it's really interesting how different Snow White is in the books from the show, and it changes quite a bit how you could understand Apple's character. we all know the show version: lowkey antagonistic, puts an unhealthy amount of pressure on her daughter, hates the Evil Queen. even her design is cold and severe.
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.
granted. DG was set after the destiny conflict was resolved and Snow's main problem there was her daughter's popularity. however even in the books Apple's position of leadership is being threatened simply by the division between Royals and Rebels, and Snow doesn't seem at all bothered by that. but like, ultimately the books and the show were telling two different stories by that point so it isn't really worth arguing over, imo. i actually quite like Snow White in the books as i always found her interesting. of course, as people like to remind me even though the fact should speak for itself <3 the show's writing had regressed considerably by DG which explains why that one was so one-dimensional.
