Evil Queen

For the Disney version of the character, see Evil Queen (Disney).

The Evil Queen
The Evil Queen with her mirror in an American illustration from 1913
First appearance	Grimms' Fairy Tales (1812)
Created by	The Brothers Grimm (adapted from pre-existing fairy tales)
In-universe information
Occupation	Queen consort, witch (secretly)
Spouse	King
Children	Snow White (daughter in the original version, stepdaughter since the 1819 revision)

The Evil Queen (German: böse Königin), also called the Wicked Queen or the Queen, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of "Snow White", a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm. The most popular adaptation of the Evil Queen is from Disney's Snow White. The character has also become an archetype that has inspired unrelated works.

The Evil Queen is Snow White's wicked stepmother, obsessed with being "the fairest in the land". When the Queen's magic mirror reveals that the young princess Snow White is more beautiful than her, she decides to kill her using witchcraft. After Snow White is rescued, the Queen is executed for her crimes. The tale is didactic, meant as a warning to young children against the dangers of narcissism, pride, and hubris, and showing the triumph of good over evil.

In some retellings of the fairy tale, the Queen has been re-imagined or portrayed more sympathetically. In some such stories she serves as the protagonist, and has even been portrayed as an antihero or a tragic hero.

The Brothers Grimm tale

Story

The queen with her mirror, from the 1921 My Favourite Book of Fairy Tales (illustrated by Jennie Harbour).

The Evil Queen is a very beautiful, proud, and arrogant woman who marries the King after the death of his first wife, the mother of Snow White. The Evil Queen owns a magic mirror, which one day informs her that her young stepdaughter, the seven-year-old Princess Snow White, has surpassed her in beauty "a thousand times".

After deciding to kill Snow White, the Queen orders her Huntsman to take the princess into the forest to murder 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.

The Queen in disguise, offering lace to Snow White (a late 19th-century German illustration).

While questioning her mirror again, the Queen discovers that Snow White has survived and has found sanctuary with the Seven Dwarfs. Intending to kill Snow White herself, she takes 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 suffocate the girl. When this fails, the Queen returns as a comb seller and tricks Snow White into using a poisoned comb created through "the art of witchcraft". After the comb, too, fails to kill Snow White, the Queen proclaims "Snow White shall die... even if it costs me my life!". She again visits Snow White disguised as a farmer's wife and gives Snow White a poisoned red half of a beautiful apple, which puts Snow White into a deep sleep.

Snow White is awakened by a kiss from a Prince from another kingdom, and they invite the Queen to their wedding. Although she fears what will happen, the Queen's jealousy drives her to attend. There, she is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and dance until she drops dead.

Alternative fates

The Queen arrives at Snow White's wedding in a 1905 German illustration.

In the classic ending of "Snow White", the Evil Queen is put to death by torture. Such extreme punishment is now often considered too dark and potentially inappropriate for children. The first English translation of the Grimm's tale, written by Edgar Taylor in 1823, has the Queen choke on her own envy upon the sight of Snow White alive. An 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," as it is instead her own shoes that become hot due to her anger. Other alternative endings have the Queen instantly drop dead "of anger" at the wedding or in front of her mirror upon learning of Snow White's survival, fall victim to her own designs going awry (such as through touching her own poisoned rose), die by nature (e.g., falling into quicksand 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 be banished from the kingdom forever. As Sara Maitland wrote, "We do not tell this part of the story any more; we say it is too cruel and will break children's soft hearts."

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, the Queen is merely prevented from committing further wrongdoings and does not die but is banished or disappears; in others, she may die by accident. Fawzia Gilani-Williams' Snow White: An Islamic Tale, for instance, has Snow White forgive her evil witch stepmother entirely, making her repent and redeem herself, as part of the book's religious lessons for children. 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 "sanitized" for children. Anthony Burgess commented in 1983: "Reading that, how seriously can we take it? It is fairy-tale violence, which is not like real mugging, terrorism and Argentinean torture."

Sheldon Cashdan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, argues that, in accordance with the logic of fairy tales, the Queen could not be allowed to flee or merely be locked up in a dungeon or exiled, as the story portrayed her, "As a thoroughly despicable creature who deserves the worst conceivable punishment." In his opinion, fairy tale narrative also demands that "if the witch is to die — and remain dead — she must die in a way that makes her return highly unlikely," and so "the reader needs to know that the death of the witch is thorough and complete, even if it means exposing young readers to acts of violence that are extreme by contemporary standards." Conversely, writers such as Oliver Madox Hueffer have expressed sympathy for the queen, or, like psychology professor Sharna Olfman, have removed the violence when reading the story to children, while also acknowledging that verbal storytelling lacks "graphic visual imagery."

Origins and evolution

A Polish illustration by Zofia Plewińska-Smidowiczowa.

In the first print edition of the Brothers Grimm story from their 1812/1815 collection Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales"), the Queen is Snow White's biological mother. At the beginning of the story, she is sewing at an open window when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of red blood to drip onto the white snow on the black ebony windowsill. She then wishes to have a daughter with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony, and she later gives birth to Snow White (Snow Drop). In subsequent versions after 1819, this was changed; text was added to include that Snow White's mother died and the King remarried. According to Jack Zipes, that change was made because the Grimms "held motherhood sacred." According to Cashdan, a "cardinal rule of fairy tales" mandates that the "heroes and heroines are allowed to kill witches, sorceresses, even stepmothers, but never their own mothers." Zipes' 2014 collection of Grimm fairy tales in their original forms reinstated the Queen as Snow White's mother. This revision was probably the work of Wilhelm Grimm. In the Brothers' original Ölenberg Manuscript (1810), the Queen herself abandons Snow White in a forest and ends up being punished by the returning King after he revives their daughter.

However, the wicked stepmother was not unknown in German versions predating the Brothers Grimm's collection. In 1782, Johann Karl August Musäus published a literary fairy tale titled "Richilde" which reimagined the folktale from the villain's point of view. The main character is Richilde, arrogant Countess of Brabant, who as a child received the gift of a magic mirror invented by her godfather Albertus Magnus. Many elements of the Grimms' Snow White appear in this story, including the wicked stepmother, the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, and the punishment of dancing in red-hot shoes. The Grimms knew of Snow White (1809), a play by their contemporary and rival Albert Ludwig Grimm (no relation to the Brothers Grimm), which according to Zipes "treated the Queen more gently".

Hueffer noted that the wicked stepmother with magical powers threatening a young princess is a recurring theme in fairy tales; one similar character is the witch-queen in "The Wild Swans" as told by Hans Christian Andersen. According to Kenny Klein, the enchantress Ceridwen of the Welsh mythology was "the quintessential evil stepmother, the origin of that character in the two tales of Snow White and Cinderella."

Equivalents to the Evil Queen can be found in Snow White-like tales from around the world. In the Scottish Gaelic oral tale "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree", the Queen is named Silver-Tree and is the heroine's biological mother. A talking trout takes the place of the Queen's mirror and the huntsman figure is the princess's own father. The villain's relationship with Snow White can also vary, with versions from around the world sometimes featuring wicked sisters or sisters-in-law, or a wicked mother of the prince. One earlier variation of the tale was Giambattista Basile's "The Young Slave" (1634), in which the heroine's mother is unintentionally involved in putting her to sleep, and she is awoken by her cruel and jealous aunt who treats her like a slave. The Queen figure's tricks also vary from place to place. In Italy, she uses a toxic comb, a contaminated cake, or a suffocating braid. In France, a local tale features a poisoned tomato. Her demands for the princess's feet as proof from the huntsman figure (often her lover in non-Grimm versions) also vary: a bottle of blood stoppered with the princess's toe in Spain, or the princess's intestines and blood-soaked shirt in Italy.

Rosemary Ellen Guiley suggests that the Queen of the Brothers Grimm tale uses an apple because it recalls the temptation of Eve; this creation story from the Bible led the Christian Church to view apples as a symbol of sin. Many people feared that apples could carry evil spirits, and that witches used them for poisoning. Robert G. Brown of Duke University also makes a connection with the story of Adam and Eve, seeing the Queen as a representation of the archetype of Lilith. The symbol of the apple has long had traditional associations with enchantment and witchcraft in some European cultures, as in the case of Morgan le Fay's Avalon ("Isle of the Apples").

The iron shoes being heated in an illustration from an 1852 Icelandic translation of the Grimms' story.

Diane Purkiss attributes the Queen's fiery death in the Brothers Grimm tale to "the folkbelief that burning a witch's body ended her power, a belief which subtended (but did not cause) the practice of burning witches in Germany." The American Folklore Society noted that the use of iron shoes "recalls folk practices of destroying a witch through the magic agency of iron." In other variants of the "Snow White" type tales, the story usually also ends with punishment of the wicked stepmother through burning, immurement, or decapitation.

Interpretations

According to some scholars such as Roger Sale and University of Hawaii professor Cristina Bacchilega, the story has ageist undertones vilifying the older woman character, with her envy of Snow White's beauty. Terri Windling wrote that the Queen is "a woman whose power is derived from her beauty; it is this, the tale implies, that provides her place in the castle's hierarchy. If the king’s attention turns from his wife to another, what power is left to an aging woman? Witchcraft, the tale answers. Potions, poisons, and self-protection."

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar regard Snow White and her mother/stepmother as two female stereotypes, the angel and the monster. The fact that the Queen was Snow White's biological mother in the first version of the Grimms' story has led several psychoanalytic critics to interpret "Snow White" as a story about a repressed Oedipus complex, or about Snow White's Electra complex and sexual rivalry with the Queen. According to Bruno Bettelheim, the story's main motif is "the clash of sexual innocence and sexual desire": "whereas Snow White achieves inner harmony, her stepmother fails to do so. Unable to integrate the social and the antisocial aspects of human nature, she remains enslaved to her desires and gets caught up in an Oedipal competition with her daughter from which she cannot extricate herself. This imbalance between her contradictory drives proves to be her undoing." Cashdan interprets the Queen's motives as "fear that the king will find Snow White more appealing than her." This struggle so dominates the psychological landscape of the tale that Gilber and Gubar even proposed renaming the story "Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother". Harold Bloom opined that the three "temptations" all "testify to a mutual sexual attraction between Snow White and her stepmother."

Robert Anning Bell's 1912 illustration

It seems that the Brothers Grimm, who wrote their book as an "educational manual" (Erziehungsbuch), felt that a brutal punishment for a villain was a necessary element augmenting the happy endings of their tales, as in Snow White's ascent as new queen and triumph over her evil enemy. Cashdan proposes that the evil queen "embodies narcissism, and the young princess, with whom readers identify, embodies parts of the child struggling to overcome this tendency. Vanquishing the queen represents a triumph of positive forces in the self over vain impulses." As such, "the death of the witch signals a victory of virtue over vice, a sign that positive forces in the self have prevailed." In addition, "the active involvement of heroine in the witch's demise communicates to readers that they must take an active role in overcoming their own errant tendencies." Similarly, psychologist Betsy Cohen wrote about the perceived symbolism of the act: "In order to avoid becoming a wicked queen herself, Snow White needs to separate from and kill off this destructive force inside of her." In the words of Bettelheim, "only the death of the jealous queen (the elimination of all outer and inner turbulence) can make for a happy world."

Regarding the manner of the Queen's execution, scholars such as Cashdan, Sheldon Donald Haase, and John Hanson Saunders argue from psychological and storytelling viewpoints that the Queen's punishment fits her crimes, gives closure to the reader, and shows good triumphing over evil. Jo Eldridge Carney, Professor of English at The College of New Jersey, wrote: "Again, the fairy tale's system of punishment is horrific but apt: a woman so actively consumed with seeking affirmation from others and with violently undoing her rival is forced to enact her own physical destruction as a public spectacle." Likewise, Mary Ayers of the Stanford University School of Medicine wrote that the red-hot shoes symbolise that the Queen was "subjected to the effects of her own inflamed, searing hot envy and hatred." It was also noted that this ending echoes the fairy tale of "The Red Shoes", which similarly "warns of the danger of attachment to appearances."

Adaptations

The Queen's character is portrayed in a variety of ways in subsequent adaptations of the original fairy tale. Lana Berkowitz of the Houston Chronicle noted: "Today stereotypes of the evil queen and innocent Snow White often are challenged. Rewrites may show the queen is reacting to extenuating circumstances." In addition, according to Scott Meslow of The Atlantic, "Disney's decision to throw out the Grimm's appropriately grim ending—which sentences the evil queen to dance in heated iron shoes until her death—has meant that ending is all but forgotten." In Taylor's 1923 German Popular Stories the Queen chokes to death out of anger.

Disney's Snow White franchise

Main article: Evil Queen (Disney)

Morgan McMichaels dressed as the Evil Queen from the 1937 Disney film

In The Walt Disney Company's seminal 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Queen, usually known as the Evil Queen or the Wicked Queen, is sometimes referred to as Queen Grimhilde in Disney publications from the 1930s and was originally voiced by Lucille La Verne. In the film, similar to the Brothers Grimm story, the Queen is vain and wants to be the "fairest in the land". She envies her stepdaughter's beauty and the attention of the Prince from another land. Disney's changes also include the expansion of her magical powers (including control over elements of nature, conjuring wind and thunder as ingredients for her spell) and placing her as the master of the spirit in her magic mirror (even referred by the Queen as her "slave"). As in the fairy tale, the Queen's jealousy leads her to plot Snow White's death, and leads to her own as well, when she falls to her death shortly after poisoning Snow White. The Disney version of the Queen character uses her magic to transform herself into an old woman instead of just taking a disguise like in the Grimms' story; with this appearance she is commonly referred to as the Wicked Witch or alternatively as the Old Hag or just the Witch. The film's version of the Queen was created by Walt Disney and Joe Grant, originally animated by Art Babbit, and voiced by Lucille La Verne. Inspiration for her design came from several sources, including the characters of Queen Hash-a-Motep from She and Princess Kriemhild from Die Nibelungen, as well as actresses such as Joan Crawford and Gale Sondergaard.

An entertainer at the Walt Disney World

Besides the film, the Evil Queen has made numerous appearances in Disney productions and attractions, such as Fantasmic!, The Kingdom Keepers and Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, sometimes appearing alongside Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. The Queen has since been voiced by Eleanor Audley, Louise Chamis, and Susanne Blakeslee. She was portrayed live by Anne Francine, Jane Curtin, and Olivia Wilde, among others. Her surviving and aged version was portrayed by Kathy Najimy in Descendants. The film's version of the Queen has become a popular archetype; visually embodying the fairy tale character in popular consciousness, and influenced a number of artists and non-Disney works, and even Walt Disney's very own next villainess, Maleficent. Gal Gadot is set to portray the Queen in Snow White, Disney's own 2025 live-action film reimagining of the 1937 film.

Live-action film and television

1916-2000

The 1916 American silent film Snow White is an early example of an altered ending to the story, as the Queen is not executed but merely banished from the court after breaking her demonic mirror in anger.

The 1962 East German film Snow White changes the ending as well. The Queen, played by Marianne Christina Schilling, arrives at Snow White's wedding where the Prince offers her a half of a red apple, which she assumes is poisoned. Terrified, the Queen flees and is chased out of the country by the Prince.

In the 1961 film Snow White and the Three Stooges, the Queen is played by Patricia Medina. The Queen's character is the same as the fairytale, however the princess is protected by the Three Stooges. When the Queen attempts to track down and destroy Snow White, the Stooges spot her flying on a broom and kill her with a magic wish by making her crash and burn. Her companion in the film, the wizard Oga, is also killed when he falls into a pot of boiling oil.

In the 1962 Mexican children's film, Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White's stepmother appears as the Witch Queen, Reina Bruja, the mistress of all evil and the queen of all monsters in the world, played by Ofelia Guilmáin. The Queen looks similar as in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but has a green face like Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. She dies when the Little Red Riding Hood tricks her to fall into a furnace-like shrine of the Devil at her castle.

Another inspired character is from the 1999 film The Queen of the Lake which mixes the fairy tales of Grimm's and those of Hans Christian Andersen. The Queen plots to marry the young prince Victor so she can become the most powerful ruler in the world. Victor discovers the Queen has magically kidnapped seven young princesses so they could not become her rivals. He manages to rescue the princesses and to defeat the Queen, turns her to stone.

In the Snow White episode of the 1984 television series Faerie Tale Theatre, the Queen is played by Vanessa Redgrave and argues with the film's narrator about the plot. In the end, she is punished by a spell that drives her to insanity by preventing her from ever seeing her reflection again. The 1987 American musical film Snow White stars Diana Rigg as the Queen. The plot follows the story of the fairy tale closely but again modifies the ending. When the Queen is invited to Snow White's wedding, she breaks the mirror in rage, causing her to age rapidly. After arriving at the wedding, as the mirror falls apart, she shatters into pieces and disintegrates.

In the 1987-1988 television series The Charmings, a sequel to the fairy tale, Queen Lillian "Lily" White casts a powerful curse on Snow White and her family. This curse banishes them all (including the Queen herself and her Magic Mirror) into the modern world, where they live as the titular Charmings. The Queen is forced to live with Snow White, while trying to return to their own world.

In the 1997 Gothic horror film Snow White: A Tale of Terror, exploring the wicked stepmother's backstory and personality as its "quasi-central" character in an antithesis to the Disney version. She is not a queen, but rather a tragic noblewoman named Lady Claudia Hoffman, portrayed by Sigourney Weaver. Unlike the usual Snow White stepmother character, she is obsessed with motherhood rather than her appearance. Lady Claudia marries widower Count Frederick and tries to befriend his daughter Lilli, who rejects her. When Claudia is pregnant, Lilli receiving all of the attention causes her so much stress that the baby is stillborn. Driven mad by grief Claudia listens to her mother's magic mirror and blames Lilli for the baby's death. She successfully seduces Lilly's suitor Dr Gutenberg and begins to plot the death of her stepdaughter and later also the king. Claudia sends her mute, inbred brother Gustav to kill the princess (his role replacing that of the Hunter from the fairy tale). When her mirror tells her that Lilli is alive, she uses magic to kill her brother and to try to bring her child back to life. Claudia learns of Lilly's whereabouts and attempts to kill her and the seven miners with whom Lilly hides with. She then gives Lilli a poison apple, placing her in a coma. When Lilli awakens she and the remaining miners confront Claudia. Lilli kills her stepmother by stabbing her image in the mirror, causing Claudia to rapidly age and catch fire before she is crushed by debris. The film has been noted as innovative in that the Queen's jealously is first provoked by Snow White's own jealously towards her. Weaver said about her role: "It was vitally important to me to make it clear that Claudia and Frederick are madly in love at the beginning and that's what Lilli resents. Then when she changes from perfect wife into the worthless mother of a stillborn child, that's when she looks hideous in the mirror and blames Lilli for everything. The key to Claudia is that she starts out as normal as the rest of us. She isn't evil."

Willa: An American Snow White, a 1998 television reimagined version of the fairy tale takes place in the American South around 1915, featuring a retired stage star Regina Worthington (played by Caitlin O'Connell). Regina is jealous of her stepdaughter, Willa, who has ambitions to become an actress and attempts to gain Regina's approval. The stepmother's mirror is not magic but a regular mirror in which she sees her young and beautiful image due to insanity. After Regina notices that Willa is more beautiful than her, she orders her butler Otto to kill Willa, but Otto drives Willa into a forest where she takes refuge with a traveling show. Regina murders Otto and then attempts to murder Willa, who is playing Snow White in a skit. Willa is saved by the "elixir of life" of the fake Indian chief Wonka that the demented Regina drinks before accidentally setting fire to the stage and herself. Willa is subsequently cast in a moving picture while Tonka, who claims to have seen Regina perform, says that she was described as "the tragic queen" and that she serves as a cautionary tale against "the corrosive effects of fame and fortune." Regina's character is based not only on the Queen but also on Norma Desmond. Another modern reimagination of the fairy tale, also devoid of magical motifs, is the Slovak television musical Let the Princess Stay with Us (Neberte nám princeznú). In it, the Queen's role is taken by the protagonist Katka's biological mother, played by Marie Rottrová.

The main villain of the 2000 miniseries The 10th Kingdom is Christine White, more commonly referred to as the Evil Queen and portrayed by Dianne Wiest. Two hundred years after the events of the original Snow White fairytale, the original Evil Queen uses her mirrors to spy on Earth, where she finds Christine Lewis, a troubled former socialite whose husband Tony lost their fortune through bad investments and whose daughter Virginia was unplanned. After almost killing her daughter in a psychotic break, Christine joins the Queen in the realm of the Nine Kingdoms to be groomed as an apprentice and to be her successor. Christine then inserts herself into the House of White, first as the nanny of Snow White's grandson, Prince Wendell White, and later as his stepmother. She's then imprisoned for the murder of Wendell's father. As The 10th Kingdom begins, she escapes to act as the main antagonist.

2001-2020s

In the 2001 television film Snow White: The Fairest of Them All, a self-loathing crone named Elspeth (Miranda Richardson and Karin Konoval in her crone form), who is a genie, is transformed into a beautiful queen by her brother. She becomes jealous when the mirror reveals that her stepdaughter Snow White is the fairest in the land and in this adaptation she is driven more by insecurities than vanity. She also envies the affection that Prince Alfred shows towards Snow White. She disguises herself as Snow White's deceased mother Josephine (Vera Farmiga) and succeeds in poisoning her with an apple. Elspeth then shatters the mirror in rage which breaks her spells and turns her back into the old crone. She is then killed by the dwarves.

Nina Hagen portrayed the Queen in the 2004 German comedy film 7 Dwarves – Men Alone in the Wood, a loose adaptation of the fairy tale, and its 2006 sequel 7 Dwarves: The Forest Is Not Enough. In the latter the Queen's character is known as the Witch after having been dethroned and the main villain is instead Rumpelstiltskin. The two live-action films were followed by 2014's animated film The Seventh Dwarf, in which her character was given the name Dellamorta. In it, she ends up defeated by the eponymous dwarf Bubi and turned into an ice figure.

Monica Bellucci in 2009

In the 2005 historical fantasy film The Brothers Grimm, Monica Bellucci plays the villainous character that will inspire the fairy-tale Evil Queen after the Brothers face her in Napoleonic-era Germany. Known as the Thuringian Queen or the Mirror Queen. She was the extremely vain wife of the Frankish king Childeric I, obsessed with preserving her youth and beauty. This led her to dabble in black magic, which backfires when she acquires a spell for eternal life that does not grant her eternal youth. Since then, she has been living in a tower organizing abductions of young girls so she can use their blood to regain her youth and beauty. The Queen is destroyed after Jake Grimm shatters the mirror in the tower, making her werewolf minion transform into the woodsman (the Hunter figure) and destroy the rest of the mirror by jumping out of the tower's window with it.

In the 2007 teen comedy film, Sydney White, Sara Paxton plays Rachel Witchburn, the mean leader of the student council and the head of the sorority that Sydney wants to attend. Jealous of Sydney, Rachel hires a hacker to destroy Sydney's computer files using a virus called The Poison Apple. Nevertheless, Sydney wins the debate and the election, becoming the new president, while Rachel is stripped of her sisterhood because of her cruelty.

Lana Parrilla as Regina Mills in Once Upon a Time

In all seven seasons of the 2011–2017 American TV series Once Upon a Time, the Queen, also known as Regina Mills and portrayed by Lana Parrilla, transforms from an antagonist into a central character. Regina saves Snow White's life when they are younger, leading to Regina's unwilling marriage to Snow's father. When Snow inadvertently causes the death of Regina's true love, Regina grows vengeful and becomes the Evil Queen. After years of failing to kill Snow White, the Evil Queen eventually casts the Dark Curse, provided by her mentor Rumpelstiltskin, sending all the fairytale characters to the real world and erasing their true memories. During the curse, Regina adopts a son, Henry. Later, Regina's curse is broken by Snow White's daughter, Emma (Henry's biological mother), and Regina decides to try and redeem herself for her son. In time, Regina manages to make amends with Snow White, Emma and her other enemies. She also meets her long lost half-sister, Zelena the Wicked Witch, and falls in love with Robin Hood. In the fifth season, following Robin's death, Regina uses Dr. Jekyll's serum to separate herself from the darkness within her, creating the Evil Queen as a separate individual. In the seventh season, set many years later, Regina is crowned the Good Queen when the realms are united.

Julia Roberts in 2011

In the 2012 comedy fantasy film Mirror Mirror, Julia Roberts plays Queen Clementianna, a comical and sympathetic version of the character framing the film's plot through her ironic and cynical prologue and epilogue narration where she insists to present it as her story. She is a cold and narcissistic woman who married the king and bewitched him into a savage beast using a magic necklace. The Queen spends her time by organizing lavish parties in the palace and buying expensive dresses, while neglecting the kingdom which has caused the people to struggle and live in poverty due to high taxes by her. She uses a magic mirror to talk to a much younger reflection of herself (played by Lisa Roberts Gillan) that often warns her not to use her magic for selfish short-sighted purposes. Such as total control over husband and the Prince Alcott or turning her servant Brighton into a cockroach as punishment. In her attempts to kill her 18-years-old stepdaughter Snow White the Queen creates two wooden puppets to attack the dwarves' home as well as commanding the Beast to attack. Once Snow defeats the beast, the Queen begins to rapidly age as her reflection states that she must pay the price for her use of magic. When Snow White then refuses the poisoned apple when offered by the crone-queen at her wedding, Clementianna herself eats it and dissolves, while the mirror portal shatters. One character in the film calls her a "good old-fashioned, plain, traditional psycho crazy." Director Tarsem Singh states the mirror world is her own delusion: "She's just insecure ... about beauty, about things that are passing her by, and now she wants power. If she looks into the mirror ... she enters the landscape, which is a mindscape, and in there is a house, inside which are many mirrors, and in those mirrors she just talks to herself. So it's actually just her talking to herself. She's just bad, but wants to outsource the evil and say 'That thing told me.'"

Maribel Verdú in 2011

2012 saw the release of multiple Snow White films. In Grimm's Snow White, the evil queen's name is Queen Gwendolyn (played by Jane March). She plans to marry Prince Alexander, so she must kill her stepdaughter Snow White who loves him as well. When she attempts to forcibly marry Alexander, Snow White manages to break free and decapitate her before the ceremony can be finished.

Maribel Verdú plays Encarna, the evil stepmother of Carmen Villalta also known as Snow White in the Spanish silent art film Blancanieves that transplants the story to the 1920s. Encarna eventually poisons Snow White at a bull fighting ring, and is herself killed by the dwarf bull fighters when they trap her with a bull. Snow White: A Deadly Summer is a modern-day re-imagining of the story as a slasher horror film where Maureen McCormick plays Eve, the psychopathic woman who hates her stepdaughter because she wants Snow's father all for herself.

Charlize Theron in 2015

In a major 2012 retelling, Snow White and the Huntsman, Charlize Theron portrays Queen Ravenna, an extremely powerful sorceress on a misandrous vendetta after having been sexually abused by powerful men in the past. The Queen is depicted as a vain, scheming, and power-hungry secret leader of a supernatural army whom King Magnus "rescues". On their wedding night, she brutally murders the King and everyone in the castle but the young Snow White. Conquering yet another kingdom with her younger brother Finn, Ravenna later fears that Snow White may challenge her reign of terror. The Queen's obsession with power and beauty stems from childhood trauma, when her mother told her that beauty is a weapon. The strength of her powers seems to correlate to her appearance, which she retains by stealing life force from young women. Both her powers and beauty begin to fade as Snow White comes into her own. Her Magic Mirror assures her that the only way to render her powers and her youth permanent is to consume Snow White's heart. She is ultimately killed when she is stabbed by Snow White, aided by Eric the Huntsman, rapidly aging as she dies. Director Rupert Sanders said: "It was very important that we didn't have a terrible cut-out villain. We had someone who was doing evil things from a fear and weakness. I think it is important that you do sympathize with her to a degree, but also really understand why she is the person she’s become because she wasn't born evil. It was a journey for her to become evil, and I think it was very important to myself and Charlize Theron to play a realistic version of the queen." Theron said about the character: "At first, I didn't really understand why she was evil or losing her mind, but once I understood that it wasn't just the fact that her mortality relied upon finding Snow White, and that knowing that and not being able to do anything and being stuck in a castle. Well, I think that would be maddening for somebody like her. It reminded me a lot of Jack Nicholson's character in The Shining—that idea that you're stuck in this place and you can't escape it, that cabin fever." Theron reprised her role in the film's 2016 sequel, The Huntsman: Winter's War, in which the Queen was revealed to have hidden part of herself in the Mirror. Allowing her to be restored to life by her younger sister, the Snow Queen-like "ice princess" Freya. Freya learns that Ravenna had killed her child that the Mirror said would grow up more beautiful than Ravenna. The sisters fatally duel each other, enabling Eric to break the Mirror as Ravenna shatters into pieces.

Animated film and television

One early yet notable animated adaptation was Snow White (1933), a Betty Boop series cartoon short in which the Queen is a vain and conniving witch who resembles Olive Oyl. At one point, her mirror explodes in a puff of magic smoke that changes her into a hideous dragon that chases the protagonists until the Queen's own former guard grabs the dragon's tongue and turns her inside out into a skeleton. Another early American animation, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943), is a controversial World War II propaganda short that reimagines all the story's characters as African-Americans. The "mean ol' queen" (voiced by Ruby Dandridge and Danny Webb) of the story, a parody of the Disney character, plots to murder So White out of jealously for the handsome Prince Chawmin, represents food hoarders at the time of war rationing.

The Wicked Queen is voiced by Melendy Britt in the 1980 Filmation animated television film A Snow White Christmas, a loose sequel set years after the events of the fairy tale in which the Queen returns to life after having been trapped in ice. Determined to get rid of the now ruling queen Snow White and King Charming, as well as their daughter who is also named Snow White, the Queen freezes the entire kingdom. The young princess escapes and enlists the help of the seven friendly giants to stop the Queen again. Each time, Queen's attempts to harm the young Snow White with her evil magic are foiled by the new protectors of the princess. Eventually, the Queen resorts to disguise herself as an old giant woman to trick Snow White into smelling the scent of a poisoned flower. Having found Snow White dead, the enraged giants attack the Queen's castle protected by demons. One of the giants, Hicker, causes an earthquake that shatters the magic mirror that was the source of the Queen's life and power, and she is finally gone for good as her spells are broken and all of her victims are returned to life. It is unrelated to another Filmation sequel to the fairy tale (and, unofficially, to the Disney film), the 1989 (released in 1993) Happily Ever After, in which it is the late Queen's brother, the evil wizard Lord Maliss, who arrives in the kingdom to avenge his sister on those responsible for her demise: Snow White and Prince Charming. Due to pressure by Disney lawyers, the Queen herself does not appear in person and is only shown via a portrait and a bust statue, and the film begins with her monster minions actually partying and celebrating her death. Her brother is eventually destroyed when he is transformed into a dragon and turned into a stone statue.

In the "Snow White" episode of the 1987 anime series Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, the Queen is voiced by Arlene Banas in the English dub. While the Queen's plans to dispose of her stepdaughter through the Huntsman and the purple laces remain intact in this version, the old hag potion and poison apple are instead given to Snow White by an old witch who is her ally. As the Queen leaves the Seven Dwarfs' house after Snow White eats the poison apple, she is spotted by Snow White's friend Klaus and the Prince who both chase her down and attack her. While this version of the Queen has no magical abilities, she displays great martial prowess as she fights off them until they are joined by the many wolf friends and the Seven Dwarfs. The narrator tells that the Queen then fought the wolves "like a lionesses" until they finally killed her.

The 1991 animated film The Magic Riddle combines the story of Snow White with several other fairy tales in which the Queen figure is a widowed stepmother played by Robyn Moore. She plans to marry her biological daughter, Bertha, to the handsome young Phillipe, but he is in love with her stepdaughter Cindy (a figure combing Snow White with Cinderella) who is aided by her grandmother. Following the advice of her magic mirror, the stepmother puts on a salesman disguise and visits the grandmother in the woods, tricking her into entering a castle from which there is no escape, and where later Phillipe and the dwarfs are trapped too. The stepmother, wearing another disguise devised by her magic mirror, hypnotises Cindy with a magic apple to fall asleep, but in the commotion she accidentally falls into a well. Eventually, Cindy and Phillippe's wedding is held at what used to be her stepmother's house, where she and her daughter are to serve as maids just as Cindy used to.

In the 1994-1995 anime television series The Legend of Snow White, Lady Chrystal (voiced by Mari Yokoo), a woman famed for her beauty and ruler of a small neighbouring kingdom, comes to the Emerald Valley in order to marry King Conrad. As in the fairy tale, she turns out to be an evil and jealous woman who uses the black art of witchcraft to eliminate her rivals and obtain what she desires most: beauty and power. After the king's departure, the evil Queen Chrystal, aided by her bat familiar, attempts to kill Snow White, but the princess ends up in the house of seven dwarves and under their protection. Chrystal then tries to take the life of Snow White several times. During the final attempt, she instead uses an apple to put her hated rival in an enchanted sleep in order to take over her youthful body for her own. Eventually, the Queen turns out to be merely an unknowing puppet of her own demonic grandmother, Lady Helene, a powerful and immortal witch and the true source of the Queen's magic as the Evil Spirit inside her mirror. Twenty years before the story began, the aging Helene had found a way to keep herself forever young and beautiful by taking possession of another body and transfer her soul into it in a planned endless cycle of sacrifices to satisfy her vanity. The first victim of her ambition was her niece Chrystal on her 12th birthday, whose soul became imprisoned in the mirror to allow the evil witch to manipulate the future Evil Queen's mind and actions. But Snow White's fiance Prince Richard manages to kill Helene in a desperate fight, saving not only his beloved but also freeing Chrystal from the evil influence.

The Evil Queen, voiced by Susanne Blakeslee, appears in the 2007 animated film Shrek the Third in which she joins the team of Prince Charming to take over Far Far Away, but redeems herself by the end 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 animated film Happily N'Ever After 2: Snow White Another Bite @ the Apple, the would-be Queen is called Lady Vain, voiced by Cindy Robinson. She seduces King Cole in order to rule the kingdom herself and is aided by Rumpelstiltskin. She wants Snow White gone from the kingdom, but does not poison her; instead, she uses magic to compel Snow White to spread vicious gossip so that everyone in the kingdom will turn against her. Nevertheless, Snow White manages to foil Lady Vain's marriage ceremony and expose her as a witch.

Gina Gershon voiced Queen Regina in the English version of the 2019 Korean animated film Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs. In it, she was brought to King White's castle accused of being a witch for punishment, but the king became bewitched by her beauty and fell for her. After Regina married the king and became the new queen, people begin to disappear. Her husband finds out that she is indeed an evil witch and she turns him into a giant wooden bunny. When Snow White steals the red shoes that grant immortality and eternal beauty to Queen Regina and escapes the castle, the witch is furious and tries to find her using the Magic Mirror and her ally Prince Average. Eventually, she hunts down Snow White in the woods, where, disguising herself as the young Merlin, she takes Snow White back to the castle and turns her into a magic tree with an magic apple. However, the real Merlin comes to the rescue as he kills the Queen with his magic and restores both the princess and her father to their human forms. The antagonist of the 2021 sequel mobile game Red Shoes: Wood Bear World is Regina's sister and also a beautiful but evil witch.

Long-form literature

The Evil Queen's character has been given various names and characterizations by modern authors. In Adèle Geras' Snow White retelling Pictures of the Night (1992), for instance, the protagonist is plagued by a series of mysterious accidents that she believes are being caused by her jealous, malevolent stepmother Marjorie. In Laurence Anholt's children's book Snow White and the Seven Aliens (1998), the jealous Mean Queen is a former famous pop star who was the lead singer of The Wonderful Wicked Witches. In Tanith Lee's and Terri Windling's White as Snow (2000), mixing "Snow White" with the tragic myth of Demeter and Persephone, the Queen's name is Arpazia. In Black as Night (2004), Regina Doman's adolescent novel set in modern New York City, Elaine is an egocentric stepmother to Bear (the prince figure) rather than Blanche (Snow White). In My Fair Godmother (2009), a romantic comedy novel by Janette Rallison, the evil queen is named Queen Neferia. In Jane Yolen's Snow in Summer: Fairest of Them All (2011), the Queen is a dark magic-using stepmother simply called Stepmama. In Louise Simonson's Snow White and the Seven Robots: A Graphic Novel (2015), the Queen exiles the child genius scientist Snow White "so she cannot grow up and take the Queen's place as the most intelligent person on the planet."

In the DC Universe, the Queen of Fables was a scheming, villainous witch who, in her youth, wrought hell on earth until she was trapped in a book by her own stepdaughter, Snow White. Centuries later, she was freed accidentally by Snow White's descendants and has since faced many Justice League superheroes like Superman and Wonder Woman, who the Queen thought was Snow White due to her great beauty.

In the long-running Italian erotic comic series Biancaneve (1972-1986), the beautiful but evil witch Queen Naga (later just Naga) is the recurring main antagonist, loosely inspired by the Disney character. She is initially married to Kurt, the king of Kurtlandia and Snow White's father. Eventually, Naga and Snow White reconcile and even briefly marry (issues 34-35).

In Bill Willingham's comic book series Fables (2002-2015), the protagonist Snow White's and Rose Red's witch mother is ordered to kill Snow by the King. She fakes her daughter's death and arranges for her to live with her aunt, a widowed queen of a distant land (Snow's mother helped her to achieve this position). Years later, her aunt is enraged by the fact that Snow is lovelier than her and decides to kill her herself in a manner similar to the fairy tale (first ordering the hunter and then delivering a poisoned apple).

Gregory Maguire's historical novel Mirror, Mirror (2003) casts the historical figure Lucrezia Borgia as the wicked stepmother's role. Bianca de Nevada (Snow White) is born as a child of a minor noble Vicente de Nevada in the 15th-century Renaissance Italy. After her father is forced to embark on a quest for a magical apple tree by Cesare Borgia, Bianca is left in the care of the beautiful and madly vain Lucrezia who becomes jealous of her lecherous brother Cesare Borgia's interest in the growing child. The seven dwarves are the creators of the quicksilver mirror, which makes Lucrezia increasingly paranoid and insane.

In Mette Ivie Harrison's novel Mira, Mirror (2004), the titular Mirra was a young apprentice witch who was enchanted by her older sister and a fellow apprentice Amanda into a magic mirror so Amanda could transform herself into the most beautiful woman in the world. Amanda becomes a Queen, but later mysteriously disappears, while the story of Mirra continues.

In Gail Carson Levine's novel Fairest (2006), Queen Ivi is an insecure 19-year-old new queen of Ayortha, who is assisted by Skulni, the mysterious, evil creature living in Ivi's magic mirror. The cold-hearted and power-hungry Ivi blackmails the 15-year-old protagonist Aza into becoming her singing voice in order to preserve her own reputation, and later plots Aza's death. However, it turns out that Ivi's actions were manipulated by Skulni so that he can take a vacation when Ivi is killed. In the end, Ivi turns away from her evil ways, loses her magically created beauty, and is sent away to a remote castle.

Kazuki Nakashima manga series Lost Seven (2008) features Queen Rose, also known as The Witch of the Mirror, as a former court magician who usurped the throne and killed all members of the royal family except for Snow White, who managed to escape. She also appears to plan to open a portal to the demon realm through a magic mirror, here called Sephiroth Glass and crafted by Snow White's own family. Queen Rose is killed (as is Snow White), but as the castle crumbles she manages to rescue her own biological daughter, Red Rose, who 10 years later becomes the heroine of the series.

In Jim C. Hines's Princesses series (2009-2011) chronicling the adventures of Snow White, Princess Danielle Whiteshore (Cinderella) and former Princess Talia Malak-el-Dahshat (Sleeping Beauty), Snow White's mother, Queen Rose Curtana of Alessandria, was a powerful witch who trained her daughter in magic to later attempt transferring her soul into her daughter's body, but thwarted when Snow White proved to be more capable than she had revealed. Snow was banished from her kingdom for the crime of killing her mother (whose feet were burned by the dwarves, here elemental spirits that Snow can summon for aid at the cost of losing seven years of her life as 'payment' for their services, before they killed her). Rose is returned to life when she is summoned by Danielle's stepsisters (believing her to be their now-deceased mother), possessing the elder sister Stacia to acquire a new body, but she is finally defeated when the three princesses confront her with the aid of the seven dwarves. The fourth novel, The Snow Queen's Shadow (2011), reveals that her magic mirror was created by her imprisoning a demon and binding it to her service, suggesting that the mirror's role in the original story was motivated by the demon attempting to create a set of circumstances that would allow it to escape, with the protagonists returning to Rose's former castle to rediscover the secrets she used to bind the demon in hopes of exorcising it after it possesses Snow White.

In Tom Holt's parody Snow White and the Seven Samurai (2010), the wicked queen's magic mirror is run by an operating system, which, when hacked, crashes so disastrously that not only the queen's plot against Snow White is foiled but all sorts of stories get tangled. In the main storyline, Snow White becomes vicious and hires the titular seven samurai to murder the queen, who is protected by the dwarfs and some other characters and is trying to restore the system.

P. W. Catanese's novel The Mirror's Tale (Further Tales Adventures) (2010) is a sequel to the fairy tale, taking place in the former castle of Rohesia. Before she went mad became known as the Witch-Queen, Rohesia had been using her magic for healing. Her fate is unclear and mysterious, but her ghost shows up to heal a poisoned character.

In the children's book trilogy Half Upon a Time by James Riley (2010-2013), the characters set out to rescue May's grandmother, who they believe is Snow White. She is eventually revealed as the Wicked Queen and the true antagonist of the series.

In The Wishing Spell (2012), a children's novel in The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer, the Evil Queen has been spared by Snow White. She escapes her imprisonment, recovers her magic mirror and reunites with the Huntsman at a remote castle. The Queen desires to complete the Wishing Spell and seeks and sends her new Huntress (the Hunter's daughter) to collect the ingredients for it. She captures the protagonists Conner and Alex, and reveals to them her tragic story. Her real name was Evly, and she was once in love with, and engaged to, a man named Mira. When Evly refused to comply with the wishes of an evil enchantress, he was cursed to be trapped inside a mirror. Evly sought her revenge by killing the enchantress, but there was no way for her to break the curse. A witch named Hagatha cured Evly's heartbreak by cutting out her heart and turning it to a stone heart and so Evly could only feel emotion when she was holding it. Evly then snaked her way up to the throne, killing Snow White's mother and marrying the King. Mira's condition began to deteriorate until he became a bland reflection, and he became enamored with Snow White rather than the Queen, and it was what so enraged her and made her order the Huntsman to kill Snow White. Using the Wishing Spell, the Queen manages to free Mira, but he is no longer capable of living outside the mirror and dies in her arms, and they both are consumed by the mirror that once held Mira captive, which then shatters. It is later revealed that Snow White herself has let her escape the dungeon, knowing the Queen's story. In the sequel, The Enchantress Returns (2015), Conner and Alex manage to restore the mirror and contact Evly, but find out that she has become insane and the mirror's curse is in process of taking over her soul completely, just as it did with Mira.

In Marissa Meyer's The Lunar Chronicles (2012-2015), Queen Levana is the main antagonist and the equivalent of the Evil Queen. She is the ruler of the moon, aunt of the protagonist Cinder, and stepmother of Princess Winter. Severely scarred from childhood burns, she either wears a veil or uses her psychic abilities to glamour herself with extreme beauty. Fairest, a prequel novella, focuses on her backstory.

Helen Oyeyemi's novel Boy, Snow, Bird (2014) is a reimagination of "Snow White" set in 1950s New England. Oyeyemi said she wrote a wicked stepmother story because she "wanted to rescue the wicked queen from Snow White, because she seemed to find being a villain a bit of a hassle in a lot of ways. She wasn’t very efficient – it took her three tries to kill Snow White, for example. And I had read Barbara Comyns' The Juniper Tree, which is a retelling of the fairy tale from the perspective of the wicked stepmother, as well, so I began to see a way that I could do it for myself."

Dark Shimmer by Donna Jo Napoli (2015) reimagines "Snow White" in medieval Italy, focused on the backstory of the Evil Queen figure. Dolce is an innocent, kind woman who grew up thinking she was hideous. Her mood swings and attempts to murder her beloved stepdaughter are the result of mercury poisoning from making mirrors.

Gena Showalter's The Evil Queen (2019), features Everly Morrow, a high school girl obsessed with mirrors who learns that she is prophesied to become the eponymous character in another world of the fairy-tale realm of Enchantia and tries to avert her destiny. The story continues in the Forest of Good and Evil series.

Short-form literature

The Queen has been featured in many short stories. In the "Snow White" chapter of Merseyside Fairy Story Collective's (edited by Jack Zipes) Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (1986), the evil queen is ousted by popular revolution. Another short story, "The Tale of the Apple" in Emma Donoghue's collection Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins (1997), is a modern adaptation in which it is the Queen who awakens Snow White from her slumber because she yields to her desire for the princess. Priscilla Galloway's collection of short stories Truly Grim Tales (1999) includes a version of "Snow White" told from the wicked stepmother's point of view. In the erotic short story "Gold, on Snow", published by Alison Tyler in Alison's Wonderland (2010), the jealous Queen spies on her stepdaughter in the house of the dwarves.

Robert Coover's satirical erotic short story "The Dead Queen" (1973) re-tells the fairy tale from the perspective of the Prince, deeply disappointed with Snow White and her creepy sexual relationship with the dwarves. At the Queen's funeral after her fiery execution, as she is buried in Snow White's former glass coffin, he suddenly realized that the Queen had loved him and had died for him. In desperation, he attempts bring her back to life by kissing her mutilated corpse, but in vain. James Finn Garner included another satirical take on "Snow White" in his collection Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (1994) in which the Queen accidentally bonds with Snow White during the apple scene. Forgetting that the apple in question was poisoned, she shares it with Snow White and both fall comatose to the floor. When the dwarfs discover this, they decide to sell Snow White to the Prince so he can have sex with her. However, when they try to move the two women's bodies, they break the spell and the women awaken, angry and disgusted at what they overheard. The Queen then declares that the dwarfs are trespassers, throwing them out of her forest, and she and Snow White later open a spa for women on the same spot.

Carmen Boullosa's short story "Blancanieves" (1992) explores the concept of female sexuality, focusing on the relationship between the Queen and the forester (the hunter), and the 'love' triangle between the two and Blancanieves (Snow White). In it, the sexually aggressive Queen dominates the forester, who, within his narrative, blames his sexual weakness on the magic potion that he was forced to drink. In Neil Gaiman's short story "Snow, Glass, Apples" (1994), the Queen is a tragic hero protagonist who struggles desperately to save the kingdom from her secretly vampiric stepdaughter. At the end of the story, it all turns out to be a recollection by the Queen as she is roasted alive inside an enormous kiln on the orders by Snow White and the Prince. Gaiman's story resembles the titular story from "Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer" (1983) by Tanith Lee, in which the Witch Queen is trying to stop the real villain, her stepdaughter Bianca, who is actually a vampire.

"Snow Night", a short story published in Barbara G. Walker's Feminist Fairy Tales (1996), the King's master of the hunt tries to incite jealousy in the Queen towards her stepdaughter after having been rejected by Snow Night. However, the Queen laughs off her magic mirror's answer, claiming that people go through cycles and that it is impossible to challenge the will of nature. The story suggests that the traditional version of the tale was actually invented by the exiled and crazed huntsman, now imprisoned in a distant country. In the preface, Walker wrote: "Snow White's stepmother seems to have been vilified because (a) she resented being less beautiful than Snow White, and (b) she practiced witchcraft. One might suspect that female beauty was really a larger issue for men than for women, because male sexual response depends to a considerable degree on visual clues. ... A queen who was also a witch would have been a formidable figure, adding political influence to spiritual mana. Snow White's stepmother therefore seems to me a projection of male jealousies. As re-envisioned in this story, she may seem more true to life." "The True Story", a revisionist short story by Pat Murphy, published in the collection Black Swan, White Raven (1998), tells a story of a queen who sent her daughter away to avoid the incestuous advances of her pedophiliac and abusive husband, the King. The princess is cared for by seven witches in the forest, and when the king dies, she is brought back to rule the kingdom in her own right, instead of at the side of a prince.

Other works

Marius Petipa and Arseny Koreshchenko's 1903 ballet The Magic Mirror, melds the Brothers Grimm tale with the Russian variant The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights, which features no magic elements. After the evil deeds of the envious Queen (originally played by Marius Petipa's daughter Marie Petipa) against the Princess are exposed and the King threatens her with imprisonment, she has an attack of insanity, admits what she ordered be done and falls dead.

In Robert Walser's 1904 opera Schneewittchen (and João César Monteiro's 2000 film Branca de Neve), the adolescent, weak Prince has revived Snow White, but instead of marrying her has fallen in love with the beautiful Queen. The Prince thinks the villain is the huntsman, who is the Queen's lover, while the King is oblivious of everything. The story centers on the conflict between the Queen and Snow White, and ends when the latter decides to forgive the former and the two make peace at last.

Queen Brangomar and Witch Hex in an illustration for the play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

In the 1912 play Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, written by "Jessie Graham White" (Winthrop Ames), Queen Brangomar is jealous of Prince Florimond's love of Snow White. Brangomar summons Witch Hex (Hexy), a powerful godmother. In the end, Snow White forgives the Queen and, despite objections from the hunter (Berthold) who wants Brangomar dead, lets her go away unharmed. In the play's 1916 cinematic adaptation, the silent film Snow White, Queen Brangomar (played by Dorothy Cumming) and the Witch are two separate characters, and it is the latter who demands to have the heart of Snow White. Having first disguised herself as a hag to give Snow White a poisoned comb, the Queen later actually changes her sex to turn herself into a pieman in the scenario where the apple is replaced by a pie. In the end, Brangomar is punished by being turned into a peacock. (In another cut, she simply vanishes from the film). Elements from these versions of "Snow White" inspired Disney's film adaptation.

In Howard Barker's play Knowledge and a Girl (The Snow White Case) (2002), the Queen is the protagonist, attempting to resist the patriarchal and misogynistic structure of the kingdom's court through her lewd sexuality. The Queen is infertile and, at first, the impotent and abusive King actually accepts his wife's promiscuity. Snow White envies the Queen's sexual experience and tries to outdo her stepmother's debauchery. Eventually, however, the King decides to get rid of his Queen. In the final scene, when the Queen appears at the marriage of Snow White and is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes, she is determined to defy them by suffering in silence and motionless.

In Mattel's Ever After High franchise, one of the lead character of the franchise is Raven Queen, the daughter of the original Evil Queen, along with Snow White's daughter Apple White. Raven is a rebel, frustrated with her destiny to become a new queen of evil, and wishes to go her own way. Most people see her as evil and mean, but she is actually misunderstood: she wishes to be herself and strives to rewrite her own chapter, thereby proving that evilness is not hereditary. The Evil Queen herself is locked up in Mirror Prison and often insults the things Raven talks about, including Raven's father, the Good King.

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 is eventually exposed by a magic frog that Snow White had befriended sometime before and who turned out to be The Cursed Prince, and flees the kingdom. 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.

See also

• Black Annis
• Wicked fairy (Sleeping Beauty)

References

Bibliography

• Holston, Kim R. (2018). Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film Sequels, Series and Remakes: An Illustrated Filmography, Volume II (1996-2016). McFarland. ISBN 9780786496853.
• Schwabe, Claudia (2019). Craving Supernatural Creatures: German Fairy-Tale Figures in American Pop Culture. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 9780814341971.
• Smoodin, Eric (2012). BFI Film Classics: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Palgrave Macmillan (on the behalf of the British Film Institute). ISBN 9781844574759.
• Slethaug, Gordon E. (2014). Adaptation Theory and Criticism: Postmodern Literature and Cinema in the USA. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781623560287.
• Zipes, Jack (2011). The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135853952.
• Zipes, Jack (2013). Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135204341.
• Zipes, Jack (2015). The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780191004162.
• Zipes, Jack (2016). Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimms' Folk and Fairy Tales. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691173672.

External links

• Media related to Queen (Snow White) at Wikimedia Commons