The Hearts court makes a dangerous first impression. The Queen has a palace, card soldiers and the power to turn a personal insult into somebody else's death sentence. Even a ga…

The Hearts court makes a dangerous first impression. The Queen has a palace, card soldiers and the power to turn a personal insult into somebody else's death sentence. Even a game of croquet can get Calie into trouble when the Queen decides she doesn't like losing. Julia and Bethany jointly make up the Queen of Hearts. William Allen is the King, also known as the Suicide King. Their connection goes back to their lives before Wonderland, but they react very differently to what the place has done to them. The soldiers are what allow the Queen's anger to reach beyond whoever happens to be standing in front of her. They can pursue a target, enforce a sentence and carry a conflict outside her immediate presence. They also end up paying for her decisions. The Mad Hatter's vendetta against the Queen extends to the people serving her, so being part of her court can put somebody in the middle of a feud they didn't start. Calie's encounter with the Cheshire Cat shows how quickly the court's apparent control can fall apart. The attack turns a scene dominated by the Queen and her guards into a fight for survival. Having the palace and soldiers doesn't put Hearts above the other dangers in Wonderland. The later conflict between the four Queens brings a different threat to her door. In Clash of Queens, Hearts obtains the Ebony Blade, and the armies of Spades, Diamonds and Clubs converge on her castle. She has something all three rivals want, but those rivals also have problems with one another. It's a dangerous situation even for the side that holds the weapon. That puts the court in the middle of both kinds of conflict that run through these stories: the personal feuds around its Queen and the larger fight over control of Wonderland. Her soldiers get dragged into both.