Disney’s recent remake of Snow White is as underwhelming as most people have, in some capacity, come to expect. And well … it didn’t disappoint.

Snow White begins like many fairy tales, with a good King and Queen longing for a child. One snowy night, the Queen gives birth to a daughter and names her Snow White. Her father gifts her with a locket inscribed with the words: “Fearless. Fair. True. Brave.” After her mother’s death, the King remarries, but his new bride—the Evil Queen—sends him off to war, and he’s never heard from again.

Snow White eventually meets Jonathan, a leader of bandits who steals from the castle to help the people. When he’s punished for the crime, she helps free him, which leads the Queen to call for Snow White’s execution. Fleeing into the forest, Snow White finds refuge among the seven dwarves and reunites with Jonathan and his band. Together, they return to the kingdom and, through kindness and courage, rally the people to rise against the Evil Queen.

While the story keeps several traditional elements like the poisoned apple and the dwarves, I couldn’t help but think after watching that what Snow White really needed was a Prince.

In a previous article, I alluded to the allure of bad boys in fiction, a trend which continues in this remake. Jonathan is a bandit. He is not royal, nor of noble blood, nor of any known honorable lineage. He merely remembers the kingdom’s better days under the old King and resists the Queen’s rule in his own way.

This raises questions for this viewer: is there a desire to show that good men no longer exist? And that the only kind a woman can depend on are morally gray?

When the storybook closes at the end, we see Snow White crowned—but not wedded. There is no declaration of true love, no promise of unity, no kingdom joined in peace. There’s no wedding, children, or anything.

I couldn’t help but think: Why can’t the princess be rescued by the Prince? Or, if not rescued, then why couldn’t she fight by Prince’s side? Could not his army have arrived in her hour of need? Could their forces, joined together, not have overthrown the Queen?

Make no mistake, in fairy tales, the Prince is not merely a love interest; he is a symbol. He is the future. He is the promise of safety and rest after trial.

It’s no secret that fairy tales were often an allegory of Christian thought. That the Prince/Knight/King/Hero was Christ and the damsel in distress/the forgotten children/the kind girl betrayed/the lost is the Body of Christ seeking a rescuer to save them from their time of turmoil. There are times when the bandits, the robbers, the demons, the dragon is too big, too powerful to handle. Where you’re caught in a situation where you are unable to rescue yourself from.

The Prince comes and saves the day. He risks his life to protect the one in trouble. For a reward, she is given a kingdom, and a prince who loves her.

Without a prince to save the day, we lose an important truth: There are good men who do come to save the day. In the original 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Snow White pined for that day when she sang, “Someday My Prince Will Come.”

Surely that’s the end of a fairy tale we can all get behind.

Isn’t it?