Evil Queen

"I shall destroy your happiness... if it is the last thing I do."

- Regina to Snow White and Prince Charming

Queen Regina, better known as the Evil Queen, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time. She debuts in the first episode of the first season. She is played by starring cast member Lana Parrilla, and is the Enchanted Forest counterpart of Regina Mills.

Queen Regina is based on the famous evil queen from the story, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

Before the Curse
Regina is born to Henry and Cora and grows up as a kind young woman who falls in love with the stable boy, Daniel. One day, during a riding lesson, Regina spots a young girl on a horse that is out of control so Regina immediately rides over and saves her, not knowing that the young girl is the king's daughter, Snow White. Once King Leopold hears of the incident, he finds Regina and proposes to her. Despite Regina being in love with Daniel, her mother accepts for her.

After Regina tells Daniel about the proposal, they plan to get married and run away together. Daniel gives her a ring, and the two of them kiss. Unfortunately, Snow White sees them kiss and she begins to run away, Regina catches up and explains that she does not love the king and cannot tell Cora. Snow White promises not to tell anyone, but eventually breaks that promise when Cora tricks her into telling.

On the night that Regina and Daniel are about to run away together, they are stopped by Cora who then kills Daniel by removing his heart and squeezing it into dust. Cora tells Regina how she was just doing what she believes was best for them and reminds Regina that she will be queen.

During a dress fitting for Regina's wedding, Snow White tells Regina that she looks like the fairest of them all and that she has a good mother for understanding hers and Daniel's love. Confused, Regina asks what Snow White means and Snow White explains she told Cora about her affair with Daniel because she does not want her to lose her mother just like she did. Deep inside, Regina is furious at Snow White, but she remains calm and lies to Snow White by telling her that Daniel ran away and she is actually marrying her father, and how happy she is to become her stepmother.

Once Snow White leaves, Cora gives Regina credit for how well she did and Regina decides she will change. When Cora expresses how proud she is of her daughter, Regina realizes that she had been set up, and that Cora must have used her magic to make the stead go wild the day she saved Snow White. As Regina leaves, she exclaims that she should have let Snow White die on the horse, therefore starting her hatred of Snow White. When her wedding day with King Leopold approaches, she desperately tries to run away, only to be stopped ruthlessly by Cora. After the suggestion from her father, Regina steals her mother's spell book which she unknowingly uses to summon its creator, Rumplestiltskin. He comments that she does not look like her mother at all. Rumplestiltskin then gives her a gift, stating that it can free her from her mother and she will not ever see her again by sending her to an "annoying, useless, irritating, little world". When she asks him what he wants in return, he says that someday she will do him a favor. The next day, Cora steps into Regina's room and sees the gift. Upon removing the cover, it is revealed to be a looking-glass. Cora says that when Regina rules the kingdom, she will have the heart of her people. When the king is weak, they can kill him to take the throne. Horrified by this, with a little "encouragement" from Rumplestiltskin Regina uses magic for the first time causing her mother to fly back into the looking glass. Her mother vanishes and the looking glass shatters into pieces.

When Regina gives her mother's book back to Rumplestiltskin and tells him of her plans to ran away from the kingdom, he asks her how it felt to use magic. She dodges the question at first, but later admits that she loved it. Rumplestiltskin, satisfied by this, asks Regina to stay in the kingdom and let him "guide" her, to which she agrees. However, she also says that she will not become her mother. Rumplestiltskin only replies that is entirely up to her. Regina eventually marries King Leopold. At the king's palace, he lets his new queen grow a single apple tree in the garden. The marriage is not one of love, as the king has more love for his daughter and Regina still cares for her old love, Daniel.

Regina takes magic lessons with Rumplestiltskin in the woods outside of her palace. Rumplestiltskin starts by bringing her a black unicorn, which Rumplestiltskin orders her to freeze. Regina is able to accomplish this successfully, but balks when Rumplestiltskin orders her to tear out the heart of the unicorn. Regina states that she cannot, to which Rumplestiltskin reacts by ripping out the heart of the unicorn and giving it to Regina, telling her that by holding the heart, she has power over the unicorn. He then tells her to crush it and kill the unicorn. Regina refuses. Rumplestiltskin states he is disappointed and that Regina must come to terms with what is holding her back. Later that night, Regina is shown in a nightgown standing next to Daniel's body enclosed in a glass coffin.

Later, in Rumplestiltskin's castle, Regina is setting up a small table with objects to practice her magic skills while Rumplestiltskin sits by spinning straw into gold. She tells Rumplestiltskin she is ready to begin, but Rumplestiltskin points his finger at her and demands to know what she really wants. Regina breaks down and asks Rumplestiltskin if he knows magic that can resurrect the dead. Rumplestiltskin tells her that the dead stay dead, and no magic can resurrect them. A despondent Regina states that she is lost, while Rumplestiltskin states his time was wasted with her.

Jefferson then enters the room and presents Rumplestiltskin with the Crystal Ball. After making a deal with Rumplestiltskin for gold, Jefferson approaches Regina and states that he knows of a man in another world that can resurrect the dead. Regina is hopeful at this, and asks what Jefferson wants in return. Jefferson states he wants a Royal Pass to move freely about her Kingdom, and Regina agrees. Jefferson then brings Victor Frankenstein to the Enchanted Forest, where Frankenstein informs Regina that he may be able to resurrect Daniel. Regina takes him to Daniel's body, where Frankenstein performs a brief and bloody examination on the body. He then states that he may be able to help Daniel, but it will require a strong heart.

Regina then takes Jefferson and Frankenstein to her mother's former home. There she takes them into Cora's Vault of Hearts, where Regina states that her mother has made a habit of collecting hearts and there are so many, she does not known which heart belongs to which person. Frankenstein picks a heart, and states the operation can commence. Jefferson and Regina watch as Frankenstein appears to put the heart in Daniel's chest as lightning flashes from the sky, lighting up the white tent where Frankenstein is working. Frankenstein exits the white tent, but states he was unable to resurrect Daniel as the heart was not strong enough. Regina falls on Daniel's corpse and cries at her lost love.

The next day, Regina, dressed in a black outfit and wearing a wicked look on her face, shows up in the forest again to Rumplestilskin, who is teaching magic to a gypsy girl. When she asks what Rumplestiltskin is doing, Rumplestiltskin states that since she was unwilling, he had to find someone who would make a better student. Regina responds by turning to the gypsy girl, ripping her heart out, and crushing it in her fingers, killing her instantly and stating that she is ready while Rumplestiltskin grins wickedly. One day, when her husband comes home from a walk, he is accompanied by the Genie, someone Regina finds to be a way out of her loveless marriage. During her husband's birthday party, while the king again claims his daughter is the fairest in the land, Regina walks outside and into the palace's garden under her apple tree.

While she stands under her apple tree, The Genie comes to her wishing to brighten her night, giving her the present of a hand mirror to let her see herself as the fairest in the land through his eyes. During the next few nights, Regina writes in her diary that she had found love again outside of her loveless marriage.

Finding that she cannot divorce her husband, she asks her father to bring a box with her freedom in it. However, her father has to ask the man that loves her to bring the box to her chambers as the guards are to keep a watch out for Regina's father. Bringing the box to her room, the Genie wonders how it would free her, finding that the box is carrying a two-headed poisonous viper that with one bite could kill anyone.

As she is about to let the poisonous viper kill her, the Genie pulls her away and tells her that he will use the viper to kill her husband so they can always be together. Taking the viper in the box, the Genie kills the king and comes back with the joyous news that they can be together. Upon hearing this, Regina tells him that a palace guard has found the viper and discovered that it was from Agrabah, the Genie's homeland. She tells him that she has a ship ready to take him back to his homeland to avoid persecution.

Once this news sinks in, he realizes that she used him for her own gains. As he truly loves her, the Genie wishes to be with her forever. Seeing his wish come true, she fears being taken into love against her will, until she hears the man crying out in the mirror he gave her. She smiles as she realizes a purpose for The Genie, now that he is in her mirror. Many days after her husband's funeral, she comes to her stepdaughter's side to comfort her as she misses her father. Once she is alone in her room, Regina uses her Magic Mirror to find someone suitable to kill Snow White, knowing that if she tries to do it herself the people that are her subjects and the other kingdoms would see her for who she really is, the Evil Queen.

The Magic Mirror then tells her the best person to find is a huntsman as they are perfect for the job and he finds one that the Queen is pleased with. Having her guards bring this huntsman to the palace, she makes a deal with him to kill her stepdaughter and in return she will outlaw the killing of wolves in her kingdom, as he requested.

While the huntsman is away to kill Snow White, Regina changes her palace to suit how she feels. She brings darkness to the land around her palace, also making the palace itself a mirror image of what it used to be. Once the huntsman is back with Snow White's heart, he tries to hand her Snow White's letter, though she only listens while the huntsman reads the letter to her.

Regina does not care what it says after hearing the huntsman read it, thus she takes the letter from him and throww it in the fireplace. Once Regina has what she believes to be Snow White White's heart, she takes it into the heart vault where she keeps the hearts of all her enemies. However, as one of the small doors does not open, she looks in the box and realizes that it is no human heart.

Angered by this betrayal, Regina closes the door to her vault to keep the Huntsman from leaving. Having him against the wall she drives her hand into his chest, taking out his heart so that he will never feel again. As Regina squeezes the Huntsman's heart, she tells him that he is now forever her pet and that he will share her bed with her whenever she chooses. She warns him that he will never cross her again, and if he does, she will kill him. At some point, her father is kidnapped by her mother the Queen of Hearts. She commissions Jefferson to take her to Wonderland, where her father is being held captive. There, she retrieves him and restores him to his old form with a mushroom. She embraces him, and he seems happy to be reunited with her. She leaves from Wonderland with him, leaving the Mad Hatter to suffer there at the Queen's hands. She learns that Rumplestiltskin, has acquired a girl to tend his home for him. Unbeknownst to the girl, named Belle, Regina purposefully meets her on the road and manipulates her into thinking that kissing Rumplestiltskin will break his curse of being the Dark One. Belle believes her and rushes back to Rumplestiltskin to turn him back into a normal man. A few days later, Regina is led to where Belle has just defeated the Yaoguai in a far away kingdom by Belle's former travel mates. When Belle reaches the top of the hill where Regina is waiting with her forces, Regina orders her soldiers to take Belle into their custody, and imprisons her in a caged wagon. Despite Belle's desperate pleas to go to Rumplestiltskin, Regina does not heed them, saying that she has done Belle a favor by keeping her away from Rumplestiltskin, from a lifetime of heartache and misery. Belle tells her that she cannot keep her and Rumplestiltskin apart forever. Later, she goes to Rumplestiltskin's home and asks him about making a deal concerning a certain mermaid. When he tells her that he will not be making deals that day, she tells him about Belle's supposed death. Then she mocks him, telling him that he should get a new girl to clean the dusty castle. One day, as she is traveling in her woods, she stumbles across two children, one girl and one boy, searching for their father. The Queen orders them to be seized, but they fight back and run away. The Queen corners them, however, and decides to use them to sneak into a blind witch's home to steal something she had lost to the witch. If they find the item for her, she will find their father for them, she promises. The children agree.

After a death-defying experience, they successfully give her the bagged item. The Queen withdraws a poisoned red apple and admires their work in retrieving it. She then offers the children the opportunity to live with her, but they reject her offer and instead ask her to find their father as she promised she would. Regina grows angry at this and curses them back to the forest to search for their lost father. Once they are gone, she has her guards bring out the children's father and interrogates him on why the children do not want to live with her. When he retorts that family never abandons one another, Regina banishes him to the forest as well. Just as King George is about to behead Prince Charming, Regina interrupts by turning the blade into water as it falls on his head. She tells King George that she will make Prince Charming suffer more if he uses his "son" to hurt his true love, Snow White. King George likes this idea and releases the prince to her.

Later, Regina visits the prince in his cell. She tells him that she does not plan to kill Snow White and that her form of punishment is worse. She walks out of his cell smiling triumphantly, holding up a bright red apple. Charming tries to run after her but the doors of his cell close via Regina's magic.

After Snow White has attacked King George's castle, she manages to get to Prince Charming's former cell. Here the two talk through a mirror, but are interrupted by Regina, who tells Snow White to meet her "where it all began" to have a parley.

Regina is seen standing in the middle of the stables with a tearful face. After Snow White says "Hello, Regina," it fades into a look of anger. Snow White follows Regina up towards the hill where Regina once saved her life. She points out the grave of her lost love, Daniel and blames Snow White for his death. Snow White apologizes, but the queen rejects her. She then offers her the apple. Snow White does not eat it at first. After the queen tells her that Charming will be killed if she refuses, Snow White finally bites the apple. As Snow White collapses to the ground, Regina smiles. After the Evil Queen learns that the Huntsman has allowed Prince Charming to escape she uses her magic to force him up against the wall. The Magic Mirror shows Regina that Prince Charming is running through the wood's and she transports him to the Infinite Forest. Regina joins forces with King George against Snow White and Prince Charming in their quest to take back the kingdom, but King George is defeated. While Snow White is separated from Prince Charming, Regina arrives and tries to harm her, but the Blue Fairy freezes her and binds her magic with fairy dust. Snow White and Charming lock her up in a cell in their castle while deciding her fate with their council. There, Regina is visited by her father, who says that it is his fault that he did not take care of her properly. She tells him that he is the single person she loves the most before being brought to the scaffold. There she says that she regrets she did not cause more pain and misery, but when the guards almost kill her Snow White calls off the execution. Regina is sent back to her cell with an evil smile on her face.

While Regina is in her cell, Snow White visits her to give her a chance to redeem herself, giving evil up and turning back to the person "who saved her life". Snow White lets Regina out of her cell with a dagger, but Regina tries to choke Snow White and use the dagger to kill her. The dagger leaves Snow White unharmed and Prince Charming arrives with the guards to tell her that He and Snow White received a protection spell from Rumplestiltskin. Snow White banishes her from the kingdom and promises she will kill her if she ever tries to harm anyone in the kingdom.

Shortly after, during Snow White and Charming's wedding day Regina is back in her palace with her father. Rumplestiltskin visits her to remind her about the wedding and hints that the protection only works in this land. Regina is so reminded of the Dark Curse and after Rumplestiltskin disappears she calls for her carriage to ride to Snow White's wedding. Regina crashes Snow White's wedding and announces her plans to enact the Dark Curse. Sometime after this, Hook breaks into the castle intending to take Belle hostage from the cell. Upon discovering she does not know how to kill Rumplestiltskin, he proceeds to knock her out and tries to kill her, but Regina enters the room, and uses her magic to grab Hook's hook before he is able to do the deed. She informs Hook that Belle is a valuable pawn and she cannot afford to lose her. Hook attempts to take his hook back, but Regina backs up, chastising him for addressing her in a way unbefitting a queen, then telling him that although Belle cannot help him, she can, claiming she knows the crocodile he wants to skin and why he came from Neverland.

In her lair, she enchants Hook's hook, stating that it will give him the power to rip the heart out of one person. She informs Hook of her intent to enact the Dark Curse, and that before she goes to the other world, she wants to be sure that one person will not follow her. She tells Hook this person is her mother, and that she wants Hook to go to Wonderland where Cora was sent, rip out her heart, and return with the body in the place of the guard she is sending along with Hook. She then tells Hook that in this new world, he can have his revenge on Rumplestiltskin, neglecting to tell him of the memory loss that will occur as a result. Hook agrees to carry out the task, at which point she takes out the Hat, and uses it to create a portal to Wonderland for Hook to enter.

Hook returns to the Enchanted Forest through the portal with Cora's seemingly dead body and Regina enters her vault of hearts with a red rose in her hand and dressed in a black costume. Cora's body is laid out in a stone tomb, and Regina shows remorse at having done what she needed to do to ensure her safety in this new world. She tells Cora that she learned from her that love is weakness, and that she could not have her mother in this new world alive as she loves her. She then lays the rose upon Cora's chest and leaves the room, to go and enact the Dark Curse. She attempts to enact the Dark Curse and travels to the Forbidden Fortress, demanding the aforementioned curse from Maleficent, who she exchanged it with for the sleeping curse used on Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent and the Queen eventually have a magical duel. Maleficent loses the ensuing battle, being apprehended by a magically altered chandelier and watches as the Evil Queen steals the curse.

Fuming in her dark palace, Regina wonders why the curse did not work, and her father tells her that she should go to the person that gave her the curse in the first place, Rumplestiltskin.

Regina goes to the dwarves' mine in order to speak to the imprisoned Rumplestiltskin, who tells her that she must sacrifice a heart. She reveals that she sacrificed her best steed, which causes the imp to attack and exclaim to her that a horse will not work for the curse that she is trying to enacted. He tells her she must sacrifice the heart of the thing she loves most, and Regina leaves in silence.

She is counseled by her father, and she tells him about her meeting with Rumplestiltskin. He realizes that he is the thing she loves most and tries to persuade her not to kill him, but she plunges her hand into his chest and removes his heart, whispering a tearful apology as she kills him. The next time she tries to enact the Dark Curse she uses her father's heart and she in successful. She then rides to Snow White's palace and sends her guards to kill anyone in their way. She meets Snow White hugging Prince Charming's unconscious body to her in the wardrobe room and laughs, telling Snow White that she will not remember her prince, much less know that she loved him. Snow White asks her where they are going, and the Queen replies, "Somewhere horrible! Absolutely horrible. A place where the only happiness, will be mine!" The curse envelops her and the rest of the land as she is laughing over her victory. For events occurring after the casting of the Dark Curse, see Regina Mills.

Trivia

 * "Regina" means "Queen" in Latin, Italian and Romanian.
 * In Disney's Snow White, the Evil Queen is credited as "Queen Grimhilde", though this name has rarely been used in the decades since.
 * After Leopold's death, she re-decorated his summer palace into something befitting an evil monarch and adopted a much darker wardrobe.
 * A ceramic horse sculpture can be seen prominently on the mantle above Regina's fireplace. This is likely a homage to the prized steed of the Evil Queen, whose heart she tried to use to enact the Dark Curse.
 * Her name did not change in Storybrooke, likely because she cast the curse herself.
 * She turns into an old woman probably alluding to the Disney movie in which The Evil Queen turned into an old woman in order to make Snow White eat the poisoned apple without knowing she was the queen herself.
 * When she enters the chamber where the wedding is held, everyone aside from Snow White and Prince Charming avoided looking at her.
 * The name of Regina's horse is revealed to be Rocinante, a name shared with the horse of a fictional book character, Don Quixote. This horse may be the one Regina initially sacrificed for the curse.

Appearances
Reine maléfique Regina (Königin) Królowa Regina Reina Malvada Rainha Má Regina Cattiva