Red Queen

The Red Queen, also known as Anastasia, is a character on ABC's Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. She débuts in the first episode of the first season and is portrayed by starring cast member Emma Rigby.

The Red Queen is based on the character with the same name from Lewis Carroll's novella "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There".

History
In the Enchanted Forest, Anastasia and her love, Will Scarlet, hatch a plan to escape to another world. Will joins Robin Hood and the Merry Men as a new recruit. On his suggestion, they agree to break into Maleficent's castle to steal gold for the kingdom's people. Will hurries home to tell Anastasia the news, and shortly thereafter, heads into the castle with the Merry Men where he secretly pilfers a looking glass. He makes it safely back to Anastasia. Inside their house, Will throws the looking glass onto the floor, opening a portal, and asks her where they should go. Anastasia picks a place called Wonderland and they prepare to jump.
 * -|Before the Curse=

They interrupted by the arrival of Anastasia's mother, who strongly disapproves of her daughter throwing away a life of privilege for a thief. Her mother is unhappy that Anastasia has not lived up to expectations of becoming a queen, or even choosing a nobleman for a future husband. Anastasia is warned by her mother against returning home unless she is willing to take on a duty of cleaning the chamber pot. Will promises to build a life for Anastasia as he truly loves her and not because she needs to become a different person. She says goodbye to her mother and joins hands with Will to disappear into the portal.

Life in Wonderland is not what Anastasia and Will expected. They end up poor and scourging for berries. Will almost takes a piece of mushroom for enlarging one's size as a viable food source until Anastasia stops him. A wagon passes on the road with an abundance of fresh baked goods for the royal ball, to which they both decide to attend. They steal clothes from a carriage and easily blend into the crowd of party-goers. Will eyes the long table of food on display and heads over to steal some while Anastasia passes by to eavesdrop a socialite's conversation. Mimicking the words of the socialite, she later coyly greets a man, who turns out to be the King of the castle. She makes a good impression on him and the two share a drink until Will is hauled out by guards due to his forged invitation. Anastasia, too, is thrown out after she is discovered to be wearing a stolen gown. Outside, Will shows her the loaves of bread he managed to nab from the table. She smiles appreciatively and they leave, except Anastasia takes one last longing look at the castle balcony.

Some time passes, and they are at another pitfall. Anastasia suggests going home, but before that, they should steal the crown jewels from the castle. Will is uneasy at the thought of stealing, but she insists they are doing it for a good reason due to being poor and needing money. Anastasia asks him to wait near the balcony while she grabs the jewels and drops them down into his hands. Then, they will simply go back to the Enchanted Forest, without fear of being caught, and sell the stolen goods for a large sum of money. Later, they execute the idea as planned. Anastasia breaks into a cabinet to begin bagging all the jewels. Her breath is taken away by a beautiful red crown. As she grabs hold of it, the King makes his presence known to her. He questions why she is resorting to stealing. She insists that he has so much wealth and it would be little matter if some of it is gone. After he explains that the hierarchy dictates who has or does not have wealth, she hands back the crown. At this point, the King is extremely drawn to Anastasia and offers the jewels to her if she marries him. Anastasia's feelings for Will hold her back until the King notes that love won't get someone far and it is never enough. She accepts the marriage proposal and later strolls out to the balcony, garbed in a lascivious new outfit topped off with the red crown, and greets the adoring public as their new Queen. Her eyes meet Will's briefly, but then pretends not to see him and carries on.

From ascending the throne, Anastasia becomes known as the Red Queen. She teams up with a sorcerer named Jafar to capture a genie, Cyrus. She arrives on the cliff by the Boiling Sea to intercept Alice and Cyrus as they declare their love for each other. Her guards begin attacking the two in an attempt to capture them. During the battle, the Red Queen watches indignantly as the twosome defeat her dozen soldiers. However, being outnumbered, Alice and Cyrus are cornered and defeated by her guards. As Alice is held down while Cyrus is dragged away, he breaks free to rescue her. Changing things up, the Red Queen twirls her hand and smiles deviously, using magic to topple Cyrus from the cliff and into the Boiling Sea. Fortunately, unknown to Alice, Jafar waits ominously below and catches Cyrus on his magic carpet. Under the Red Queen's orders, the White Rabbit travels out of Wonderland to convince Alice to come back with the claim her beloved Cyrus is alive. When Alice returns to Wonderland, the Red Queen rides out in her coach to meet the White Rabbit. She demands he follow, and the two of them go to her castle. Once inside, she asks the White Rabbit if Alice is back, which he affirms to be true. In turn, the Queen orders him to continue to do her bidding, or else he will be turned into furnishing. He slinks away in fright as the Red Queen smiles wickedly. Later, she encounters the sorcerer Jafar out on the balcony, and informs him of Alice's arrival, which is just as they planned it. Unexpectedly, Jafar begins to question the Red Queen’s usefulness and uses his magic to begin to choke her. The Red Queen manages to gasp out that only she knows where Alice is, and he should be wise to remember this. Jafar reluctantly stops choking her, and the Red Queen flashes a triumphant smile, reminding him once again that she is the Queen, Wonderland is her world, and he's not in Agrabah anymore.
 * -|After the Curse=

From the White Rabbit, the Red Queen learns the true burial spot of Cyrus' bottle; an item both she and Jafar have been scouring Wonderland in search for as one of the objectives they need to complete their secretive master plan. To gain the upper hand from Jafar, she has the White Rabbit procure the bottle for her. Later, when the Red Queen is listening to petitioners at the castle, Jafar freezes her subjects so they can talk. While he criticizes her flaw in trying to earn people's respect as their monarch, she acknowledges that they both want things they can't have without Alice and her genie. She gives the excuse that responsibilities as a ruler keep her busy from looking for the bottle, so Jafar frees up her time by turning the frozen people in the room into ash. She looks on in displeasure as he leaves, to which her servants, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, clean up after the floor mess. Jafar returns to accuse her of already knowing the bottle's location, which is true, but the Red Queen won't tell him until they settle what she will be getting out of this deal. Though he freezes her body to force an answer out, she purposely gives him the false bottle site, Mimsy Meadows under the Tum Tum Tree, to send him on a misleading expedition. After he is gone, the White Rabbit visits as the Tweedles are giving her a scrubbing cleanse. She inquiries further how he knew about the bottle's true location, the White Rabbit remembers secretly watching Alice and Cyrus bury it. He asks for his freedom after doing everything she requested. Instead, she gives a strong rebuke and reminds him who is in charge. Triumphantly, the Red Queen confronts Jafar in this lair and calls for a change in relationship, since now she possesses the bottle, and asks to be treated as his equal. In the face of Jafar's humiliation and fury, she leaves him to simmer. Upon return to her castle, the Red Queen, with a smile, places the bottle carefully in a box and locks it for safekeeping.

In the lair, the Red Queen and Jafar are dining at a table as they challenge Cyrus over a certain paper crane he's been using to communicate with Alice. As the next part of their plan, she flips through a book to read out loud names of various creatures to send after Alice so she will be forced to make her first wish. They settle for the Bandersnatch after Cyrus' expression twists into worry at the mention of the beast. After the male Bandersnatch has been slayed, the Red Queen expectantly hears the female of the pair pass away, too, as they mate for life. From this, she believes Alice already made her first wish, but Jafar is unable to detect any change until realizing they have been deceived. They pay a visit to Grendell in the Whispering Woods to question him about who killed the Bandersnatch. When they promise to restore his deceased wife to him, Grendel confesses a young woman accompanied by a man named Knave killed the beast. Startled at her old lover's name, she reacts with surprise, but says nothing. Having obtained the necessary information from Grendel, Jafar then kills him with his staff.

While Tweedledee and Tweedledum help dress the Red Queen in one of her newest outfits, she pleasingly admires herself in the mirror until noticing Jafar standing nearby. After she dismisses the Tweedles, Jafar asks for an honest answer about why he was left in the dark about Alice's companion, Knave. She gives a smooth excuse that he was only necessary so Alice had someone to trust when coming back to Wonderland. Since the Red Queen affirms Knave is of no more value, Jafar demands she get rid of him as soon as possible. Later, she takes out the Caterpillar's henchman, the Collectors, as they are hunting down Knave. The Red Queen imprisons Knave and belittles him for coming back to Wonderland and whatever Alice, dubbing her his "girlfriend", offered him must have been worth the risk. They both trade personal insults at one another until the Red Queen walks away. Jafar approaches her again to order a public execution for Knave so people see what happens to those who align themselves with Alice. She proposes Knave might be more useful alive than dead, but he wonders if she is reluctant to kill for another reason. He presses her to get the job done to prove she is willing to go to any lengths to get what she wants. Unwilling to resort to murder, the Red Queen forms an escape plan for Knave to leave Wonderland with the White Rabbit. Knave suspects she only wants to catch him while he's leaving as a reason for capital punishment. She, however, wants an excuse not to kill him as her involvement with Jafar makes it difficult to keep him alive. Additionally, this is her way of making up her betrayal to him. Knave doesn't want pity, but she argues without her support, he'd be dead. He refuses to comply with escaping and blames her for making him a fool because she has committed inexcusable, terrible deeds. The one thing he thinks the Red Queen can't do is kill him, and dares her to try, so she accepts his challenge.

At Knave's public execution, the Red Queen and Jafar appear over the castle balcony to greet the public masses. Tweedledee notifies them that Alice is in the crowd as well. The Red Queen orders for her to be taken in by the guards, but Jafar thinks it'd be a better idea to see how far Alice is willing to go to save a friend. They watch the procession as Knave is brought out onto the gallows and prepped for the beheading, but Alice rescues him and the two flee by using the catapult machine to fling themselves into the maze. The Red Queen arrives there at the same time as Jafar. As Knave is choked by Jafar, he gasps out Anastasia's name, and is only let go when Alice makes her first wish. Then, Alice herself is tested by Jafar's magic until being dropped. The Red Queen stares in horror as Jafar turns Knave into a stone statue. Afterwards, Alice angrily slaps her for not helping Knave, and moves to deliver another smack, but the Red Queen blocks with magic. She chides Alice to "grow up" and use more common sense. The Red Queen warns that Wonderland is a prison and it's only going to get worse for Alice until she does what must be done. At nightfall, she returns to look, with much longing, at the statue of Knave.

Hoping to restore Knave back to normal, she tricks Alice into helping her procure some magic dust that only one with a pure heart can obtain. As a reward, she promises to lead Alice to Cyrus. She watches Alice successfully decipher the riddle for reaching the dust, "the pure of heart shall make the leap", only for the girl to fall out of sight. Even after that, the Red Queen refuses to budge from the cliff edge. A ground tremor throws her off balance and she, too, drops down into the same cave pit as Alice. A child version of Alice goads the older Alice into exacting revenge on the Red Queen for previously faking Cyrus' death. Though Alice appears to move towards slashing the Red Queen, she stabs her sword into the ground instead. The child Alice congratulates her older self for passing a test and then turns into magic dust. Back outside, Alice refuses to hand over the bag of dust until the Red Queen tells her how to get to Cyrus. So, she takes the bag by force and leaves Alice with nothing. Returning to the maze, the Red Queen sprinkles some of the dust onto Knave. Before he completely unfreezes and sees her, she runs away.

She comes to search for Jafar in his lair, but only finds Cyrus' empty cage. No matter how much magical force she exerts against Jafar's other prisoner, he refuses to betray the manner of how Cyrus escaped the lair. The Red Queen decides to hunt down Cyrus so she can possess both him and his bottle while strongly reprimanding Tweedledee when he questions her judgement. She follows his tracks to the river, but has doubts Cyrus crossed the stream, and uses magic to show which way he actually went. She corners Cyrus at a cliff, applauding him for the heroic endeavor to reach Alice, but the harsh reality is sometimes love is not enough. Somehow, Cyrus refuses to give up and jumps into the sea.

Trivia

 * In most adaptations of Lewis Carrol's novels, she is usually merged or confused with the Queen of Hearts. In this series, like the original, they are two different characters, Cora being the Queen of Hearts and Anastasia being the Red Queen.
 * In the original promo and the twenty minute preview, the Red Queen wore a much more revealing outfit than she did in the actual premiere.
 * The writers have confirmed Cora is the reason why the Red Queen has magic.
 * The Red Queen's crown was made by Vancouver-based accessories designer Medicina Designs.