Warning: SPOILERS for Disney's 2025 Snow White remake.The original movie might have been thin on plot, but the 2025 Snow White’s story, some of these changes work in the movie’s favor. The 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs provided little exposition to explain why the Evil Queen played such a big role in Snow’s life, but the remake very much goes out of its way to explain this.

From the very beginning of the film leading up to the events that culminate in Snow White’s controversies, the fate of her parents in the remake is typically less of a discussion topic despite making significant changes from the source material.

Snow White’s Birth Mother Died Sometime After Childbirth

Her Mom Really Set A Precedent For Future Disney Films

The live-action remake changes a few things about Snow White’s origins, but one thing it maintains is that her mother is no longer in her life at the time the main story begins. In the 1937 animated movie, Snow White’s mother is never actually mentioned at all. In the live-action remake, it’s established that Snow’s mom helped her learn how to rule fairly. The movie’s very first original song sets up that the kingdom’s rulers established a land in which each person grows their own bounty and shares any excess with their neighbors in the name of communal fairness.

Walt Disney’s 1937 film does include one moment in which it very much seems as if Snow White might allude to the fates of her mother and father. Early on in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White appears to empathize with a bird who's lost its parents. However, she never actually follows this through by relating to the bird directly. Her empathy merely serves as a catalyst to make the Huntsman realize that the princess is too kind a person to brutally murder. When it comes to Snow’s father, however, the two movies diverge drastically.

Snow White’s Father Died Of Unknown Causes In The Animated Movie

You’d Be Forgiven For Not Even Knowing He Was Dead

Given that Snow White’s father remarried, her mother’s death in the original Disney film can at least be inferred. However, it’s only from extra media content that the death of Snow White’s father can actually be confirmed. In the movie itself, his death is never stated. Based on a cut scene from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in which the Queen takes the Prince hostage, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume she killed him. But this is certainly never stated in the movie.

Before further media content confirmed his death, this actually led to some confusion regarding the King’s fate. Many assumed that he was still alive and simply uninvolved with the dealings between his wife and daughter, which is a fairly depressing assumption. Another prevailing theory was that Snow White’s father was simply away performing royal duties at the time the film’s events took place. This particular theory seems to have taken a foothold in public consciousness, as it actually relates slightly to the story told in the new live-action version of the tale.

Snow White’s Father Was Killed By The Evil Queen In The Live-Action Remake

It’s Actually One Of The Movie’s Most Interesting Subplots

Anyone who’s been on the Disneyland dark ride for Snow White with its unexpectedly terrifying Queen transformation might wonder if Snow White is suitable for children, and that answer won’t be made much clearer when learning just how evil the remake’s Queen becomes. At first, the movie says that the Evil Queen warned Snow White’s father of a threat by a neighboring kingdom, and he went off to fight that threat in order to protect his family and his citizenry.

When Snow White meets Jonathan, she learns that he and his team of bandits are loyalists to the king and seek to usurp Gadot’s character by returning Snow’s father to the throne.

This narrative builds as the movie continues. When Snow White meets Jonathan, she learns that he and his team of bandits are loyalists to the king and seek to usurp Gadot’s character by returning Snow’s father to the throne. The only hiccup in that plan is that Snow White’s father is rumored to be held captive in a kingdom to the south. But they have a plan for this. As soon as they get the Evil Queen off of Snow White’s back, they intend to sally forth to the south and rescue the king.

It initially seems as if this is setting up a Dumbo situation in which the live-action remake follows the original movie’s plot halfway before doing its own thing. However, Snow White learns while being given the poisoned apple that the Evil Queen already murdered her father. The seemingly happier ending that was promised turned out to be a lie, and now Snow has new motivation to confront her stepmother and seek retribution. It’s a sad turnabout, but it’s effective for those who didn’t see it coming.

Disney’s Version Of Snow White’s Parents Has 1 Major Difference To The Original Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale

The Evil Stepmother Trope Didn’t Have To Be A Thing

Because of Disney’s place in the zeitgeist, Snow White’s negative reviews largely stem from comparisons to the 1937 film rather than comparisons to the actual fairy tale on which it’s based. But both versions of the film depart from the original story in several ways, not the least of which is that the Evil Queen wasn’t traditionally Snow White’s stepmother. In the 1812 version that popularized the story, the Queen was actually Snow White’s birth mom. It wasn’t until at least 1819 that the Grimms changed this because they became uncomfortable with making a character’s mother the primary villain.

Interestingly enough, some versions also keep Snow White’s father alive. The most well-known version of the tale concludes with the Prince condemning the Queen to dance in hot iron shoes until she dies, but there are also versions in which Snow’s father returns from abroad to punish the Queen himself. Either of these versions would have obviously been too dark for the 2025 live-action remake of Snow White to incorporate, but it’s nice to know that there does exist a version in which the princess is reunited with at least one loving parent by the end.