Red Queen (Through The Looking-Glass) - Confusion With The Queen of Hearts

Confusion With The Queen of Hearts

The Red Queen is commonly mistaken for the Queen of Hearts in the story's predecessor, Alice in Wonderland, but in reality shares none of her characteristics other than being a queen. Indeed, Carroll, in his lifetime, made the distinction between the two Queens by saying:

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!

—Lewis Carroll, in "Alice on the Stage"

The 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland perpetuates the long-standing confusion between the Red Queen and the Queen of Hearts. In the film, the Queen of Hearts delivers several of the Red Queen's statements, the most notable being based on her "all the ways about here belong to me". Both characters say this to suggest importance and possible arrogance, but in the Red Queen's case it has a double meaning since her status as a Chess-queen means that she can move in any direction she desires.

In both American McGee's Alice and Tim Burton's film adaptation of the books, the characters are also combined, leading to further popular misconception. Also, Jefferson Airplane's song "White Rabbit" contains the lyric "and the Red Queen's off with her head", another instance of the two characters combined or mistaken for one another.

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Famous quotes containing the words confusion, queen and/or hearts:

    The small force that it takes to launch a boat into the stream should not be confused with the force of the stream that carries it along: but this confusion appears in nearly all biographies.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then queen died of grief” is a plot.
    —E.M. (Edward Morgan)

    The mountain throws a shadow,
    Thin is the moon’s horn;
    What did we remember
    Under the ragged thorn?
    Dread has followed longing,
    And our hearts are torn.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)