Happily Ever After? ~ Snow White and The Prince

And they lived happily ever after. Or so the story says, but did they? 

What makes a good couple? For me, I think a good couple is evenly balanced. And by that I mean that they share the power of the relationship. When I write couples into my stories, I try to make sure that my strong characters are matched with a strong counterpart. If my female MC is a warrior princess, she would tromp all over a weak-willed servant, and the relationship wouldn't work. It would be out of balance. I'm not saying she has to be paired with a prince, but she needs to be paired with someone who equals her strengths or balances her.

In order to see if the characters would be well matched as a couple, I needed some sort of criteria to judge their individual strengths. I thought about what traits believed a strong character would demonstrate and came up with the following criteria to judge:

Decision Making Skills

Respect of Others

Sense of Responsibility

Compassion Towards Others

I assigned points (0-5) for how I thought each character rated in the four areas and then totaled up the values for each character. If the point values ended up close (within 5 points) I'd say that we have a well matched couple. The closer the points, the better the relationship balance.

So, how did Snow White and The Prince fair in my non-scientific and totally subjective test?

By Aida McKenzie 

Snow White: 16/20

Decision Making Skills: 3/5 Snow White made a good decision to run from the Huntsman and to stay with the Seven Dwarfs, but then she started making some pretty bad decisions. Not listening to the dwarfs about dealing with strangers harmed her at least three times in the Grimm brother’s tale, and once in the Disney animation.

Respect of Others: 4/5 Snow White is very respectful of others, in fact, this is part of what gets her in trouble with the disguised evil queen. Snow White doesn’t want to be rude to her elder, and the evil queen plays upon this to achieve her goal of eliminating Snow White from the picture.

Sense of Responsibility: 4/5 Snow White shows a good sense of responsibility. She takes it upon herself to clean the dwarfs home in the movie, and agrees to clean the home in the book. However, she doesn’t seem to have a sense of responsibility toward the people of her kingdom, as she fled for her life and has made no plans on how to return to her kingdom. Granted, she was a princess who would most likely be married off to form an alliance with another kingdom, but there is nothing in the story or movie to show she has any thoughts of returning from hiding.

Compassion Toward Others: 5/5 Snow White takes care of the dwarfs, she is kind to the old woman (evil queen), and is shown in the animated tale as someone the animals love and trust. She even seems worried about the Huntsman who tried to kill her. If that doesn’t show compassion, then I don’t know what does!

The Prince: 8*/20

Decision Making Skills: We do not see enough of The Prince to know how his decision making skills are.

Respect of Others: 4/5 While the Prince is only onscreen for a few minutes, the way he treats the Seven Dwarves and Snow White shows at least some semblance of an upbringing that taught respect for others. He is polite and doesn’t just barge in demanding things, so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here and granting him almost perfect at respect.

Sense of Responsibility: We do not see enough of The Prince to know how his decision making skills are.

Compassion Toward Others: 4/5 Given that he stopped in a clearing to see the presumably dead Snow White and offer his respects, I find that shows a sense of compassion.

Overall Assessment: It is difficult to say whether or not Snow White and The Prince are suited for each other. We never learn enough about The Prince to know if there would be a power imbalance. The happily-ever-after ending in both the animated movie and the original tale relies too much on magic and insta-love to give an accurate assessment of the couple. However, if the prince has good decision making skills and at least a moderate sense of responsibility it appears the two would be better suited than what we see now.

What do you think? Are Snow White and The Prince the perfect couple? Share your thoughts in the comments below.