Talk:Disney Princess/@comment-9204379-20140116033035/@comment-1416077-20140118135037

Patient toward her happy ending? She does NOTHING to further her happy ending. The rats and birds make her first dress; without them, she wouldn't even have a chance to go to the ball. When that dress gets destroyed, she cries until her Deux ex Machina arrives and (literally) fixes everything with a wave of her wand.

If she had not left behind her slipper (whether by accident of fairy magic is irrelevant; the point is it was not intentional on her part), she would have no happy ending; no shoe, no search.

If not for the rats and birds, she would never have escaped to have the slipper fitted.

That Cinderella was a pious, selfless, warm, caring, forgiving, hard-working human being is completely irrelevant: she does NOTHING to bring about her happy ending, by choice. If not for the Fairy Godmother, the movie would have ended when the first dress was ripped.

People criticize the Disney Princesses for giving girls false expectations; that they are worthless without a "prince" to "rescue" them; that it they teach young girls that being a "damsel in distress". Cinderella is the primary reason for this: Snow White's stepmother sent an assassin to kill her, so she ran away and through her effort, found a new life with the Dwarves; from all appearances, that could easily have been a happy life for her. Aurora had no choice; she was enspelled, but even if she hadn't, her marriage was pre-arranged and she would have ascended her father's throne and been the mother of the King of two united kingdoms.

Cinderella's hard work was not done with the goal of improving her situation; her kindness and good heart was appreciated only by the animals. Think what would have likely happened if the Fairy Godmother hadn't come as Cinderella cried her heart out? She was crushed; she would not even have attempted to go to the ball, next day, she'd go back to her routine. No happily ever after.

Does she deserve a happy ending? Sure, who doesn't? But what is she doing to get there? Even Aurora made a choice to fulfill her duty rather to go to "the boy in the forest"! What was Cinderella's choice? what did she actually do?