically romantic moment that has sadly been widely misunderstood. Do not slander Prince Florian! He doesn’t deserve it!

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I sadly don't have anything able to give, but I'll try to spread this as much as I can.

🌸 From One Mother’s Heart – Please Read 🌸

My name is Saja. I’m a wife, a mother, and a woman who once believed her story would be simple. I thought my days would be filled with watching my daughter grow — from her first smile to her first steps — surrounded by the small joys of everyday life.

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I’m writing this not as someone seeking pity, but as a mother who has no other choice but to speak.

Imagine holding your baby in the middle of the night, not because she cried, but because the world outside roared too loud for either of you to sleep. Imagine whispering bedtime stories not to lull her into dreams, but to keep the fear from settling into her tiny bones.

This is my life.

This is my daughter’s life.

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That’s why I keep going.

I’ve launched a campaign to ask for help — not because it’s easy, but because silence is no longer an option. I am asking for support not just for me, but for my baby, and for the quiet strength of so many mothers like me who are fighting, every single day, to hold their families together.

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My name is Saja. I am a wife, a mother to a precious 8-month-old girl, and I am writing this in a moment that I wish I didn’t have to live t

If you can’t give, please consider sharing. Your voice might be the reason someone else hears ours.

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Please, if you’ve read this far — thank you. Thank you for seeing us. Thank you for caring. We are still here. Still hoping. Still holding on to every kind act like it’s a lifeline.

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shepherdofhermas

3 months ago

So, I watched the live action Snow White and here are my takeaways:

1) Modern Disney Hates Fairytale Logic

Every change that was made to Prince Florian (a bandit named Jonathan in this version) makes his character worse. Of course, it was done so that he had more screen time and she "didn't fall in love with a man she just met" but the thing is, she still did. They have virtually no time together and in a fairytale that would work. In a fairytale, we suspend our disbelief and remember how fairytales operate---stock characters, formulas, tropes, and symbols. It's okay if there is love at first sight, because we know love at first sight represents something deeper than instalove or lust. But here's the problem: by trying so hard to subvert this trope, but still not creating a well-developed romance that takes place over a reasonable period of time, the live action feels more instalovey than the original.

2) Modern Disney also hates animation

There was no reason to make a Snow White live action in the first place. There are so many Snow White retellings that are live action. Just because something is animated, it doesn't mean it is inferior to live action. The OG Snow White was so ground breaking because of what it did with the medium of animation. We don't need to remake that bad cgi and people in hideous costumes.

3) and has a weird vendetta against motherhood

Okay, so at the beginning of the movie we learn about Snow White's parents. Both are very loving and instill her with morals. Her mother dies, and then shortly after, her father dies. So Snow White would have clear memories of both of them, and have been pretty close to both of them. However, the only person she mentions the entire movie is her father. She always talks about wanting to be her "father's daughter" or live up to what her father wanted her to be. Which is wild, considering the wayyyyyy too long narrative exposition at the beginning of the movie highlighted the importance of both of her parents.

This becomes even more interesting when you think about the "girlbossification" of Snow White. All of the original character's motherly traits have been nixed, in favor of making her a "leader" (as if she wasn't in the original. Motherly people lead too). When she thinks about being a ruler, she talks about living up to her father (so much for an egalatarian marriage and ruling style, I guess). I suppose this means we are left to assume that her mother wasn't a very noteworthy person because she wasn't a girlboss.

4) and hates princesses

Look, the song "Princess Problems" simply does not belong in a Disney Princess movie. Full stop. Absolutely not. Put it in High School Musical as a diss against Sharpay Evans. Not a Disney Princess movie. And certainly not a Disney Princess movie in which the princess in question has been viciously abused for years and treated like a slave. Not to mention that his entire premise doesn't make sense. He is trying to diss Snow White for having "princess problems" which are what, exactly? Well, according to him, wanting the world to be a better place is a princess problem? Only the rich want the world to be a better place because the poor are so focused on survival that they don't care? W h a t? How can you be simultaneously mad at your sovereign for trying to help the poor and also mad at your sovereign for being rich and calling it a "rich people problem" to want to help???? What the heck is that? (Oh and also, it's not like he doesn't know Snow White was abused. He does. When he met her he didn't realize she was a princess. She was in rags sweeping the kitchen. He knows she was forced to be a maid. He's just classist).

The moral of all of the above points is simple: Disney is trying so hard not to be offensive that they are actually more offensive. The issue is modern Disney seems to believe that all fairytales are inherently sexist and classist, so they change important plot points so drastically that the end result is not only more sexist and more classist than the source material, but also, not even a good story.

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shepherdofhermas

6 months ago