From Rapunzel trapped up in her tower to legions of scream queens hitting high decibels, the damsel in distress trope is long rooted in sweet, helpless characters incapable of staying out of trouble.

Layann Basileh is an Arab-American writer based in Southern California, currently nursing an iced coffee addiction. The 'damsel in distress' trope is a common female character archetype, in which a ...

Nintendo’s Princess Peach is the quintessential damsel in distress. She’s such a damsel cliché that she’s more important as a plot device than as an actual character. Whether you know her as Peach or ...