Hi guys! I need some help with a plot point. My protagonist is a lost princess. She is kidnapped by the right hand man of another kingdom's king. The two kingdoms are on the verge of war. The king doesn't really want to keep her. Is there a plausible situation where he would need to keep her? They fall in love so I need her to stay. TIA!
Yes, leverage is the primary reason why countries take hostages from other countries and it's seen in many stories. Perhaps he will threaten to kill her if they attack the country, or perhaps it will be something smaller, like if the opposing side attacks a certain fort. Hostages can also be used to secure a retreat - "We'll give up the castle, but let us all leave alive and escape otherwise we'll kill the hostages."
Ransom. Hostage. Information, though some sort of information that takes a while to pass on, so, "Teach us to make gunpowder" rather than "Tell us the name of the spy."
Well, why do they kidnap her in the first place? Seems to me there should be a reason for that if you're gonna send men and put all that effort into taking someone. Or if they were ambushed, why not just kill her there and then? Why take her at all? I think if you find the reason for the kidnapping, then you'll know why the king keeps her alive. As the simplest reason, the princess is a good hostage. What does the king want? Why are the kingdoms on the verge of war? He could use the princess' life to make the other king yield, which means he needs her alive for the moment. The princess can also be reasonably assumed to know things critical to a possible war - terrain, how many men are in their army, who's important to her father and why, who might be susceptible to bribes. You will need some way of fact-checking the princess' claims however so that they don't just take her word for it, because obviously she would lie. No reason to expect her not to.
The king's right hand man (kidnapper) took it upon himself when he realized who she was. He will be my antagonist who wants to overthrow his king. I feel like he took her to start war. The king is trying to avoid war. MC's dad holds a grudge against the other king. She didn't find out that she was a princess until she came of age and has spent her adult life running/hiding from the fact. So she has no information.
The kingdom that kidnapped her could be mounting an offense on her kingdom, and they could be keeping her to get information out of her on her kingdom's defenses, weaponry, military, leadership, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Naturally, she wouldn't want to betray her own kingdom, so that adds tension because she is probably afraid for her own life, as well.
Hmm. If things are that peaceful right now, maybe you could just declare a problem with transport? They can't get her back home until the winter storms are over, or the Gadget River freezes up and supports horse traffic, or it's just plain dangerous between the two locations because of battle or killer bees or whatever? If you want that to be messy(ish) the king could send the princess's father abject assurances of his commitment to her safety, and be disbelieved. If you want it to be all nice and friendly, the princess's father could send a representative to check on her safety, because the representative would be expendable if badness happens to him in the dangerous lands in between. Or the princess's father doesn't trust the king's representatives to be competent to transport her, so he's sending a bunch of his own soldiers. Maybe it looks like too many soldiers, and that makes things even more tense. Transport. That's my suggestion.
The running princess premise doesn't sound plausible to me, but perhaps it's because I don't have all the info. Why was she not raised with her parents? Anyway, if your antag took the princess to start a war the king didn't want, then surely the king would do all in his power to find the princess and send her back to her own kingdom. Your antag would be the one who needs to hide her. How on earth do you want to give your princess and the king enough closeness for them to fall in love? Or was it the antag she was supposed to be in love with?
The story is kind of a twist on beauty and the beast. So, it is the princess and king meant to be together. I may have to mess with the plot some more. Originally, the princess was hidden when her mother was killed (which started war). She wants no part of being a princess, as she never knew that life. She just wants to be normal.
A different war to the one that's on the verge of starting? How was the mother killed and why? I would say if these are 3 different kingdoms (the princess' kingdom, the one with your antag and whose king doesn't want war, and the one who killed the Queen), then merge the last two kingdoms. Eg. make the kingdom the antag is from the same one that killed the Queen. Otherwise it might get too complicated and you'd need to think of a whole other host of reasons for things.
He's actually wants to invade a third country and is secretly planning on killing the princess and framing said country in order to make a revenge ally with her home country.