Saturday, 18 May 2013

Character Profiling: Queen of Hearts

The Queen of Hearts is a character from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by the author and mathematician Lewis Carroll. She is a foul-tempered monarch who is quick to decree death sentences at the slightest offense. Carroll himself pictured her as "a blind fury". The Queen has only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small--she orders an immediate execution, shouting: 'Off with his head!'

QueenofHearts-1999

Description
The Queen of Hearts rules Wonderland with the cowering King of Hearts, and all of her minions are playing cards. After falling down the rabbit hole, Alice enters the garden, where three playing card gardeners are frantically painting white roses red. When Alice questions this activity, they explain that they have planted the wrong color of rosebush, and must paint the white roses to hide their mistake from the Queen. The gardeners advise Alice to prostrate herself on the ground to avoid being confronted by the Queen of Hearts, but she ignores this advice and looks the Queen in the eye. When the Queen arrives and asks Alice who is lying on the ground (the backs of all playing cards look alike), Alice tells her that she does not know. The Queen becomes frustrated and commands that Alice's head be severed, but the King reminds her that Alice is only a child, and Alice's head is spared.
One of the Queen's hobbies - besides ordering executions - is Wonderland croquet, where the balls are live hedgehogs and the mallets are flamingos. Alice observes that the game is complicated by the fact that the flamingo mallets keep looking back up at the players, and the hedgehogs scuttle away without waiting to be hit. The Queen's soldiers act as the arches (or hoops) on the croquet grounds, but have to leave off being arches every time the Queen orders an execution to drag away the victim. By the end of the game in the story, the only players that remain are the Queen herself, the King, and Alice.
Despite the frequency of death sentences, few people are actually beheaded. The King of Hearts quietly pardons many of his subjects when the Queen is not looking (although this did not seem to be the case with The Duchess), and her soldiers humor her but do not carry out her orders. The Gryphon tells Alice that "It's all her fancy: they never executes nobody, you know." Nevertheless, all creatures in Wonderland fear the Queen. In the final chapters, the Queen sentences Alice again (for defending the Knave of Hearts) and she offers an interesting approach towards justice: sentence before verdict.

Other Appearances
Queenofhearts1951
DISNEY/cartoon
The Queen of Hearts appears as a pompous, fat, tyrant with a smaller crown.
The Queen of Hearts was an intra-world "villain" that appeared in a major role in Wonderland. Despite insisting on Alice being decapitated for trying to steal the Queen's heart, the Queen was apparently in no way associated with Maleficent. Also, as she was not entirely evil, the Queen isn't completely a villain, even though she and her Soldiers are bosses.
She accused Alice for attempted theft of her heart in a trial. When Alice was ordered to been executed, Sora, Donald and Goofy intervened to convince The Queen that Alice was innocent. The Queen didn't believe them, but agreed to free Alice if they could find evidence for her innocence. With the help of the Cheshire Cat, they found evidence but the Queen refused to believe it and ordered the Keyblade master's execution. After a fight with The Queen's soldiers, Alice was kidnapped by the Heartless. The Queen made a ceasefire with Sora, Donald and Goofy so she would be able to find Alice.
The Queen appeared in Castle Oblivion as a figment of Sora's memory. In the memory recreation of Wonderland, the Queen accused Alice of stealing her memory and sentenced her to death. Even after Sora and co. found the real culprit, she still refused to believe that Alice was innocent. Fortunately, Alice's quick thinking pacified the Queen and no one had to lose their head.
The Queen of Hearts appears in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days as well, confronting Roxas and Luxord in a trial.
The Queen appears in this game during the third episode and it seems that her memories were stolen again. She sends her Card Soldiers against Sora because she thinks that he stole them.

American McGee's Alice
In the video game American McGee's Alice, the Queen of Hearts is the final boss and the reason for Wonderland's decay. When Alice fights her, she discovers that the Queen is her dark side – an embodiment of her insanity; the Queen must be destroyed for Alice to become sane once more. The Queen's appearance is different in American McGee's Alice than in the book: she appears first as a faceless entity having tentacles for arms, legs, and hair. It is later revealed that this is a mere puppet and that the true Queen of Hearts is a horrible monster in the image of a real anatomical heart. She is called both the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen interchangeably throughout the game. Its is implied that her domain, called Queensland in the game, is an extension of the Queen herself, as her tentacles are found throughout the castle.
In the game's sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, the Queen of Hearts plays a lesser, but still prominent role. She no longer plays the game's main antagonist. Instead, she is one of the characters that must be met on Alice's journey to find the truth about her past, specifically the fire that killed her family. Her appearance in this game is different from the previous one. She still retains a body similar to her first form in the last game, but has the head of a young Alice in place of her former head. Like in the previous game, she is found in Queensland. She is spoken to again near the climax of the game.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
In Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland film, the Queen of Hearts is also mistakenly known as the Red Queen. The Queen of Hearts is the queen of cards while the White Queen is the queen of the chess pieces.

Mini Series
The Queen of Hearts was re-imagined in the 2009 Syfy mini series Alice. She was portrayed by Kathy Bates. The Queen ruled Wonderland by kidnapping humans (aka "Oysters"), and bringing them to her casino, where she harvested their joy, elation and other emotions. She used the gathered emotions to control Wonderland and the humans she kidnapped. She, too, enjoys having her subjects executed by beheadding. Although, they are not actually ever executed, as noted by the King of Hearts. The King states that she gives so many execution orders she can't keep track and forgets who she puts to death. At the end, the Queen's own forces, led by her son Jack Hart (Chase)[2] and Alice, rebel against her, ending her rule.

Appearances in other media
  • In the novel series"The Looking Glass Wars", she and the Red Queen were re-imagined as Redd, the main antagonist and the aunt of Alyss. She is Genevieve's sister who was murdered by the Cat and a user of Black Imagination.
  • In the otome game"Heart no Kuni no Alice, she appears as Vivaldi, the monarch of the Castle of Hearts and one of the characters who take an interest in Alice.
  • In Cardcaptor Sakura, the queen is comically portryed by Keroberos (Kero-chan) and is seen playing chess with Humpty Dumpty (Tomoyo Daidoji). Since Sakura referd to him as Kero-chan, he enrages and chases her until she manages to escape from the book.
  • In CLAMP's Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, she is portrayed as blond, wavy-haired dominatrix, whose servants (all female) are infatuated by her.
  • In an OVA for the anime/manga series Kuroshitsuji entitled "Ciel in Wonderland", the queen is portrayed by one of the series' existing characters, Madame Red, and wears a corset-topped dress with puff sleeves, and a fluffy red skirt that opens in the front--revealing shorts and thigh-high boots. She presides over the court and places "Alice" on trial for losing "her" memories.
  • The Queen of Hearts appears in Pandora Hearts through the chain Demios, Illegally contracted by Vincent Nightray, The Queen of Hearts is her commonly alias, which she recieved for her decapitation abilities.
  • The Queen of Hearts makes a brief appearance in episode 17 of the 2011 American tv series Once Upon a Time . She rules over Wonderland, which is portrayed as one of many parallel worlds. She wears a veil to cover her face and speaks through an apparatus directly to her aide who then reveals what she said. It is known that she is an enemy of Regina, The Evil Queen. In season two it is revealed that the Queen of Hearts is the Evil Queen's mother.
“Off with their heads!”
~ The Red Queen
The Red Queen (also known as The Bloody Big Head and The Bloody Red Queen) is a fictional character from the novel Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. She is based upon the playing card of the same name. The Red Queen is played by Helena Bonham Carter in the 2010 movie.

Description
Iracebeth, a.k.a. The Red Queen, is quick to get angry, if things do not go the way she wants them do. She is merciless against her enemies and those who have betrayed her. She is also careless towards animals, as she treats them if they were inanimate objects. For example she has used a flamingo as a mallet and a hedgehog as a croquet ball. She is the antagonist

Other Appearances
  • The Red Queen appeared in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film as an amalgam of the Queen of Hearts, the Duchess and herself. Her name was Iracebeth. She became signifigantly paranoid, going so far as to execute her husband through fear that he would leave her for her sister. When she has a decision to make, she twiddles her fingers about as she decides. She was portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter.
  • In the novel series The Looking Glass Wars, she and the queen of hearts are re-imagined as Redd, the main antagonist and the aunt of Alyss.
  • In the video game, American McGee's Alice, the Red Queen is the main antagonist and the final boss. She resembles in this game the darkest part of Alice. She took advantage of Alice's insanity and ruled Wonderland. By turning it into a twisted version of itself. She's mostly made out of limbs and tentacles. In Madness Returns she is left destroyed after Alice tok Wonderland out of her rule. She has a very important part in this game. And resmbles as Alice's older sister , Elizabeth Liddell.
  • The Red Queen was portrayed by Edna May Oliver in the 1933 Paramount film version of Alice in Wonderland.
  • In the 1951 movie when the flowers are singing - there is a red rose that resembles the Red Queen and it is the same with the white flower that resembles the White Queen.

Source: http://aliceinwonderland.wikia.com/wiki/The_Red_Queen

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