Talk:Eilonwy/@comment-4098886-20140623144956/@comment-1416077-20140629220533

The Disney Princess franchise follows a phiolosophy of empowering young minds through positive role models (which has required retconning the first few films), who are the Disney Princesses.

In the beginning of the franchise, they were 'fast and loose' with who was or wasn't a Disney Princess, including such non-princesses as Alice, Esmeralda and Tinker Bell.

At some point (after they had announced that Giselle of Enchanted would be included and then they realized the legalities of their decision and rescinded the announcement), the Powers That Be decided to make the franchise more exclusive and set down the rules (more like "guidelines") for inclusion in the franchise and pared down to the few and the proud.

The decision to include Mulan was made early, in order to provide a role model for young Asian girls and a lesson to never let gender get in the way of your dreams... or duty to your family. This meant that the actual title of "princess" was not needed in order to join the franchise's lineup.

Meg and Esmeralda were likely not included due to morality issues (selling your soul to Hades and being a gypsy and a thief... which is both racist and hypocritical... as Aladdin can attest), as was Kida (10,000 year old cold-blooded warrior). Alice and Wendy were removed for not meeting other qualifications and Tinker Bell was given her own franchise.

It is indeed puzzling that Eilonwy was not included, but there are several valid reasons why this might be; PG rating (back then), box office flop, does not sing, intellectual property issues, lack of popularity among execs and... they simply forgot... are all possibilities.

However, you cannot equate Mulan's inclusion to Eilonwy's exclusion; they are completely different things.