The Wishing Spell

Conner is the second protagonist of the novel. Unlike Alex, Conner is popular at school and skirts around the rules whenever possible. Conner is “painfully honest about his thoughts and opinions” (46-47), which allows him to speak his mind in tense situations. He has a knack for seeing when people are being treated unfairly for things that are out of their control, such as at Trix’s trial, and for offering unique solutions to problems, such as the rubber band idea for the Sleeping Kingdom. For much of the book, Conner feels inferior to Alex because she is so often praised for excelling in areas where Conner struggles. Their journey through the fairy-tale world shows him that Alex has her own struggles and that he doesn’t need to be better than her to be good at things. Conner represents how Different Strengths are Equally Important, an idea present throughout the novel. Conner’s tendency to jump right into situations coupled with Alex’s inclination to observe before taking action allow them to find all the Wishing Spell ingredients and overcome the challenges in the fairy-tale world.

The Evil Queen is the antagonist of The Wishing Spell, but she is also the protagonist of her untold story. Her years of grief have transformed her into someone who looks worn and tired, but even so, she has the “face of a woman who had once possessed beauty without flaw” (4). The Evil Queen represents the idea that Every Story Has Multiple Perspectives, one of the novel’s main themes. While she is the villain of The Wishing Spell and Snow White’s story, she is also the hero of a story that ends in tragedy. Throughout the Wishing Spell, she works tirelessly to free Mira from the mirror, a task she ultimately achieves but that is marred by Mira’s death. The Evil Queen experiences hardship and heartache similar to that of Snow White and other fairy-tale protagonists, but the queen’s pain is ignored because her narrative doesn’t fit the mold of a hero.

Froggy was cursed by a witch before the book’s opening and has “a sad sense of loss and longing about him” (91). Ashamed of his frog form, he lives alone in the Dwarf Forest. Alex and Conner are the first people he’s interacted with in a long time, and their courage ultimately helps him find the strength to leave his isolation. Froggy struggles with his appearance throughout the story, finally coming to understand that his inward appearance matters more than his outward one. At the end of the book, he is returned to his true form—the missing Charming prince. Froggy’s character is Colfer’s take on the trope of princes being cursed or transformed (often into frogs) as punishment or to learn a lesson.

Snow White is one of the many fairy-tale characters Alex and Conner encounter in the fairy-tale world. Her appearance is true to the original fairy tale: “Her skin was as pale as snow, her hair was as dark as coal” (2). At the end of the book, Snow White admits she helped the Evil Queen escape the dungeon, showing how stories have an impact on us. She was moved by the queen’s tale of lost love. Understanding that the queen was not intentionally a bad mother let Snow White overcome some of her trauma to help the queen attain her happily-ever-after. In Chapter 15, Snow White struggles to look at the evidence of abuse from her past, showing that, while she’s healed somewhat, it takes time to work through the conflicting emotions of abuse.

Cinderella is also true to her fairy-tale form. She is elegant and soft-spoken, and “her eyes and smile were the brightest things in the room” (182). In addition, she has a sense of humor, which is not something developed in the original fairy tale. Colfer likely made a point of Cinderella’s humor to show that stories don’t always capture everything someone is. Cinderella’s original story showed her as hopeful and good, even in the face of cruel treatment. Her humor wasn’t important to the story, so it was left out.

Colfer’s Goldilocks represents just one path Goldilocks’s story could have taken. Rather than entering the bears’ cottage because she was curious, Goldilocks was tricked into doing so by Red Riding Hood, and as a scared child, Goldilocks ran when the bears pressed charges, making her a fugitive. Goldilocks has been on the run for so long that she’s not used to taking any care with her appearance. In Chapter 17 when she tries on the dress, she stares at her reflection sorrowfully because “she had forgotten how beautiful she could be” (333). Goldilocks represents how life can change suddenly and how priorities shift when these changes occur.

Jack is “young and tall with short hair and broad shoulders” (207). He’s grown into a strapping young man in the years following his beanstalk adventure, and he is caught in the middle of the feud between Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood. Jack is the “prince” archetype of The Wishing Spell. He wants to rescue Goldilocks from being a fugitive, but unlike a true prince, he lacks the resources to do so. At the end of the book, he and Goldilocks are together as fugitives, putting a spin on the happily-ever-after trope. They found true love, but they will not live it in a comfortable palace.

Red Riding Hood is described as a “very pretty young woman” (215), which sums up her personality for much of the book. She relies on her looks to get Jack’s attention, which doesn’t work because Jack has no interest in her. No matter how much Red Riding Hood dresses herself up, beauty can never get her what she wants. Again, Colfer turns fairy-tale tropes upside-down. In stories like Snow White and Cinderella, beauty is one of the main factors in the happily-ever-after. Red Riding Hood shows that beauty isn’t always enough.

In The Wishing Spell, Sleeping Beauty’s curse wasn’t broken too long ago, and as a result, she looks tired “like the twins’ mother looked when there was a lot on her mind” (288). Sleeping Beauty’s struggles with the aftermath of the sleeping curse shows that There Is Always a New Challenge, one of the book’s themes. In the original fairy tale, waking her from the 100-year sleep resulted in happily-ever-after. The Wishing Spell shows that happily-ever-after has challenges. While Sleeping Beauty may have found happiness with her prince, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still work to be done. Her tired appearance shows she’s willing to do that work and that she cares about her kingdom and people.

Mira shows how people may be more than one thing. He is both the Evil Queen’s love interest and the Magic Mirror from the original tale. Mira is also the catalyst for the queen becoming an antagonist. If the Evil Queen had succeeded in freeing Mira earlier, she would have been the protagonist of a happily-ever-after story, and Snow White’s story would not have happened the way it did. It is possible that the queen and Mira would have become rulers of a kingdom with Snow White set to inherit, rather than being the antagonists of Snow White’s story.

Though she’s only in the opening chapters, Alex and Conner’s mom is an important influence for the twins. After the hardship of losing her husband, she has struggled as a single parent, which has made Alex and Conner the caring, compassionate people they are. She shows that parenting is not just about direct interactions with children. Her sadness passively makes Alex and Conner want to help, which molds their personalities as effectively as any direct communication.

The Fairy Godmother is the original link between the worlds. Her discovery of the real world led her to bring her son there, which set him on the course to find the Wishing Spell and return to marry the twins’ mom. The Fairy Godmother discovered the real world by accident, showing how unintended actions can have huge consequences. Her discovery allowed Alex and Conner to be born, which synchronized the timelines between the real and fairy-tale worlds, potentially having unforeseen consequences on both worlds.