Lady Tremaine (a.k.a. Wicked Stepmother) is the main antagonist of Disney's 2015 film Cinderella.
She is based on both the Wicked Stepmother from 1697 fairy tale Cinderella by Charles Perrault and the character of the same name from the 1950 animated film.
Background[]
Beautiful, elegant, stylish, and red-haired like her daughters, Lady Tremaine was described by the narrator to be "a woman of keen feeling and refined taste". She was once married to Sir Francis Tremaine, the Master of the Mercer's Guild, and according to her, he was the "light of her life." After he died, her second marriage to Ella's father had been for the sake of her daughters.
Physical appearance[]
Despite being the mother of two fully-grown daughters, Lady Tremaine is a beautiful and elegant woman with red hair and blue eyes and is much younger in age than her animated counterpart. She is always fashionably dressed and usually in green. At the beginning of the film wears an black hat, golden flower earrings, a black bow around the neck with a golden button, an light green floral dress, black gloves and a golden bracelet on her right arm. For the royal ball, she wore a gown made of emerald green taffeta with gold inserts, a pair of gold satin gloves, and her hair was embellished with three golden feathers. In one scene, she wears a light green blouse with a black-and-green skirt. In other scene, she wears an indigo-and-black dress, and at the end of the film, her blouse is dark green.
Role in the film[]
In the beginning, Lady Tremaine did not seem to bear any particular animosity towards her stepdaughter, Ella. She instead focused on restoring life and laughter to the estate, which had been somewhat silent after Ella's mother died. Her attempts as such appeared to be hosting elaborate parties to which even the nobility were invited, where fine wines flowed and were consumed in excess, and everyone gambled.
However, during one such party, when she went to fetch her husband, she overheard a private conversation between him and Ella. It was then that her jealousy and spite towards Ella was incited, for the conversation confirmed that her new husband loved his first wife more than he did her, and he still dearly cherished the memory of her (Ella's biological mother) - all of which made her feel that she was not only living in Ella's mother's shadow, but was also overshadowed by Ella herself.
After he departed on a trip, Lady Tremaine gradually revealed her passive-aggressive nature. The first instance was to indirectly make Ella give her bedroom to Drisella and Anastasia and move into the attic - though she did state that it was a temporary measure since she was having the other rooms redecorated. She also took subtle advantage of Ella's kindness by making her work like a servant to distract her whenever her daughters displayed embarrassing behaviors, such as pretending to accidentally upset a plate of biscuits when Ella grimaced at Drisella's abysmal musical performance.
When the news of her husband's death came, Lady Tremaine was again visibly upset that his dying words had only been of Ella and her mother, and even his dying memorial had solely been for Ella. Her daughters inquired about their lack of promised gifts, but she snapped at them by stating that it did not matter, for they were all ruined, and lamented about how they were to live.
Due to financial pressures, she dismissed the entire staff of servants. She also had no further qualms about being open about how she truly felt towards her stepdaughter: as described by the narrator, Ella grew to be ever misused by her step-family, who increasingly viewed her as more of a servant than a relation. Lady Tremaine's transparent excuse for making Ella take on all the household chores was that it distracted her from her grief, and she, Drisella, and Anastasia were more than happy to provide her with a very great deal of such distraction. She later joined in her daughters' mocking of Ella as "Cinderella" when she woke up covered with soot, and even forbade her from sitting at the table to share a meal with them.
When the royal ball was announced, Lady Tremaine refused to buy a new gown for Ella and even accused her of being too ambitious to even think she could attend the ball. Enraged when Ella appeared anyway in an old dress of her mother's, she ripped one of the sleeves and encouraged her daughters to rip the rest of the dress apart.
Later that night, Lady Tremaine is as surprised as everyone else when a beautiful but mysterious princess in a blue gown steals Kit's heart. Despite her attempts to have her daughters turn Kit's head away from the mysterious princess, they were unsuccessful, and she later inadvertently learns that the Grand Duke had already promised Kit's hand in marriage to the Princess Chelina of Zaragoza. This leads to her believing that her schemes to marry one of her daughters to Kit would come to nothing, given that the ball was - in her own opinion - a mere diversion.
However, after the ball, her suspicions of the mysterious princess' true identity were aroused by Ella's attitude. Later on, she discovered a glass slipper hidden in the attic, which in turn led to her first - and final - heart-to-heart confrontation with her stepdaughter. She starts off by confessing that her second marriage to Ella's father had been for her daughters, but she was still unbearably jealous of how beloved Ella was to him, and now it seemed she would live unhappily ever after since Kit was in love with Ella, effectively ruining her plans to marry one of her own daughters to him. She then proposes a deal that, in her own words, will benefit all parties: after Ella and Kit were married, Ella will make her the head of the royal household, they would ensure that Drisella and Anastasia marry wealthy husbands, and she will manage Kit.
Ella rejects this out of hand, making it clear that she will not let Kit and the kingdom fall into her stepmother's clutches after failing to protect her father. An enraged Lady Tremaine shatters the slipper in response to her defiance. Shocked and grieved beyond endurance by this, Ella demands to know the true reason for her stepmother's cruelty to her, to which Lady Tremaine replies that Ella is everything that she was not: young, innocent, and good. She locks Ella in the attic.
Lady Tremaine then went to meet the Grand Duke, whom she reveals the identity of the mysterious princess and blackmails into making her a countess and ensuring worthy husbands for her daughters in exchange for keeping Ella's identity a secret, so Kit would have to marry Princess Chelina.
When the captain found Ella hidden in the attic, Lady Tremaine initially declared that she would not allow Ella to try on the slipper as her mother. Ella responds that she has never been and never will be her mother. Though she was increasingly afraid and angry at this turn of events, all Lady Tremaine could do was grip Ella's arm as she passed her by and quietly warn her to remember who she was, while Ella resists her abuse.
However, as Ella leaves the farmhouse with Kit, she shoots a long, meaningful stare at her stepmother on the stairwell and finally tells her that she forgives her. At this, Lady Tremaine sinks to the ground in defeat. The Tremaines later left the kingdom with the Grand Duke, never to return.
Gallery[]
See also[]
- Lady Tremaine
- Cinderella's Stepmother
- Lady Tremaine (Once Upon a Time) (First Iteration)
- Lady Tremaine (Descendants)
- Rapunzel Tremaine
- Trey
External links[]
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