Evil Queen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Evil Queen |
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The Evil Queen with her mirror in an American illustration from 1913
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| First appearance | Grimms' Fairy Tales (1812) |
| Created by | The Brothers Grimm (adapted from pre-existing fairy tales) |
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| Occupation | Queen consort, witch (secretly) |
| Spouse(s) | King |
| Children | Snow White (daughter in the original version, stepdaughter since the 1819 revision) |
The Evil Queen, also called the Wicked Queen, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of "Snow White", a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm; similar stories are also known to exist in other countries. Other versions of the Queen appear in "Snow White" derivative works, and the character has also become an archetype for unrelated works of fiction.
The Evil Queen is Snow White's evil and vindictive stepmother who is obsessed with being "the fairest in the land". The beautiful young princess Snow White evokes the Queen's sense of envy, so the Queen designs a number of plans to kill Snow White through the use of witchcraft. A driving force in the story is the Queen's Magic Mirror. In the traditional resolution of the story, the Queen is grotesquely executed for her crimes. The tale is meant as a lesson for young children warning them against the dangers of narcissism, pride, and hubris.
Various other versions of the Queen appear in subsequent adaptations and continuations of the fairy tale, including novels and films. In these, the Queen is often re-imagined and sometimes portrayed more sympathetically, such as being morally conflicted or suffering from madness instead of being simply evil. In some of the revisionist stories she has even been portrayed as an antihero or a tragic hero. In some instances, she serves as the protagonist of the story; one such particularly notable version is Disney's, sometimes known as Queen Grimhilde. The Queen has also become an archetype that inspired several characters featured in the works that are not directly based on the original tale.
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In "Snow White"
In the Brothers Grimm tale
The Evil Queen is a very beautiful but proud and arrogant woman who is secretly dabbling in dark arts. When the King's first wife, the Good Queen passes away, Snow White's father marries again. The King's new and second wife is very beautiful, but she is also a wicked and vain woman who becomes the new and second Queen, and Snow White's stepmother. She owns a magic mirror, which one day informs her that her young stepdaughter Princess Snow White has surpassed her in beauty.
After deciding to eliminate Snow White, the Queen orders her Huntsman to take the princess into the forest and kill her. The Queen tells him to bring back Snow White's lungs and liver, as proof that the princess is dead. However, the Huntsman takes pity on Snow White, and instead, brings the Queen the lungs and liver of a wild boar. The Queen has the cook prepare the lungs and liver and she eats what she believes are Snow White's organs.
While questioning her mirror 10 years later, the Queen discovers that Snow White has survived. Intending to kill Snow White herself, she uses witchcraft to prepare poison and take the disguise of an old peddler woman. She visits the dwarfs' house and sells Snow White laces for a corset that she laces too tight in an attempt to asphyxiate the girl. When that fails, the Queen returns as a comb seller and tricks Snow White into using a poisoned comb. When the comb fails to kill Snow White, the Queen again visits Snow White disguised as a farmer's wife and gives Snow White a poisoned apple.
Eventually, Snow White and the Prince from another kingdom reveal the Queen's true nature and invite her to their wedding where she is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and "dance" until she drops dead.
Alternative fates
In the classic ending of "Snow White", the Evil Queen is tricked into attending Snow White's wedding and put to death by torment. This is often considered to be too dark and potentially horrifying for children in modern society. Sara Maitland wrote that "we do not tell this part of the story any more; we say it is too cruel and will break children's soft hearts." Therefore, many (especially modern) revisions of the fairy tale often change the gruesome classic ending in order to make it seem less violent. In some versions instead of dying, the Queen is merely prevented from committing further wrongdoings. However, in the same 2014 nationwide UK poll that considered the Queen from "Snow White" the scariest fairy tale character of all time (as cited by 32.21% of responding adults), around two-thirds opined that today's stories are too "sanitised" for children.
Already the first English translation of the Grimms' tale, written by Edgar Taylor in 1823, has the Queen choke on her own envy upon the sight of Snow White alive. Another early (1871) English translation by Susannah Mary Paull "replaces the Queen's death by cruel physical punishment with death by self-inflicted pain and self-destruction" when it was her own shoes that became hot due to her anger.
Other alternative endings can have the Queen just instantly drop dead "of anger" at the wedding or in front of her mirror upon learning about it, die from her own designs going awry (such as from touching her own poisoned rose) or by nature (such as falling into quicksands while crossing a swamp on her way back to the castle after poisoning Snow White), be killed by the dwarfs during a chase, be destroyed by her own mirror, run away into the forest never to be seen again, or simply being banished from the kingdom forever.
Other appearances
- In a 1973 episode of The Brady Bunch, housekeeper Alice Nelson portrays the Queen when the Bradys and Sam the Butcher help Cindy stage a re-enactment of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
- In the two-part U.S. Acres segment titled "Snow Wade and the 77 Dwarves", Lanolin Sheep plays the Wicked Queen. Her costume slightly resembles the Disney version, but the hag outfit is just a purple hood.
- In the Berenstain Bears 1989 book Trick or Treat, Queenie dresses as the Wicked Queen for Halloween.
- Koopa plays the Queen in the third episode of Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros..
- Ellen Reid's 2001 debut album Cinderellen features the song "In Defense of the Wicked Queen", which tells the story from the Queen's perspective.
- In the season five of Charmed (2002), Piper reads the story of Snow White, where the Queen asks her mirror "who is the most powerful witch of all?"
- One of the Famous Wizard cards in the 2004 video game Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is Malodora Grymm, a medieval hag who used a beautification potion to transform herself and married a king. She then used a charmed mirror to compliment her looks and became jealous of the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, plotting to get rid of her by using a poisoned apple.
- The Evil Queen appears in the 2007 animated film Shrek the Third, where she joins the team of Prince Charming to take over Far Far Away, but at the ending she turns good and says that she always wanted to start a spa in France. (She also appears in the Shrek the Third video game as one of the bosses Shrek and his team have to defeat.)
- In the 2009 novel Devoured by Amanda Marrone, the Queen's name was Helena.
- In the lore of the video game series, Dark Parables, the jealous Queen enchants the King to put the twins Snow White and Ross Red to death for a false offense. She was exposed by a magic frog that Snow White had befriended sometime before and turned out to be The Cursed Prince, and fled the kingdom.
- A Smile PreCure! play book story in the November 2012 issue of Japanese children's magazine Otomodachi told the tale of Snow White with Pretty Cure's Reika Aoki (in her Cure Beauty form) as the Wicked Queen.
- In an April 2, 2013 comic in the Wizard of Id series, the King of Id asks Snow White to help him date the Wicked Queen.
- Vampirella's mother Lilith serves as the Evil Queen in the 2013 comic book Vampirella: Feary Tales #2.
The Disney version of the characters also appears in variety of other Disney media, also making some cameo appearances in other works such as the 1977 film Annie Hall.
Inspired characters
- The Brothers Grimm: In Terry Gilliam's 2005 fantasy film, Monica Bellucci plays a villainous character similar to the Queen. Known as the Thuringian Queen (or Mirror Queen) she is extremely vain, obsessed with preserving her youth and beauty and being the fairest in the land, an ideology which backfires when she acquires a spell for eternal life that does not grant her eternal youth.
- Enchanted: The villain of the Disney film Enchanted (2007), named Queen Narissa and played by Susan Sarandon, while not actually being the Evil Queen from the Snow White's story, is also heavily influenced by the character and also by Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty (Early on in the project, the film was supposed to be an animated sequel to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which Narissa was the Evil Queen's sister who would kidnap six of the dwarfs to lure Snow White, the Prince, and their 13-year-old daughter Rose, aided by Dopey, into a trap).
- Fantaghirò: Brigitte Nielsen said she has based her role as the Black Witch ("more than a witch, a queen") in the 1992 film Fantaghirò 2 on Disney's Evil Queen.
- Jupiter Ascending: In this science fiction film, the Queen figure is "a higher-evolved being known as the Queen of the Universe."
- Legends: The Enchanted: The main antagonist in this 2007 cyberpunk fantasy graphic novel is an old hag witch trying to free her beautiful sister from being imprisoned in a mirror. The story also features various other classic fairytale characters such as Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel, but not Snow White.
- Sailor Moon: One of the main antagonists in the 1990s manga and anime series, Queen Nehellenia is based on many evil sorceresses from fairy tales, with a particular emphasis on the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Snow Queen. Like the Snow Queen and the Evil Queen, she has a large magic mirror and like the latter she is very vain and arrogant.
- The Serpent Shadow: The character was an inspiration for Shivani, the evil identical twin sister of the late mother of Maya Witherspoon, the main character in 2001's The Serpent's Shadow, second part of the Elemental Masters reimagined fairy tales by Mercedes Lackey. This story takes place in the London of 1909 and Maya's mother Surya was an Indian sorceress (but not evil), whose seven pet servants/friends take the place of Snow White's dwarf protectors in the story.
- Stardust: Talking about his 1999 novel, Neil Gaiman said that "Snow White" has left him "with a fondness for wicked and magnificent witch-queens" and that is probably why he put one (Lamia) in this book.
- Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood: In this 1962 film, the Queen Witch (Reina Bruja) is the mistress of all evil and the queen of all monsters in the world. She looks similar to the Disney version of the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but has a green face like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty and dies when the Little Red Riding Hood tricks her to fall into a furnace-like shrine of the Devil at her castle.
- Vivien and Time: Vivien in W. B. Yeats's 1884 (albeit published only after his death) verse play Vivien and Time, based on his own poem "Time and the Witch Vivien", was inspired by the Queen of Snow White and even asks the mirror who is the fairest of them all.
Images for kids
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An entertainer dressed as the Evil Queen at the Walt Disney World
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Charlize Theron in 2015
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Patricia Medina in 1953
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Queen Brangomar and Witch Hex in an illustration for the play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
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Lana Parrilla in 2012
