Queen of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Queen of Hearts |
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| Alice character | |
John Tenniel's illustration of the King and Queen of Hearts at the trial of the Knave of Hearts.
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| First appearance | Alice's Adventures in Wonderland |
| Last appearance | Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) |
| Created by | Lewis Carroll |
| Portrayed by | Barbara Hershey (Once Upon a Time) Miranda Richardson Kathy Bates (Alice) Helena Bonham Carter (Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland) |
| Voiced by | Verna Felton (1951) Tress MacNeille (1998–2010) April Winchell (2011-present) |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Red Queen (sometimes mistakenly) |
| Species | playing card |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Queen |
| Spouse(s) | The King of Hearts King of Hearts (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) |
| Children | Ten Hearts |
| Nationality | Wonderland |
The Queen of Hearts is a famous character from the 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. She is known for her very short temper and for quickly ordering people to lose their heads for even small mistakes. One of her most famous lines is "Off with his/her head!" or "Off with their heads!"
Alice sees the Queen as a playing card, but she can talk and rules Wonderland with her husband, the King of Hearts. People often mix her up with the Red Queen from the book's sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, but they are actually very different characters.
Contents
Meet the Queen of Hearts
Alice first sees three playing cards painting white roses red. They are trying to hide their mistake before the Queen arrives. When the Queen of Hearts shows up, she asks Alice who is on the ground. Since all card backs look the same, Alice says she doesn't know. The Queen gets very angry and orders Alice's head to be cut off! Luckily, her husband, the King, reminds her that Alice is just a child, which stops the Queen.
Lewis Carroll, the author, tells us that the Queen had only one way to solve any problem, big or small: "Off with his head!" she would say, without even looking around.
The Croquet Game
One of the Queen's favorite hobbies, besides ordering executions, is playing croquet. But it's not a normal game! In Wonderland croquet, the balls are live hedgehogs, and the mallets are flamingoes. It's very tricky because the flamingos keep looking back at the players, and the hedgehogs often scuttle away before they can be hit. The Queen's soldiers act as the arches (or hoops) on the croquet field. However, they have to stop being arches every time the Queen orders someone to be taken away. By the end of the game in the story, only the Queen, the King, and Alice are left playing.
Are People Really Executed?
Even though the Queen orders many people to lose their heads, it seems that very few are actually executed. The King of Hearts often quietly pardons his subjects when the Queen isn't looking. Also, her soldiers often pretend to follow her orders but don't actually carry them out. The Gryphon tells Alice, "It's all her fancy: she executes nobody, you know." Still, all the creatures in Wonderland are very afraid of the Queen.
In the final part of the book, the Queen sentences Alice again for defending the Knave of Hearts. The Queen believes in a strange kind of justice: she wants to give the sentence before hearing any evidence!
In many modern stories and movies, the Queen of Hearts is shown as a true villain because of how scary she is. However, in the original book, she is more like a big obstacle Alice has to face, rather than the main bad guy.
Who Inspired the Queen?
Some people think the Queen of Hearts might be a funny drawing, or caricature, of Queen Victoria. They believe Lewis Carroll included details that parents reading the story would recognize, but that children might not. For example, Queen Victoria was loved by her people, while the Queen of Hearts was feared. The Queen of Hearts would order executions for small things, but her husband would often secretly pardon people.
The Queen might also be linked to Queen Margaret from the War of the Roses. During this war, the House of Lancaster used a red rose as their symbol, and their rivals, the House of York, used a white rose. The gardeners painting white roses red in the story might be a nod to these two historical families.
Original Drawings
Lewis Carroll first tried to draw the pictures for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland himself, but it didn't work out. So, he asked a professional artist named John Tenniel to do them. Tenniel was famous for his drawings in a funny magazine called Punch.
Tenniel got his idea for the Queen of Hearts from an image of Elizabeth de Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk. This image was found in a stained glass window at Holy Trinity Church in Long Melford, Suffolk.
The original drawings for the Alice books were carved onto wooden blocks. These blocks were then used to print the pictures. Today, these original wood blocks are kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England.
Queen of Hearts vs. Red Queen
The Queen of Hearts is often confused with the Red Queen from the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. But they are actually very different characters! Lewis Carroll himself explained the difference:
:I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion – a blind and aimless Fury.
- The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm – she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses!
Carroll said the Queen of Hearts was like a "blind fury" – full of wild, uncontrolled anger. The Red Queen, however, was more calm and strict, like a very proper teacher.
The 1951 Disney animated movie Alice in Wonderland made this confusion even bigger. In the movie, the Queen of Hearts says some lines that actually belong to the Red Queen in the books. For example, the Red Queen says "all the ways about here belong to me." Both queens say this to show they are important and proud. But for the Red Queen, it also means she can move in any direction on the chessboard, since she is a chess queen.
The Queen in Movies and Games
Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951)
| Queen of Hearts | |
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| First game | Disney's Villains' Revenge |
| Voiced by | Verna Felton |
In the Disney animated movie Alice in Wonderland, Alice describes the Queen of Hearts as "a fat, pompous, bad tempered old tyrant."
The Queen, voiced by Verna Felton, is shown as a very proud and mean character who loves to order people to lose their heads if they annoy her. She is much bigger than her tiny husband, the King. Just like in the book, Alice sees three cards painting roses red because they made a mistake and planted white ones. When the Queen arrives, she finds the cards guilty and shouts, "Off with their heads!"
After the cards are taken away, the Queen turns to Alice. She refuses to let Alice ask questions and quickly pulls her into a game of croquet. The game ends with the Queen tripping, and she unfairly blames Alice because of the Cheshire Cat's tricks. Before the Queen can order Alice's execution, the King suggests holding a trial. The Queen agrees, even though she's annoyed.
At Alice’s trial, the Queen calls the March Hare, the Dormouse, and the Mad Hatter as witnesses. They start an unbirthday party, which cheers Alice up. The Cheshire Cat appears again and upsets the Dormouse. The Dormouse runs around, and the King accidentally hits the Queen on the head with his gavel while trying to catch the Dormouse. The gavel gets passed to the March Hare, then the Hatter, and finally Alice. Of course, the Queen unfairly blames Alice and orders her arrest.
But Alice eats a mushroom she had earlier, which makes her grow very big. She feels brave enough to call the Queen a "fat, pompous, bad tempered old tyrant." Unfortunately, she shrinks back to her normal size, but she manages to escape.
Disney's Queen of Hearts combines traits from the Queen in the book, the Duchess, and the Red Queen from Through the Looking-Glass. She can be pleasant when happy, but she is also bossy, impatient, and can quickly become enraged.
You can also meet the Queen of Hearts at the Walt Disney World Resort. She appears in Mickey's House of Villains and Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse. In the 1991 TV show Adventures in Wonderland, the Queen was played by Armelia McQueen. In this show, she was short-tempered and childish, but generally kind.
Queen of Hearts in Disney Video Games
The Queen of Hearts is part of the Disney Villains group. In the game Disney's Villains' Revenge, she tries to get revenge on Alice by stealing the ending of the story and changing it so Alice loses her head. Jiminy Cricket, the player, and Alice's headless body work together to get Alice's head back and escape the Queen's maze. They face her in a final battle, and she gives up. The Queen of Hearts is also the final boss in the Japanese version of Mickey Mousecapade, a 1987 video game where Alice is her prisoner.
The Queen appears in the Square-Enix/Disney video game Kingdom Hearts. In her world, she puts Alice on trial for trying to steal her heart. The heroes, Sora, Donald, and Goofy, step in to say Alice is innocent. The Queen challenges them to prove it, and with help from the Cheshire Cat, they do. The Queen gets angry and orders them executed and Alice imprisoned. The heroes fight off her guards, but Alice is kidnapped before they can save her. The Queen then orders a search for Alice and temporarily pardons the heroes, asking them to help find her.
She returns in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as a memory. Again, she puts Alice on trial, this time for trying to steal her memories. In both games, Sora, Donald, and Goofy prove Alice's innocence by defeating a monster called the Trickmaster Heartless, who was the real culprit. The Queen congratulates Sora and, showing her changing moods, pardons Alice again. She is not in Kingdom Hearts II but appears in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and a digital version of her appears in Kingdom Hearts coded.
Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010)
In Tim Burton's 2010 movie Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts is combined with the Red Queen. She is played by Helena Bonham Carter.
Other Stories and Adaptations
- In the video game American McGee's Alice, the Queen of Hearts is the final boss. She is the reason Wonderland is falling apart. Alice discovers that the Queen is actually her own dark side, a part of her madness. Alice must defeat the Queen to become sane again. The Queen looks very different in this game, first as a faceless creature with tentacles, and later as a horrible monster that looks like a real heart. She is called both the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen in the game.
- In The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, the ruling family of Wonderland is the Heart family. The title "Queen of Hearts" is passed down through the family. The Queen of Hearts from the original book is reimagined as Queen Redd, the evil aunt of the hero, Alyss. Queen Redd kills Alyss's parents and takes over the throne of Wonderland. The true Queen of Hearts in this story is Genevieve Heart, Alyss's mother.
- In the manga Alice in the Country of Hearts, the Queen of Hearts is named Vivaldi. She rules Heart Castle and is fighting with other areas of Wonderland. She is shown as a beautiful young woman with black hair. She often speaks using "We" instead of "I," like "We are happy you are here to see us."
- The Queen of Hearts appears in the TV show Once Upon a Time in the episode "Hat Trick".
- Angelina Jolie plays the Queen in the 2020 movie Come Away.
- The Queen has been played by many actresses in different movies and TV shows, including May Robson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Eve Arden, Jayne Meadows, and Miranda Richardson.
- In the 2016 novel Heartless by Marissa Meyer, the story of the Queen of Hearts is told. She is a young girl who dreams of being a baker but is instead set on a different path by the King of Hearts' marriage proposal.
- The Queen of Hearts appears briefly in the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London. She was part of a section celebrating villains from British children's books.
- In the TV show The Librarians, the Queen of Hearts is brought to life by a wizard. She is tricked into attacking her own reflection, which turns her into a pack of cards, just like at the end of the original story.
- The character Charlotte Linlin, also known as "Big Mom," in the manga and anime One Piece is largely based on the Queen of Hearts.
See also
In Spanish: Reina de Corazones para niños
