Pure of Heart

## *Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart*

***Disney Mirrorverse: Pure of Heart*** is a book centering around the backstory of the Mirrorverse's Snow White, as written by Delilah S. Dawson. It was published by Disney Books and released July 4 2023.

## Official Description

**Step into the Disney Mirrorverse, a brand-new realm full of endless adventure, where mirrored reflections of beloved Disney and Pixar characters are amplified and transformed, becoming battle-ready Guardians that must unite to defeat a powerful evil that threatens their home worlds and beyond.**
*Set in a fantasy land that is familiar but slightly changed, the story begins as Snow White helps a young deer in the forest. This isn't the Snow White that Disney fans know: she has been recently transformed by the creation of the Disney Mirrorverse and given magical powers that she does not yet know how to wield. Despite her new abilities and the strange things happening in her world, Snow White, or "Snow" as her friends often call her, has been carrying on as normal... until now.*
*As she returns to her cottage, Snow spots her seven friends with dark, angry expressions, and glowing white eyes. They attack her, claiming they need to capture "the heart of Snow White." Snow desperately tries to reason with her friends, but they refuse to listen to her, and she ultimately has to use the strange magic she has recently acquired to fend them off.*
*Snow is horrified when it seems that she has accidentally killed her friends in her attempt to protect herself. It is only when a strange talking creature, who she learns to be Sorcerer Mickey, the ruler of the Disney Mirrorverse, arrives and explains that the creatures she defeated were not her friends. They were a group of Fractured: evil copies created by Dark Magic. Snow believes that the evil Queen has taken her friends, and it is up to Snow to retrieve them and the Fractured Mirror, the source of the Mirrorverse's power, before it can be used to destroy Snow's home world forever.*
*But Snow doesn't need to face the Queen alone. Mickey assigns her a team of Guardians, powerful beings from many different worlds who have committed to thwarting the Fractured and protecting the Mirrorverse from evil. Snow meets Tiana, an expert potion-maker; Rapunzel, a fighter who knows how to wield a frying pan; Stitch, a chaotic blue alien who can change forms; Sulley, a monster with a big heart; and Hades, the lord of the underworld, who has offered to join the mission to see what this whole "Guardian gig" is about.*
*This unlikely crew ventures into Snow's world, where they find growing Fractured, a determined huntsman, and a newly poisoned dark forest. On the way to the palace, each character faces a challenge seemingly created just for them.*
## Variations

* The audiobook, releasing the same day as the book, was narrated by Abigail Reno and lasted for six hours and forty-nine minutes.

## Summary

Coming off the events of the original timeline, up until her stay at the Dwarves' cottage, Snow White is attaching a splint to a fawn with a broken leg. She notices that recently not only have the animals been more responsive to and understanding with her, the forest has started to gain strange vines and cracks. Snow White returns to the cottage, only to realize that it is empty, despite the fact the dwarves should have been home by now. She investigates until she reaches the bedroom, where seven Fractured Dwarves attack her, mimicing the order to "bring the heart of Snow White." Snow White flees, but unable to escape out the door, she grabs a nearby pickaxe to fight back, shattering the Fractured Sleepy. She drops the pickaxe in horror, and then has to grab a hammer as the attack continues. Using both weapons, and surprised at her own agility as she has never been trained in combat, she is then hit in the shoulder by Fractued Grumpy's arrow. When she crosses her weapons to defend from Fractured Dopey, Stellar Magic infuses the weapons and fuses them into a larger, forest-granted pickaxe. She uses it to defeat the rest of the dwarves before the sudden arrival of Mickey Mouse.

As he has tea with her and heals her shoulder, Mickey explains the Mirrorverse to Snow White, and that the "cracks" in her forest are caused by the presence of the Fractured Mirror in her world, and that her sudden battle prowess and understanding of the forest is caused by the influence of Stellar Magic. Snow White deduces that her stepmother, the Evil Queen, must be the one to have the mirror, and Mickey says that she will continue sending Fractured after her until she gets her way– or until they fight back.

Mickey brings her to Mirrorforge Crater through a portal, where she meets with the team he's already gathered to find the Fractured Mirror– Tiana from New Orleans, James P. Sullivan from Monstropolis, Rapunzel and Pascal from Corona, Stitch from the Galactic Federation, and finally Hades from the Underworld; the other Guardians react with hostility when Hades arrives, and have to be talked down by Mickey to keep from attacking him, as he had used the Fractured Mirror before and only recently joined the Guardians. Snow White hesitantly agrees with Mickey that they should trust him, and then uses Stellar Magic to give Snow White a more battle-ready outfit. After Snow White gives them a rundown of what she knows of her forest, Tiana encourages her and they jump through the portal back to her world.

Back in Forest Mine, Snow White realizes that the forest paths have changed, and she now has no sense of direction. They are suddenly attacked by poisoned squirrels, who have mutated into huge monsters. Snow White and Sulley are separated from the group by a falling branch, and Sulley then falls into an underground pit, where several Fractured chant that he has let Snow White down. Sulley defeats them and climbs back out, as Stitch breaks through the barrier and brings them back to the squirrels, who have been tied up with Rapunzel's hair. Snow White manages to calm the angry creatures as Tiana deduces that the squirrels must have been poisoned by the Evil Queen, and whips up an antidote with her potions. After returning the squirrels to normal, the animals lead the group back to the cottage, where she serves stew to the team and lets them sleep in the dwarves's beds for the night.

Halfway through the night, Fractured Magic suddenly infuses the cottage, causing several appliances, such as a hairbrush and multiple forks, to attack the group as several goons arrive; while everyone else is alarmed, Hades is excited to finally fight. During the attack, Stitch grows angry and grows to an enormous size, crushing the Fractured but then filling the cottage and becoming stuck at the large size. Snow White once again manages to calm him, reminding him of "what it feels like to be smaller," until he shrinks back to his normal size. As they regroup, Tiana says that she may need ingredients to make more healing potions, including gemstones, and Snow White suggests the dwarves' mine. Hades decides to keep watch while the rest sleep, though they are all still wary of him. In the morning, Snow White cleans the cottage, eventually helped by the other Guardians as they awaken. However, once they exit to the forest, a poisoned huntsman, the same who tried to take Snow White's heart, attacks her while under the Queen's control. The group heals him and he begs forgiveness from Snow, who bades him leave the Queen's service and find a new purpose in life.

The group then goes to the dwarves' mine, only to find that the gems have all been stolen, likely by the Queen. They enter the tunnels, desperately searching for gems Tiana can use; when they finally find a seemingly untouched spot, Tiana lifts a pickaxe and splinters her finger, realizing only too late that the axe was enchanted with the Queen's poison. A possessed Tiana then whips around and begins furiously digging at the wall, causing gem after gem to fall around her as she ignores everything else. Several Fractured goons then appear, causing difficulties for the Guardians trying to reach Tiana. Snow White eventually finds the last of the antidote, and summons berries from her pickaxe's blade to dip into the potion and feed to Tiana. Once the Fractured are defeated and Tiana calms, the tunnel exit collapses, giving Rapunzel a panic attack that Snow White has to calm her from. The group has to journey farther into the caverns to find an escape, eventually using Rapunzel's hair to cross a drop in the rock, and then having to cross several crushing rocks, and then fighting a giant Fractured spider, before escaping.

Finding herself in an unfamiliar place, Snow White is relieved to see a distant castle, realizing it is the castle of her Prince; the group travels there, but grows wary as they see a lack of people. However, upon entering the castle, the Prince welcomes them and explains everyone is preparing for a ball, which he invites them all to. Snow White, Tiana and Rapunzel are cleaned up and pick ballgowns, before attending the masquerade with the others. Snow White goes for a walk in the garden with the Prince, only for him to be a stung by a bee infected with the Queen's poison, causing him to attack Snow White and summon more Fractured. Without her pickaxe, Snow White summons the forest creatures to help her, and wraps vines around the Prince to hold him still. The rest of the Guardians are summoned by Snow White's nightingales, and together they defeat the Fractured. To thank the animals, Snow White lets them into the palace to eat the ball's refreshments, and then the group heals the Prince. Snow White decides that she cannot ask him for help, as the Fractured influence is already reaching his kingdom and he needs to protect it, but they bid each other a loving farewell before the group goes back to their quest.

The group ends up in a twisting, circular canyon, eventually climbing their way out and camping out for the night, though they can see the Queen's castle in the distance. Snow White awakens to a thunderstorm, which Hades seems concerned over. He only says that it reminds him of Zeus, until a Fractured version of the god of the sky, as well as Poseidon, Hestia and Hercules begin attacking. In the attack, Snow White is trapped in the path of a rolling boulder, only for Hades to abandon her in order to continue fighting his fractured brother. Sulley and Stitch manage to save her as Hades crushes the Fractured Bosses, before ranting about his lot in life, surprised when Snow White attempts to comfort him over it.

They reach the castle moat, and Snow White finds her Wishing Well, which is now outside of the palace, having shifted with the Fractured environment. Rapunzel looks into it, only for sudden Fractured plants to leap up from the ground, blocking her from all the others; a Fractured Rapunzel then wraps her in hair and tries to drown her in the well. After calming herself from another panic attack, and encouraged by Pascal, Rapunzel fights back with her own hair and smashes her Fractured self. Stitch and Hades burn through the plants to free Rapunzel, and Sulley knocks down a dead tree to make them a bridge.

Upon entering the castle, Snow White leads the group until she hears the captured dwarves, and she then rushes into the throne room to free them. The Evil Queen steps out, in front of the Fractured Mirror, surprising the group by not fighting them, but saying she'd sent the Fractured to test all of their hearts, and revealing that she herself has been poisoned; while making Snow White's poison, Fractured Magic amplified it and splashed it upon her and the world, slowly killing both. She demands a pure heart to cure both her and the kingdom, before threatening to kill the dwarves, starting with Dopey, if they do not comply. Snow White attempts to sacrifice herself, only for Hades to literally rip his own burning heart from his chest and throw it at the Queen. The group is attacked by the Fractured as Snow White frees her friends, but as the battle ends, Hades betrays the group by taking the Fractured Mirror and vanishing.

The Queen expects them to leave her to die, but Tiana fuses the power of Hades's heart with antidote and force-feeds it to her. The Queen remains scarred, but alive, and dismisses them; however, Tiana asks Snow White if she has something to say. Snow White reprimands the Queen for her abuse, and then leaves her to her isolation in the castle. Leaving into the forest and seeing the world already beginning to heal, Snow White tells the dwarves to go home and that she'll meet them soon, before going to Mirrorforge with the other Guardians.

Once there, Tiana reports to Mickey and Belle about the mission and Hades's betrayal. When they are done, Mickey officially asks Snow White to join the Guardians, and she accepts. Before she can return home, though, Buzz Lightyear emerges from the portal, reporting that the Fractured Mirror has once again appeared and is causing trouble.

## Characters

* Doc
* Dopey
* Evil Queen
* Grumpy
* Happy
* The Huntsman
* The Prince
* Sleepy
* Sneezy
* Snow White

Mirrorverse* Belle
* Buzz Lightyear
* Hades
* Mickey Mouse
* Pascal
* Rapunzel
* Stitch
* Sulley
* Tiana
* Hestia
* Poseidon
* Zeus

Mentioned* Ariel
* Baymax
* Cerberus
* Charlotte La Bouff
* Charybdis
* Cronus
* Eugene Fitzherbert
* Henry J. Waternoose III
* Hera
* Captain Jack Sparrow
* Jafar
* King Frederic
* Lilo Pelekai
* Magic Brooms
* Maximus
* Mike Wazowski
* Mother Gothel
* Randall Boggs
* Queen Arianna
* Snow White's Parents †

## Trivia

* This book's release showed the Mirrorverse versions of The Prince, all seven dwarfs, The Huntsman, Pascal, and the Fractured Zeus, Poseidon and Hestia prior to their release in-game.
	+ The following characters were also mentioned prior to game implementation: Charlotte La Bouff, Charybdis, Cronus, Eugene Fitzherbert (though he had appeared in in-game wanted posters), Henry Waternoose, Hera, King Frederic, Lilo Pelekai, the Magic Booms (though they had been mentioned by Ian Lightfoot in-game), Maximus, Mike Wazowski, Mother Gothel, Randall Boggs and Queen Arianna.

### References

* Mickey referring to being attacked by magical brooms is a reference to *Fantasia* (1940), with its "Sorcerer's Apprentice" short also being referenced in his magician design.
* In the battle at the Fractured Cottage, Snow White is awoken by a cursed hairbrush that attempts to rip her hair out. This is most likely a reference to the original *Brothers Grimm* fairytale, in which the Queen attempts to kill the princess with a poisoned comb.
* In the Fractured Cottage, Snow sees Rapunzel wrap her hair around herself to form a shield. This is a defense mechanism that she created within *Tangled: The Series* (2017).
* Hades makes several references to Greek Mythology, including elements that were not mentioned in Disney's *Hercules* adaptations; specifically, he references being the son of Cronus, knowing Charybdis, and reading *The Iliad* and *The Odyssey.*
* At the battle in the Prince's castle, a turtle is mentioned to arrive too late for both the battle and the aftermath, blinking confusedly; this is likely a reference to the turtle in the original film, who was often slowly following the others and confused at the quick happenings.

### Errors

* In Chapter 19, Rapunzel says that she "couldn't believe there's a Fractured version" of herself; "I didn't know that could happen!" As the book takes place following the game's story mode, this is contradictory, as one of the first Fractured that Rapunzel encountered was of herself. It is possible, though, with the rest of her dialogue coming in a long paragraph, that she was talking quickly to calm down and convince the others that she was fine.

## Gallery

Cover, featuring Snow White and the Evil Queen.Textless Cover.Audiobook.
## Sources

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 DisneyBooks Listing - WebArchive, 07/24/2023
2. ↑ Chapter One: Into the Woods