Helena Bonham Carter:The Red Queen or The Queen of Hearts?

Recently photos of several characters from the new Time Burton directed “Alice in Wonderland” surfaced. Thank to a tweet by Latino Review’s El Quapo I noticed that Helena Bonham Carter had been cast as “The Red Queen” in the new Alice in Wonderland film. This struck me as odd because The Red Queen is a character in “Through the Looking Glass” which is the sequel to first book. The character many people are familiar with is actually The Queen of Hearts, which Carter’s character looks to be inspired after. It wasn’t until I saw the next casting choice that I realized they either wanted to mash the two characters together or they got them completely confused.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice meets The Queen of Hearts, a foul tempered ruler who is often sentencing people to death by screaming “off with their head.” The inspiration for The Queen of Hearts was of course a deck of cards and is referred to as such by Alice in the book. There’s actually a gag involving Alice lying down on the ground face down and the queen not being able to recognize her because all playing cards look the same on the back. The Red Queen however is very very different.

The Red Queen is a more well tempered character, with the ideas of chess inspiring her creation. She can move swiftly and has a discussion with Alice about how even a lowly pawn can become Queen if it reaches the end of the board. She doesn’t go around screaming “off with their heads” and is much more maniacal of a character. This is the first time that I know of where they actually go as far is bringing in The White Queen, who is the sister to The Red Queen. Again it’s a chess reference.

Here we have two characters, both very different, but for some reason often confused. Many people’s only experience with Alice in Wonderland is the 1951 Disney classic which also combined the two characters and confused fans of the books even more. The two characters work on their own merritts and provide dynamically different types of villains for Alice to face, and combining them robs the sequel of a great villain. The addition of the sister, The White Queen, will only further mix the two characters together and give us a completely new character.

Now the real question is, is this intentional or did the screen writer, Linda Woolverton get them confused? In the press releases it clearly states that Helena Bohnam Carter is playing The Red Queen and the little make up heart on her lip and heart shaped scepter would further the idea that she’s the queen of hearts, not to mention the confirmation by producer Richard Zanuck that she will be saying “Off with their head.” The answer is up for grabs at this point, but I for one, would like an answer from Burton, Carter, or Woolverton as to why they combined them. Until then it’s a mystery, and a total shame that the sequel will be lacking such a great and diverse character… that is… if there is a sequel.