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My Top Ten Literary Characters #4

Good Evening and welcome to today's entry. My number four is Her Royal Highness, Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, Crown Princess of Genovia.
 

4. Her Royal Highness, Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, Crown Princess of Genovia

AKA: Mia, Princess Mia, Thermopolis, Freak

Featured In: The Princess Diaries Series by Meg Cabot

Biography: Mia was born and raised in New York City's Greenwich Village. Her mother is Helen Thermopolis, an artist, and her father is Phillipe Renaldo, whom she has always been told is a Genovian politician. In elementary school Mia met Lily Moscovitz,her brother Michael, and Lana Weinberger, her worst enemy. She also gets her beloved cat, Fat Louie, around that same time. Her father visits her fairly often and she spent every summer of her childhood in France with her father and Grandmother Clarice at Clarice's French chateau, Miragnac. By the time Mia starts high school at fourteen, she is a very socially concious vegetarian who helps Lily with her cable access show, hates the way she looks, fixates on becoming self actualized, and has obsessive crushes on both Josh Richtor (a popular senior) and Michael. Her life begins to change dramatically before her first month as a Freshman is complete. First her mother begins dating her Algebra teacher, Mr. Gianni (whose class she is already flunking). Then her father finds out that the chemotherapy and radiation treatments he received for testicular cancer have left him sterile.He reveals to Mia that he is the reigning Prince of Genovia and because he can have no more children that makes Mia his sole heir. In order to help her transition to this alteration in her lifestyle, Mia is allowed to remain a student at Albert Einestein High School provided she attend princess lessons with her grandmother,whom she dislikes. When Mia complains about the way the lessons interfere with her efforts to help Lily stage a boycott of a local deli, her father bribes her by donating a hundred dollars a day to Greenpeace. After Mia receives a new haircut and fake nails (so she'll stop biting hers) she and Lily have an arguement that results in the two not speaking. Instead of moping Mia makes friends with Tina Hakim Baba, a girl she always viewed as a freak because Tina had to have a bodyguard. When Mia's royal position is revealed to the press, Mia must attend school with a bodyguard of her own. Lily treats her horribly but Michael defends her and helps tutor her in Algebra. Then, to her delight, Josh Richtor dumps his girlfriend and invites Mia to the school's Cultural Diversity Dance. The date is a gigantic disaster, but it results in Mia making up with Lily. A short time later Mia is scheduled to do a television interview with a leading journalist and begins receiving e-mails from a secret admirer. During the interview she accidentally reveals that her mother is pregnant by Mr. Gianni. Clarice plans a fancy wedding, but the couple elopes. Mia then finds out that her admirer is not the one she really wants. As Christmas approaches, Mia dreads her presentation to the Genovian people during the holidays and trys to think of ways to dump her boyfriend Kenny so she can be with Michael. Due to a misunderstanding, Kenny dumps Mia, thinking she's in love with Lily's boyfriend Boris. Michael and Mia finally declare their feelings for each other at the school's Non-Denominational Winter Dance. After a less than stellar debut in Genovia, Mia returns home terrified that Michael might break up with her for someone who is better looking and more talented than she is. Her fears grow when she has to cancel a date to attend a function. Michael lays her fears to rest and she figures out that she is a talented writer. A spring break spent building houses in Appalachia, allows Mia to face the second semester of her freshman year in a good frame of mind, but everything goes downhill from there. At Mia's fifeteenth birthday dinner a handsome busboy is fired due to an accident that is the fault of Clarice's poodle. This prompts Lily to take up his cause and mastermind a protest. Michael adds to Mia's distress by telling her that even though is he a senior, he doesn't want to go to the Prom. When the protest balloons into a city-wide strike that  threatens the Prom, Clarice helps Mia out by getting the Empire State Building for the night. Mia then blackmails Lana into letting Michael's band be the entertainment and allowing her and her friends to attend. During the dance, Mia's baby brother, Rocky is born. During Mia's summer in Genovia, she causes a diplomatic incident by releasing snails into the harbor as a form of biological control. When she returns to school, Lily pushes her to run for student body president. Much to Mia's chagrin, she wins. Mia is also scared that now that Michael is in college he will expect her to sleep with him. When the second semester of her sophomore year begins, Mia discovers that, due to the student body treasurer's mathmatical mistakes and the new school recycling program she started, the student government is short $5000. To earn the money, Mia is forced to play the lead in a theatrical production written by Clarice. Through her involvment in the musical Mia makes friends with J.P, a boy that she branded weird because she only ever saw him in the cafeteria picking corn out of his chili. Later, Mia gets slightly drunk and "sexy dances" with him during a party. Afterwards Michael is cold to her and Mia thinks that dancing with J.P. was the cause though she later discovers it wasn't. Mia's junior year starts out pretty well but then Michael tells her that a project he was working on attracted the attention of some important people who want him to move to Japan for a year or more to develop it. Mia fixates on the idea that he might stay if she sleeps with him, but when she finally tries, she finds out that he isn't a virgin and flips out. In her emotionally confused state, Mia kisses J.P. (who just broke up with Lilly). Michael sees this and Lily hears about it. In retaliation Lily steals the election from Mia while Mia goes to the airport to find Michael and apologize. She misses him and sends him an email instead. He replies that he would rather just be friends with Mia. The stresses of the past three years catch up to Mia in the form of severe depression for which she must attend therapy. She also begins to eat meat. This causes her to gain a few curves at last. As a result of her rift with Lily, Mia unexpectedly makes friends with Lana, who extends an invitation for Mia to address Domina Rei, an important women's society. While preparing for the speech Mia discovers that a previous Princess of Genovia had legally changed the country from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one to prevent it falling into the hands of her incompetent successor. Mia finds the document that Amelie hid in her portrait, but is prevented from making it public by her father. She asks Lily to help but Lily humilates her by yelling at her in the school cafeteria. Lili also admits to authorship of a website that Mia has discovered, ihatemiathermopolis.com. As a result Mia makes the decision to reveal the document during her speech. The act of standing up for what she believes is right allows her depression to begin to lift. 

Why She is On the List: Very simply, Mia was me in high school. Therefore I really identify with her. I can totally remember that everybody popular thought I was a freak. I even had the bout with depression. The first time I opened the book I was amazed at how well Meg Cabot wrote this character. I was expecting something a lot less sophisticated, considering the target audience. The other thing that impressed me was the way Cabot used Mia to illustrate the many issues facing teenagers and young adults. No book I've read does that in such a truthful and witty manner. Mia is teh awesome!

Quotes: (These quotes are taken from The Princess Diaries, Princess in Waiting, Princess on the Brink, and Princess in Pink)

"My mom thinks I'm repressing my feelings about this. I say to her "No Mom, I'm not. I think it's really neat. As long as you're happy, I'm happy."
Mom says "I don't think you're being honest with me."
Then she hands me this book. She tells me she wants me to write down my feelings in this book, since, she says, I obviously feel like I can't talk about them with her.
She wants me to write down my feelings? Okay, I'll write down my feelings:
I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE'S DOING THIS TO ME!

So what I want to know is, if my dad's a prince, how come I have to learn algebra?

Arrived in Genovia. Due to large bagful of Skittles consumed on the flight over, almost barfed on official Genovian welcoming committee who came to airport to greet me as I disembarked from the plane.

Oh, she has got to be kidding. Describe a room? That, is our first assignment? DESCRIBE A ROOM? Does she have any idea how long I've been describing rooms creatively? I mean, I've described rooms in SPACE - for instance, in my Battlestar Galactica fanfic about Starbuck and Apollo finally Doing It.

"I sort of feel bad about lying to Tina, but it was only to make her feel better. And someday I really will get Prince William's real e-mail address for her. I just have to wait until somebody important dies, and I see him at a state funeral. It probably won't be long - Elizabeth Taylor is looking pretty shaky."

Fascinating Fact: Mia actually references the theatrical movies based on these books. She dismisses them as totally false versions of her life.