By the way, another thing that irritates me about how Mattel chose to market Poppy:
If they wanted a rebel-leaning neutral character, SPARROW IS RIGHT THERE. Like this actually drives me nuts.
I've discussed Poppy at length before, but TL;DR: I think she could have a great narrative about overcoming her middle ground fallacy, learning to recognize her privilege, having some kind of falling out and reconnection with her sister as their political and social views grow apart, and learning that a non-confrontational approach does not always solve the problems. BUT because Mattel was so insistent on marketing her "Roybel" status as cool and unique and the correct solution that everyone else should be arriving at, it seriously nerfs her and Holly's ability to have compelling stories and makes her deeply annoying to watch. A problem only exacerbated by their over-prominence later in the series when the slogan shifted from "Rewrite Ignite Restart" to "Princess Power."
But anyway, you can see that while Poppy claims to be a Roybel and while series branding tends to group her with the rebels, her actual ideology and social group is firmly rooted in the Royal's camp.
Meanwhile, Sparrow, who gets treated as a straight rebel by the marketing, is actually one of the most neutral characters in the whole cast. I think the only one who's really on his level is Kitty. This is for several reasons.
Robin Hood is a hero, meaning Sparrow's destiny is one of the good ones that doesn't immediately make him a pariah like Raven or Ginger or Lizzie or even Duchess.
Sparrow doesn't want this heroic destiny because he is far more self-serving. Your mileage may vary on WHY he's so insistent on gaining wealth for himself and willing to seriously screw other people over about it---his non-relationship with his mother, Maid Marian, and closeness with his Aunt Heather leads most people to assume it has something to do with parental neglect, but there are other options. But the fact remains that Sparrow doesn't want his destiny, he wants to make his own way, which technically ideologically aligns him with the Rebels. His Stick It To The Man attitude regarding authority figures also causes him to skew more rebel than royal.
Sparrow is a commoner with a very Eat The Rich demeanor. While the Royal-Rebel divide has always been primarily about "do we have freedom of choice or do we maintain the status quo," the royal/noble social class obviously benefits the most from the current status quo and has the hardest time seeing it's negative effects. Add in that the initial line strongly followed Apple's friends vs. Raven's friends, regardless of their thoughts on their actual destinies, and it's no surprise that the initial group of Royals and Rebels is basically Royals and Commoners.
Sparrow is a jackass, and him and Raven hate each other. His bad attitude ostracizes him from BOTH social groups, but because he's especially cruel to Raven, it means the commoners/rebels dislike him a lot more than the royals tend to.
Sparrow is friends with Duchess, who is also ostracized by both groups but generally spends more time hanging around the Royals than the Rebels, mostly out of familiarity and her deep-seated desire to BE a perfect princess with a happily ever after (and the classism, Duchess is one of the most blatantly classist characters at series start).
Sparrow has motive for wanting the Royals to tolerate him---namely, they've got all the stuff worth stealing, so it's beneficial if he can sometimes be in their ranks without actually being part of the group. Also as a survival mechanism. He doesn't want to get singled out by people in charge the way Raven does.
This puts him in a firmly neutral position---nobody really likes him and he doesn't have a particular affection or loyalty to anybody but himself. But ideologically and behavior-wise he does skew towards the Rebels.
You can actually see this really elegantly at the end of the first Shannon Hale book (The Storybook of Legends).
After Raven rips out her page, the crowd goes wild, and she freezes everybody. Then she unfreezes Apple, they have their talk, and both girls go off to hide from the fallout. The group that will become the Royals goes looking for Apple and the group that will become the Rebels goes looking for Raven. The Royals go to their legacy day party the intended way (in tugboats pulled by mermaids), while the Rebels crash the party slightly later after finding their own way there (Coral Witch gets them a fish taxi).
-Poppy isn't mentioned by name, but she's part of The Princess Crowd in this novel, and thus implied to be with Apple---the Royals.
-Dexter is firmly in Raven's group---again, he's not a neutral, he's a rebel that happens to be a prince and has a complicated family situation. He goes looking for Raven to congratulate and comfort her (he has to get past the other rebels threatening to beat him off with a stick first), he tries to convince Daring to let the Rebels join the tugboats, and planned to stay with them. He only leaves because Raven insists (she doesn't want him to destroy his relationship with his brother).
-Kitty is explicitly in the rebel/commoner group (she lives for the chaos and Raven just caused a TON), but other entries in the series like Spring Unsprung will show that Kitty personally wants to follow her destiny to an unhealthy and dangerous degree, making her more of a true neutral compared to Sparrow's rebellious-neutral. Also, the Wonderland trio is a stable friend group relatively untouched by the royal-rebel issue, and this allows Kitty to not NEED to choose a side to support her friends.
Sparrow is in neither group. He doesn't go after either girl, and while he does get to the party the official way, he's not there to enjoy it, he's there as service. Him and his band are the entertainment and are probably getting paid to be here (or are at least getting publicity). He cements his position by being a jackass to Raven when she takes the stage and starts to sing along, but does not join the other party goers, and is simply pissed at her because she's Raven, not because he's particularly broken-up about her tearing out her page.
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
titsay
stormborns
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
