Characters / Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Inhabitants of Wonderland

In General

• Cloudcuckoolander: Practically everyone Alice meets is this in some way.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The majority of the characters in Wonderland are referred to only by their title or what they are. The only exceptions are Bill the Lizard, the Hatter, and the March Hare (named Hatta and Haigha, respectively) and even then the names of the latter two are only revealed in the sequel.
• Funny Animal: Many of the animals wear clothes and act like humans.
• Playing Card Motifs: Alice meets the Queen and King of Hearts, and their subjects.
• Talking Animal: Almost all the animals that Alice meets talk, even if they don't otherwise act human.

The Pool of Tears Party

The Mouse

• Hair-Trigger Temper: He's extremely easy to anger or offend.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's grouchy, arrogant and short tempered, but aside from that, he's a generally nice guy as long as you don't offend him.
• Talking Animal: While he acts like a mouse, including a fear of cats, he communicates with Alice just fine.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He is understandably very afraid of cats, and doesn't take too kindly when Alice talks about her cat Dinah.

The Dodo

• Author Avatar: According to some sources (Charles Dodgson had a stutter, and would introduce himself as "Do-do-dodgson").
  • Other sources point out that Dodgson actually stammered, and so would not have repeated syllables.
• Composite Character: With Pat in the Disney version.
• Doofy Dodo: He's a dodo, and a bit of a Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
• Funny Animal: He talks and acts like a human, and even has hands in the illustrations.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The Eaglet accuses him of being one, see Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness below.
  • Most definitely the case in the Disney film.
• Nice Guy
• Self-Deprecation: A rumored reason as to why Dodgson specifically chose a dodo as his caricature was a speech impediment he had that caused him to stutter. As such, he would introduce himself as "Do-Do-Dodgson".
• Serious Business: He and the other birds and animals take the prizes at the end of the Caucus Race very seriously. Alice finds this very silly, but decides it would be rude to laugh after seeing just how serious they are about it.
  Dodo: We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: So much that the Eaglet tells him to "Speak English!" and accuses him of not knowing what half the words he uses means.

The Lory, the Eaglet and the Duck

• Bratty Half-Pint: The first line from the Eaglet is to yell at the Dodo for using big words and then accuse him of being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The Lory.
  Lory: (to Alice) I'm older than you and therefore must know better.
• Literal-Minded: The Duck is implied to be this.
• Really 17 Years Old: Possibly the Lory. He tries to win arguments with Alice by saying "I'm older than you and therefore must know better", but refuses to tell Alice how old he actually is.
• Talking Animal: They're birds that talk.
• Write Who You Know: They are based on Alice's sisters Edith (the Eaglet) and Lorina (the Lory) and Rev. Robinson Duckworth (the Duck).
  • Lampshaded when Alice is noted to talk familiarly with them, "as if she had known them all her life". Though this refers to all the animals in general in the narration, Alice primarily talks to the trio after this mention.

The White Rabbit's House

The White Rabbit

• Always Late: In the original book, he is often in a rush to get places and has a lack of punctuality, indicated by the pocket watch he always carries with him. This carries over into many adaptations of the book, as well.
• Catchphrase: "I'm late!" and "Oh my ears and whiskers!"
• Composite Character: A few adaptations have combined his role with that of the March Hare.
• Foil: According to Word of God, he's this for Alice.
  "And the White Rabbit, what of him? Was he framed on the "Alice" lines, or meant as a contrast? As a contrast, distinctly. For her 'youth', 'audacity', 'vigour', and 'swift directness of purpose' read 'elderly', 'timid', 'feeble' and 'nervously shilly-shallying', and you will get something of what I meant him to be. I think the White Rabbit should wear spectacles. I'm sure his voice should quaver, and his knees quiver, and his whole air suggest a total inability to say 'Boo' to a goose!"
• Follow the White Rabbit: The Trope Namer, since Alice follows him to get to Wonderland the first time.
• Funny Animal: Aside from going down the rabbit hole in the beginning, he acts no differently from a nervous human.
• Grumpy Old Man: How he acts around his servants (including Alice, who he mistakes for one) - although to be fair, his servants are infuriatingly strange.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: He wears a waistcoat but no pants.
• Nervous Wreck: He's very nervous about being late for the Queen of Hearts. Considering the kind of person she is, it's understandable. Even moreso in the Disney film, since unlike the original book the Queen's executions are carried out.
• Only Sane Man: Possibly. But that's not saying much. Among his house staff, definitely. Among everyone else, not so much.
• White Bunny: Well, he is an albino rabbit.

Bill the Lizard

• Butt-Monkey / The Chew Toy: First he's catapulted out of a chimney, then Alice is kind of mean to him when he's part of the jury.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: The way the White Rabbit and Pat react to him shooting out of the chimney implies that things like that happen to him all the time.
  White Rabbit and Pat: There goes Bill!

The Duchess's Household

The Fish Footman and the Frog Footman

• The Cameo: Possibly. A frog-headed character quite similar to the Frog Footman talks to Alice in Through the Looking-Glass.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, "For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet." The Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the words a little, "From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet."
• Funny Animal: Aside from having the faces of a fish and a frog, they act like regular footmen.
• Lazy Bum: The Frog Footman tells Alice of his plans to just on the steps of the Duchess's house until tomorrow, and for days and days after.

The Duchess

• Abusive Parent: To her baby during her first appearance. She advocated for punishing one’s child for sneezing.

“Speak roughly to your little boy
and beat him when he sneezes
he only does it to annoy
because he knows it teases.
I speak severely to my boy
I beat him when he sneezes
for he can thoroughly enjoy
the pepper when he pleases.”

• Ambiguously Human: Unlike the other royals in Wonderland, she is not a playing-card character. But, given the enormous size of her head, her Gonk features, and her shapeshifting baby, she might not be human either.
• Catchphrase/Faux Symbolism: Likes bringing up the "moral(s)" to just about anything, even if it borders on Insane Troll Logic. Alice even calls "morals" the Duchess' favorite word.
• Does Not Like Men: She sings a song about how little boys should be abused, violently shaking her own baby boy all the while.
• Gonk: Her illustrations are based off of THIS◊ for one thing...
• Hat of Authority: Her ermine-trimmed headdress.
• Mood-Swinger: She can go from angry to agreeable pretty sporadically.
• The Napoleon: She's loud and abusive, and small enough to put her head on Alice's shoulder, even though Alice is seven years old and the Duchess is old enough to have a child.
• No Sense of Personal Space: When in a good mood, something that Alice finds rather disquieting. She's exactly the right height to rest her chin on Alice's shoulder, unfortunately for Alice.

The Duchess' Baby

• Ambiguously Human: He is the child of the Duchess, who is also Ambiguously Human, and he apparently regularly transforms into pigs and possibly other things.
• Forced Transformation: Transforms into a pig.
• Gonk: Like mother, like son it seems. Alice observes that he looks better as a pig than a human.
• Pepper Sneeze: He sneezes nonstop due to the Cook's obsessive use of pepper. The Duchess sings about beating him for this.
• Noodle Incident: The Cheshire Cat's reaction to Alice revealing that the baby turned into a pig implies that it's done this before. He proceeds to imply that the baby also turned into a fig at least once.
• Satellite Character: To the Duchess.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After he turns into a pig and runs off, the Cheshire Cat goes to look for him. He's never seen or mentioned again and the Cheshire Cat doesn't say what became of him when he reappears.

The Duchess' Cook

• Angry Chef: She's constantly yelling and throwing things at her boss.
• Lethal Chef: Implied, given how much she puts pepper on everything.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Has a weird obsession with pepper.

The Cheshire Cat

• Adaptational Villainy: In the book, he's the closest thing Wonderland has to a Nice Guy and is the only character Alice thinks of as a friend. Quite a few adaptations, including the Disney movie, turn him into a callous Jerkass, and some of them even make him directly sinister and dangerous.
• Affectionate Nickname: Alice calls him "Cheshire-Puss". His reaction implies that he likes this nickname a lot.
• Breakout Character: Despite his relativaly small role, he became THE most iconic character of the Alice books. If just one symbol is chosen to represent the series, chances are that it will be the Cheshire Cat's grin.
• Cats Are Magic: He has abilities that no other Wonderlanders seem to possess, being able to disappear and re-appear at will.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: The Trope Namer
• Creepy Good: Despite his unnerving smile and claws, he is friendly and helpful to Alice.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He's somewhat creepy looking (Alice decides to approach him cautiously, after observing his large amount of teeth and sharp claws) but is pretty much the friendliest individual Alice meets in Wonderland.
• Exact Words: Alice asks him to stop "appearing and vanishing so suddenly" because it freaks her out. He says "all right", and then vanishes gradually, so that his off-putting smile remains hanging in the air after the rest of his body has disappeared.
• Jerkass: The Disney version, possibly as an instance of Cats Are Mean. Though not overly malicious and seeming friendly in his first two appearances, in the later parts of the film he seems to go out of his way to get Alice into trouble, for no good reason.
  • This counts mainly for the actual movie, though. In later appearances in other stories and spin-offs, he's been softened up a bit and is more of a Blue-and-Orange Morality type.
  • His portrayal in the Kingdom Hearts series is mainly neutral. He does help Sora with proving Alice's innocence, but later on sends a Trickster to attack him (Though he may have been giving a quick warning before it arrived). He's at his worst in the manga adaptation for Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, where he throws a hedgehog at the Queen of Hearts and frames Roxas for it.
• Kick the Dog: The Disney version. After letting Alice take the blame for his pranks against the Queen, he vanishes, only to return at the end of Alice's trial, after Alice's failed attempt to stand up for herself, to make sure things go as bad as possible for her:
  Alice: Now as for you, Your Majesty... *starts shrinking* "Your Majesty," indeed! Why, you're not a queen! You're just a fat, pompous, bad-tempered old — *finally realizes she has shrunk down to normal size and is smaller than the Queen* — tyrant.
  Queen of Hearts: *smiling dangerously* And what were you saying, my dear?
  Cheshire Cat: *suddenly appears* Well, she simply said you're a fat, pompous, bad-tempered old tyrant! *laughs and disappears again*
  Queen of Hearts: OFF WITH HER HEAD!
  • Seems like some people at Disney thought this made him too much of a Jerkass, though, and in one of the Recursive Adaptation novelizations of the movie, this part is actually changed to the Cat redeeming himself with a pseudo-Big Damn Heroes moment; instead of showing up to make things worse for Alice at the trial, he shows up to confess, and to distract the Queen and the guards with a lot of nonsense, some of which is taken directly from the original book, allowing Alice to escape in the confusion.
• Literalist Snarking: In the Disney version.
  Cheshire Cat: (while standing on his own head) Can you stand on your head?
  Cheshire Cat: (while slowly disappearing) You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.
• Nice Guy: By Wonderland standards, anyway. In the book, he's without question the friendliest character Alice meets, being the only one who actually listens to her without getting unreasonably offended or start insulting or threatening her. It's telling that when he reappears, Alice is actually glad to see him.
  • This carries over into the 2010 adaptation as well; the first thing he does on screen is ask Alice where she got her wounds, then offer to use his reality warping to heal them for her. When she refuses, he politely asks if he can at least bandage it for her.
• Only Sane Man: In the Duchess's house, at least. Subverted, though, in that he proudly considers himself mad.
• Perpetual Smiler: Something Alice finds unsettling at first.
• Reality Warper: Is capable of things that other Wonderlanders aren't, such as turning invisible, teleporting and even taking himself apart. While in the book he only seems to be able to affect himself, adaptations tend to ramp his reality bending powers up until he's basically the Wonderland equivalent to Q. In the 2010 film, he even transforms into the Hatter to save him from execution.
• Talking Animal: It's might seem like a normal cat at first, but its smile and talking suggests otherwise.
• Teleporters and Transporters: One of his most famous abilities.
• The Trickster: In the Disney film; and what is more, many other versions of this character follow it as well, having the cat get Alice in trouble, but never being truly mean-spirited, just mysterious.

The Tea Party

The Hatter (Hatta)

• Breakout Character: Despite having a relatively brief appearance in the book (and its sequel), the Mad Hatter is one of the most enduring elements of the Alice iconography.
• The Cameo: He makes a brief appearance in Through the Looking-Glass as "Hatta". The illustrations confirm that it's him.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: A more literal case, as during the court scene, he states that the hat he's wearing isn't his, and that being a hatter, he has no hat of his own.
• Composite Character: With Humpty Dumpty (the "unbirthday" routine) in the Disney adaptation.
• Dreadful Musician: Well, given that the Queen of Hearts wanted to execute him for his singing at the royal concert, this can be implied, but given her nature, it may be taken with a pinch of salt.
• Eye Take: When Alice reprimands him for making "personal remarks."
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": His real name is Hatta according to Through the Looking-Glass, but he's most often referred to as the Hatter (or The Mad Hatter, in popular culture).
• Given Name Reveal: His real name isn't given until the sequel.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With The Hare.
• I Am Not Shazam: He is never called The Mad Hatter, only The Hatter, though the chapter he appears in is called 'The Mad Tea Party', and the Cheshire Cat refers to him and the March Hare as mad.
• Jerkass: He's extremely tactless, especially to Alice and the Dormouse.
• The Mad Hatter: The Trope Namer
• Non Sequitur: His entire conversational style.
• Those Two Guys: He and the March Hare are the only pair of dream-characters to appear in Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (although in the second book, they're called "Hatta" and Haigha").
• Token Human: To the tea party, which he is the only human (or at least humanoid) member of.

The March Hare (Haigha)

• Deadpan Snarker: A bit more so than his friend, particularly in the animated Disney film.
• Driven to Madness: Possibly—he went mad right after the Hatter and Time quarreled, though it's unknown whether Time caused the Hare to go mad or it was just a coincidence being March ("mad as a March Hare" is the phrase the character's namesake comes from).
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": His real name is Haigha (pronounced to rhyme with "mayor") according to Through the Looking-Glass, but he's most often referred to as the March Hare.
• Given Name Reveal: His real name isn't given until the sequel.
• Funny Animal: He talks and attends tea parties. In Looking-Glass, he is the White Queen's messenger.
• The Gadfly: As Haigha, he teases and picks on the White King, even though he is supposed to be the White King's servant.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With The Hatter. Through the Looking-Glass in particular has him almost show a paternal kindness toward the Hatter once he (Hatter) gets out of prison.
• Suddenly Shouting: In Looking-Glass, after telling the White King to lean in close so he can whisper, Haigha yells in his ear.
• Those Two Guys: He and the Hatter are the only pair of dream-characters to appear in Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (although in the second book, they're called "Hatta" and Haigha", with "Haigha" pronounced to rhyme with "mayor").

The Dormouse

• Butt-Monkey: Is often the brunt of abuse from both the Hatter and the March Hare. When Alice leaves the tea party, she notices the two of them trying to stuff him into a tea pot.
• Composite Character: With the Mouse in the two Disney films. Though the only trait from the Mouse he gets is his fear of cats.
• Funny Animal: He talks and attends tea parties.
• Sleepy Head: Lampshaded by the Hatter.
  Dormouse: You might as well say that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same as "I sleep when I breathe".
  Hatter: It is the same with you.

Time

• Anthropomorphic Personification: To quote the Hatter, Time is not an "it", he's a "he".
• Disproportionate Retribution: Took such great offense at the Hatter's poor performance at the Queen's concert that he froze him at tea time forever.
• The Ghost: He never physically appears, but the Hatter mentions him, explaining why he and his friends are always stuck at tea time.
• Time Master: He is time, so naturally he can manipulate time as he wishes.
• Time Stands Still: Did this to the Hatter.

The Cards

The Queen of Hearts

• The All-Solving Hammer: Her response to any problem is to threaten someone with beheading.
• Alpha Bitch: She's the ruler of her sector of Wonderland, and threatens anyone who does something she dislikes with beheading.
• Ax-Crazy: She's obsessed with chopping off heads, but never actually does it and her orders for beheading are always pardoned by the king—in the original book, anyway. Nearly every adaptation has her go through with the executions.
• Big Bad Wannabe: She talks constantly about how she'll behead anyone who gets in her way, but they never actually go through with it.
• The Caligula: As the ruler of the cards (and, presumably, Wonderland), she acts like a petulant, tantrum-throwing child, uses living creatures as props in her games, and orders people executed for petty or nonsensical reasons (thankfully, these executions are seldom actually carried out).
• Catchphrase: "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"
• Composite Character: With the Red Queen in many adaptations, notably in the Tim Burton film.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the Hallmark TV movie.
  Knave of Hearts: Would I lie to you?
  Queen of Hearts: Yes.
  Later
  Queen of Hearts: I am NOT in the habit of talking to myself! And yet, that's the only way I can get an intelligent conversation around here.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Threatened beheading is her response to everything.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: She's a queen who who seems only interested in bossing people around and executing them.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She seems very easily angered.
• Jerkass: She's mean and spiteful, and that's before she orders your head chopped off.
• Large Ham: She is not subtle in what she feels or wants.
• Evil Is Hammy: One of the loudest and most dramatic characters in the books, and also the cruelest.
• Pimped-Out Dress: In the Disney animated version in particular, her dress is vibrant and rather large. Heart-themed of course.
• Playing Card Motifs: The Queen of Hearts.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: She's basically a spoiled bratty child trapped in the body of a tyrannical adult queen.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Red to her husband's Blue.
• Wicked Heart Symbol: You wouldn't expect a queen of hearts, of all things, to be so cruel.

The King of Hearts

• Cannot Tell a Joke: So he has to inform people that he's telling a joke in order to get them to laugh.
• Henpecked Husband: Made even clearer in the Disney version.
• Manchild: He is petty and sensitive, and while not as tyrannical as his wife, he doesn't seem to care about ruling responsibly any more than her.
• Pet the Dog: While he generally goes along with what his wife wants, he pardons the people she orders executed behind her back.
• Playing Card Motifs: The King of Hearts.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Tries to be one, anyway.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Blue to his wife's Red.

The Knave of Hearts

• Butt-Monkey: He's put on trial for stealing the Queen's tarts, which he may or may not have done.
• Playing Card Motifs: The Jack/Knave of Hearts, and serves the King and Queen.

Others

The Caterpillar

• Adaptational Species Change: A variant; some adaptations have him metamorphose into a butterfly at the end of his scene, which he didn't do in the book.
• Breakout Character: While he's only in one scene, he's become one of the most iconic characters of the book, overshadowing similar one-scene characters like the Mouse, the Mock Turtle, or the Gryphon.
• Catchphrase: "Who are you?"
• Civilized Animal: He's a caterpillar that talks and smokes a hookah.
• Commander Contrarian: It seems that the Caterpillar's automatic response to anything Alice says is to disagree.
• Deadpan Snarker: In some adaptations. The 2010 adaptation deserves a special mention, as he's voiced by Alan "Severus Snape" Rickman.
• Intellectual Animal: He talks in a very refined way.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's haughty, impatient and grouchy... but he does help Alice out.
• Metamorphosis: In some adaptations, he becomes a butterfly.
• The Omniscient: A common portrayal of him in adaptations and reimaginings is that he knows absolutely everything (American McGee's Alice and the Tim Burton adaptation are standouts here). In the book, we have no confirmation that he's omniscient, but compared to all the other animals in Wonderland, he might as well be.
• Only Sane Man: Sort of. The Caterpillar can tell Alice’s version of "Father William" is wrong and is confused by her claims that she has been changed into someone else several times over the course of the day… but it also believes changing size repeatedly would be not a bit confusing and is frustratingly difficult to converse with due to its short, contrarian responses and tendency to sit in extended silence between remarks. In general, the Caterpillar seems to have little regard for anything other than smoking its hookah.
• Power Glows: In the 1999 Hallmark adaptation, especially when he turns into a butterfly.
• Smoking Is Cool: He smokes from a hookah. Quite a few adaptations (the two Disney movies especially) have him inflict Second-Face Smoke on Alice as well.
• Suddenly Shouting: In the Disney adaptation:
  Alice: The other side of what?
  The Caterpillar, now a Butterfly: THE MUSHROOM, OF COURSE!
• Telepathy: Implied; at one point, he responds to Alice's thoughts as though she said them out loud.

The Pigeon

• Ambiguous Gender: A lot of the animals in Wonderland lack established genders (even the Dodo and the Cheshire Cat were referred to as "it"s by the narrative) but this one is especially confusing; the Pigeon apparently has eggs to hatch, which is why it's so afraid of serpents, but it's never established if it laid the eggs (which, for obvious reasons, would designate it female) or was just hatching them (a job that would go to either gender). The Disney version portrays it as female.
• Nervous Wreck: Possibly more-so than the White Rabbit!
• Talking Animal: Alice definitely hears its voice.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: After Alice accidentally makes her neck grow to enormous proportions, it mistakes her for a serpent and panics.

The Gryphon

• Deadpan Snarker: He heckles Alice and the Mock Turtle.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: With the Mock Turtle while explaining the Lobster Quadrille.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With the Mock Turtle.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: When the Mock Turtle cries too hard to speak, the Gryphon shakes him and punches him in the back until he pulls himself together.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He insults both Alice and the Mock Turtle (but mostly Alice) regularly, he's impatient and often rude, but overall he's one of the more amiable creatures in Wonderland.
• Only Sane Man: Seems to consider himself this in comparison to the Queen of Hearts and the Mock Turtle. He's actually just as wacky as everyone else in Wonderland, but he's a little nicer than them at the same time.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Manly Man to the Mock Turtle's Sensitive Guy.

The Mock Turtle

• Finishing Each Other's Sentences: With the Gryphon while explaining the Lobster Quadrille.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With the Gryphon, it seems. They went to school together and are still friends.
• Hurricane of Puns:He seems to like them.
• I'm Crying, but I Don't Know Why: He cries a lot. According to the Gryphon, he has no reason to cry whatsoever.
• Inelegant Blubbering: He periodically sobs so hard that he can't talk – "Same as if he had a bone in his throat," says the Gryphon.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: He's a turtle with the head and tail of a calf, a reference to "mock turtle soup", which was usually made from calf parts.
• Nice Guy: Like the Gryphon, he does casually insult Alice in between his crying fits, but by Wonderland standards he's one of the nicest.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Sensitive Guy to the Gryphon's Manly Man.

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