For a girl who lived as a commoner not feeling fear of what might happen to her livelihood by nobles is unnatural. The emperor is dumb as a brick (edit swear) though, don't his family and other nobles not see how bad their standing is? The emperor, higher than kings, learned many things from private tutors for royalty yet a nobody took all his wisdom away.
All the peasant-turned royalty I know are from rebellions or those who knows how to act appropriately and obedient, the opposite of Trashta