true love's kiss
Spell-breaking smooch
True love's kiss is a fairy-tale motif where a kiss from one's destined beloved breaks a curse or spell—waking the enchanted sleeper, restoring human form, or reversing death itself.
The trope appears throughout folklore and Disney films: Only true love's kiss could wake Sleeping Beauty.
Used ironically for any hoped-for magical solution to an intractable problem.
- once upon a timeTraditional narrative opening
- fairytaleMagical children's narrative
- fairy tale endingIdealized perfect resolution
- spellArrange letters correctly
- awakeningReturn to consciousness
waking up · princess · prince · sleeping · curse · magic · lips · romantic · soulmate · destined · eternal · devotion · happily ever after · storybook · Disney · Snow White · Aurora · frog
- Disney tropeshappily ever after, evil stepmother, talking animals, fairy godmother, princess rescue
- happy endingshappy ending, fairy tale ending, happily ever after, underdog victory, forever after
- love spellsbinding spell, philter, honey jar, sugar jar
- magical transformationshapeshifting, metamorphosis, polymorph, transfiguration, transmogrification
true love's kissJudas kiss
Betrayal masked as affection
kiss of death · air kiss · deadly embrace · slap in the face
true love's kisswitch's curse
Magical harm from sorceress
kiss of death · poisoned apple · enchantment · bewitchment · fatal wound
true, truly, truths, truthful, truthfully, truthfulness, untrue, truism, love