Characters / Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Inhabitants of Looking-Glass Land

In General

• Chess Motifs: The whole story takes place during a game of chess, and many of the characters we meet are key players.
• Funny Animal: Many of them are talking animals that act like humans.
• Nursery Rhyme: Odds are, if a character isn't an obvious chess piece, then they're from a nursery rhyme.
• Talking Animal: Alice has several conversations with animals.

The White Side

The White Queen

• Animal Motif: Sheep. She dresses all in white, and later actually turns into one.
• The Cake Is a Lie: Part of the payment she offers Alice is "jam every second day" - by which she means "jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today" — which Alice is actually okay with since she doesn't like jam. This is actually a Latin pun, if you can believe it - "jam" or "iam" is both the past-tense and future-tense version of the present-tense "nunc" (now).
• Chess Motifs: She's the queen of the white side in a game of chess.
• Cloudcuckoolander: In-universe, SHE'S considered a bit strange.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Alice didn't know that her seemingly nonsensical shouts during their boating trip was actually real rowing jargon.
• Friendly Rivalry: She acts quite friendly towards the Red Queen.
• Mad Oracle: Sort of. As noted in Merlin Sickness below, she seems to perceive time backwards, which leads to her being aware of things that will happen in the future and anticipating them. Given that this is the Alice in Wonderland books, she's also mad by default...and indeed, she's implied to be crazy even by their standards.
• Merlin Sickness: She seems to perceive time backwards. For example, she bandages a finger and screams in pain in anticipation of pricking that finger moments later.
• Upper-Class Twit: She's as upper class as they come, being a Queen, and in addition to being a Cloudcuckoolander she's also incapable of dressing herself without help.

The White King

• Butt-Monkey: He is nagged by his wife, manhandled by a giant Alice, and picked on by every other character.
• Chess Motifs: Of course.
• Henpecked Husband: If his first scene is any indication, the White Queen is frequently on his back.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: He seems to be fairly on top of things, especially compared to most of the other Kings and Queens in these books.

Lily

• Chess Motifs: She's a pawn in the game.
• Small Role, Big Impact: She only appears in one scene, where all she does is fall over and cry, but her being too young to play in the game allows Alice to take her place as a pawn for the White Queen.

The White Knight

• Absent-Minded Professor: More of an inventor than a knight.
• Author Avatar: According to some sources.
  • The theory about the White Knight is widely believed by most scholars, however (given the fact that he was the only character in either book who seemed genuinely kind and polite to Alice, seemingly representing Dodgson's friendship with the girl he based the character on), although Dodgson himself never confirmed nor denied it.
• Bungling Inventor: Figures out a fantastic way to keep his sandwiches dry in case of wet weather: he simply fastens his lunchbox to his saddle upside down! However, he, ah, forgot to fasten the box shut properly...
• Chess Motifs: The Knight of course. Strange and different from the other pieces.
• Cool Helmet: The illustration shows that his helmet is shaped like a horse's headjust as with real chess pieces.
• Ditzy Genius: Is a smart inventor, but is forgetful with most things.
• Dork Knight: Tries so, so much to be a proper knight that people will respect.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the musical, he dies in Alice' arms after defending her from the Jabberwock.
• The Klutz: He wants to be a noble knight but ends up bungling that.
• Knight in Shining Armor: In a book teeming with Queens and Kings, he's the only one who acts remotely noble.
• Lord Error-Prone: He's a clumsy, accident-prone knight in shining armor.
• Nice Guy: He's very kind to Alice, who becomes upset when he has to leave.
• Self-Deprecation: If he is an Author Avatar, then Dodgson is portraying himself as a clumsy, scatterbrained fool who is unoriginal with his compositions (Alice recognizes his song of "my own invention" is actually a pre-existing tune). Also, in-universe, the Knight portrays himself in his song as being too scatterbrained to pay attention to a simple conversation and then terrorizing an innocent old man as a result.

Haigha and Hatta

See the entries for the Hatter and the March Hare here.

Queen Alice

See Alice's entry here.

The Red Side

The Red Queen

• Adaptational Villainy: The original version of the Red Queen isn't as nice as the White Queen, but she has no interest in chopping off heads despite what you might have heard. She even explains the rules of Looking-Glass World to Alice and encourages her to become a queen. In many adaptions she is just as aggressively anti-neck as the Red Queen of the first post, as well as truly malicious towards Alice and her subjects.
• Affably Evil: According to Word of God, "she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly".
• Animate Inanimate Object: John Tenniel's illustrations show that, while she may talk and move like a regular person, she is definitely still a chess game piece.
• Anti-Villain: While she is Alice's rival in the chess game (them being on opposite sides and all), and rather mean and strict, she never directly harms or hinders Alice, and when Alice queens herself the Red Queen accepts it and even goes to her party (albeit still being bossy and demanding).
• Chess Motifs: She's the queen of the red side in a game of chess.
• Composite Character: With the Queen of Hearts in many adaptations, notably in the Tim Burton film.
  • Word of God has noted the difference between them to be the following:
  I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion - a blind and aimless Fury. The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm - she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses!
• Etiquette Nazi: Representing Victorian formalism and etiquette, she is quite the stickler for rules.
• Evil Redhead: Red Queen, natch.
• Feuding Families: She and her husband are the opposing team of the White King and Queen and their children.
• Friendly Rivalry: While she is playing against the White Queen and Alice, she doesn't act hostile to them, and is in fact rather friendly aside from some judgmental comments.
• The High Queen: An evil-ish version, that is.
• Pride/It's All About Me: "All the ways about here belong to me!" For bonus points, it's also a chess joke.
• The Stoic: She keeps a stiff upper lip.
• Super-Speed: Because, as a Queen, she can move any number of squares all at once. Although she is also noted to have the ability to run as fast as possible without ever actually moving at all.

The Red King

• Adaptational Badass: In the musical, he takes charge after being woken up by the White Knight's magical box. Immediately, the Red Court stops all nonsense.
• All Just a Dream/Schrödinger's Butterfly: The more obvious example provides the page quote.
• Chess Motifs: Of course.
• Flat Character: Movie. He's got a voice actor, but most people assume he's the wizard, who's credited two seconds later.
• Heavy Sleeper: Nothing Alice or Tweedledum and Tweedledee do wakes him up.
• Rule of Symbolism: The fact that he sleeps all the time and never moves is symbolic of an actual chess king's limited mobility in a game, especially compared to the speed and power of a chess queen.
• Sleepy Head: He spends literally the entire book asleep - although, to be fair, it's not very clear how much time is actually passing in the strange dream-world the story takes place in.

The Red Knight

• Affably Evil: He tries to capture Alice, and battles with the White Knight over her, but he's polite and courteous to both of them, fights fairly, and is a gracious loser.
• Chess Motifs: He's the knight piece for the red side, and tries to capture Alice because she's a white pawn.
• Cool Helmet: The illustration shows that his helmet is shaped like a horse's headjust as with real chess pieces.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: He tries to capture Alice, but is even less capable than the White Knight, and loses the battle to him.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He captures Alice because it's his job, as they're on opposite sides of the chess game. When the White Knight rescues her, they amiably shake hands and the Red Knight rides off with no trouble. He claims to always fairly follow the rules of battle.
• Worthy Opponent: Seems to think the White Knight is this, as they shake hands before the Red Knight rides away.

Others

The Flowers

• Alpha Bitches: They're really quite rude to Alice.
  • One of them is more so in the 1985 TV movie, while the rest is more good-natured.
• Beauty Is Bad: They're pretty, but they're not nice.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: They may look pretty, and they may sound sophisticated and sweet, but often they're really just being condescending and rude.
• Write Who You Know: Two of the flowers are based on Alice's two sisters Rhoda and Violet.

The Jabberwock

See also Jabberwocky.

• Ambiguously Evil: It can be easily inferred from the story that the Jabberwock eats people, but we aren't given any information as to whether the creature is malevolent or simply an animalistic predator. The fact that it's for whatever reason drawn wearing a waistcoat would imply it at least has the sapience required for the former, though.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The Jabberwock's death elicits this reaction.
• Ascended Extra: He started off as a character within a poem, but in most adaptations he becomes an actual character.
• Big Bad: Of the Jabberwocky poem.
• Breakout Villain: The character made a much bigger impression on readers than its role in the original books would suggest. Most adaptations featuring the character upgrade it into a threat to Alice and other characters. It has also somewhat entered fantasy settings as a monster alongside other creatures like Minotaurs and such.
• Dragons Versus Knights: It is very dragon-like, and is slain by a young but knightly hero with a sword.
• The Dreaded: Implied, since in the poem, his death is met with much rejoicing. It's also implied that the only reason he hasn't already been slain is because everyone in the village was just too terrified of him to go after him.
• Giant Flyer: Implied, since he has a pair of wings on his back and easily towers over the hero.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: His eyes are illustrated with light lines radiating from them. The text of the poem also speaks of "the Jabberwock with eyes aflame".
• Hybrid Monster: He has a reptilian body, but also the wings of a bat and the head of a fish.
• Nightmare Face: Its weird, fishlike face is pretty unpleasant to look at.
• Off with His Head!: How the Jabberwock dies, being decapitated with the Vorpal Sword.
• Our Dragons Are Different: It has the basic features of a dragon (winged, clawed lizard), but it's also a Hybrid Monster and wears a waistcoat of all things.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When the Jabberwock attacks the boy, he is described as having "eyes of flame".
• Show Within a Show: It only appears in a book Alice reads.
• Waistcoat of Style: John Tenniel's illustration depicts the Jabberwock wearing one.
• Walking Wasteland: In some adaptations, summoning the Jabberwock twists the Wonderland into a hellish nightmare, and killing it cures it. The musical puts it to song:
  The Red Queen: Now watch as all of your reality unwinds/Release the darkness from the corners of your mind!
• Wolverine Claws: He has "claws that catch", which look quite impressive in the accompanying illustration.

The Gnat

• Cannot Tell a Joke: He makes jokes, but does it so sorrowfully and somberly that Alice has to be told when he's doing it, and he even wishes that other people would make the jokes he thinks of.
• Remember the New Guy?: Refers to Alice as an "old friend" despite never appearing before. Alice lampshades it, stating that she doesn't know who he is.
• Talking Animal: He's a talking insect.

The Fawn

• Bambification
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Forgets that he's a fawn, just as Alice forgets who she is while they're both traveling through a forest.
• Only Sane Man: The most normal character in the second book.
• Talking Animal: It talks to Alice as they walk together through the woods.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

• Boisterous Bruiser: Both are fat, loud, and always scrapping for a fight.
• Catchphrase: "Nohow!" for Tweedledum, and "Contrariwise" for Tweedledee.
• Doomed by Canon: When Alice meets them, she recites the nursery rhyme they come from—and sure enough, every single event from the poem happens before her eyes. Tweedledum even seems resigned to it ("I suppose you agree to have a battle?").
• Fat Bastard: A downplayed example—they're both fat, obnoxious, and rude, but can't really be described as evil.
• Nursery Rhyme: Based on one.
• Single-Minded Twins: Maybe the trope codifier. They're definitely not bright.
• Theme Twin Naming They have very similar names.
• Vague Age: It's not clear how old they are. They act childishly, but they talk like adults and in the illustrations, they are so stylized that it's hard to tell what the intent was. Alice herself notes that they look like schoolchildren (and calls them "First Boy!" and "Second Boy!", terms used in British classrooms to note the top students).

The Walrus and the Carpenter

• Adaptational Villainy: The Walrus gets hit with this quite a lot, ignoring the fact that both of them are supposed to be bad guys.
• Big Eaters: Of cute little sentient oysters.
• Civilized Animal: While the Walrus is still a predatory animal, he wears clothes and speaks eloquently.
• Con Artist: They thrill the little oysters with talk about a fun journey on land, but it's all a ruse so they can eat the oysters.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Alice tries to find reasons to sympathize with both, citing that the Walrus felt remorseful over having eaten the oysters and that the Carpenter had eaten less than the Walrus. However, as Tweedledee and Tweedledum note in response, the Walrus tries to conceal from the Carpenter how much he had eaten by covering his mouth with his handkerchief. The Carpenter clawed for as many oysters he could get his hands on. Dumbstruck by this interpretation, Alice decides they're both unpleasant.
• Mundane Made Awesome: The Walrus.
  "The time has come", the Walrus said,
  "To talk of many things:
  Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
  Of cabbages—and kings—
  And why the sea is boiling hot—
  And whether pigs have wings."
• Villain Protagonists/Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists: They're the main characters of the poem, and their main goal is to eat a bunch of sentient oysters alive.
• Wily Walrus: The Walrus is a cunning con artist who tricks a group of oysters into becoming his (and the Carpenter's) meal.

The Crow

• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: While it's not given very much description, it's wings are big enough to stir up strong winds, and Alice is able to hide from it under a tree.
• Creepy Crows: It's a monstrous giant crow that chases Tweedledum, Tweedledee, and Alice.
• The Dreaded: Its appearance is the only thing that can stop Tweedledum and Tweedledee from fighting and run away in fear.
• Giant Flyer: It isn’t called a "monstrous crow" for nothing.
• Informed Ability: While nothing in the actual story suggests there’s anything remarkable about it beyond its size, the Crow— if the Dramatis Personae in the introduction of some editions is to be believed— is somehow a bishop.

Humpty Dumpty

• Animate Inanimate Object: He's a talking, clothes-wearing egg.
• Awesome Ego: His defining trait.
• Catchphrase: "It is very provoking."
• Classy Cravat: Alice is unsure if it is a cravat or a belt (largely because, since he's an egg, she can't tell if he's wearing it on his neck or his waist—they're the same thing on his body). He insists that it's the former.
• Doomed by Canon: In a bit of a Dramatic Irony, he tells Alice that he's not scared of falling off the wall, because if he does, the king has promised to send all his horses and all his men. No prizes for guessing what happens.
• Exact Words: As part of his lectures on semantics, he uses this trope to trick Alice:
  Humpty Dumpty: How old did you say you were?
  Alice: Seven and a half, exactly.
  Humpty Dumpty: WRONG! You never said a word like it!
  Alice: I thought you meant "How old are you?"
  Humpty Dumpty: If I meant that, I would have said it.
  • Ironically, he then inverts the trope with his famous assertion that "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean"—meaning that words as written or stated have no meaning and so cannot be exact.
• The Gadfly: He takes great pleasure in deliberately using confusing language or luring people into making erroneous statements just to show off his own skill with words.
• Hypocrite: At first, he claims that particular words, and especially names, have inherent meaning: when Alice asks "Must a name mean something?", Humpty angrily replies "Of course it must!" But later in their conversation, he brags "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean," suggesting that words don't have inherent meaning.
• Insufferable Genius: Humpty's a master of the English language, and never lets anyone forget it.
• Nursery Rhyme: Of course, he's probably the most famous nursery rhyme character to appear in the books.
• Personal Dictionary: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He defends this by saying that he's the boss, not the words—and therefore he can make any word he says mean anything he wants.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: A narrative version - After Humpty falls down, Alice realizes that the war she's been embroiled in is serious. She laments that she just essentially killed a person; regardless of how annoying he might've been.
• Would Hurt a Child: Or at the very least talk about hurting one. Upon hearing that Alice is seven and a half, he remarks that she should have stopped at seven. When Alice replies that "one can't help growing older," Humpty says "One can't, perhaps, but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven." In other words, had someone been around to murder Alice in cold blood, she'd have stopped aging.

Nobody

• The Ghost: He doesn't actually appear, he's only referenced by the White King and Haigha after Alice says that she "sees nobody on the road".
• Who's on First?: Being named "nobody" leads to some miscommunication between the White King and Haigha.

The Lion and the Unicorn

• Boisterous Bruiser: Both of them.
• Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: The Unicorn is probably the most famous example of this in all literature. Eventually he agrees to believe in Alice because she believes in him.
• Miles Gloriosus: The Lion has traits of this.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In Tenniel's illustrations, the Lion and Unicorn are caricatures of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, respectively.
• Nursery Rhyme: Albeit more obscure to American readers—"The Lion and the Unicorn" is about England and Scotland's debate over the throne of the United Kingdom (hence "fighting for the crown").
• Talking Animal: They both speak.