King Kit is the deuteragonist of Disney's 2015 film Cinderella.
He is based on both the Prince from the 1697 fairy tale "Cinderella" by Charles Perrault and Prince Charming from the 1950 animated film.
Role in the film
In this version, Kit is a prince learning his trade as an apprentice monarch and commonly engages in hunting parties and fencing lessons. During one of his hunts in the forest, he encounters a girl by the name of Ella as Kit introduces himself to her, explaining that his father calls him "Kit" when he's in a good mood. Ella tells him they must have courage and be kind, something that he relates to. The Captain, Kit's friend and one of the men accompanying Kit in the hunting party, arrives to tell Kit they have to go when he almost reveals Kit's true identity in front of Ella, but he hides it by insisting that his name is Kit. He and Ella bid each other farewell in hopes of seeing the other again. Though their meeting is brief, Kit almost immediately falls in love with Ella, developing a romantic obsession. Later on, he soon finds his father, the King, is nearing death, and as a dying wish, he asks that Kit finds himself a bride at an upcoming ball. However, the law states that he can only marry a princess, which Ella is not. Even so, while he has a marriageable portrait of himself painted by Master Phineas under the King's request, Kit manages to convince his father to allow every eligible maiden in the kingdom to attend the ball, as opposed to just royalty and the nobility. The king accepts this along with the Captain and the Grand Duke. During a fencing lesson, Kit trains with the Captain until his memory of his encounter with Ella distracts him in a daze from the training. He talks about the encounter to the Captain, who supports the prince's feelings for Ella even though the king and the Grand Duke wants Kit to marry a princess of their choosing.
That night at the ball, Kit tries to find Ella among the guests from where he is standing beside his father, who notices his intention to see Ella and reminds him that he must marry a princess. Eventually, the Duke introduces him to Princess Chelina of Zaragosa. Ella soon enters and dances with Kit for the ball's first dance. Even after she discovers he is the prince, she has no hard feelings for him hiding who he really is from her while he assumes she has been a princess all along since they met in the forest. They take a walk at the palace garden where Kit reveals that he must marry a princess he didn't choose at the insistence of his father, who is terminally ill with not much time left for his mind to be changed by Kit, and Ella sympathizes with him. He brings her to a secret area in the garden that he never shows to anyone. There, Kit asks Ella to tell him her name. But before Ella's name can be revealed to Kit, the clock strikes midnight, and she departs in a hurry.
Following these events, the King gives Kit permission to find his true love before dying, and a mission is ignited to find Ella, using the glass slipper she left behind outside the palace. In the mix, however, the Grand Duke plots to sabotage Kit's relationship with Ella with the assistance of Lady Tremaine by convincing Kit to marry a princess he promised him, Princess Chelina. Though the Duke tries to manipulate Kit, who became king after his father's death, he merely becomes even more determined to find his true love. He accepts that he will marry Princess Chelina if Ella is never found at all and tells the Duke that he must spare no effort in showing Kit that Ella cannot be found. Suspecting the Duke is up to something despite him keeping his word to his king's condition, Kit disguises himself as a soldier and joins the search party. None of the men knows he is with them throughout the search until they reach to Ella's house to fit the slipper on Lady Tremaine's daughters Anastasia and Drisella. Before leaving when the fitting is over, Kit reveals himself as one of the soldiers and subtly orders the Captain to go investigate the voice of Ella singing from the attic, where Lady Tremaine locked her up.
During his reunion with Ella, Kit accepts that he shall take her as an honest country girl who loves him when she asked him, and adds that only he will take her if she will take him as an apprentice still learning his trade in return. He fits the slipper on Ella, Before the Duke and Lady Tremaine can be arrested for conspiracy, they flee the kingdom with her daughters. In the end, Kit and Ella are married, with Ella becoming queen, as well as the kingdom's most beloved monarchs.
Gallery
Trivia
- Unlike the animated incarnation of Prince Charming, he has a name.
