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Main Characters
Snow White
Played by: Kristen Stewart
- Action Dress Rip: The Huntsman rips Snow White's dress so she can move through the forest easily.
- Attempted Rape: Finn tries to do this to Snow White in prison while she's lying on her bed. However, she strikes his face with a nail.
- Braids of Action: Snow White puts her long hair in a braid when she leads the Resistance against the Queen's kingdom.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The Huntsman and Snow White, respectively.
- Friend to All Living Things: As a child, Snow White nursed a baby magpie back to health from a broken wing; when she escapes, magpies guide her through the sewers and to a White Stallion.
- Girl in the Tower: Once Ravenna usurps the kingdom, she locks Snow White away in a prison for several years instead of killing her immediately.
- Informed Attractiveness: Her beauty is constantly commented upon, although much of it is allegedly in regards to her "inner beauty".
- Informed Attribute: Snow White is supposed to be so loving, compassionate and full of life that people fall in love with her only by looking at her. However, she never displays a greater amount of emotion or caring than several other characters of the film - and indeed, often shows less.
- Instant Expert: Snow White knows how to ride a horse and fight with sword and shield, despite never having had an opportunity to develop those skills, what with being locked in a tower for years.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: Snow White is given the Joan of Arc treatment in many ways. She acts as a symbol of resistance to a foreign usurper, fights in plate armour, and is considered something of a living saint.
- Kneel Before Frodo: The people at the Duke's castle kneel in awe before Snow White.
- Like Brother and Sister: William and Snow White. They used to play with each other as kids and were constantly bickering.
- Rousing Speech: She gives one to the Resistance to inspire them to take back Ravenna's kingdom rather than continue hiding.
- Something about a Rose: Snow White's mother is inspired by a rose blooming in winter, and hopes that her child will have the strength and courage of the flower.
- Tomboy Princess: As a child, Snow White likes climbing trees and playing with boys.
- Tragic Keepsake: Gus's sword, which is passed onto her after the former takes an arrow that was meant for her.
- True Beauty Is on the Inside: Whilst the film recognises Snow White as the Fairest of Them All, what defines her from Ravenna and what is ultimately more important is her inner beauty.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: Played with in that the movie emphasizes that this a combination of both her inner and outer beauty.
- Xenafication: In this version, Snow White goes Joan of Arc on her enemies.
The Huntsman
Played by: Chris Hemsworth
- Adaptational Badass: Was in minor role in the tale.
- The Alcoholic: The Huntsman takes a swig before doing anything, including teaching a young girl to use pointy objects, giving romantic advice, giving a heartfelt speech..
- Ascended Extra: The Huntsman's role is much larger and more important than in the original fairy tale.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: William and the Huntsman against an evil, magical flock of ravens.
- Betty and Veronica: Though the Love Triangle is only hinted at, it's clear that devoted childhood friend William is the Betty while initially reluctantly helpful, alcoholic older man Eric is the Veronica to Snow White.
- Covered in Mud: The Huntsman when we are first introduced to him.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Despite all the strong foreshadowing that he and Snow White would end up together in the first movie, it's revealed in Winter's War that Snow married William instead. That being said, he does get his original wife Sara back in the sequel.
- The Drag-Along: A several stages of the story, he wants no part.
- Emotional Bruiser: The Huntsman, who initially hides behind a mask of cynicism, becomes this thanks to Character Development.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Huntsman. Even the credits don't list his real name As per Winter's War, its Eric.
- Held Gaze: At the end of the movie between Snow White and the Huntsman, who also do this a couple of other times throughout the movie.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: The Huntsman, before proceeding to knock out all of Finn's men and send Finn himself flying into a pit of hallucinogenic mushrooms.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Huntsman tries to leave Snow White, and is asked how he can possibly be that cold.
Antagonists
Queen Ravenna
Played by: Charlize Theron
- Adaptational Badass: The original evil queen had magical powers too, but in this movie, she uses them to become a flock of crows and is also a physical fighter when required.
- Adaptational Sympathy: In the original fairytale, the evil queen doesn't get much motive for trying to kill her stepdaughter and consume her organs beyond the fact she's a cruel, jealous tyrant who can't stand anyone being prettier than her. In this film, Ravenna is given a backstory in which she was taken away from her mother by a cruel king and forced to become his mistress; she also indicates she and her brother lived in poverty at some point "begging for scraps". Ravenna spent much of her life being used and abused by men, with her mother casting a spell upon her to give her everlasting youth and beauty as it was "the only thing that could save [her]", although she must still drain other people's lifeforce to maintain this eventually. The reason she wants to consume Snow White's heart is less from jealousy and more from the fact she would be eternally youthful and never have her power threatened again. Deep down Ravenna believes that without her beauty she is nothing, having apparently never grasped the concept of inner beauty thanks to her Freudian Excuse.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: She mops the floor with Snow White in the final battle.
- Beauty Is Bad: Very easy on the eyes due to her actress, but her personality makes it hard to ignore the loathsome monster she truly is deep inside.
- Big Bad: In Snow White and the Huntsman. She needs the titular female protagonist dead so she can become immortal.
- Black Widow: She married the King and usurped his throne after killing him.
- Dark Action Girl: She kicks Snow White's ass for the most part in the movie's climax. She's just as formidable against the Huntsman's group in the sequel, though when Freya turns on her, the odds become a bit more even.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For all her evilness, she does seem to care about her brother Finn, and breaks down in tears at his death. She loves her mother and her sister Freya too (not that it stops her from betraying the latter).
- Faux Affably Evil: Ravenna is polite and courteous towards Snow White when they first meet. It doesn't last long.
- Freudian Excuse: Her mother was murdered when she was just a child and she and her siblings were taken captive by an evil king, who is implied to have raped her. She and siblings also grew up in poverty. As a result, she hates men and believes that being beautiful and cruel is the only way to protect herself, and that the world deserves to be treated like crap.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Started out as a simple peasant girl; ended up an incredibly powerful sorceress and queen.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Her endgame is to "give this wretched world the queen it deserves" and she does a pretty good job of terrorizing and oppressing people.
- Immortality Immorality: She drains the beauty out of girls to maintain her own.
- Lady of Black Magic: She's an elegant and powerful sorceress of dark magic.
- Large Ham: She's easily one of the hammiest characters in the films.
- Magic Knight: Not only is she a powerful sorceress, she also has great skill in physical combat.
- Ms. Fanservice: Ravenna has her breasts emphasized early on in the film in her wedding scene, and a couple of her dresses emphasize her back.
- Paper Tiger: Her powers both magical and physical make her near impossible to combat, so much so that within their Curbstomp Battle, when Snow White finally manages to stab her, she cowers from her in a panic, unable to comprehend how she could have mortally wounded her.
- Sorcerous Overlord: She's a powerful queen that utilizes both fear and magic to keep others in line.
- Villainous Breakdown:
- She suffers an epic one early in the movie after Snow White escapes the castle.
- When Snow White finally manages to mortally wound her, she squirms from her in terror and disbelief.
- Would Hurt a Child: She murdered her own infant niece because she might grow up to be more beautiful than her twenty years down the road, threatening the source of her power.
Finn
Played by: Sam Spruell
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The closest thing he has to a redeeming trait is that he does care about his sister Ravenna.
- Evil Gloating: He gloats to The Huntsman about raping and killing Sara. Most likely he did it to demoralize the Huntsman but it had the opposite effect and gave the Huntsman his Heroic Second Wind.
- Undignified Death: Gets impaled against the splintered end of a tree trunk in the midst of taunting the Huntsman about murdering his wife, and spends his final moments meekly pleading for his sister to heal him.
- Villain Ball: Most of Finn's failure rate (and a lot of Ravenna's downfall) is owed to his reckless sadism and inability to resist stopping to mock his prey. Ultimately doing this gets him killed by the Huntsman.
- Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: He taunts the Huntsman about raping and killing his wife, right before his death.
Freya
Played by: Emily Blunt
- Anti-Villain: Due to her tragic background and her child's death.
- Big Bad: In The Huntsman: Winter's War. Her search for the magical mirror to resurrect Ravenna drives the plot.
- Fisher King: After becoming the Snow Queen, she used her magic to convert the lands of the North into a frozen wasteland. After her death, the land is restored to its original state.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: She is more sympathetic than her sister mind you, but she used her powers to keep her domain in perpetual winter and had young children captured to be trained as her warriors.
- An Ice Person: She manipulates cold and ice, being able to summon eternal winter over the Northern lands.
- Icy Blue Eyes: She has these, which go along well with her ice-based theme.
- Large Ham: Emily Blunt is clearly having fun chewing up the entire film.
- Mama Bear: She turns on Ravenna the moment she harms her 'children'. It costs her her life.
- Meaningful Name: She shares the same name as Freyja, the Norse goddess of love, beauty and sorcery.
- Redemption Equals Death: She dies protecting her Huntsmen from Ravenna.
- Remember the New Girl?: Freya is Ravenna's younger sister and the one who raised Eric the Huntsman and trained him to become a badass, and yet she was never mentioned in the previous movie.
- Tragic Villain: While her actions were indeed atrocious, they stemmed from heartbreak after the loss of her child, and wanting to keep her 'children' from suffering the same loss.
- Winter Royal Lady: She's an ice-themed magical queen.
