This article is about a character from the 2025 live-action film. For its 1937 animated counterpart, see The Evil Queen.
The Evil Queen is the main antagonist of Disney's 2025 live-action remake of Snow White. She is a vain and selfish sorceress who uses her beauty and magic abilities as a means to benefit herself and gain power over others. Upon marrying the widowed king of a prosperous kingdom, she usurped his throne and enslaved his daughter Snow White, turning her into a maid in her own palace. However, as Snow White's own beauty and kindness grow stronger over the years, the Queen resorts to trying to dispose of the princess in order to maintain both her political power and status as "the fairest of them all."
She is based on both the Queen from the 1812 fairy tale Schneewittchen by the Brothers Grimm and the character of the same name from the 1937 animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Background[]
The Evil Queen is a powerful and mysterious enchantress. After the death of Snow White's mother, this enchantress appears in the castle and takes advantage of the King's grief: first, dazzling him with her beauty, and then putting on a convincing act that she would be a good stepmother to Snow White, which ultimately led to his marrying her. However, the new Queen orchestrated his death and usurped control of the kingdom.
Personality[]
The Queen was an extremely vain, ruthless, and obsessive woman, who wants nothing more than to be "the fairest one of all".
Physical appearance[]
The Queen is a beautiful woman with a serene, unfeeling face and a slender figure. She becomes ugly and menacing when magic fluids transform her into an old, witch-like hag.
Powers and abilities[]
The Queen had the ability to talk with her magic mirror and generate a dark wind when going it. She can create/and decay flowers ice/glass objects from nothing; like a dagger. She could change her beautiful appearance into an old witch-like hag, and cast the sleeping curse on an apple.
Role in the film[]
The Queen before marrying Snow White's father.
A year after the death of the queen of an unnamed kingdom, a woman from a distant land arrives at the royal palace to present herself to the widowed king and his little daughter, Snow White. Entranced by her beauty, the King welcomes the woman to court and marries her within the week, unaware that his new wife is an evil sorceress who cares only about her beauty and the advantages it gives her. The new queen owned a magic mirror which always spoke the absolute truth, and for several times each day, the vain Queen would summon the otherworldly entity within the mirror and ask it the same question, "Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?". Each time, the Mirror would always assure her that it was her - "You, my Queen, of all women reckoned fair, your beauty is beyond compare." To gain full control of the kingdom, the Queen warns her new husband of an impending threat from beyond the neighboring Southern Kingdom, and the King sets out to defend his lands, but never returns. With the King gone, the Queen turns the farmers into her loyal soldiers and robs the riches of the kingdom for herself, plunging the once prosperous land into poverty and despair. She also forces Snow White to become a servant in her own palace, locking her away behind its walls, and as a result, the inhabitants of the kingdom eventually forget about the existence of the princess.
Years after the king's death, the Queen's hatred for her step-daughter has escalated and plans to kill her. Under the Evil Queen's rule, people are either left destitute due to heavy taxation or conscripted into the royal guard. Everyone presumes that Snow White is dead, unaware that she is confined to the palace as a scullery maid. The Queen gets a magical mirror, which talks to her and tells her that Snow White is the fairest of them all and always responds in the queen's favor, which pleases her.
Sometime later, the mirror claims that Snow is now the fairest woman in all the land, much to the queen's anger. When Snow meets Jonathan, a handsome bandit, she tries to get the queen to help the people in the kingdom, but she declines and Snow leaves. The Queen, jealous of Snow White's beauty, orders her huntsman to locate the princess and kill her, but he can't bring himself to do so and lets the queen know. Angry that the Huntsman disobeyed her, the Queen punishes the Huntsman after seeing that Snow has been warned of her stepmother's actions and that she has fled.
The Queen soon locates Snow White and disguises herself as an old hag, offering her an apple, which the queen has poisoned. Snow White bites into the apple and falls into a death sleep. As Snow White begins to fall into the curse, the Queen informs the princess that she killed the king years ago; Snow White is put into the cursed sleep and leaves the cottage, where the Seven Dwarfs find her. Snow White is soon awakened by Jonathan and together, unknown to the Queen, they have rallied the kingdom to stand up to the Queen. The heroes reach the castle, where Snow confronts her stepmother, who provokes her to take the throne by force. Snow tries to reason with the Queen, which leads to the guards to join her and the people to kick the queen out of the kingdom and dethrone her. The Magic Mirror tells the Queen that Snow White will always be fairer than her due to being kind and just. Snow White arrives to see the Queen destroying the Mirror, which is revealed to be the source of her powers. The Queen then, apparently, meets her demise when she turns into glass herself, and the mirror repairs itself. Her remains are later dragged into a mirror.
Now with the Queen defeated, Snow White becomes queen of the kingdom and marries Jonathan.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- She is very similar to Queen Ravenna from Snow White and the Huntsman. Similar to Ravenna's death in The Huntsman: Winter's War, this version of the Queen is turned into glass and, apparently, dies.
- Both of their actresses also involved in the Fast and Furious franchise, with Charlize Theron crossing paths with Gal Gadot in Fast X.
- The Queen meets a different fate than her animated counterpart. Instead of being straight up killed being crushed by a boulder in her hag form, she turns into glass after breaking her magic mirror and is sucked into it, similar to Mother Gothel from Tangled, after turning into dust. However, the Queen's remains were trapped in another dimension inside the mirror, making viewers doubt that she had died.
- Gal Gadot, the Evil Queen's actress previously voiced Shank in Ralph Breaks the Internet.
- Gadot also reprised the role in the Hebrew dub by recording her translated lines in Los Angeles, with the Hebrew voice cast recording their lines in Israel.
- This version of the character has her own song in the film, unlike the animated character.
