White King (Through the Looking Glass)

White King
Alice character
1871 illustration by John Tenniel
First appearance	Through the Looking-Glass
Created by	Lewis Carroll
Portrayed by	Michael Socha (Once Upon a Time in Wonderland)
Information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Occupation	King
Spouse(s)	White Queen
Children	Lily (a pawn)
Nationality	Looking-Glass Land

The White King is a fictional character who appears in Lewis Carroll's fantasy story Through the Looking-Glass. Aside from Alice herself, he is one of the earliest chesspieces that are introduced into the story. Although he does not interact with Alice as much as the White Queen does, because Alice becomes a pawn on his side of the Chess-game, he is, on some levels, the most important character within the story at least as far as the game is concerned. He is not to be confused with the King of Hearts from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

When Alice first sees the White King, having passed through the eponymous looking glass, he is a chesspiece of normal size, but animate, and, for whatever reason, cannot hear or see Alice at this stage. Alice, not realising this, picks both him and the White Queen off the floor and places them on a table, leading them to believe that some unseen volcano blew them up there. Afterwards, however, she has some mischievous fun by manipulating the King's handwriting from behind while he writes so that he comes out with nonsense in his memorandum book ("the White Knight is sliding down the poker. He balances very badly"). She soon leaves him alone, however, when she sees the poetry-book in which "Jabberwocky" is written.

When Alice sees the White King next, in a later chapter, he is, along with many other characters in the story, the size of a normal adult. Humpty Dumpty, as a chesspiece, is "taken" (symbolised by his notorious fall from where he sits) and the White King appears with his soldiers, presumably in hopes of putting him back together. He and Alice begin characteristic Wonderland/Looking-Glass banter, as well as the usual Carrollian word play ("I only wish I had such eyes...to be able to see Nobody"). His imperial status as a king, as well as his tendency to take things literally, is reflected in such statements as "it isn't respectable to beg" when Alice simply says "I beg your pardon" and he also remarks that he needs his two messengers Hatta and Haigha: "one to come and one to go... one to fetch and one to carry". When Haigha arrives he claims, in all seriousness, that there is "nothing like eating hay when you're feeling faint", and having eaten two ham sandwiches consumes some hay just as casually. He expresses mixed feelings about two other characters, the Lion and the Unicorn: amusement at the fact that they are "fighting for the crown" even though it is his own crown they are fighting over, but at the same time nervousness when the "two great creatures" stand on either side of him. However, given that they, as chesspieces, are protecting him from danger from the red side, there is, as Carroll tells us, "nothing to be done about it".