# Evil Queen

The Evil Queen (German: böse Königin), also called the Wicked Queen or simply the Queen, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of "Snow White", a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm.
The Evil Queen is Snow White's stepmother. Throughout the story, she is obsessed with being "the fairest in the land". When the Queen's magic mirror reveals that the young princess Snow White is considered more beautiful than her, the Evil Queen decides to kill Snow White using witchcraft. When this attempt fails, Snow White is rescued and the Evil 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 demonstrates a triumph of good over evil.
In some versions of the fairy tale, the Queen has been reworked or portrayed more sympathetically, serving as the protagonist, antihero, or tragic hero.

## Brothers Grimm tale

The Evil Queen is described as a "proud and arrogant" woman with exceptional beauty who marries the King following the death of his first wife, Snow White's mother. Obsessed with her own beauty, the Evil Queen stands before a magic mirror every morning to confirm that she is the most beautiful, thus validating her vanity. One morning, the mirror informs her that her stepdaughter, the seven-year-old Princess Snow White, has surpassed her in beauty "a thousand times". Furious, the Queen formulates a plan to kill Snow White.
The Queen orders her Huntsman to lure Snow White into the forest to murder her. The Queen tells him to bring back the child's lungs and liver as proof that the princess is dead. However, the Huntsman takes pity on Snow White and instead, he brings the Queen the lungs and liver of a wild boar. The Queen or (in some retellings) a cook prepares the lungs and liver, believing them to be Snow White's organs, and the Queen eats them.
After questioning her mirror again, the Queen discovers that Snow White has survived and found sanctuary with the Seven Dwarfs. Intending to kill Snow White herself, she takes on the disguise of an old peddler woman. Under this guise, she visits the dwarfs' house and sells Snow White laces for a corset. The Queen intentionally laces the corset too tight in an attempt to suffocate Snow White. When this fails, the Queen returns again, this time as a comb seller, and tricks Snow White into using a poisoned comb created through the art of witchcraft. However, the comb also fails to kill Snow White, and in response to this failure, 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 her half of a red, beautiful apple that had been poisoned. The poisoned apple places Snow White in 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. At the celebration, she is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and dance until she drops dead.

### Violence and sanitization

In the classic ending of "Snow White", the Evil Queen is put to death by torture. 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 on her way back to the castle after poisoning Snow White), killed by the dwarfs during a chase, destroyed by her own mirror, run away into the forest never to be seen again, or simply banished from the kingdom forever. Today, such extreme punishment is often considered inappropriate for children. As Sara Maitland wrote, "We do not tell this part of the story anymore; we say it is too cruel and will break children's soft hearts".
Many modern revisions of the fairy tale change the gruesome classic ending in order to make it less violent. In some versions, the Queen is merely prevented from committing further wrong-doings and does not die, but is banished or disappears; in others, she may die by accident. Fawzia Gilani-Williams's 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.
Such revisions have been considered a softening of the original text; a 2014 nationwide UK poll opined that today's stories are too "sanitized" for children. 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, as fairy tale narrative demands that "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

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; the 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 likely 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 (often her lover in non-Grimm versions) 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, wicked sisters-in-law, or a wicked mother of the prince. One early variation of the tale was Giambattista Basile's "The Young Slave" (1634). In this telling the heroine's mother is unintentionally involved in putting her to sleep. She is then awoken by her cruel and jealous aunt who treats her like a slave. Furthermore, the Evil Queen's tricks also vary from place to place. In Italy, she is found using a toxic comb, a contaminated cake, and a suffocating braid. In France, she is found using a poisoned tomato. There are many more examples. The Queen demands varying proof from the huntsman. In Spain, Snow White can be found needing to stop a bottle of blood with her toe; in Italy, it is the princess's intestines and blood-soaked shirt.

### 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."
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 heroin 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 that from psychological and storytelling perspectives, 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 symbolize 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".
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").
Diane Purkiss attributes the Queen's fiery death in the Brothers Grimm tale to "the folk belief 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 the punishment of the wicked stepmother through burning, immurement, or decapitation.

## 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." However, this change was not unique to Disney: already in Taylor's 1923 German Popular Stories, the very first translation of the Grimms' tale into English, the Queen, while remaining just as much a sinister figure as in the original text, simply chokes to death out of anger (Taylor avoided giving cruel punishments for the villains throughout the book).

### Disney's Snow White franchise

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 to 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 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 rather than 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 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.
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.

### 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 of Fortunia is played by Patricia Medina. The Queen's character is similar to the fairy tale, 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 by using a magic wish which causes her to 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 to the Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but she 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 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 defeat the Queen, turning her to stone.
In the Snow White episode of the 1984 television series Faerie Tale Theatre, Vanessa Redgrave's Queen argues with the film's narrator about the plot. She is ultimately punished with 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, portrayed by Judy Parfitt, returns from a bottomless pit to cast 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, daughter of a witch (who the film suggests had been burned at the stake by the knights of the kingdom), 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 and shows her own reflection distorted and deformed, driving the countess to her crimes and possessing her. Claudia's various magic powers greatly surpass those of the Brothers Grimms Queen. 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. She then gives Lilli a poisoned 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 jealousy is first provoked by Snow White's own jealousy towards her.
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 (Latin for "queen") 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 rendition 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 fairy tale, the original Evil Queen, who had been left for death, 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 (now an undead hag known as the Swamp Witch) 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 antagonist until her death by Virginia.

#### 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 whom she had once turned into statues.
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. It is a parody story in which for example the poisoned apple scene is replaced by the one involving the Queen pretending to be a door-to-door salesperson of supposed youth-preserving coffins to trick Snow White, played by Nina Hagen's real life daughter, Cosma Shiva Hagen. 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 accidentally defeated by the eponymous dwarf Bubi and turned into an ice figure.
In the 2005 historical fantasy film The Brothers Grimm, Monica Bellucci plays the villainous character that will inspire the fairytale Evil Queen after the Brothers themselves 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 that is otherwise only preserved in her magic mirror. This leads 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.
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.
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 on presenting 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 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 imposed on them by her. She uses a magic mirror to talk to a much younger reflection of herself (played by Lisa Roberts Gillan) who often warns her not to use her magic for selfish short-sighted purposes. Such as using total control over their husband and 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.'"
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 Andalusia and strips it of any magic. Encarna eventually poisons Snow White at a bullfighting ring and is herself killed by the dwarf bullfighters 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.
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 tells 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. 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 whom 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

In the animated short film 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, revealing her skeleton.
Another American animated short, 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" of the story (voiced by Ruby Dandridge and Danny Webb), a parody of the Disney character, plots to murder "So White" out of jealousy for the handsome "Prince Chawmin," representing food hoarders at the time of war rationing.
A Filmation movie called Happily Ever After came out in 1989. The late Queen's brother, the evil wizard Lord Maliss, arrives in the kingdom to avenge his sister and hold those for her demise responsible: 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. The film begins with her monster minions partying and celebrating her death, and Lord Maliss is eventually destroyed after being turned into a stone statue.
Gina Gershon voiced Queen Regina in the English version of the 2019 Korean animated film Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs. The antagonist of the 2021 sequel mobile game Red Shoes: Wood Bear World is Regina's sister and also a beautiful but evil witch.
In the episode "Four Great Women and a Manicure" (2009) of the animated series The Simpsons, Lisa Simpson tells her version of the tale of "Snow White", with Lindsey Naegle in the role of the Queen. As in the classic story, the Queen asks the Huntsman (Groundskeeper Willie) to kill Snow White (Lisa), and later disguises herself as an old woman after discovering that she is still alive in order to poison her with the apple. After succeeding, she meets the dwarves, and flees from them through the window, encountering the forest animals outside, who end up devouring her.

### 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 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 and 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 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 rendition 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 fairytale realm of Enchantia and tries to avert her destiny. The story continues in the Forest of Good and Evil series.
In Rebecca Willoughby's The Evil Queen (2024), the sorceress Rowena has seized the throne after orchestrating the death of her husband, the King. Despite her malevolence, Rowena's sorcery prevents the kingdom from succumbing to a mysterious phenomenon known as "the flood." Snow White remains unaware that her rightful claim to the throne is a threat to Rowena's rule.

### 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. 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

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).
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.