I’ve been a fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories since I was a kid. The fanciful stories were perfect for my overactive imagination, and I have always dug surreal takes on reality. As I have gotten older I am surprised at how much the stories resonate with real life. It’s almost as if the stories are for kids and adults. Hmmm.

I’ve always loved laughing at the Queen of Hearts. Her loud, bellicose nature delighted me with its disregard for norms or even decency. Of course the basis of my delight in the character was the role of the King of Hearts—to pardon just about everyone whose death she decreed. Also her soldiers generally ignore her orders.

The Queen of Hearts is often conflated with the Red Queen, but Carroll spoke about how each figure differs from the other:

And for distinguishing traits, I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion–a blind and aimless Fury. The Red Queen must be cold and calm; she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the tenth degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses!

Lately I feel as if the Queen of Hearts is taking center stage here in reality. Her bits of dialogue seem perfect for what currently passes as a press conference:

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. “Off with his head!” she said without even looking round.

“No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first— verdict afterwards.”

As a kid, I could not understand the response she generated from her subjects:

At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the garden, called out “The Queen! The Queen!” and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces.

How can you be afraid of someone so ridiculous? How could love of money and love of power force you to prostrate yourself to a literal fool, a clown, a buffoon?

Hmmm.

Taylor’s got it from here: