“It’s Already Decided” vs. “I Make the Path”: Fate in England vs. Wonderland
Alice Kingsleigh in Tim Burton’s first Wonderland movie has a lot on her plate: slaying a dragon, stopping a tyrant, saving her friends from said tyrant. She also has to figure out where she stands with a prophecy. While she resists people saying that she is in the prophecy, she does ultimately face up to it and fulfill the destiny that’s expected of her.
So why does this prepare her for defying expectations when she returns home?
A lot of the answer lies in choice.
Alice Decides
Throughout most of the movie, Alice resists the idea of fulfilling the fate the Oraculum predicts. Everyone, from Absolem to the White Rabbit to the Hatter, expects that she kills the Jabberwocky and saves them from the villainous Red Queen.
Alice, however, is convinced that this is not her. She won’t let Hamish hurt a caterpillar. How can anyone expect her to slay a monster, especially in a dream?
But then the Hatter is captured. He isn’t just Alice’s friend, but he also gave himself up to save her. He and his friends hid her even at great risk to themselves, and then when the Red Knights cornered them he tossed her to safety on his precious hat and shouted “Down with the bloody red queen,” a sure way to get executed, just so that they’d be more preoccupied with him than his hat. After that, Alice chooses to rescue him even as she continues to insist that she’s the wrong Alice. Taking into account she still believes she is dreaming, this is an impressive feat of character.
Of course, if she hadn’t insisted on making her own path and went with Bayard to Marmoreal, she would not have been the champion. The White Queen points out that the Red Queen’s castle is right where she is needed, since the Red Queen has the Vorpal Sword there. Because of that, they had both confirmation that she was the champion and the weapon the champion needed to succeed.
So, in a way, her resistance to the idea of having to do something enabled her to fulfill it. Had she gone along with Bayard, having decided the Hatter was only a dream anyways, the conditions for the Oraculum’s predictions might not have been met.
But even when she and Hatter escape she resists being told to kill a creature. She saw what happened at the Red Queen’s court with the abuse of other people. The only way she survived was through thinking on her feet, not brute force.
When Frabjous Day finally arrived, she’d seen what was at stake. She knew a battle was to take place that day. And still, when it came down to it, she struggled to decide. She cared about the people who would most likely die if she did nothing, or even if she did slay the Jabberwocky. But she still believed it was a nightmare, that none of these people were real.
Cue Absolem convincing her the world was real.
Now even more is at risk. This is no longer a dream without consequences. These are real people. She and they may die if she goes out there, but they’ll definitely die if she doesn’t.
And with this final piece of knowledge, she chooses her fate. It isn’t so much fulfilling it as choosing it.
But if it’s choice, why is it set in stone?
The Nature of the Oraculum
The answer is it isn’t set in stone. The proof of that is in how the characters consult the Oraculum.
The Red Queen insists that the Knave stop Alice before she slays the Jabberwocky, which implies that the future it predicts can be changed. But she also claims that she’d recognize Alice from the hair she sees in the Oraculum’s picture and then welcomes “Um” with open arms, so her account may not be the best.
Instead, let’s look at the Frabjous Day announcement.
Look at all the people who volunteer to take Alice’s place to slay the Jabberwocky. All of them must know about it’s prediction. The Tweedles and Mally were there, and the Hatter must have known from Mally. Chessur shrank back and said, “The Alice?” when they met in the forest, suggesting that he may know this as well. If the Oraculum was truly unchangeable, they would not have bothered. Nor would they have been so surprised and horrified to realize that the Oraculum still showed Alice slaying the Jabberwocky, or so fearful if the beast’s final fate was decided as death. So the Oraculum most likely shows possibilities, even likely possibilities, but it still has the potential to change to another person wielding the sword-or to the Jabberwocky slaying Alice.
Works Cited
Alice in Wonderland. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, and Timothy Spall. Disney, 2010. DVD.
