I’ll see your “the villain repeatedly kidnapping the princess is actually just extreme sex rolepaying” and raise you “it is, in fact, an RP thing, but there’s nothing sexual about it – the princess is just really into escape rooms, and the ‘villain’ is the only escape room artisan around who’s unethical enough to be willing to build challenges that meet her frankly deranged standards”.
Wouldn’t that kind of be the opposite of what happens with the whole being “rescued” part?
In most of the examples of the princess kidnap scenario they don’t escape of their own accord.
The “knight” is the princess’ long-suffering personal assistant whose job it is to go in and extricate her if she manages to get stuck. Of course, there’s no thrill of danger if it’s possible to bail any time you want, so the princess insists the escape rooms be made at least as difficult to get into as they are to get out of!
She’s in another castle because she beat this one herself.