The Stepsisters
antagonist · human
Two sisters who invented the name Cinderella, found it hilarious, and never once wondered whether it was.
What they are like
- Kind
- 2/10
- Brave
- 3/10
- Clever
- 3/10
- Honest
- 4/10
- Curious
- 5/10
- Patient
- 2/10
How we meet them
Laughing. They invent the name Cinderella, find it hilarious, and never once wonder whether it is.
Personality
Silly rather than wicked. They are cruel the way children are cruel: because it gets a reaction and because nobody has ever stopped them.
What they want
To be admired, urgently and by everybody.
How they change
Tell a stranger at the ball all about their awful sister at home, and are still telling it when the slipper fits.
How they speak
Loudly and over each other. Their funniest moment is telling a stranger at a ball all about their dreadful sister at home.
How the story treats them
The story treats them as silly rather than wicked, which is why the ending can forgive them without feeling false.
One surprising thing
In the Grimms' German version they cut off parts of their own feet to make the shoe fit, and birds notice the blood. Perrault's are merely ridiculous.
If they were real today
They would tag themselves in a photo they are not in.
Things they say
- “You must wish you were coming.”
- “The shoe has shrunk!”
Key moments
You must wish you were coming
Said in front of a mirror, to the person who has spent three days doing their hair, and both of them laugh until they have to sit down.
“You must wish you were coming.”
The shoe has shrunk
Pushing and curling their toes at a glass slipper that will not give, and blaming the shoe.
“The shoe has shrunk!”
Who they know
Cinderellasibling
Two sisters who made up a cruel nickname, and the girl who let them keep using it because arguing made it worse.
Characters like The Stepsisters
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