| “ | It was upon the untimely death of this good man, however, that the stepmother's true nature was revealed. Cold, cruel, and bitterly jealous of Cinderella's charm and beauty, she was grimly determined to forward the interests of her own two awkward daughters. | „ |
| ~ The narrator on Lady Tremaine |
Lady Tremaine (also commonly known as the "Wicked Stepmother") is the main antagonist of Disney's animated Cinderella film series.
As the abusive, cold-hearted stepmother of the title character, Lady Tremaine doesn't harm her stepdaughter physically. Rather, she seeks to punish and abuse her psychologically, motivated by her jealousy of Cinderella being far more beautiful and graceful than her own awkward daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. Lady Tremaine was also a socialite, determined to gain higher status by marrying one of her daughters to Prince Charming or another bachelor of noble blood.
After being defeated once for all, Lady Tremaine and her oldest daughter were deprived of their high social status as socialites by instead becoming scullery maids and forced to work at the King's Castle for all of what they done.
In the original film, she was voiced by the late Eleanor Audley. In the two sequels, she was voiced by Susanne Blakeslee.
What Makes Her a Hate Sink?[]
- She loves to treat her stepdaughter Cinderella very poorly and loves making her life miserable, seeking in psychologically abusing and punishing Cinderella for her own amusement, in no way treating her the way a normal person treats their own stepdaughter, as well as forcing Cinderella to work as a scullery maid.
- She is no less callous to her daughters, betraying Anastasia for becoming good, which all but confirms not mistreating Drizella is out of pure and utter pragmatism.
- She also only keeps Lucifer around because he helps her give Cinderella and Bruno a hard time.
- Additionally, it is heavily implied that she was going to force Bruno to sleep on the floor for the rest of his life if he didn't learn to like cats like Lucifer, given that Cinderella told him that could happen and this doesn't sound characteristic of her at all.
- She does not care about her husband either, refusing to mourn his death that was (indirectly) caused by severe cat allergies with having Lucifer around. Even then, Lady Tremaine having Lucifer as her pet, makes her arguably more at fault for his death rather than Lucifer, and she has no remorse or empathy for her own actions in the long run.
- She provoked Drizella and Anastasia into ruining Cinderella's dress before she was about to go to the Royal Ball.
- She locked Cinderella in her room after finding out she was the girl Prince Charming was looking for in order to stop them from reuniting.
- Once Jaq and Gus freed Cinderella from her locked room by stealing Lady Tremaine's key, as a last ditch effort, she stuck out her cane to cause the page boy to trip and break Cinderella's missing glass slipper.
- She was even smiling while the Grand Duke was lamenting his presumed fate if the King found out about the incident, proving she doesn't even care about other people's fates as long as Cinderella's life is still miserable.
- It should be noted that she deliberately lied to the Duke that there was no one else in the house, which was the whole point of locking Cinderella in her room.
- In the second movie, she tried to stop Anastasia from forming a romantic relationship with a baker by belittling her and forbidding her to see him.
- She is so lazy that she forced Drizella and Anastasia to perform Cinderella's former housework in the beginning of the third movie without even taking part in the housework.
- She is tyrannical, as she reset time after stealing the Fairy Godmother's wand just to make Cinderella's life even more miserable by making the glass slipper fit Anastasia and altering Prince Charming's memories so he would think that he danced with Anastasia instead.
- When her plans to marry the throne got foiled again, she also went as far to try to seize the kingdom and would have succeeded in doing so had it not been for Cinderella and Prince Charming.
- She later tried getting Cinderella sent away and even killed in order to stop her from meddling with her plans.
- She is very derogatory, as she called her guards incompetent when they failed to grab Cinderella.
- Another example of this is threatening Drizella for her incompetence, telling her that if she continued to mess up, she'd be next to be banished from the kingdom.
Trivia[]
- Lady Tremaine's 2015 live-action film counterpart doesn't count as a Hate Sink, as in that version she truly loved both of her late husbands, and didn't become an abusive stepmother to Ella until after she found out the latter's father would never love her like he did with Ella and his first wife. When the news of her second husband's death came, she was also visibly upset that his dying words had only been of Ella and her mother, and that even his dying memorial had solely been for Ella. Even then, when her two biological daughters inquired about their lack of promised gifts, she snapped at them by stating that it did not matter, for they were all ruined, and lamented about how they were to live. While these reasons give her no excuse to abuse Ella, they do give her a sufficient motive for why she hates her, and make her three-dimensional, and when Ella forgives her the reaction possibly suggests self-reflection, and remorse.
- She is so far the only classic Disney main antagonist to be a hate sink.
External links[]
- Lady Tremaine on the Villains Wiki
- Lady Tremaine on the Disney Wiki
- Lady Tremaine on the Standard Evil Wiki
- Lady Tremaine on the Wikipedia
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 Hate Sinks
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Animated Features Live-Action Features See Also | ||
 Hate Sinks
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Animated Features Pixar Others Live-Action Features Star Wars Marvel Studios Animated Television Darkwing Duck Kim Possible American Dragon: Jake Long Phineas and Ferb Gravity Falls Star vs. the Forces of Evil DuckTales (2017) Marvel's Spider-Man (2017) Big Hero 6: The Series Amphibia The Owl House The Ghost and Molly McGee Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Others: Live-Action Television Video Games Shorts Literature Musicals See Also: | ||