From the books
General- Mia's general anxiety, namely her fears that Michael will break up with her. Then it happens for real, throwing her into Heroic BSoD.
- Mia has a Big Sister Instinct towards Rocky due to their large age difference and her mother's hands-off lifestyle. And her reward for this anxiety? Her mother and Lilly call her a "baby-licker".
Book One The Princess Diaries
- Tina's loner status, because she has a bodyguard that protects her all the time.
- Josh breaking up with Lana to date Mia. Although it's from Mia's POV, there is something sad about Lana crossing out all the "Mrs. Josh Richters" she wrote all over her notebooks. Mia herself even admits that it's depressing.
- Likewise, Mia having a disastrous date with Josh and realizing she was Loving a Shadow.
Book Two: Princess In the Spotlight
- Mia's guilt over outing her mother's pregnancy and plans to elope, causing Grandmere to plan an elaborate Shotgun Wedding.
- Somehow Mia ends up with Kenny, her lab partner, instead of with Michael. That doesn't bode well.
Book Three: Princess In Love
- Mia thinking that Michael posting her poems was a way of making fun of her. Fortunately, she was wrong.
- Harsher in Hindsight, her thinking that Michael might have something going on with Judith Gerschner because it's eventually revealed that she was right. Michael around this time is sleeping with Judith Gerschner behind her boyfriend's back.
Book Four: Princess in Waiting
- Tina's boyfriend breaking up with her via a rude text. Tina, normally the Polly Anna, is in tears.
Book Five: Princess in Pink
- Lilly cheating on Boris with a hotel employee and breaking up with him. Boris is so grief-stricken he drops a globe on himself. At the time it's Played for Laughs, but you feel for the guy. Fortunately he and Tina become a couple, and Tina is a much better girlfriend.
Book Six: Princess in Training
- Mia's Wangst over finding out she gets a B on an English paper. The reason why she got the B? Her creative writing teacher doesn't think highly of pop culture. Ouch.
- Said Wangst causes her to have a temporary breakdown when Grandmere insists on helping with the student election.
- Lilly revealing why she insisted that Mia run instead of herself: she knows she's not popular and wouldn't win, for such an unlikable person you can really feel for her when she breaks down.
Book Seven: Party Princess
- Grandmere plots the casting of her play Braid! so that no one gets the part that they want: Boris wanted to be the heroic prince but was cast as the villain, Lilly was cast as a mistress instead of as Princess Rosagunde, and Mia gets the part of Rosagunde though she wasn't even auditioning.
- Lilly and Michael's parents decide to separate because they can't agree on psychology theories. Michael takes it hard, and Lilly Took a Level in Jerkass even for her.
- Lilly has No Sympathy for Mia making a fool out of herself at Michael's party, even asking if she can borrow Mia's black beret.
- Lilly has Green-Eyed Monster towards Mia that Tina picks up on, because JP seems to show more affection for Mia. Lilly even publishes a story that Mia wrote before they knew JP, depicting him becoming Driven to Suicide.
- Given what happens later on, Mia encouraging Lilly to introduce JP to the playwright Mamet.
Book Eight: Princess on the Brink
- Boris sets off Mia's fears that she won't be able to maintain a long-distance relationship once Michael flies off to Japan. Thanks, Boris.
- Mia breaking up with Michael in book 8, and then failing to stop him from going to the airport.
- JP breaking up with Lilly, and then kissing Mia on purpose in front of Lilly. No wonder Lilly becomes a Jerk Ass Woobie, though less sympathetic readers may argue it's Laser-Guided Karma for how she treated Boris early on.
Book Nine: Princess Mia
- Book 9 is a massive Tear Jerker and quite a Wham Episode for a comedy series. Notable examples:
- When seeing Beauty and the Beast with JP, Mia notes with irony that four years ago she had said that her ideal guy would be able to watch the musical with her. Michael at the time had said no guy could do that without throwing up. JP passes the test, but Mia misses how Michael would keep going to the bathroom to check on Warcraft updates on his phone when attending the play with her.
- Mia's Heroic BSoD following the Trauma Conga Line that continues from Book 8. She stays in bed, binges on junk food and meat, and wants to stop going to high school. Her dad has to order Lars to carry her from bed into Dr. Knutz's office, duvet and all.
- Another bit is Mr. G trying to bribe Mia out of bed with hot chocolate and marshmallows. He may have initially flunked her in math, but Mr. G tries his best at step-parenting when he needs to.
- Lilly creating a hate site about Mia, and not inviting her to the party celebrating Lilly's election. Goes From Bad to Worse when Mia tries to ask for help about an official proclamation.
- This terrible behavior on Lilly's part even angers Michael when he finds out. Lilly later reveals that Michael ordered her to be nice.
- One carried over in Genovian history: the story of Princess Amelie. Talk about an Iron Woobie whose story drives the Domina Rei crowd to tears.
- Convent girl who receives coronation during the Black Plague, having to leave her cat behind with the nuns.
- Her Uncle Franco tries to usurp the throne, burning her first proclamation, and tells her no one will listen to a sixteen-year old girl. Even kicking him out of the palace doesn't help, because there are no guards to stop him from returning.
- After closing off the trading ports and bringing in cats to kill the infected mice, Amelie finds out she has a pock mark. And refuses to tell anyone or take any possible treatment because then Franco would have a reason to depose her.
- Dies alone, without even a "handkerchief" to wipe her tears.
- The last bit of her diary sends Mia into tears, where Amelie writes a last proclamation that she keeps "close to her heart" ie, hidden in her portrait. Mia thinks that means she buried the proclamation with her, and all bodies were burned in the plague.
- Franco after Amelie's death took over and nearly drove Genovia to ruin, causing them to lose the family jewels. If it weren't for him going down as a Royal Brat, one would argue that The Bad Guy Wins in this case.
Forever Princess
- Lilly's attempts to make amends, though she is still angry at Mia for not realizing that JP was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Mia is miserable and confused about Lilly's sudden change in character, believing her to have an underhanded scheme.
- Mia's guilt about cheating on J.P. with Michael, which causes her to curl up in her mother's lap and sob.
Royal Wedding
- Mr. Giannini is dead. Mr. Giannini is dead. From a heart attack. Even worse is the Reality Subtext, since Meg's father died in a similar fashion when she was in college.
- Rocky also can't be older then ten when this happens. The poor kid...
- Mia's worry when her father gets involved in a racing car fiasco, which could affect his position as Genovian Prime Minister and could have killed him. She has a lot of Anger Born of Worry.
- Mia hasn't written any romance novels since Ransom My Heart due to her obligations as a princess, college student, and employee. That for writers is a Tear Jerker, to only have a One-Hit Wonder on their hands.
- She's hiding out in the Genovian consulate due to a stalker named Rabble Rouser, who thinks himself a Moral Guardian and hates Mia for writing a novel with "premarital sex". The stress from that and her dad's accident has caused her to develop an eye twitch.
- Aesop Amnesia is in play when Mia fears that Michael will break up with her again. She needs to check the title of this book.
- Tina becomes convinced Boris cheated on her and breaks up with him. She's not handling the break up well at all.
- Mia's concern after her doctor reveals that Mia is pregnant with twins and she remembers having a drink with her girlfriends. The doctor then reassures Mia by pointing out that his mother's generation didn't know about smoking and drinking, and he turned out fine. So did a lot of other kids.
- Philippe's mid-life crisis. In his conversation with Mia in chapter 42 we see that he's clearly under a lot of stress and has serious doubts about his ability to be a father to Olivia, but the saddest part is when Mia sees that he's shaved off his moustache because Cousin Ivan mocked it in the election.Philippe: He said it made me look old. Like ‘an old, balding Ron Burgundy’ were his exact words.
From The Notebooks Of A Middle School Princess
- Olivia's story: losing her mother to an accident, only knowing her father through letters, being ignored by her aunt and uncle and given the smallest room in the house (which Mia says is pretty close to a cupboard under the stairs), and having the Alpha Bitch bully her for being a princess, something Olivia doesn't know. She handles all of this cheerfully.
- Her Cheerful Child nature makes it harder when Mia and Phillipe have to sort out the child custody issues and she leaps into her father's arms with a Big "NO!" after hearing she may have to return to her aunt and uncle. Such a chance at freedom, coupled with her aunt and uncle not caring that said Alpha Bitch punched her in the nose leads to her Moment of Awesome when she calls out her aunt for caring more about coffee stains than about her nosebleed.
- When Olivia's thirteenth birthday rolls around, she realizes that her aunt didn't send a card, present, or even call to wish her. And also that Olivia wouldn't want a card because it would probably be Aunt Catherine wanting money to move back to New Jersey from Qalif after Civil War breaks out. Any affection Olivia has felt for her aunt has vanished; she angrily writes that her aunt and uncle stole enough of her child support than they needed.
- Lady Luisa, as a character, is an Evil Counterpart to Olivia, who more often than not is a Logical Latecomer. Luisa is like a haughtier version of Annabelle, only with more training to not behave badly in adults' presence.
- Luisa sneers when Olivia reveals that she doesn't know how to ski. As Olivia thinks, however, it's not like she grew up in a palace with an array of tutors and opportunity to ski; her aunt and uncle never even took her on snow vacations.
- Lady Luisa cheating on her boyfriend rather than giving him an honest breakup. He has to take the initiative because he thinks he has a crush on Olivia and has already gotten wise to the cheating.
- Then we get to Prince Khalil's story. He's the prince of Qalif, albeit not a heir to the throne with his cousin Rashid taking that title. Thing is Rashid and his wife Ameera are seeking refuge in America while the supreme leader of Qalif engages in brutal civil war. During the summer break, Khalil's parents return to Qalif to talk sense into the Supreme Leader and prevent war, only to fail. They're forced to flee back to Genovia, with Khalil only saving one piece of art from his uncle's destruction of the country's culture.
- How Philippe and Grandmere respond differently to that news: Philippe goes Comically Missing the Point because he senses that Khalil and Olivia are attracted to each other and says his mother is making out Khalil to be a romantic hero. Grandmere has to tell him off for ignoring that a boy has lost his home and his country.
Films
- Anything to do with Mia's dad, who is dead in the film.
- There's Lily's utterly horrible reaction to Mia's makeover - spending the whole limo ride ranting about how Mia is changing. Joe notices this afterwards and comforts her.
- Clarisse is also implied to be still grieving the death of her husband, not to mention her son.
- The beach incident is played for Cringe Comedy somewhat - until Lana and her Girl Posse expose her changing in front of the paparazzi. Mia is only fifteen and those pictures of her looking terrified and helpless end up on the front page. To make matters worse, Clarisse just cold-shoulders Mia afterwards, as though it was Mia's idea to humiliate herself like that.
- During the scene where Clarisse chews her out, Mia looks sadly at the pictures the two of them took while having fun together.
- And on Mia's first day at school after it happens, no one shows sympathy for her and just mock her for it.
- Although Lily had a right to be angry with Mia, her chewing Mia out at the basketball court for breaking her promise to attend the former's show and (unintentionally) breaking Michael's heart can count. All Mia can do is sincerely apologize for her actions because she knew she screwed up big time.
- Although Mia's clumsiness at the state dinner is Played for Laughs, after the scene is over we see Mia looking at the picture of her father and saying "I'm sorry I let you down, dad".
- From the sequel, after Mia has been humiliated by Viscount Mabrey's sabotaging her while on a reviewing of the guard, Nicholas finds her sitting alone in one of the horse-tack stalls. After returning the hat she lost and trying to make light of the incident, Nicholas realises that Mia is crying and apologises, seeming to finally realise the effect his uncle's plots are having on her and setting off his future change of heart.
- The sequel when Mia runs out of the wedding needing a moment to herself she's instead bombarded with cameras and reporters and still has to maintain this mask of the princess waving and smiling even as she runs and hides. When the Queen finds her immediately afterward she's kneeling on the ground in her wedding dress crying, trembling, hugging herself trying desperately to subvert a panic attack. It makes her speech afterwards, "Think about your daughters, nieces, sisters, and granddaughters would you force them to do what you are forcing me to?" all the more powerful.
- The moment in the first movie where Clarisse tells Mia that she saw the same spirit in someone else (herself) and that's why she had the tiara ready.
- From the sequel, "The eagle is flying... for the last time." (The code phrase for Queen Clarisse in her last official duty as Queen of Genovia before handing the crown to Princess Amelia/Mia to be crowned the new Queen.)
- In the sequel, Mia goes out with Nicholas one last time before her wedding. They accidentally spend the night and Mia spies a cameraman in a boat across the water the next morning. Assuming that Nicholas set her up, she races back and by the time she gets back to the castle it's plastered all over the news, and Mia feels she's been played. While Nicholas wasn't behind it after all, the parallels to Josh and Lana setting her up in the first film are uncanny and heartbreaking.
