#eah royals

"Let me take Apple back to her dorm, I'll meet you guys outside!"

Getting ready with the girls !

Briar apple and Ashlynn all secretly battling with similar things they would never openly voice because they’re scared it won’t be reciprocated or understood

piece for my upcoming EAH zine !!

They should have gotten more focus, they were such good foils!!

Raven vs Apple: Obviously the biggest example of foils and shown most in canon, both are trying to do what they think is right and are seen as leaders to their groups. Raven wants to bring down the restrictive status quo and allow the freedom of choice, while Apple wants the tradition and security it provides. While Raven is a princess, she is a villain, so she is seen unfavorably through the social hierarchy, while Apple is a heroine with a good social standing.

Maddie vs Briar: Both are trying to cope with the way the destiny system affect their lives. While both are extroverts who enjoy parties, Maddie loves her destiny but is willing to stand against the system while Briar does not like her destiny but is afraid to rebel. Maddie is a refugee and side character in the Wonderland story while Briar is a member of the elite as an important princess character.

Cedar vs Ashlynn: Both want something different from their lives. Ashlynn hides her secret relationship for fear of how others will react, while Cedar cannot lie but wishes she could so she could be let into her friends' confidences. Ashlynn is a princess who would dislikes her destiny and prefers doing other things, such as being in the woods or working in the store, and Cedar is a puppet who would like her destiny of being a real human girl, but disagrees with the system for the sake of her friends.

but the books describe a separate character. she appears in a key scene in The Unfairest of Them All when Apple is visiting home during Yester Day (a day when students have to interview graduated fairytale characters about their stories). right off the bat you can tell their relationship is a lot better than the one displayed in the show; they're a lot more affectionate with each other, and Apple clearly feels at ease around her mother. the main impression i get whenever i reread this scene (and believe me i have read it a lot) is that Snow seems like... a good mom. she doesn't act disappointed or accusatory toward Apple for Raven's refusal to sign. Apple to some extent considers it a personal failure that she didn't persuade Raven to sign; Snow doesn't express any sentiment of the sort. she gets straight to the heart of the matter, which is the problem of division between the Royals and Rebels and the chaos that will undoubtedly ensue (and already has, at this point in the book).

in fact, it's ironic that Snow doesn't address who's in the wrong in this matter, because that's exactly what Apple is focused on. she strongly believes that going off-script is pure evil, and she wants Snow to confirm that for her--which Snow doesn't do. because Snow is a leader, and she knows that pointing fingers is not going to solve a crisis. her advice to Apple is to focus on bringing people back together first, which is ultimately the key to Apple's character arc in this book.

Apple is frustrated by this conversation because Snow's advice seems useless to her: "Just keep smiling." that isn't a very concrete solution to any of the rampant problems she's facing right now; she leaves believing Snow doesn't understand the magnitude of these problems. i don't think that's fully the case, because Snow knew the Evil Queen and had to have witnessed some part of her rampage, which would have been extremely chaotic, but we don't have details on it so that's neither here nor there.

Snow's most important advice to Apple was the line she got cut off, which is "And when you look back, look deeper." based on the context and the conclusion of Apple's arc in this book, i can guess she meant: look at them for who they are, not for who you think they are. in other words, not for who the stories say they are--which is the lens through which Apple is used to judging the rest of the world. that's indeed how she changes and grows by the end of the book, because she learns to stop assigning the roles of "hero/villain/Royal/Rebel" to her peers, and instead think of them for the people they are underneath. Lizzie, a kind-hearted girl who loves to create; Daring, who's eager to help her if she just says the word; Sparrow, who prides himself on his thieving skills; and Kitty, who Apple knows would do anything for Maddie. she even gets Cerise and Duchess to work together.

as a kid i didn't really get the ending of this book; it felt like no one had really solved the destiny conflict. no one had managed to point out how the Royals were in the wrong or fixed everything that was awful about the Rebels' situations. but that would have been too simple, which is crazy for a book written for kids, but that's what makes it so good--instead of trying to eliminate the problem and wrap everything up in a neat little bow, which might have felt really good to read but probably would have fallen very flat, the story acknowledges the problem is bigger than that and people are more complicated than that. Apple is not the villain of the story; she's just a young girl trying to take responsibility (something Raven actually has trouble doing in comparison, which is another reason they balance each other out). Snow gave good advice.

i sort of went off on a tangent there, but to circle back to Snow--in the books her relationship with EQ is very obviously not the same as in the show, as we don't know if they were even in the same class. it's portrayed as something much closer to what the original dynamic of Snow White and her evil stepmother would have been. Snow does not condemn Raven for any of her actions; she even expresses her own doubt about the way Ever After works, about how "if there's no story, it rarely happens." Apple fixates on that statement as explaining why it's bad to go off-script, but what Snow actually seems to be implying is that the lack of freedom in that area is troubling. in a sense she almost seems sympathetic to Raven.