Winter Royal Lady

File:Winterprincess doll 64114.jpg

Another princess? Bor-ing! A "Winter" princess? Seems a little exotic.

Any time a noble or royal lady has a title that is winter themed.

Say you're a queen or a princess, and you find that the Ermine Cape Effect isn't giving you enough of an aura of majesty. You want to seem mysterious, exotic, perhaps even a bit dangerous.

Well, unless you live near the equator, the solution is simple. Choose a word closely related to winter. "Snow" and "Ice" are the most common, but others will do, as long as it evokes the feeling of the cold north. Then make one of your titles "The (winter word) Queen" or "The (winter word) Princess". It doesn't matter what your actual rank or title is. Just use that format.

Then make sure your wardrobe consists of mostly shades of blue, silver, purple, and especially white (but not pink, even if Princesses Prefer Pink). A Pimped-Out Dress and Pimped-Out Cape are obvious choices, but you could also have a "Happy Holidays" Dress, a Sexy Santa Dress, or even a Fur Bikini. Fur trim (white or gray), sapphires, diamonds, and/or silver on your dresses also adds a wintry touch. An Ice Palace wouldn't hurt.

Now watch how everyone speaks of you, with this title. You're now even more incredible in their eyes. You're like some kind of spirit or goddess to them, even if this won't actually give an indication of your personality. You can be good, evil or anything in between. You also could either have super powers (especially using Silver Has Mystic Powers) or just be a Muggle. They won't really know, and that's just the way you want it.

This is also why in holiday festivals and pageants, the winner is usually given this kind of title rather than one that is related to Christmas or any other holiday. These titles are much cooler (pun intended).

Note that kings and princes can do this, but it's rare. And mere nobility doing this is rarer still.

Despite the name, Defrosting Ice Queen isn't related to this, as that's about personality, and this is about titles. Although it often applies to sympathetic Winter Ladies.

Compare Ice Queen, An Ice Person, Evil Is Deathly Cold, An Ice Suit.

Examples of Winter Royal Lady include:

Anime

• In the Sailor Moon S movie, the villain is Princess Snow Kaguya. She appears to be actully MADE of ice.
• Reiha from the Vampire Princess Miyu manga.
• While not technically a queen, General Olivier Mira Armstrong of Fullmetal Alchemist is variably referred to as the "Snow Queen," "Princess," "She-Bear," or "Northern Cliff" of Briggs by her men, and makes good usage of Amestrian blue, black, and white uniforms.
• Oyuki, quite literally, in Urusei Yatsura.
• The Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children anime had Queen Frost.
• Princess Snow from Marchen Awakens Romance counts.

Comic Books

• Queen Freya of Frigia in Flash Gordon.
• Lumi The Snow Queen in Fables ("Lumi" is Finnish and actually is the most common word in the language for "snow").
• Though the last part of her name isn't royal, Alpha Flight's Snowbird fits the trope in every other way. Of course, when people treat her like the demigoddess she is, it can be taken literally. She has no ice powers, but her ability to turn into a white-colored version of any animal--with a preference for those from the Arctic--drives this trope home in its own way.
• Mizumi, the Queen of Moraine, in Return to Labyrinth.
• Tora Olafsdotter AKA Ice of DC Comics is a princess and has, you guessed it, ice powers.

Film

• The Ice Princess from Batman Returns.
• The Ice Princess from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl....although she genuinely possesses the title, as her father - the Ice King - is a gigantic humanoid composed entirely of ice, and he really is King of an ice kingdom.

Literature

• "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen is likely the most famous example of this trope, as well as the Trope Codifier.
• "The Lady of the Ice Garden" by Kara Dalkey is this story retold in twelfth-century Japan.
• The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge is the same story expanded upon... in space!
• The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell is a rare male title. It was the byname of Frederick V of the Palatinate, although in that case it was more of an insult.
• The White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe doesn't quite fit this in her title, but the fact that she both declares herself queen and covers the land in winter makes up for it.
• The Norn queen Utuk'ku from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn.
• The Winter Queen by Jane Stevenson is a novel about the actual Queen of Bohemia and her (fictional) husband-in-exile who is also an ex-African prince, slave, and theology student.
• Queen Selenay of the Heralds of Valdemar series wears white exclusively -- but this is justified since she, like all Heralds, wears white on duty. Her husband, Prince-consort Daren, is a White Prince.
  • Mercedes Lackey also has two examples from her Elemental Masters and Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series. Both are based on The Snow Queen, and the characters are Cordelia and unsurprisingly, The Snow Queen.
• Karis from David Gemmell's Dark Moon was nicknamed The Ice Queen - she wasn't actually a monarch or ruler of any kind, but rather a brilliant general and strategist.
• Khione from The Heroes of Olympus - she looks like the White Witch and is just as nasty.
  • Boreas (her father) and Calais and Zethes (her brothers) are rare male versions of this.
    • Boreas was, in Classical Mythology, the North Wind personified, so that counts as well.
• Queen Helena, Monarch of the Ice Kingdoms, is a minor character from one of the Nightside novels. Another villainous example of this trope.
• Demetria, one of four princesses with an elemental theme, is winter\air. Also a heroine, which may be slightly predictable given that she stars in a children's series.
• Princess Leia's adopted sister/lifelong friend, Lady Winter Celchu, from the Star Wars Expanded Universe.
• In The Dresden Files, the Winter Court make this pretty much literal. Winter Lady Maeve, Winter Queen Mab, and Mother Winter are pretty much the embodiment of cold.
• In "The Three Musketeers" by Alexandre Dumas, the character 'Milady' holds many names- one of which is Milady de Winter.

Live Action TV

• Tin Man plays with this trope by having the party's first real lead on the Queen (and DG's identity) being in an ice-encased palace.
• Power Rangers Mystic Force: The team's Mentor, Udonna, is a sorceress with a snow motif. While not actually royalty, she has a regal presence and the series likes to evoke Fairy Tale Tropes.

Music

• Evanescence have a song titled "Snow White Queen".
• Progressive metal band Symphony X have a song called "Lady of the Snow".
• Seanan McGuire writes several songs about a Snow Queen:
  • "Snow Queen dreams of glittering ice and honey.... while the King of the Summer Dreams of the Snow Queen's eyes..."
• The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's fourth album, "The Lost Christmas Eve," includes a song called "Queen of the Winter Night."
• Within Temptation's "Ice Queen".
• Tarja Turunen in her My Winter Storm album.

Mythology and Religion

• Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden of Russian legend is often shown wearing a long pale blue coat and white fur. She is often in the company of Ded Moroz, the Russian equivalent to Santa Claus.
• In the Catholic church, one of the names given to the Virgin Mary is "Our Lady of the Snow."

Tabletop Games

• In the Warhammer Fantasy world, the northern human country of Kislev is ruled by Tzarina Katarin, also known as the Ice Queen or Ice Empress. She even uses a special ice-themed magic lore to which no other currently released character has access.
  • The roleplaying game makes it clear that there is an entire group of Ice Witches who can use that Lore, and Tzarinas have to be at least competent with it. This doesn't apply to Tzars since only women can use ice magic.
• Jezra Wagner, the "Ice Queen", is a spectre that haunts the mountains of Barovia in the Ravenloft setting. Not royal, but a noblewoman in life; her ice-pale looks and flesh-freezing touch certainly fit this trope.
• In Changeling: The Lost, being as trope-laden as possible, players are actively encouraged to make Snowskins fit this trope.

Theatre

• The Ghost of Christmas Past in A Contemporary Theatre's more recent productions of A Christmas Carol.

Toys

• Barbie, for a few years, had a line of premium holiday dolls called the "Winter Princess" line.
• Queen Frostine from the Candy Land board game.

Video Games

• The Ice Princess from Spyro: A Hero's Tail
• King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder had the Snow Queen, Icebella.
• Final Fantasy has Shiva, who has been called the Ice Queen in references, and certainly maintains the grace thereof in her combat.
• League of Legends features Ashe, an ice magic-wielding archer who recently gained monarchy over her arctic homeland through a self-arranged political marriage and has a Queen skin (with themed dress and crown) to reflect it.
• The third game in the Dark Parables series for PC, Rise of the Snow Queen, features guess which fairy tale character as its antagonist? And it takes place in the Snowfall Kingdom to boot.
• A free online dress-up game for girls is known as Winter Princess.
• The title character from the puzzle game Ice Princess, Mariebelle, has had her heart frozen by an evil magician.
• The Ice Queen Stone in Golden Sun Dark Dawn is inhabited by a spirit who appears as this. There's also the One-Scene Wonder Nowell, called "Noble" in the Japanese version, who is mentioned to specialize in ice powers, though she's not actually royalty.
• One racetrack featured in Mario Kart 7 unintentionally made Rosalina one of these.
• Although not technically a noble herself, Lizleihi Justica von Einzbern, one of the original founders of the Holy Grail War ritual in Fate/stay night, was also known as the Saint of Winter.
• From Touhou we have Letty Whiterock."Spirit Of Winter."

Web Comics

• The Snow Queen from Oglaf. She is also a Fisher Queen, as satisfying her brings about the start of spring. Unfortunately, as she is literally the Snow Queen, men can find themselves in a, er, Tongue on the Flagpole situation.

Western Animation

• The Dora the Explorer video, "The Snow Princess."
• The Rankin Bass special Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July gives an alternate backstory for the glowing nose of the titular Rudolph, explaining that it was a power bestowed on him in infancy by the Lady Boreal, a Winter Royal Lady who is sort of a personification of the Northern Lights.
• The Minister of Winter in the Tinkerbell movies.
• Ice Queen from Adventure Time definitely counts as this.