''I was but seven year auld When my mither she did die; My father married the ae warst woman The warld did ever see.
— The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
The Wicked Stepmother, the woman hostile to her stepchildren, is a perennial trope. Older Than Feudalism, she appears constantly in legends and folklore around the world. She seldom appears played straight in modern works, except when they are retelling Fairy Tales, but the number of retold fairy tales (especially "Cinderella", "Snow White", and "Hansel and Gretel") gives her a number of straight appearances. Many psychologists hypothesize that she is an Archetypal Character, devised by children to contain all they hate in their mothers so they can continue to regard Mother as perfect. Sadly enough, Truth in Television; children are vastly more likely to abused by stepparents (and people cohabiting with the parent are even worse). For any or all of these reasons, even decades (centuries?) of subversion have not tranformed her even into a Discredited Trope; she can still be played straight or subverted. Shout Outs are commonplace whenever dealing with a stepfamily.
She generally favors her own children — whether from a previous marriage or this one — over her stepchildren. Sometimes her economic motives are made clear: there is only so much to go around, and she wants it for herself or her own children. An equivalent male figure is the Evil Uncle — because inheritance is generally through the male line, the uncle can inherit his brother's children's estate. Envy is another common cause; the Wicked Stepmother either wants to be Fairest of Them All or to have her daughters be so.
On the other hand, the stepsiblings or halfsiblings can but need not be hostile to the hero(ine). If they are hostile, Youngest Child Wins is trumped by the older child's stepchild status.
The father is seldom a factor. If not dead (which is common), he will nevertheless never intervene on his child's behalf.
Her tactics vary widely. She may simply oppress the heroine, keeping her in rags and slaving at household work — sometimes going as far as assigning the Impossible Task. As a Wicked Witch, she may transform the child(ren) into animals. She may drive or send them off. She may act violently toward them and even kill them (and perhaps cap that by cooking them up and serving them to their father.)
The stepchild(ren) may succeed in defeating her through help from their real though dead mother — the Grimms' version of "Cinderella", "Aschenputtel", has Aschenputtel get her gowns from the tree planted on her mother's grave. Talking Animals may also feature, as can a Fairy Godmother. These figures can do everything from performing the Impossible Task on behalf of the child to ensuring that She Cleans Up Nicely despite the dirt and rags she is reduced to.
On the other hand, writers sometimes Bowdlerise fairy tales by transforming a cruel mother into a wicked stepmother. Grimms' original tales of "Snow White" and "Hansel and Gretel" both featured a cruel mother.
Her chances of surviving the ending are not good. The Happily Ever After ending of most fairy tales often dwells with more detail on how the Wicked Stepmother and/or her children were punished than on the hero and happiness. On the other hand, stepmothers who are not disposed of often return; when she is not executed at the wedding, she may, for instance, try to kill the heroine when she gives birth and replace her with her own daughter; so the Fairy Tale doesn't end (happily or not) until she's dead.
Sometimes preceded by a Guess Who I'm Marrying? scenario. Can involve a Missing Mom; older stories usually do, often caused by Death by Childbirth.
A common subversion is the jealousDaddy's Girl regarding any stepmother as a Wicked Stepmother.
The Red-Headed Stepchild is a particular victim.
Subtrope of Evil Matriarch. Note that the Magical Nanny often becomes a stepmother, but never a wicked one. Department of Child Disservices is a modern organized variation.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
An episode of the Hentai anthology series Cool Devices features a corrupt detective stepfather drugging his stepdaughter and gang-raping her along with two drug manufacturers.
In Elfen Lied, Mayu is raped by her stepfather until she eventually runs away
Similarly Hinako' rapist in Bitter Virgin is her stepdad. She even was impregnated twice by him, the first being a stillbirth and the second resulting in a baby boy whom she gave up for adoption to Give Him A Normal Life.
In Fruits Basket, when they realize how woefully miscast the characters are in a Cinderella play, they rewrite the play, titling it "Sorta Cinderella" . An Elegant Gothic Lolita Cinderella is impervious to her Wicked Stepmother's demands; but she loves her sweet and innocent stepsister, who suffers at the mother's hands because she wishes to marry her off.
The entire play runs along the same lines; flat and emotionless Cinderella calmly asks pretty-boy Fairy Godparent to burn down the palace, ignores the Prince while obsessing over the meat dishes at the ball, plays matchmaker to the Prince and stepsister... Curiously enough, the cruel and domineering wicked stepmother is the only cast member who takes naturally to her role.
In Ghost Hunt, a little girl's possessed doll told her that her stepmother was evil and trying to poison her.
Prétear, being a mixture of "Snow-White" and "Cinderella" turned into a Magical Girl anime, does provide the main character with a stepmother, clearly aiming to invoke this trope, but then subverts it — sure, Natsue is strict, but not evil, not to mention that she is so much in love with Himeno's father Kaoru she'd rather spend her time with him instead of lecturing Himeno. In the original manga, Natsue is more cruel, but still obsessed with Kaoru, to the point of not caring not only for Himeno, but also for her own daughters. And in this continuity she was possessed by the Big Bad, so it's not entirely her fault...
In Petshop Of Horrors Tokyo there is an inversion in one story in which the stepmother is the protagonist and the stepdaughter is wicked and is tying to make sure that she is left penniless by tricking her ill father into divorcing the woman. Little does she know is that her father is not as ill as he seems.
In Ranma 1/2, the secondary character Konatsu has a Wicked Stepmother (who bears a remarkable resemblance to late actor Edward G Robinson) and two Wicked and UGLY Stepsisters. Konatsu's entire life story is a direct and unabashed ripoff of the Cinderella tale's backstory (except for the cross-dressing ninja part).
Shigeko from Pieta does her best to marginalize and shove Rio to the side, so that she doesn't interfere with her picturesque family life.
Saiyuki: Gyokumen. Big time towards Kougaiji. Made even worse when it's revealed she doesn't even like her own daughter.
In the Child ballad "Rose the Red and White Lily", the heroines' stepmother hates them so much that when her own sons fall in love with them, she sends them away. Her stepdaughters decide to flee and rejoin their lovers.
Comic Books
Invoked by Layla Miller of X Factor Investigations. She asked a client why did she think her stepmother could have done something terrible, aside for the "stepmothers are evil trope".
Subverted in Labyrinth, where the stepmother complains that Sarah treats her like this figure. Sarah's Character Development in the movie reveals the real problem is Sarah's jealousy toward her stepmother and new half-brother.
That depends. Although Sarah does clearly have jealousy issues with her father's new wife and their baby, her stepmother isn't exactly a saint, either; she spends her one scene being snappish and insensitive, implying it's acceptable to take her for granted because, being a loner and a bit of a geek, she doesn't date.
Something similar happens in Juno, in which the title character's relationship with her stepmother improves greatly throughout the film.
Enchanted has a scene where Giselle happily explains that Prince Edward's stepmother, Queen Narissa, is an exception to this. Of course, Narissa is a Wicked Stepmother, but Giselle was too just Genre Blind to realize it.
Of course, Giselle ends up becoming a stepmother by the end of the movie, so this trope is averted as well.
There's also a Shout Out where Morgan is worried that Nancy will be a wicked stepmother. The fact Nancy's surname is "Tremaine" probably doesn't help.
At which point Giselle says that most are aversions. "I've met many step-mothers, and most of them are very nice." Of course, since Giselle was mistaken about her own stepmother, we can't be sure she wasn't mistaken about this statement as well.
But subverted near the end, when the Baroness pulls a I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, ending her engagement with Captain Von Trapp, after he had realize that he had loved Maria.
And also subverted by Maria, when she marries Captain Von Trapp, as the children loved her before the marriage and only loved her more after the marriage when she became their mother.
Played with in The Uninvited, where Elizabeth Banks's character is the father's new girlfriend, after his wife died in a fire. Throughout the movie, Anna keeps seeing ghostly images of her dead mother seemingly accusing the girlfriend (who was her nurse) of setting the fire. In fact, Anna was the one who accidentally set the fire, killing her mother and sister, and blocked it out with the memories manifesting as ghostly images. The girlfriend was simply trying to be nice to her.
A Tale of Two Sisters, the Korean movie on which The Uninvited is based, plays the scenario very similarly although it seems a lot more likely that the stepmother did in fact have a hand in the mother's death. Given the Mind Screw that is this movie, it's hard to be sure.
Played with in Nanny McPhee. Lily says that she does not want a stepmother because of all the wicked stepmothers she has read about in books. Averted by Evangeline having a good stepmother. Played straight by Selma Quidgly, who would have become a very nasty stepmother to the kids...had she married Mr. Brown. Subverted by Evangeline- whom the kids adored- becoming the kids' stepmother in the end!
Sucker Punch has Baby Doll's stepfather, who in the first scene flies into a drunken rage after learning that Baby Doll and her sister are their mother's beneficiaries rather than him. He then proceeds to try and rape the girls and commits her to a Bedlam House after she fights back (accidentally killing her sister), bribing the corrupt head orderly into giving Baby Doll a lobotomy.
Sleepy Hollow has Lady Von Tassell, who offs her husband and tries to off her stepdaughter in order to inherit the family fortune. She's also implied to have killed the first wife while posing as her nurse.
It Takes Two has Clarice Kensington, who almost became one except that Alyssa's father called off the engagement.
Fairy Tales
In The Brothers Grimm's "The Juniper Tree" and in Joseph Jacobs's "The Rose Tree", the stepmother kills the child, cooks the body, and serves the dish to the child's father — a girl in "The Rose Tree", but the boy of "The Juniper Tree" is the more common form. In most versions, the child gets better. (Note that the half-sibling in these stories is invariably on good terms with the stepchild.)
In "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", the stepmother enchanted her stepson into a bear form out of revenge because he would not marry her daughter.
In "The Boys with Golden Stars" the stepmother tried to kill her stepson's children — again because he had chosen a bride other than her daughter.
In "The Twelve Wild Ducks", the stepmother is jealous of her stepson's bride's beauty and tries to have her killed.
In "The Three Little Men In the Wood", the stepmother sends her stepdaughter into the woods on an impossible task to kill her. When she returns having won magical rewards with her good manners, she sends her daughter after and is furious when her ill-tempered daughter is justly punished. When the stepdaughter marries the king, she tries to murder her and replace her with her own daughter.
In "The White Bride and The Black One", after a similar distribution of curses, the stepmother tries to murder the stepdaughter en route to her wedding and replace her with her daughter.
In "Brother and Sister" the stepmother drives off the title characters with her cruelty, tries to enchant them into animal forms (and succeeds with Brother), and tries to murder Sister after her marriage and replace her with her own daughter.
In "The Wonderful Birch", a Wicked Witch turns the heroine's mother into a sheep and by shapeshifting takes her place; she has the sheep killed and feeds it to the woman's husband, although the daughter does not eat and manages to bury the bones. Then she does everything in Cinderella and then enchants her stepdaughter after the wedding and puts her own daughter in her place.
The stepmothers in "The Green Knight" and "Cenerentola" persuade the heroines to get their fathers to marry them, and then start to abuse them.
In "The Well At the World's End", the stepmother sends her stepdaughter to the title well with a sieve and then forces her to obey the frog from sheer nastiness.
In "Katie Woodencloak", Katie flees her stepmother in fear for her life.
In "The Black Thief and the Knight of the Glen", the stepmother plays a game of cards with her stepsons so she can force them on an impossible quest. The youngest wins against her but decides to go with his brothers.
In "The Ridere of Riddles", the stepmother tries to poison her stepson. Her son, however, loves his brother, warns him, and then flees with him.
In "Katie Crackernuts", the envious stepmother has her stepdaughter Anne's head turned into a sheep's head. Subverted in that the Katie of the title is her own daughter, who sees what she's done and sets out with her stepsister Anne to escape and solve the problem; normally the stepdaughter is the heroine.
Story 25 of "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio", seen here; as a summation doesn't do this story justice, just read the whole thing. Note, however, that the Stepmother is the only one denied a Happily Ever After.
Some version of "Hansel and Gretel" have the father only sending the kids out after the stepmother convinces him.
Aoife in The Children Of Lir - turning Badhb the Red's children into swans is just the start of her evil, and even suffering a Fate Worse than Death can't stand in the way of her plans.
"Rapunzel" had a Wicked Witch for an adoptive mother - but when you consider that her real mother was a drug-addict who sold her own daughter to get her next fix, she was probably better off that way.
Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles features "The Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers' Traveling, Drinking, and Debating Society," including the "Men's Auxiliary" which has a few Wicked Stepfathers, but is mainly for Wicked Uncles. In one book, when the Genre Savvy hero runs across a princess lamenting her exile in the forest, he concluded that she and her stepmother had cooked it up between them.
Subverted in Tanith Lee's Red as Blood, retelling "Snow White" the stepdaughter is evil and the stepmother is trying to protect the kingdom.
Similarly in Neil Gaiman's Snow.Glass.Apples, Snow White is a vampire whom the good stepmother tries and fails to defeat while protecting the kingdom.
Subverted in The Princess Bride: Prince Humperdinck calls his stepmother "ES", short for Evil Stepmother, because when he was a child he used to think that all stepmothers are evil. She's actually stated to be the most beloved person in the kingdom, and she and Humperdinck have a very good relationship — the name is more of an endearment than anything.
But Humperdinck is the Big Bad, shouldn't that make her evil as well?
Humperdinck's actually presented as a reasonably decent person until he hatches his plan to make war against Guilder.
This trope is so old that the Tale of Genji, the world's oldest surviving novel, uses it and then lampshades it. Genji is the son of the Emperor but can't be named a successor because of his low-ranked mother and his evil stepmother, Kokiden. Later in the novel, Genji is talking about stories with his son and notes how tiring it is to see all the wicked stepmothers in the local stories.
A rare Evil Stepfather example occurs in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Speckled Band, which has Dr. Grimesby Roylott trying to eliminate his stepdaughters Julia and Helen before they have a chance to marry and inherit their share of their mother's fortune. Julia dies, but Helen manages to reach for Holmes before she perishes as well, and Roylott ends up having a Karmic Death.
Also from the Holmes canon is A Case of Identity, in which the heroine's stepfather is so eager to prevent her from marrying and collecting the money which is rightfully hers from her father, he masquerades as a different man, persuades his stepdaughter to marry him, and then leaves her at the altar — after extracting a promise from her that she will wait for him no matter how long it takes. Made even worse by the fact that her mother is in on the scheme, and doesn't seem to have a problem with it from what the reader is shown.
The heroine also makes a fairly decent living as a typist. If she married and moved out, her mother and stepfather would lose that income as well.
The Betsy The Vampire Queen books by Mary Janice Davidson have Antonia Taylor, Betsy's stepmother. She pursued a married man, destroying his marriage, and tried to turn him against his then-teenaged daughter. She wanted him to surrender full custody to his ex-wife, and when that failed, to send Betsy to military school. Her efforts continued into Betsy's thirties, when after Betsy's funeral, she eats a celebratory lobster dinner and books a cruise. She is even, at one point in the backstory, possessed by Lucifer for a year, and no one notices because she's so nasty by nature. Undead and Unworthy spoilers: After her death, The Ant comes back to haunt Betsy as a ghost because during life, her sole purpose was to torment Betsy. Part of this new torment includes walking in on Betsy and her husband during lovemaking, and making no apology or attempt to leave.
Another male example is Emily's stepfather in Cloud Of Sparrows, who beats and whips Emily's brothers and rapes Emily and her mother. He also murdered Emily's biological father, who was an altogether nicer chap.
Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield is an archetypal evil stepfather.
One could argue that Mrs. Reed from Jane Eyre, while technically an aunt, still qualifies as an evil stepmother. Not only does she play the part, she is Jane's aunt by marriage, and thus not a blood relative, so she is a Wicked Stepmother.
Juliet Marillier's first book in The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Daughter of the Forest, is a retelling of the fairy tale "The Six Swans" and deals with a very evil enchantress stepmother, Lady Oonagh, who turns her six step sons into swans and only their younger sister can reverse the spell.
Male example: Ganelon is Roland's stepfather in The Song of Roland and other material related to the Matter of France. He betrayed Charlemagne's rearguard during the retreat from Spain, leading to Roland's death at Roncesvalles.
Subverted in the children's book My Wicked Stepmother; having grown up on these stories, the young protagonist is determined to consider his new stepmother a wicked stepmother, but she's actually a genuinely nice person who tries her hardest to win him over.
Averted in The Silmarillion: Feanor's stepmother Indis is very decent and his father still seems to favour him over his younger children. Feanor is still insanely jealous though.
His feelings were arguably justified, if not when they were directed towards Indis: Feanor's mother suffered Death by Childbirth, but elves can come back to life after spending a certain amount of time in the afterlife. Notably, Feanor's father is the only elf we ever hear of remarrying.
Feanor's feelings aren't really justified ... Feanor's mother is explicitly stated to be beyond bringing back - her body didn't even die, actually, it went to sleep and is still breathing but the soul left it. I'm not certain how soon Finwe remarried, but it was after he had tried to bring back and grieved for his first wife. Feanor is simply shown throughout the story to be irrational and hateful at times, particularly when things dear to him are involved. It kind of kick-starts the plot.
Feanor's mother Miriel refused Finwe's repeated requests to come back to her perfectly usable body, and later admitted that she had abandoned Finwe and didn't blame him for marrying Indis. However, Finwe's second marriage made Miriel's death irrevocable.
Though Tolkien toyed with the notion that, after Finwe's death, he chose to stay dead and allowed Miriel to come back as a kind of Elven nun in the gardens of the gods; the only really unbreakable rule was that the "pure" Elves couldn't have two living spouses. (Two widows might possibly be fair game, though.)
Subverted in The Orphan's Tales by Catherynne M. Valente, in which one character becomes her stepmother's favourite and adores her in return.
"...my father married again...I see you smile, Witch. You think you know how these stories go. ... I quickly became my stepmother's favorite, quick and clever as I was."
Averted in Sense and Sensibility; Mrs. Dashwood was in fact a very kind stepmother to her husband's son from his first wife. It's John Dashwood who's a Jerk Ass.
An interesting spin happens in The Golden Bowl by Henry James (and the film it inspired of the same name). Maggie, the daughter of wealthy Adam, marries an impoverished prince, Amerigo. Maggie meanwhile thinks it would be a great idea to hook her widowed father up with her best friend Charlotte, thus making her best friend her stepmother. Neither Maggie nor Adam realizes, for a long time, that Amerigo and Charlotte are having an affair.
In L. M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valley, the minister's motherless children are told by another child that all stepmothers are wicked, it comes with the role. Nevertheless the youngest goes to persuade a woman to marry her father because her father is so miserable since she rejected him. And in Rilla of Ingliside it is clear that she is a perfectly lovely stepmother.
Max in the Codex Alera is a Heroic Bastard, the illegitimate older son of the High Lord on Antillus. Trouble is, Antillus married after he was born for political reasons, and he has a legitimate son, Crassus. Maximus has no intention of challenging Crassus's position as heir- however, Lady Antillus would prefer that the threat be eliminated so there's no way her son's inheritance can be threatened. As such, Max's mother died in an "accident", and he's been dodging similar attempts on his life since he was 14.
Sadly, when your normally loving and faithful husband comes home with an infant he claims as his bastard son, insists on openly raising said bastard at home in defiance of all custom, and not only refuses to discuss the matter but actually frightens you when you try to ask who the mother is, it's gonna be pretty hard to bear in mind that it's really not the kid's fault. Nice going, Ned.
Hinted also with Theon Greyjoy. In a Catelyn chapter in the second book it is mentioned that she never liked him.
In the Chinese Cinderella story Bound by Donna Jo Napoli, Xing Xing's stepmother rarely calls her by name, referring to her as the Lazy One, despite Xing Xing doing most of the work in the house. She constantly puts down Xing Xing, no matter how hard she worked to make her stepmother happy.
Male version: Percy Jackson had a Jerk Ass stepdad named "Smelly Gabe". Subverted with Paul Blofis, his next stepdad.
Also subverted with Annabeth's stepmom, who is WAAAAAAY better than Annabeth describes. Same with her dad.
With Annabeth, it seems like mostly a case of fear on her step-mom's part (which she eventually tried to get over), utter lack of parenting ability on her father's part, and a little kid's perspective plus several years of built-up bitterness on Annabeth's part. Once all parties were actually willing to work at being a stable family, they started getting along.
Enforced in the Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms; because the world runs on narrative causality, even stepmothers who don't start out evil become evil, unless Genre Savvy people can subvert it. Played with to hell and back in The Sleeping Beauty, where no less than three evil sorceresses try to enchant the king while he is still mourning his beloved wife; the local Fairy Godmother beats them to it and marries the king herself in disguise as the Obviously EvilWicked Stepmother.
Averted in Bonjou tristesse, where Anne is a good person if quite severe sometimes, and tries to put some order in the very hedonistic lives of Cécile and Raymond. Cécile likes her at first, but soon is so scared about the changes that she'll bring into her life (specially when Anne attempts playing Team Mom), that she manipulates the people around her (Raymond, his old mistress Elsa, and her own Dogged Nice Guy Cyril) into making Anne's life hard so she'll leave. Little does Cécile know that Anne will end up so broken that she'll be Spurned Into Suicide instead.
In C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, the nurse Batta tells the princesses that their new stepmother will be evil, just like in the stories she's told them. It turns out to be a subversion, as their stepmother is a frail, gentle young woman who is relatively kind to the girls until she dies in childbirth.
Averted in Doris Gates' Blue Willow, in which the stepmother is a good woman with an excellent relationship with the protagonist, Janey.
Averted in Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks on Gardam Street with Iantha.
In Aimee, Aimee's stepmother is this. Not only is she a Bible-thumping hypocrite, she actually rapes Aimee often.
In Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death, the victim is an old woman so tyrannical and flat-out evil that her death is seen as just as regrettable as the victim in Murder on the Orient Express, who was a kidnapper and murderer of children. She has three stepchildren and one daughter of her own. She mentally abuses them all out of a sadistic desire to see them suffer. This includes driving her own daughter to being a schizophrenic, her older stepson into divorce, and driving the younger two to desiring her death. Obviously, one of the family did her in. Except none of them did.
Live Action TV
The '80s SitcomThe Charmings, which was about Snow White, her husband, their two kids, and her stepmother in a modern setting.
In Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Hera, Queen of the Gods, acts as this towards her husband's bastard son Hercules. This is in keeping with original myths of their relationship, as Hera was responsible for the majority of hardships the hero faced in his life.
In the Lost episode "Abandoned," we learn Shannon is how she is partly due to her stepmother, who cuts her off after Shannon's father's death. Like many tellings of Cinderella, this is stated to be due to her jealousy of Shannon's relationship with her father.
The MST3K episode Jack Frost is based on a Russian legend of a Cinderella-esque girl who must endure abuse from her Standard Issue Fairy Tale Wicked Stepmother and stepsister. The girl's father is alive, but is so browbeaten that he doesn't object even when told to dump his daughter in the forest in the middle of winter.
On Port Charles, Caleb Morley was tricked and turned into a vampire by his stepmother (whom he had actually trusted, which is why his father used her).
Supernatural did an episode called Bedtime Stories that involved the Winchester brothers investigating a series of murders that resembled Fairy Tales. Fittingly, the spirit causing the murders was that of a comatose girl who'd been poisoned by her stepmother.
In one episode of Seinfeld, Jerry had a girlfriend whose stepmother was obsessed over her stepdaughter's speed dial, and she did not want to lose her spot to Jerry. Jerry's girlfriend finds out about her stepmother's plans, and throughout the rest of the episode, the two women take the speed dial more and more seriously.
Averted in The Brady Bunch, where both Mike and Carol are good stepparents- to the point where the boys call Carol "Mom" and the girls call Mike "Dad".
Somewhat averted in Step by Step, where there are no major issues between the stepparents and their stepkids, even if it is not quite as smooth a transition as in The Brady Bunch.
In Carrusel, Mario's stepmother Natalia starts out like this. She does become nicer, though.
The stepmother in the Korean SeriesShining Inheritance performed insurance fraud, kicked her stepchildren out into the cold, abandoned her stepson out in the sticks, and lied to her friends and employees about her personal circumstances.
In one episode of Bones, the Villain of the Week was the victim's stepmother, who killed him so her own son would get the whole inheritance. Since she sacrificed her medication to be able to poison him, she died in no more than five days after being discovered. (she didn't care about dying as long as her son got the money) Because her son wasn't guilty of any crime regarding the inheritance, he ''did'' get it all but wasn't comfortable with the means. The bad guy being the stepmother, who got what she wanted (her son getting her stepson's inheritance even if it costed her own life) and her victory being phyrric because he didn't approve her means.
The Adventures Of Shirley Holmes episode "The Case of the Rising Moon" featured a princess from an eastern land being targeted for murder. The princess, whose name means "Rising Moon", believed her stepmother was behind this because, with the princess dead, the stepmother's son would be the next in line for the throne. It was later revealed the stepmother was innocent and the conspiracy had been engineered by sexists who didn't want a woman as a ruler.
In Once Upon A Time, it turns out that the Evil Queen who poisoned Snow White was actually Snow's stepmother.
Mythology and Religion
Averted with Jesus, who had a kind, pious, and all-round good stepfather in Joseph the carpenter. Joseph is deserving of extra praise since he was Mary's first husband, and Jesus was conceived (virginally by God, mind you) while Joseph and Mary were engaged. (Even worse: in that time and culture, "engaged" was "married but not living together yet.")
In Ramayana, Rama is exiled from the kingdom as a result of plotting by Kaikeyi, who's not his mother but another one of his father's wives.
Sort of subverted, though. Kaikeyi was under a spell, and after Rama is exiled she spends the next five years fasting, praying and repenting for her actions, so when Rama returns, she is nearly unrecognizable.
Medea, when she goes to live with Ageus, tries to have him kill his son Theseus (before Ageus realized that Theseus was his son). He fared better than her own children with Jason, though.
Svipdag, in Norse mythology, was sent on a quest by his wicked stepmother.
Hera more or less personified this trope. Hercules/Heracles is already mentioned, but Zeus' other demi-god offspring, who were quite numerous, tended to face similar treatment. Her actions ranged from simple murder to transforming the children into mindless beasts. The fact that Zeus is Hera's brother also makes her an Evil Aunt to all these children.
A notable example was Hera's harassment of Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. While Leto was still pregnant with Zeus' progeny, Hera cursed Leto so that no land would accept her and set a serpent to stalk her in the oceans. Zeus had to set an island adrift so the serpent would finally stop chasing her.
Opera
Gioacchino Rossini subverts it in La Cenerentola, a retelling of Cinderella casting a stepfather as the villain. His motives are economic as so many fairy tale stepmothers; if the heroine does not marry, he can afford larger dowries for his own daughters
Engelbert Humperdinck subverts it in Hansel und Gretel; the stepmother sends the children out into the forest to gather strawberries, unaware of the dangers there.
Theater
In Euripides's Alcestis, Alcestis references this when pleading with her husband not to remarry after her death; he must spare her children any possible stepmother.
In "The Black Crook," believed to be the first musical, the heroine Amina is abused by her foster mother.
Originally, Odette in "Swan Lake" was enchanted by her stepmother, with the help of the demon, Rothbart. Later productions avert this and make Rothbart the lone villain.
Inverted in Bioshock 2: Eleanor Lamb much more favors her monstrous adopted father over her own uncaring mother and resurrects him to save her from her mother's imprisonment and becoming a tool in her mother's mad plan.
Umineko no Naku Koro ni plays with this. Battler gets along with his stepmother, Kyrie and his half-sister Ange despite leaving home for six years due to his father remarrying Too Soon after his mother's death. Then later arcs reveal that Kyrie hated his mother, Asumu. A lot. To the point where she flat out states that if Asumu hadn't died on her own, she would have killed her. Then the penultimate arc reveals that she's a Complete Monster who doesn't even care for her own daughter. Oh, and it turns out that Kyrie is actually Battler's real mother. How much of this is true is... Debatable.
But almost played straight with Coco LaBouche. Fortunately, Chuckie's dad noticed how "wicked" she was just in time to dump her at the altar.
Noticed? It took the babies escaping from being locked up in a storage room, piloting a Mecha-Reptar Stu had built, and Angelica spilling the beans as payback for a The Cake Is a Lie incident that pressured Coco into confessing that she's only doing it to keep being a Reptar franchisee. It Gets Worse for her naturally, the creator of Reptar was discreetly attending the wedding.
Used in Winx Club 's season 3 arc about Stella's dad planning to marry an evil countess, who was evil even before she made the deal with Valtor. Quite a few fans complained about the show resorting to such an old chestnut, and the fact that the plot unfolded in an almost completely predictable (and uninteresting) manner didn't help matters either.
Completely averted on Phineas and Ferb, to the extent you have to pay close attention to notice that Linda and Lawrence qualify as "stepparents" to any of their children.
Subverted on Wheel Squad, where Mr. Rotter, the only character who qualifies as somebody's stepparent, treats his stepdaughter Emilie like a real daughter. Even on the Cinderella parody he was just strict and punishing her for a prank that could have gotten herself and her victim seriously hurt (and for not keeping satisfactory grades).
Almost played straight with Lorelei in ''Pollyworld''. Fortunately Lorelei unwittingly revealed her true colors in public, catching the attention of John Pocket, who promptly called off the engagement.
Bart's teacher, Edna Krabappell, was dating Ned Flanders in one episode of The Simpsons. Not liking the idea of having her as a neighbor, he tried to make Ned's sons, Rodd and Todd, afraid she'd be a Wicked Stepmother who'd force them to do all household chores. It backfired because Rodd and Todd enjoy doing them.
Webcomics
Yu Me Dream: Fiona has one, whom we realize is rather wicked once we learn that her affair with her now-husband is what caused Fiona's real mother to be Driven to Suicide.
However It is subverted as in the real world Elizabeth is extremely kind and Fiona is the evil stepdaughter. Seriously.
Subverted with Kevin and Kell. Lindesfarne considers her stepmother Kell to be her mother, and Kell considers Lindesfarne her daughter, rather than a stepdaughter. Lindesfarne's original adoptive mother, however, is a Jerk Ass who largely ignored her during her childhood, and desperately tries to win her over, at one point making Lindesfarne allergic to Kell, partly motivated by wanting to get back at Kevin. At Lindesfarne's graduation, she gives her a hug- albeit with a blood transfer bag on hand- and a document saying that she waives all claims to custody of Lindesfarne as she has now come of age.
In Alice!, the Calvinesque twelve-something Alice is from a divorced family and lives with her father. Her father's new girlfriend is a clear and vile villain in her fantasy sequences. In the real world, it's equally clear that the girlfriend is a perfectly fine woman, while the normally amiable Alice has decided that the Other Woman is Evil and is being a complete dick.
Homestuck: With the death of Colonel Sassacre, his adoptive children Nanna and Grandpa were left in the care of Betty Crocker. Initially it just seems to be the typical negative opinion one would expect children to have in such a situation, but it turns out that Crocker was/is an inhuman Chessmaster who at the very least had a hand in Gamzee's swandive off the deep end.
Off-White: Jera and her love for singling out Iki call to mind this trope, though she is not evil.
Real Life
Truth in Television: the archetype of a "wicked stepmother" is based on biology. Mothers see children of other women as competitors of their own children of the resources the husband brings in the family, and attempt to eliminate the stepchildren to free resources to the use of their own biological children.
Sadly, this has become a real-life Undead Horse Trope. Authorities tend to violently ignore complaints of women abusing their stepchildren until it is too late, in part from this trope becoming so cliche. Either they do not take it seriously, or are too politically correct to admit that while stepmothers can be good in real life, they can be just as evil as their fairy tale counterparts too. Arguably, authorities being unwilling to admit that women in general can be abusive may also have a hand in this.
The Joanna Morano case is a slightly less tragic example of this, as her stepdaughter was rescued, but social services also ignored reports of the abuse for years. In fact, police only got involved when the stepmother was suspected to be a victim of domestic abuse, and noticed that the stepdaughter was, among other things, being forced to live outside.
St. Margaret of Cortona had one, who abused her into running away from home, reducing her to prostitution, and later convinced her father to disown her. Christ appeared to her in apparitions, promising he would restore her virginity and honor her as his bride in heaven. He also revealed her parents were in purgatory, implying her stepmother was in hell.
Also Blessed Panacea De Muzzi. She was a young shepherdess from the Italian villae of Quarona, who was badly abused by her stepmother Margherita di Locarno-Sesia... and ended up beaten to death by her stepmom with her own shepherd spindle.
Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) had a classic Wicked Stepmother who denied him food as punishment for not being able to find work, preferring her own children and Joseph's younger sister. Perfect example of the trope in that his mother was actually a very caring individual, and that his father ended up siding with his stepmother.
This is the supposed back story of Shun, one of the legendary leaders of ancient China.
One of the "Twenty Four Acts of Piety" features the (again, supposedly) historical account of a young boy who was abused by his stepmother (she favored her own sons) but didn't say a word about it; eventually, the father found out and wanted to divorce his wife, but the son talked him out of it, saying: "If she's here, I'm the only one who freezes; if she goes, than all the brothers do." The stepmom was so touched by this that she grew to love him as much as her own sons.
This was a recurring pattern in the Ottoman Empire during medieval and early Modern times. The Sultan had the authority to designate an heir (one of his sons). The mothers of his sons would try to get their own child designated heir so they could gain power - and incidentally so their sons would live, as it was the custom for the Sultan to order the execution of his siblings so as to avoid civil war. Needless to say, this system had a fewflaws.
To some extent Livia Augusta, Augustus's last wife and the mother of Tiberius, gets this treatment. Especially when it comes to promoting her son.
Also Aggripina the Younger, Nero's mother, towards Claudius's son Brittanicus.
Once upon a time there was a man whose wife died. He remarried, but his new wife hated the child the man had from the previous marriage. One day she pushed her stepson into an abyss. Fortunately the boy caught himself just below the top. Eventually people rescued him; when they learned what the woman did, they threw her into the chasm herself. Since then, the chasm (located in the Moravian Karst near the town Blansko) is called Macocha (meaning "Stepmother").
Rebecca A. Long, the stepmother who denied her 14 year-old stepdaughter WATER, to the point that the girl only weighed 48 pounds. Also doubles as a Complete Monster.
Joanna Morano, forced her 12-year old stepdaughter to live outside, and do most of the housework, while spoiling her own two daughters. She also shaved the poor girl's hair off and the father supported her all of in this. The police only came to the little girl's aid when her father was arrested for battery charges, and the stepdaughter begged officials not to leave her alone with the bitch.
Sadly, this is common enough with both kinds of step parents that doctors who specialize in child abuse refer to it as "Step-Monster Syndrome".
Jessica Schwarz, convicted of the aggravated child abuse and murder of her 10-year-old stepson AJ, after horrifically abusing him for three years (making him eat cat shit, keeping him locked in a room).
", has Aschenputtel get her gowns from the tree planted on her mother's grave. Talking Animals may also feature, as can a Fairy Godmother. These figures can do everything from performing the Impossible Task on behalf of the child to ensuring that She Cleans Up Nicely despite the dirt and rags she is reduced to.
On the other hand, writers sometimes Bowdlerise fairy tales by transforming a cruel mother into a wicked stepmother. Grimms' original tales of "Snow White" and "Hansel and Gretel" both featured a cruel mother.
Her chances of surviving the ending are not good. The Happily Ever After ending of most fairy tales often dwells with more detail on how the Wicked Stepmother and/or her children were punished than on the hero and happiness. On the other hand, stepmothers who are not disposed of often return; when she is not executed at the wedding, she may, for instance, try to kill the heroine when she gives birth and replace her with her own daughter; so the Fairy Tale doesn't end (happily or not) until she's dead.
Sometimes preceded by a Guess Who I'm Marrying? scenario. Can involve a Missing Mom; older stories usually do, often caused by Death by Childbirth.
A common subversion is the jealous Daddy's Girl regarding any stepmother as a Wicked Stepmother.
The Red-Headed Stepchild is a particular victim.
Subtrope of Evil Matriarch. Note that the Magical Nanny often becomes a stepmother, but never a wicked one. Department of Child Disservices is a modern organized variation.
