Dragon Daughter

Fairy Tales Told Wrong II

Snow White is not a love story about Princess Sneewittchen and Prince Charming.

Anyone who has watched ABC's Once Upon a Time will remember one of the main plot lines for the first season was the obstacles between Snow White and Prince Charming both in the Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke.

But the original Snow White story is not a love story. In the version first recorded by the Brothers Grimm, the prince is an unnamed plot device.

The main character of 'Little Snow White' is the stepmother.

Although Snow White herself is the heroine of her story, it's because she is a victim of her stepmother, not because she sets out to achieve anything. Snow White has no drive or direction, she is not seeking anything, she is a dramatic foil to the stepmother. She is innocent and naive to show us how wicked the witch queen is.

'Little Snow White' begins and ends with the stepmother's pursuit to destroy Snow White. It is a story about a woman utterly corrupted by vanity and envy. It is the story about the fall of that woman, not the accidental triumph of the princess.

That is the part that ABC's Once Upon a Time got right. Regina's fall and redemption made that show for me. It disappointed me every time she came nearly to the Light only to stumble back again. I love the parallels between Regina and her mother Cora: the woman who did deliberately forsake all good in herself and then wiped it out in her daughter.

Did you know that in the original original version of 'Little Snow White', the evil witch was Sneewittchen's biological mother?

It's not a love a story. It's not even about Snow White.