The Cinderella Story/La Reina del Sur

Throughout telenovela history we have seen many different forms of Cinderella's. Teresa falls under the category of: "The Prostitute and the Prince." Teresa begins working at a night club called and many of the girls that work there are prostitutes. Teresa refuses to do this kind of work and chooses to be a waitress instead until she gets into some trouble. Then Marcelo Cáceres ,who is the governor of Melilla, comes to her rescue under the conditions that Teresa has to sleep with him in exchange for freedom. Teresa has no choice but to agree. This is just the beginning of her being "the prostitute" in the situation.

Teresa then meets her prince: the handsome Santiago. Santiago is known as an excellent boat driver to smuggle drugs across borders. He is viewed as a hunk, not too smart at times, and often makes mistakes. These are some of  the key points to a prince in a telenovela. Santiago is offered a job bringing over tobacco for very little pay and he does not want to settle. He wants to smuggle Hashish. Hashish is a very well known drug that sells for good money. Santiago begs the Coronel Abdelkader Chaib to allow him to do so but the Coronel will not have it. Instead, the Coronel wants Santiago to smuggle people across the border for amazing pay. Santiago is at first against human trafficking, but then soon agrees. Teresa thinks this is a terrible idea.

Santiago and Teresa have developed a very intimate relationship over this time period. Teresa begs Santiago not to participate in stupid and unsafe things like human trafficking, but Santiago goes every time. Teresa finally gets fed up with the idea of losing him and tells him that she can get him a job smuggling hashish instead. Santiago doesn't ask many questions and agrees to let Teresa do this for him. Teresa then goes and tries to convince the Coronel to give Santiago a chance at hashish.  The Coronel has great interest in Teresa and does pretty much anything she asks him to. Teresa chooses to have sexual encounters with the Coronel to get Santiago his dream job. When Santiago finds out he realizes he has made a grand mistake and tries to make things up to Teresa. 

There is now a love triangle between Santiago, Teresa, and the Coronel. This triangle is very important in identifying the type of Cinderella story this is. I am curious to see if Teresa will no longer be "the prostitute" in her Cinderella story or if there will be more trialing moments for her where she will have to give herself up? What do you think? Do you think Santiago would be okay with it if so? The main question for me is whether Teresa's role will bring her and Santiago together or drag them apart? If this is a traditional telenovela then this is just a tragic bump in the road for them that they will have to overcome. It will make their unification stronger and more passionate.