Basic Trope: A noble knight with a strong sense of justice who slays the dragon and rescues the princess.
- Straight: Alice the Shining Knight is a Knight with a strong sense of justice, a strong code of honor, and she is known to save the Damsel in Distress from Emperor Evulz and his dragon.
- Exaggerated: Alice is pretty much made out of Incorruptible Pure Pureness, never shies from danger or breaks her code, and saves the world every other day.
- Downplayed: Alice, while genuinely good, doesn't go out of her way to be outstandingly heroic. In fact, most of time she's just trying to do her job.
- Justified:
- Alice has been raised to have a strong moral code.
- Alice belongs to a knightly order which requires her to act in a noble way.
- Inverted: Black Knight.
- Subverted:
- Alice the Shining Knight, upon being introduced, quickly proves that the only impressive thing about her is her armor.
- Alice the Shining Knight only uses her heroic reputation for her own gain, she turns out to be Princess Charmless and tries to use Prince Bob as her meal ticket.
- Alice turns out to be a Lawful Stupid Knight Templar.
- Alice is actually incredibly incompetent; the real girl who did everything people claim Alice did is Claire.
- Alice is a Windmill Crusader who "saves" the "damsel in distress" from the Count de Vulz, a perfectly benign fop whom the "damsel" was carrying on an affair with, killing the Count and his harmless pet lizard in the process.
- Double Subverted:
- It turns out that Alice is only an ornery squire and stole her patron knight's armor to show off. Said patron knight is the real deal.
- Than she starts to have genuine feelings for Prince Bob and desire to genuinely win Prince Bob's love which inspires her to be a better knight.
- A Good Shepherd gives Alice a talking-to about how to be Lawful Good and she cleans up her act.
- Claire is a Magic Knight.
- Parodied: Alice the Shining Knight is entirely delusional, often injuring and inconveniencing others in her efforts to "be a hero".
- Zig Zagged: Alice the Shining Knight starts out using Prince Bob as her meal ticket, but then develops real feelings for him and starts behaving more like a proper knight. However, when Bob is kidnapped by Empress Evulz, Alice gives into her anger and abandons any sort of chivalry or honor in her desire to save him. After hearing what she did, he gives her a What the Hell, Hero? and becomes her Morality Chain.
- Averted: Alice is no more chivalrous than anyone else.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "Alice, someday your sense of honor and heroic tendencies will get you killed."
- Invoked: Alice's father tries his best to raise her as a Knight in Shining Armor.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz structures his plans around using Alice's code of honour against her.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Alice runs into a To Be Lawful or Good scenario where the laws of chivalry conflict with her personal moral compass.
- Alice is a historically accurate depiction of a medieval knight, with the Deliberate Values Dissonance that comes with it. Even Alice being a knight at all, in a position normally held by men, is considered an anomaly to her peers. She becomes better defined by her noble prestige and diligent training than whatever values she may possess.
- Reconstructed:
- While the scenario may conflict with certain laws, the core of knightly duties is to help the hurt and protect the weak. So, she realizes that any order that conflicts with that rule, is by definition, wrong.
- She has the rules altered.
- They're more "guidelines" than actual rules.
- She's able to reconcile the two opposing sides and find a loophole.
- Alice decides to screw the rules and chooses to do what's right.
- Even in the context of her own times, Alice remains committed to the values normally attributed to this trope. She uses her lineage and training as a means to an end, pulling strings and fighting for causes in such a way the average commonner cannot. Her efforts lead to a permanent change in the system and society she lives in, allowing for more aspiring knights to follow the spirit of this trope.
Back to Knight in Shining Armor.
