Princess Bean from Disenchantment
Have you ever loved a character instantly and completely? It doesn't happen very often, but it happened to me when I saw the trailer for Disenchantment and caught my first glimpse of Princess Tiabeanie – or Bean for short.
Despite the medieval/fairy tale setting, Bean is very much a contemporary teenager on a quest for self-realization. Who is she? What does she want in life? These are the questions that haunt her, which means she initially has to put a lot of effort into avoiding her arranged marriage, rebelling against her father, and consuming lots of alcohol.
She captures the very essence of adolescence: spurts of great passion and drive followed by periods of apathy and antagonism. Ah, I remember it well.
It's too easy to contrast her to Matt Groening's other heroines, but the truth is Bean has nothing of Lisa's social conscience or Leela's brilliance. She's just a normal girl (complete with buck teeth!) whose normality is all the more marked due to her role as princess.
Yet the season's final few episodes suggest there may be more to her than meets the eye; that a destiny is in store for her whether she likes it or not. In which case, it bodes well that she has a good heart and tries – however haphazardly – to do the right thing.
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