Prince Charming

Prince Charming is a fairy tale stock character archetype who comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress and must engage in a quest to liberate her from an evil spell. This classification suits most heroes of a number of traditional folk tales, including "Snow White", "Sleeping Beauty", "Rapunzel", and "Cinderella" even if in the original story they were given another name, or no name at all. Elements of the Prince Charming character date at least back to Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty, published in 1697. Often handsome and romantic, these characters are essentially interchangeable, serving as a foil to the heroine; in many variants, they can be viewed as a metaphor for a reward the heroine achieves for the decisions she makes. The prominence of the character type makes him an obvious and frequent target for revisionist fairy tales, usually portraying him as narcissistic, dimwitted, and solely focused on romance, and often as a foil to either the heroine or their true love interest. "Prince Charming" is also used as a term to refer to the idealized man some people dream of as a future spouse.