Write your own Through the Looking-Glass story

Alice

A curious, imaginative young girl from Victorian England who enters the Looking-Glass World by climbing through a mirror above a fireplace. She begins the great chess game as a White Pawn and must journey across eight squares to become a Queen. She is resourceful and polite, though often bewildered by the inverted logic of the world she traverses.

The Red Queen

A commanding and imperious chess queen who first appears tiny among the fireplace ashes but grows to tower over Alice in the Looking-Glass garden. She sets Alice on her quest, explaining the rules of the chess-world and insisting on formal etiquette at all times. She is known for the paradoxical rule that one must run as fast as possible just to stay in the same place.

The White Queen

A somewhat scattered and excitable chess queen who rushes past the White King in a panic, crying out for her 'imperial kitten' Lily. She is paired with the White King as rulers of the White chess pieces and interacts with Alice during her journey across the board's squares.

The White King

A small, bumbling chess king who is knocked into the cinders by the White Queen's rush and is left bewildered after being invisibly lifted and dusted by Alice. He keeps an enormous memorandum-book to record his feelings and is oblivious to Alice's presence throughout their encounter.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

A pair of identical, rotund brothers who inhabit the Fourth Square of the Looking-Glass World and stand perpetually with arms around each other's necks. Their names are embroidered on their collars, and they speak in mirroring phrases—one saying 'Nohow' and the other 'Contrariwise.' They recite the poem of the Walrus and the Carpenter to Alice rather than answer her practical questions.

Humpty Dumpty

A large egg-shaped character who resides in the Sixth Square and is listed among the Red chess pieces. He is a figure of great self-importance known from nursery rhyme tradition, encountered by Alice during her journey toward coronation.

The White Knight

A chess knight on the White side who appears in the chess game notation as a key figure, taking the Red Knight and guiding Alice toward the Eighth Square. He is mentioned in the White King's memorandum as sliding down a poker and balancing badly, suggesting a clumsy but good-natured character.

The Walrus and the Carpenter

Two characters from the poem recited by Tweedledee, who walk along a midnight beach weeping over quantities of sand and luring young Oysters away from their oyster-bed with promises of a pleasant walk and talk. They are morally dubious figures whose poem serves as a cautionary tale embedded within the Looking-Glass narrative.

The Gnat

An oversized, philosophical insect approximately the size of a chicken that rides the railway carriage with Alice and engages her in melancholy wordplay and jokes. It introduces Alice to the strange Looking-Glass insects and ultimately sighs itself out of existence, vanishing from its twig.

Dinah

Alice's real-world cat and mother of both the white kitten and the black kitten. She is responsible for washing her kittens' faces and is invoked by Alice as the authority on proper feline manners. Dinah remains in the real world but frames the story's opening domestic scene.

The Black Kitten

Alice's mischievous black kitten whose earlier mischief—unraveling a ball of worsted—sets off Alice's imaginative monologue about Looking-Glass House. Alice identifies the black kitten as the Red Queen's counterpart during her pretend game.

The White Kitten (Snowdrop)

Alice's white kitten, also called Snowdrop, who was being washed by Dinah during the black kitten's mischief and is therefore declared innocent of the trouble. Alice implicitly associates this kitten with the White Queen.

The Lion and the Unicorn

Two powerful figures listed among the chess pieces—the Lion on the Red side and the Unicorn on the White—who are referenced in the dramatis personae and appear as major characters in Chapter VII. They represent the classic heraldic rivals of English tradition.

Looking-Glass House

The mirror-image version of Alice's real drawing room, accessible by climbing through a looking-glass that softens into a silvery mist. Everything visible from the real room is unremarkable, but the rest of the house is wildly different: pictures are alive, the clock has the face of a grinning old man, and chessmen walk about on the hearth. Books in this room have text written in reverse, readable only when held up to another mirror.

The Garden of Live Flowers

A sprawling garden in the Looking-Glass World where flowers can speak and have distinct personalities—the Tiger-lily is bold and assertive, the Rose is critical but observant, the Daisies are noisy and easily cowed, and a Violet is shyly cutting. The garden's paths twist back on themselves so that walking directly toward a destination brings one back to the house; the trick is to walk in the opposite direction.

The Chessboard Landscape

The entirety of the Looking-Glass World as seen from a hilltop, laid out as a vast chessboard divided by brooks running side to side and green hedges running top to bottom, creating squares inhabited by distinct characters and environments. Alice must cross from the Second Square to the Eighth Square to become a Queen, travelling by railway, on foot, and by other means through each region.

The Wood Where Things Have No Names

A dark wood located between squares in which all nouns—including personal names—are forgotten by those who enter it. Alice loses her own name and identity while inside, and even a Fawn forgets what it is, allowing the two to walk together in unguarded companionship before bursting free into an open field and recovering their natures.

The Railway Carriage

A surreal train that whisks travellers across the Third Square at tremendous speed, crowded with mismatched passengers including a man in white paper, a Goat, a Beetle, a Horse, and an invisible Gnat. Time and language are treated as enormously expensive commodities, and the train leaps over brooks to cross square boundaries.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee's Wood (Fourth Square)

The forested Fourth Square dominated by a single tree under which Tweedledum and Tweedledee stand, marked by signposts pointing to 'Tweedledum's House' and 'The House of Tweedledee'—which turn out to be the same dwelling. The brothers dance with Alice and recite lengthy poems rather than give practical directions.

White Chess Pieces

The White side of the great Looking-Glass chess game, comprising the White Queen, White King, White Knight, Tweedledee, the Unicorn, the Sheep, the aged man, and various White Pawns including Alice herself (standing in for the young Lily). They are broadly allied but rarely coordinated, each pursuing their own eccentric concerns across the board's squares.

Red Chess Pieces

The Red side of the great Looking-Glass chess game, comprising the Red Queen, Red King, Red Knight, Humpty Dumpty, the Carpenter, the Walrus, the Crow, and the Lion, with various Red Pawns. The Red Queen is by far the most active and formidable, functioning almost as an antagonist to Alice's progress, though the game's logic means Alice ultimately captures her to win.

The Looking-Glass

A large ornamental mirror above Alice's fireplace that serves as the portal between the real Victorian drawing room and the Looking-Glass World. When Alice imagines it softening like gauze, it does so, becoming a silvery mist through which she can step. It reverses all text, chirality, and spatial logic in everything beyond it.

The Vorpal Sword

The weapon used by the hero of the Jabberwocky poem to slay the Jabberwock, described as going 'snicker-snack' through the creature's neck. It is associated with decisive, almost effortless lethality and is one of the most iconic objects named in the Looking-Glass lore, though it appears only within the embedded poem.

The White King's Memorandum-Book

An enormous notebook carried by the White King in which he attempts to record his feelings and experiences. Alice seizes the attached pencil—which extends over his shoulder—and writes her own observations in it, causing the King great confusion. It represents the Looking-Glass theme of authorship and control being taken from expected hands.

The Great Chess Game

The entire Looking-Glass World is structured as a game of chess in progress, with White and Red pieces occupying squares across the landscape. Alice begins as the White Pawn in the Second Square and must advance to the Eighth Square to be crowned Queen; the full game is mapped out in eleven moves covering encounters with the Red Queen, White Queen, Tweedledum, Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, the White Knight, and others. The game's outcome is predetermined: Alice wins.

The Looking-Glass Laws

The Looking-Glass World operates on systematically inverted or paradoxical rules: to reach a place, walk away from it; running at full speed keeps you stationary; memory works backwards (punishment before the crime); books are written in mirror-script; and milk from the world may not be safe to drink. These inversions are treated as perfectly natural by the world's inhabitants.

Jabberwocky

A nonsense poem found written in mirror-script in a Looking-Glass book, describing a hero who arms himself with a 'vorpal sword,' seeks out the fearsome Jabberwock in the 'tulgey wood,' slays it with a 'snicker-snack' stroke, and returns triumphant. The poem introduces a bestiary of creatures—the Jabberwock, the Jubjub Bird, and the Bandersnatch—and a vocabulary of invented words that feel meaningful without being translatable.

The Rule of Names in the Looking-Glass Wood

Within the wood between squares, the very concept of nouns ceases to function, stripping characters of their identities, species, and names. This is presented as a natural geographical feature rather than a curse, and its boundary is clearly defined—creatures instantly recover their names and instincts upon stepping back into open country.

Looking-Glass Insects

The Looking-Glass World hosts fantastical insect variants that parody their real-world counterparts: the Rocking-horse-fly is made of wood and lives on sap and sawdust; the Snap-dragon-fly has a raisin head burning in brandy and lives on frumenty and mince pie; the Bread-and-butterfly has bread-and-butter wings and lives on weak tea with cream, a diet so rarely available that it perpetually dies. The Gnat itself is chicken-sized and prone to melancholy.

Live Flowers

In the Looking-Glass garden, flowers are fully sentient, opinionated, and vocal, able to hear and speak because the garden's ground is too hard for them to fall asleep. The Tiger-lily is the most assertive, the Rose the most condescending, the Daisies the noisiest, and the Violet the most timid. They perceive Alice in terms of flower aesthetics—her 'petals' and 'colour'—and treat her as a fellow plant of inferior quality.