As stated before in a previous editorial, I had been bashing Disney’s live action Snow White 2024 movie and what we were learning about it from leaked photos and from actress Rachel Zegler herself. Suffice to say, what we know about the new live action Snow White makes it more like a new IP rather than a new Snow White movie. So I decided to try and come up with my own retelling of Snow White and modernize it a bit while adhering the the original story’s messages and themes.
Let me know what you think about Act 1 in the comments or on social media!
Act I
Once upon a time, there was Queen Elysia who was beloved by her husband Aldric the King, the court, and the people of the land. But, for a long time, she couldn’t give the King and the kingdom of Eldaria what they needed – an heir. For years the King and Queen tried to have a child but to no avail. One night, as the queen was embroidering, she began to weep in despair. She wept while stumbling over to the ebony wood balcony that looked out onto a snow-covered landscape. As she stopped, Elysia accidentally pricked herself and watched as several drops of blood stained the pristine snow below. Looking up into the sky, she wished she could have a child with ebony hair, rose red cheeks, and skin white as snow. At that moment, a witch was passing by on her broomstick when she heard the Queen’s despair and anguish.
The next day, the good witch visited the palace and noticed something strange about the Queen. There was a curse upon the Queen that prevented her from having children!
In secret, the good witch approached the Queen and told her what she had discovered. Horrified, the Queen asked if the good witch could help her and the witch said yes, but under one condition. That the Queen and her offspring vow to help destroy the Mirror of Shadows; an evil, magical artifact. The Queen agreed and the good witch removed the curse, gave the Queen a small pendant to use in case the Mirror was found, and disappeared.
The Queen then told the King what had transpired and how the good witch had said that a curse had been laid upon her. The King, incensed, tried to discover who had cast the curse and why. But to no avail. For there were no wizards or witches in the Kingdom to help. In fact, there hadn’t been any such magic users to be found in a very long time. The King tried to find the good witch to help them discover the origin of the curse, but she couldn’t be found.
Soon after, Queen Elysia gave birth to a little girl and everyone marveled at the child’s beauty; her ebony hair, rose red cheeks, and skin white as snow. So she was named Snow White. Everyone was happy for the birth of an heir. All except two people. One was a beautiful child with golden hair and blue eyes who was born to the Baron, one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom. He, too, was unhappy that there was now an heir to the throne.
The two girls grew up in court and became friends. However, while Snow White was genuine in her friendship and looked to the other girl as a sort of older sister, the Baron’s daughter had other ambitions and only pretended to be friends with Snow.
The Baron wanted his daughter to become Queen so that his family could rule the kingdom and expand his power. He realizes that it was impossible to become King himself because King Aldrc was so well-loved by the court and people. To even try and stage a coup would be suicide. From the moment his daughter was born, the Baron had her tutored in the way of ruling a kingdom, clandestine methods, and magic. As she was learning all of this, the Baron comes into possession of The Mirror of Shadows from an evil witch he hired and discovered that one of its uses was to control the Goblins. The Baron had the Goblins, with covert help of his own army, attack and conquer the neighboring lands of the Dwarves. Then the Baron staged it so that he “wiped out” the goblins and integrated the Dwarven lands into his own Barony, increasing his wealth and power exponentially. There are very few Dwarven survivors which includes the Seven Dwarves who want to avenge their people but have to go into hiding as the Goblins are constantly looking for any surviving Dwarves..
Over time, the girls matured and continued to bloom in beauty. As they grew, the Baron’s daughter would sneak into the room where the Mirror of Shadows was hidden and ask it if she were the fairest one of all. To which the mirror would always reply, yes. However, despite being beautiful, the Baron’s daughter watched Snow White and started to become jealous of her beauty, position, and power. Especially as the majority of suitors came asking for Snow White’s hand in marriage while ignoring the Baron’s daughter despite her own beauty. But what disgusted the Baron’s daughter was Snow White’s unwillingness to use her power for personal gain and how quickly she ingratiated herself with anyone who met her
During this time, a young prince from the desert kingdom Baghramal had arrived at court and was made a ward of the king. Prince Char al-Addin, who had light-brown skin and golden-brown eyes, was so polite, charismatic, and charming that he was nicknamed Prince Charming and known by that name throughout the court and land. Prince Charming was a few years older than Snow White but still they became friends and inseparable. Though Snow White quickly developed a crush on the Prince who was, for a while, clueless to her infatuation with him.
As she grew, Snow White was being taught everything she needed to know about running the kingdom as she was the heir. Philosophy, mathematics, politics, history, commerce, warfare, and strategy were taught to her when it would be her time to rule the kingdom.
During one of her many visits to the town, Snow White happened to meet a street urchin a few years older than her who was killing pigeons with a slingshot for food and to sell the rest. His uncanny accuracy with the sling impressed the Master of the Hunt, who was escorting Snow White, and he offered to mentor the boy and groom him to take over his position when he retired. That boy, through his skills of hunting and tracking, quickly became known as the Huntsman who fell in love with Snow White for her kindness and, because of her, his improved lot in life. There would be several encounters between Snow White and the Huntsman in which he taught her some basic things about nature and traveling in the wilds.
As Snow White was three years shy of adulthood, the Baron’s daughter started to focus on her plan against the Queen while making the King aware of her; though the latter was to no avail. For King Aldric was devoted to the Queen. So the Baron’s daughter continued to learn magic from the witch that her father hired. As the Baron’s daughter plotted with her father The Baron, she also started to focus her attention more on Prince Charming, thinking to make him her consort after she was married to the King. But Prince Charming was not affected by her and, instead, continued to be friends with Snow White.
Humiliated and angered by Prince Charming ignoring her advances, the Baron’s daughter finally hatched her scheme and put it into action. But before she did, she informed her father that she was making her move so that the Baron was prepared to put his plans into action as well.
Soon after, the Queen was found dead in her room with a knife in her back (killed by the Baron’s daughter who used magic to traverse the castle unseen in order to kill the Queen). The knife used belonged to the Prince. The Baron’s daughter had framed Prince Charming because the Baron wanted the Prince’s lands and an excuse to declare war while his daughter wanted her own revenge for the humiliation she felt when he rejected her. Immediately, the castle was in an uproar and all the soldiers looked for the Prince. The Prince, upon hearing of the Queen’s death and unable to find his favorite knife, quickly went to Snow White and told her that he didn’t do it. Snow White believed him and helped the Prince to escape.
Shortly afterwards, the Baron arrived with his troops to help search for the Prince and prepared to wage war against the Prince’s homeland since this was seen as an act of war. While the King was bereaved, the Baron recommended that the King marry his daughter to show that this despicable act would not weaken the Kingdom. That the “enemy” would see this as a sign of strength and order. That no matter what, the kingdom would not be weakened by such cowardly acts.
Soon after, the Baron sent his armies against the desert Kingdom. However, even with the Baron’s human and Goblin troops combined, the desert kingdom was strong and able to fight the Baron’s forces to a standstill.
Meanwhile, Prince Charming was on the run, trying to make it back to his home, when he encountered the Seven Dwarves who agreed to hide him for as long as he stayed.
At the palace, Snow White tried to discover who killed her mother and why. Still in disbelief that her mother was dead and the girl she was once looked up to as an older sister was now her step mother. But while Snow tried to find out what was happening, the evil Queen found out what Snow was doing. Unperturbed since there was no way of Snow finding the answers, The evil Queen was going to take her time in eliminating Snow.
That is until, shortly after Snow turned 16, the Queen asked the Mirror of Shows who was the fairest one of all and the Mirror, upon seeing Snow White for the first time, told the Queen that Snow was fairer than her (while true, the Mirror was also incentivized to have Snow killed because it realized that she might be the person that could destroy it).
Jealous and full of hate, the evil Queen decided to hatch the next phase of her plan: to kill Snow White. The next day, the King is found dead from poison (once more, blamed on a Baghramal assassin) and filled with rage, envy, and hate the evil Queen immediately ordered the Huntsman to take Snow White out into the woods, kill her, and bring Snow’s heart to her as proof in exchange for becoming a noble. For she thought that the Huntsman would do as she said because she was the queen, beautiful, and it would elevate his position even more since he was born a peasant. In other words, because she was vain and ambitious, she thought that most people would be like her and accept her order to advance in life.
But unbeknownst to the Evil Queen, the Huntsman was in love with Snow and, instead of killing her, told her to flee for her life. However, in order to convince the evil Queen that he did as she had ordered, the Huntsman dug up the grave of a young girl a couple years younger than Snow who had recently died and took her heart to the evil Queen. The evil Queen rejoiced and pronounced that the Huntsman was now a baron.
As she rejoiced, mist began emanating from the Mirror of Shadows and darkness started to descend upon the Kingdom of Eldoria.
The golden era of Eldoria had come to an end.
End of Act 1
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