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[[The Hero]] has done it. The dragon/demon/evil wizard/whatever terrorizing the kingdom is slain, and now all he needs to do is head for the palace and collect his reward.
What is his reward you ask? The
While slaying a villain is the most common deed that leads to this specific reward, it is not the only way. As long as the hero has solved a serious enough problem threatening the kingdom, he can get this Standard Hero Reward.
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{{endingtrope}}
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* The ''Capital One'' commercial, where the hero has ''lots'' of other terms and conditions to meet before getting his package (and that's a damn ugly princess, to boot).
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==▼
▲== Anime and Manga ==
* While the 80s anime ''Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics'' usually played its adaptations straight, one of the last episodes used ''[[The Brave Little Tailor]]'' as a subversion - the princess was so [[Gonk|hideous]] and [[Abhorrent Admirer|obnoxious]] that the story ended with him [[Keep the Reward|rejecting the reward]] in favor of [[And the Adventure Continues...|seeking further adventures]] rather than getting stuck with her.
* ''[[Murder Princess]]'' hints at a lesbian and [[Freaky Friday]] version of this trope.
* In the [[Backstory]] of ''[[Amagi Brilliant Park]]'', Princess Latifa Fleuranza was put under a curse because her father '''reneged''' on such an offer. Not smart, Dad, when dealing with a wizard who'd defeated the dragon your army couldn't take down....
==
* A gender-flipped High School version takes place (off-screen) in the ''[[Ranma ½]]'' fanfic ''[[Ranma and Akane: A Love Story]]'': Sayuri's bravery in the face of Daken's attempt to ambush Ranma and Akane at Furinkan earns her a very nice date with a very nice boy. Sadly, it coincidentally puts her in the wrong place to be the victim of a [[Trojan Horse]] gambit by one of Ranma's old enemies.
* Greek legends, whence this trope originated. In prehistoric Greece, inheritance was passed in the female line. When a foreign warlord was invited into the country to help deliver it from barbarians or the like, marriage to the king's daughter was a useful pay-off that also served to strengthen the kingdom. As a legendary example of this, Menelaus was king of Sparta through his marriage to Helen, despite the fact that Helen had living brothers.▼
** Another reason for this, and one that can sometimes [[Justified Trope|justify]] use of this trope is the possible consequence if you ''don't'' tie the foreign warlord into your family by marrying him to your daughter. He's quite possibly powerful enough to [[Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him|take over the country anyway]]. After all, the fact that you needed him to help get rid of the barbarian or monster or other [[Monster of the Week]] suggests that your own military forces aren't exactly up to snuff. So at the end of the day, when the hero has slain the dragon your whole army couldn't kill, he's probably strong enough that if he really wanted to he could marry your daughter and rule your kingdom whether you wanted him to or not. In which case it's a lot safer to give him what you both know he could take for himself as a "reward" than to try to buy him off with a few trinkets.▼
* [[Oedipus the King|Oedipus]] saves Thebes from the Sphinx by correctly answering the [[Riddle of the Sphinx]]. As a reward, he is given the crown of Thebes and the hand of Queen Jocasta in marriage. [[Parental Incest|It goes horribly wrong.]]▼
* [[The Brothers Grimm (creator)|Grimms']] "[[The Twelve Dancing Princesses]]" plays this perfectly straight, though most them don't feature ''quite'' so many possible spouses to pick from. And usually the youngest princess is the choice—but not here; the soldier declares that since he's not young himself, he will marry the oldest.▼
** Some versions of the tale soften things by having the youngest princess fall in love with the hero herself and saves him from being tricked into drinking a love potion by her sisters.▼
* [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131017031044/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/twelvedancing/stories/katiecrackernuts.html Katie Crackernuts]" is a [[Gender Flip|gender-flipped]] variation of the "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", where the main character agrees to watch an ailing prince over night. She discovers that his illness is created by [[The Fair Folk]] making him dance all night and she manages to haggle with his parents to increase her reward from a peck of silver to the prince himself. She even manages to score ''another'' prince for her sister out of it.▼
* [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s "[[Molly Whuppie]]" having two older sisters, and the king three sons, she laid claim to three standard rewards, one for each of them.▼
* "[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/065.htm Jesper Who Herded the Hares]"—the king tries to wiggle out of it and fails.▼
* "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130527143315/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/asbjornsenmoe/dapplegrim.html Dapplegrim]"—the king tries to wiggle out of it and fails.▼
* In "[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/038.htm The Grateful Beasts]", the king pushes [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]] a little too far; his own daughter the princess argues with him until he imprisons her in a tower. However, the last task is to summon all the wolves in the kingdom, [[Beware the Nice Ones|the wolves then proceed to kill all the court]], and Ferko frees the princess, marries her, and becomes king.▼
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20190207162855/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/jackbeanstalk/stories/dragontricked.html How the Dragon Was Tricked]", the hero laid claim to the princess and kingdom after her father had been eaten by the dragon he demanded the hero bring back.▼
* "[[The Brave Little Tailor]]" pretty much bluffs his way to the kingdom and the girl, though the princess and her father both try to wiggle out of it when they secretly learn of his low class. He gets to keep the goods with another bluff that leaves every soldier in the kingdom too afraid to do anything against him, thus leaving the king and princess with no way to get rid of him.▼
* The Norwegian folk hero Espen Askeladd, who features in dozens of different fairy tales across the country, commonly wins "the princess and half the kingdom" as a reward for his heroic deeds.▼
== [[Film]] ==
* The end of ''First Knight'' has the mortally wounded King Arthur inexplicably hand over Excalibur and rulership of Camelot to Sir Lancelot who, before then, was a roving entertainer who fought people in town squares for money. Earlier on, Arthur had knighted Lancelot for rescuing Guinevere over Lancelot's (and the Round Table Knights') protestations. So he gives his Kingdom (and his soon-to-be widow) over to somebody who he barely knows, who had fallen in love with his wife, and who has no desire or ability to rule.
* It took a while, but [[Loveable Rogue|Han Solo]] got his reward at the end of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' trilogy.
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* After offering Eggsy [[Rescue Sex]] at the end of 2014's ''[[Kingsman: The Secret Service]]'', Princess Tilde of Sweden eventually marries him at the end of the sequel, 2017's ''[[Kingsman: The Golden Circle]]''.
== [[Literature]] ==
* Spoofed in the [[Discworld]] book ''[[
** He does however have an aunt and a dog. At least one person considers it for the dog.
** Later, Vimes does get a variation of this, albeit in a nontraditional way. He rescues a virgin aristocrat (old maid Sybil Ramkin) from the
*** To say nothing of what the Watch hero who actually ''defeated'' the dragon got out of the deal: {{spoiler|he '''married the dragon'''. The King was bested by Errol the swamp dragon in air-to-air combat, and turned out to be a female for whom [[Love At First Punch]] evidently applied.}}
* Invoked in [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s ''Five Hundred Kingdoms'' series. The 500 kingdoms quite literally run on fairy tale tropes. In a stroke of [[Genre Savvy|genre savviness]], one of the kings hires a sorcerer to "kidnap" his daughter (even though she just plays around when she's "held captive") and offers her hand to the man who rescues her. This is because he knows that the only one who can overcome the sorcerer's trials will be clever, compassionate and heroic, and thus an ideal heir for his throne.
* In ''[[Sir Apropos of Nothing]]'', the title character is offered the princess's hand for saving her and the king. But when they decide to consummate their love, Apropos finds they share [[Brother-Sister Incest|peculiarly similar birthmarks]]
* In many variants of the medieval [[Chivalric Romance]] ''Robert The Devil'', while working at a menial job at court, the hero rescues the princess and so gets to marry her. (He had deliberately taken a job beneath him, as penance for evil.)
* In the [[Chivalric Romance]]s ''King Horn'', ''Beves of Hampton'', and ''Guy of Warwick'', the heroes all win the hand of a princess by their feats. Unfortunately, Horn is in exile from the court of his true love because of a false accusation, and Beves and Guy are both seeking to win renown so that the princess he is in love with will find him worthy, despite his low birth.
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* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'': After Sauron is defeated, Aragorn from gets to marry a beautiful Elven princess.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* [[Played for Drama]] and nastily [[Deconstructed]] in ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]].'' The shepherd boy brought in as a last-minute swap for the deceased prince slays the dragon and saves his widowed mom's farm. Unfortunately, the kingdom is flat broke, meaning he's being ''forced'' to marry some [[Royal Brat]] in order to secure a fat dowry for the land's empty coffers. Otherwise, the king is going to destroy his mother.
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
== Tabletop Games ==▼
▲* Greek legends, whence this trope originated. In prehistoric Greece, inheritance was passed in the female line. When a foreign warlord was invited into the country to help deliver it from barbarians or the like, marriage to the king's daughter was a useful pay-off that also served to strengthen the kingdom. As a legendary example of this, Menelaus was king of Sparta through his marriage to Helen, despite the fact that Helen had living brothers.
▲** Another reason for this, and one that can sometimes [[Justified Trope|justify]] use of this trope is the possible consequence if you ''don't'' tie the foreign warlord into your family by marrying him to your daughter. He's quite possibly powerful enough to [[Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him|take over the country anyway]]. After all, the fact that you needed him to help get rid of the barbarian or monster or other [[Monster of the Week]] suggests that your own military forces aren't exactly up to snuff. So at the end of the day, when the hero has slain the dragon your whole army couldn't kill, he's probably strong enough that if he really wanted to he could marry your daughter and rule your kingdom whether you wanted him to or not. In which case it's a lot safer to give him what you both know he could take for himself as a "reward" than to try to buy him off with a few trinkets.
▲* [[Oedipus the King|Oedipus]] saves Thebes from the Sphinx by correctly answering the [[Riddle of the Sphinx]]. As a reward, he is given the crown of Thebes and the hand of Queen Jocasta in marriage. [[Parental Incest|It goes horribly wrong.]]
▲* [[The Brothers Grimm (creator)|Grimms']] "[[The Twelve Dancing Princesses]]" plays this perfectly straight, though most them don't feature ''quite'' so many possible spouses to pick from. And usually the youngest princess is the choice—but not here; the soldier declares that since he's not young himself, he will marry the oldest.
▲** Some versions of the tale soften things by having the youngest princess fall in love with the hero herself and saves him from being tricked into drinking a love potion by her sisters.
▲* [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131017031044/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/twelvedancing/stories/katiecrackernuts.html Katie Crackernuts]" is a [[Gender Flip|gender-flipped]] variation of the "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", where the main character agrees to watch an ailing prince over night. She discovers that his illness is created by [[The Fair Folk]] making him dance all night and she manages to haggle with his parents to increase her reward from a peck of silver to the prince himself. She even manages to score ''another'' prince for her sister out of it.
▲* [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s "[[Molly Whuppie]]" having two older sisters, and the king three sons, she laid claim to three standard rewards, one for each of them.
▲* "[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/065.htm Jesper Who Herded the Hares]"—the king tries to wiggle out of it and fails.
▲* "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130527143315/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/asbjornsenmoe/dapplegrim.html Dapplegrim]"—the king tries to wiggle out of it and fails.
▲* In "[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/038.htm The Grateful Beasts]", the king pushes [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]] a little too far; his own daughter the princess argues with him until he imprisons her in a tower. However, the last task is to summon all the wolves in the kingdom, [[Beware the Nice Ones|the wolves then proceed to kill all the court]], and Ferko frees the princess, marries her, and becomes king.
▲* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20190207162855/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/jackbeanstalk/stories/dragontricked.html How the Dragon Was Tricked]", the hero laid claim to the princess and kingdom after her father had been eaten by the dragon he demanded the hero bring back.
▲* "[[The Brave Little Tailor]]" pretty much bluffs his way to the kingdom and the girl, though the princess and her father both try to wiggle out of it when they secretly learn of his low class. He gets to keep the goods with another bluff that leaves every soldier in the kingdom too afraid to do anything against him, thus leaving the king and princess with no way to get rid of him.
▲* The Norwegian folk hero Espen Askeladd, who features in dozens of different fairy tales across the country, commonly wins "the princess and half the kingdom" as a reward for his heroic deeds.
▲== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Analyzed in one edition of ''[[GURPS]] Fantasy''. The book mentioned that, if a king has no sons, this can be more of a cunning political maneuver than a simple romantic gesture. The reward motivates a hero to solve a major problem, the king's daughter is married off, and the successor to the throne will be a hero who has already won the respect of the people and lords by a heroic task (so a civil war isn't guaranteed to break out the moment the king dies).
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The adventure game ''[[Shadowgate]]'' did this, although not every version lets you see the princess at the end. Don't the developers know that [[Everything's Better with Princesses]]?
* The first ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' game, sort of. You are offered both the kingdom and princess. You refuse the former, [[But Thou Must!]] take the latter... Unless you forgot to rescue her. Oops. But that requires [[Sequence Breaking]] later by "knowing" where something is hidden without the Princess's [[The Power of Love|love]] acting as a homing beacon (...or something) to give you the coordinates of an item. But that's not [[Canon]].
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{{quote|"You want a box of jewels and a princess, don't you?"}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In the [[Web Comic]] ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'', the main character, November, is a princess who is [[Runaway Fiancee|running away from it]]. Her would-be husband (an [[Good Is Dumb|apparently-kind but not-too-bright]] peasant hero) is currently wandering the earth looking for her.
* In ''[[Exiern]]'' Typhan-Knee signed on for the reward of '''''[[Exact Words|A]]''''' royal hand in marriage and his weight in gold. Then he was hit with a [[Gender Bender]] spell during the rescue. She has received her weight in gold but has yet to realize that the Royal hand is not going to be the Princess' -- Or that the gold will (of course) revert to the royal treasury when she marries the king.
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* Spoofed and subverted in ''[[Oglaf]]'' (NSFW), when the hero is told that his dragon-slaying quest was one of self-discovery and "The princess was you all along!" By the last panel, he's enjoying his wedding night [[Yaoi Guys|with the prince]].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* There was a [[Walt Disney]] short, ''The Valiant Little Tailor'', where Mickey accidentally got the job of stopping the giant ("I killed seven with one blow!" was misheard to be about giants instead of flies), and he was offered the hand of the Princess Minnie.
* ''[[Conan the Adventurer (animation)|Conan the Adventurer]]'' had a good twist on this. The king ''immediately'' reneged on his princess/future king offer when he actually met Conan. Conan, being Conan, decided to take what was his by force. (Pretty [[Unfortunate Implications]] [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|for a kids show]].)
** Considering that the original Conan became king of Aquilonia by his own hand...
== [[Real Life]] ==
* This did happen in Medieval Europe. One example is Raymond and Henri, two French cousins who helped in the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. One was rewarded with the King of Castelle and Leon's legitimate daughter Urraca and the other his the bastard daughter Teresa (and also made him Count of Portucale). Neither of them became king, although the eldest son of both did: Urraca and Raymond's son was the next King of Castella and Leon, while Afonso, son of Henri and Teresa, fought his cousin to gain independence of his land and thus became the first King of Portugal.
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_19785_5-ways-modern-men-are-trained-to-hate-women.html 5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women] deconstructs this trope as one of the possible reasons misogyny exists.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Gratitude Tropes]]
[[Category:Discredited Trope]]
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[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:This Index Has Standards]]
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