Speculation about the Evil Queen.

[oldandnewfirm.livejournal.com]

I read the casting call for episode 1.18 a week ago, and I've had a theory-- well, theories about the Queen brewing since then. I've finally got them coherent enough for sharing, so I thought I'd put them out there to see what others thought.


So first up, we know from the casting call (which can be seen here if you haven't read it yet) that we'll be meeting the Queen's mother, Cora. The popular theory at the moment is that the Queen herself is the miller's daughter from Rumplestiltskin's tale. However, I think that complicates the time/story line too much. Now that I've seen the press release, for me the more likely theory is this:

The Queen's mother Cora is the miller's daughter. Contrary to the original fairy tale, Cora and her king fail to discover Rumplestiltskin's name. As a result, Cora loses her first born child and the king, possessed by anger or grief, casts her out of the kingdom. (Alternatively, the king threatens to execute her, and she runs away.) Disgraced, Cora flees to a neighboring kingdom-- King Leopold's-- where she's eventually able to marry the Queen's father, a man of wealth and title. Though her new title grants her access to King Leopold's court, Cora is still not happy. She begrudges the loss of her crown (and her baby, kinda-sorta), and she takes this bitterness out on her husband and her second child, the Queen.

Which leads into my second theory. The casting call for Cora suggests that she's going to be an even worse version of her daughter: spiteful and manipulative, with no love in her heart for anyone but herself. BUT. That's not entirely true in the Queen's case, is it? We've seen over and over again that she wants to love, but she can't understand how. The question is, why?

Well, fast forward twenty years or so from her birth. Cora has long been trying to present her daughter as a match for the wealthy, eligible men of court; the problem is, the Queen can't stand them. She doesn't want to end up trapped in a loveless marriage like her mother, and that's the only future she sees with the kind of man her mother wants her to marry.

The Queen bemoans her fate to Snow, her closest (and perhaps only) friend in the court. As for why they're friends given their age gap (10 years, it seems) EQ was either the youngest woman in the court, making her the easiest person for Snow to relate to, or EQ took a particular liking to Snow's optimism and innocence because it contrasted the nastiness of EQ's mother. Either way, Snow has become her sole confidant.

Eventually, enter David the stable boy. He loves EQ, and she him, despite the fact that their social stations render it impossible for them to be together. The two of them hatch a plan to escape together, a plan that EQ confides in Snow. When EQ's mother confronts Snow to either find her daughter or ask about her daughter's behavior Snow, who's never believed that EQ's mother is really as bad as EQ makes her out to be, reveals EQ's love for David and implores EQ's mother to support her daughter's happiness. EQ's mother promptly takes action to have David murdered and reveals this fact to her daughter. She then rubs salt in the wound by pointing out that this would never have happened if she hadn't opened her heart to others, as she did with Snow.

After EQ confronts Snow, Snow apologizes for everything, and the Queen makes a show of forgiving her. But so begins the Queen's plan to ruin Snow's happiness the way Snow ruined hers. This incident also marks the loss of the Queen's ability to love. Seeing her mother proved right made her capacity for it shrivel, and she's still so wounded that she can't restore it.

So, that was a big ol' wall of text, but I wanted to get it out there. Thoughts?

Comments

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

That could definitely work!

My theory after last night was that Snow somehow inadvertently revealed the whereabouts of the queen's diary to the king, leading to the events of yesterday's episode. But I like this theory too. :-)

[lovedbyahero.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's it simply because the Queen must've married Leopold as part of her plot. She wanted revenge against both the king and Snow if i remember correctly and she set up the whole romance-with-the-genie from the very start so I assume she knew the king would read her diary.


Back to OP, I thought the same thing you did. I just keep trying to figure out WHO the evil Queen is in terms of fairy tale characters. I think once that is solved, the rest would work itself out.

[oldandnewfirm.livejournal.com]

I don't think EQ necessarily has to be a specific character from fairy tale lore; not everyone in Fairy Tale Land was special. In fact, I think being "normal" would be a compelling reason for her to take up magic. In their world, magic is power, and power is exactly what the Queen needed to carry out her plan to overthrow Snow.

Given the Queen's obsession with "strong hearts," she strikes me as a self-made villain, as it were. One who refuses to rely on others during her rise to power, because she's seen how badly that can turn out.

[lovedbyahero.livejournal.com]

True but everyone belongs to a fairy tale (or a folk tale or mythology) and I just assume that she isn't just the evil stepmother from Snow White especially as something's happened to her. One theory my friend had was that she never got her happy ending (like Cinderella never found her prince or Sleeping Beauty never got the kiss to wake up) and the Queen's fairy tale went wrong thanks to Snow and now she's creating her own happy ending (which is Snow's misery)

[oldandnewfirm.livejournal.com]

Well, she could be Princess Buttercup. ;)

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

The one major problem I have with your theory is that we know who Regina's father is. It is Henry who she murdered as the 'thing she loves most'. He appeared to be a pretty humble man and why would a king be happy to be seen only as a servant?

[oldandnewfirm.livejournal.com]

In this scenario, her father isn't a king. He's just a man of title, like a duke or a lord, that her mother married.

As for why he's content to be a servant, we know how domineering Regina is, and how she likes to lead her men around on a string. It's probably an attitude she picked up from her mother; if that's the case, then it makes sense that her mother would marry a milquetoast she could abuse and exploit for her own ends.

Regina has made it clear throughout the series that she has a limited capacity for interaction with others that doesn't somehow involve her attempting to cow them into submission. Much as she loved her father, I can see her falling into the same pattern with him, especially if that's the example her mother set. In fact, beneath the Queen's love there may even be a layer of resentment of the fact that her father was so weak that he never stood up to defend her from her mother.

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

Your theory is definitely very interesting. Do you have any theories for who Cora's first child was? I have a hard time buying Henry as having a title, given that he apparently worked as a valet not only for Regina, but in Leopold's court as well.

My major problem is that I've been so attached to the theory of Regina as the miller's daughter for so long that I don't want to let it go. :( Besides, after Regina's remark in 1x10 about the Stranger feeling "familiar", I cannot shake the idea that he's her son, whom Rumpelstiltskin some how got a hold of and sent to Our World before the Dark Curse hit, and that he's been Mr. Gold's eyes and ears on the outside of Storybrooke (re: Emma and Henry).

[oldandnewfirm.livejournal.com]

No theories on that yet. It could be a character that hasn't even appeared on the show.

I mentioned in reply to another comment that I think her father is a bit of a milquetoast, which would make him perfect husband material for a domineering, abusive woman. As those are traits we see in the Queen, it's not a stretch to think she picked them up from her mother. The Queen's father may well have been rendered a servant in his own household by his wife and daughter. Even though the Queen loved him, she wouldn't have known how to treat him any other way.

I've had trouble with the Queen herself being the miller's daughter because if Rumple took her firstborn, she'd be as obsessed with destroying him as she is with destroying Snow. The interactions she's had with Rumple/Gold suggest she feels distaste for him at worst, and regards him as a necessary evil at best. Given what we know about her, I doubt the Queen would continue to rely on him and risk the disastrous backlash of his deals if doing so had resulted in her unhappiness in the first place.

My Stranger theory lies in the "He's a descendent of Dorothy Gale" direction, or at least a descendent of some other Earth-based character who crossed into Fairy Tale World and made it back again. The Queen recognizes traces of that character in his face, making him familiar enough for her to question him, but not enough for her to place him.

[ouronlylight.livejournal.com]

I definitely see Henry as having been a major pushover, and I can see Regina learning how to treat her father from her mother, but I can't get over the fact that Henry was apparently a valet in Leopold's court. That just strikes me as so strange, and I don't really see Leopold allowing one of his lords to do something like that.

I can see Regina being the miller's daughter if a) Rumpelstiltskin didn't get her baby, like in the original tale, or b) she didn't realize that Rumpelstiltskin had taken her baby. If Regina and Daniel's tryst had resulted in a baby, I could see Cora telling Regina that her son had died while actually having the kid abandoned in the forest and left to die of exposure (only to be saved by Rumpelstiltskin).

I like the descendant of Dorothy Gale theory too, though. I hadn't though of The Wizard of Oz being a fairytale, but that could still totally work.

[scandalbaby.livejournal.com]

This is a great theory. Is it all right if I use this as my basis for Regina's hatred of Snow White in my OUAT/Doctor Who crossover fic? It went AU in episode 2 and I don't think I'm going to have it hold to all of the show canon, and since that ep hasn't aired yet and I want to write a Regina part next, this would be perfect.

[oldandnewfirm.livejournal.com]

You won't get any complaint from me! I'm glad you found it useful. :)