The Nutcracker is one of the most beloved Christmas stories of all time. It has been adapted into a ballet, as well as many television and movie adaptations.
Background[]
Biography[]
Hans (Nutcracker's original form)
In the 1990 animated film, Hans is Uncle Drosselmeyer's nephew who works with him in the workshop.
In the 1993 musical film, his name is only "Drosselmeyer's Nephew".
Personality[]
Physical Appearance[]
Abilities[]
Appearances[]
Animated productions[]
The Nutcracker Prince[]
The Past[]
It begins there were a King and a Queen who had a beautiful, but vain and normal daughter named Perlipat. To celebrate the King's birthday, the Queen made a special cake out of blue cheese, the King's favorite. However, the scent of the cheese drew out all the mice, who ate and destroyed the cake. The King was enraged and commanded his inventor, Elias Christian Drosselmeyer, to capture all the mice. Drosselmeyer and his nephew, Hans, were successful in capturing all the mice, except the Mouse Queen and her only son.
In revenge, the Mouse Queen casts a spell on Perlipat, causing her to become unusually ugly and weird. Drosselmeyer was once again given the task of figuring out how to cure her. He eventually learned that the fabled Krakatooth Nut can cure her, on the condition that it is cracked open in the teeth of a young man who has never worn boots. The King commanded all the princes and noblemen to apply, with the promise of marrying Perlipat once she is cured.
However, the Krakatooth is so hard that all the men's teeth shatter upon trying to crack it. Drosselmeyer is about to be beheaded for being unable to cure Perlipat when Hans steps in. He manages to crack the nut open between his teeth and gives it to Perlipat, breaking the spell. Then the angered Mouse Queen casts a spell on Hans, turning him into the Prince of the Dolls (in other words, a Nutcracker). During the ruckus, she is killed by a falling statue, and her son's tail is caught and bent. He survives and declares himself the Mouse King.
Drosselmeyer is exiled from the kingdom for trying to pass a "Nutcracker as a son-in-law", while the King and Queen celebrate with their now-cured daughter. As Drosselmeyer holds the Nutcracker that Hans has become, the Mouse King vows revenge upon Hans for ruining his tail ("And if you think your beloved nephew Hans is ugly now, ha! Wait 'till I turn him into a pile of splinters!").
The Present[]
The Nutcracker is later given by Drosselmeyer as a gift to a girl named Clara on Christmas Eve, and Drosselmeyer tells her the story about how Hans became the Nutcracker (as elaborated above). During midnight, Clara sneaks downstairs to check on the Nutcracker in the toy cabinet, and introduces him to her dolls Marie, Trudy and general Pantaloon, along with her brother Fritz's set of toy soldiers. Reciting her sister Louise's words from earlier, she then dances with the Nutcracker and sings to the tune of "Waltz of the Flowers" until her kitten Pavlova interrupts. As Clara decides to go back to bed and puts the Nutcracker away, Drosselmeyer's ghost appears above the grandfather clock and brings all the toys in the cabinet to life, including the Nutcracker himself, who was stuck as a doll since his curse. Meanwhile, a horde of mice arrives, led by the Mouse King, who is seeking revenge on the Nutcracker for crushing his tail. The Nutcracker does not know what was going on and remembers the time he saved Perlipat, but is shocked to see his doll appearance when Marie points it out using her mirror. At Trudy's warning that the Mouse King is coming after him, the Nutcracker decides to rally the dolls in the cabinet, including Pantaloon and the toy soldiers, and declares that they must wage a war against the Mouse King and his band of followers. The battle between the dolls and the mice ensues, with the Nutcracker and Pantaloon leading their allies. However, the Nutcracker gets trapped by Fritz's horn, which is dropped onto him by the Mouse King's minions, who are following their ruler's commands. After he pushes the horn off himself and as he sees the Mouse King ride towards him on a toy horse preparing to slash him and burn him alive with Clara's candle, Clara steps in and throws her slipper at the Mouse King, thus saving the Nutcracker's life, but then she accidentally slips on a cannonball and hits her head on the glass of the grandfather clock, knocking herself unconscious for the rest of the night.
The Nutcracker changes back into a lifeless nutcracker shortly thereafter. The next night, the Mouse King returns and threatens to slay the Nutcracker. Clara refuses to give in to the large rodent's orders that she hand over the doll, but she reluctantly decides to and summons Drosselmeyer to bring the Nutcracker and the other toys in the cabinet back to life, and his ghost does so. The Nutcracker asks for a sword, so Clara decides to give him the sword that belongs to Pantaloon as the Mouse King and his entire army make fun of the Nutcracker. Clara tells the Nutcracker to be careful, to which he replies by reminding her not to worry. However, the Mouse King sneaks up on him from behind and strikes him on the shoulder with his sword, and the two engage in a duel to the death as Clara looks on worried. Their fight goes on, and they eventually clash all the way to the top of the Christmas tree. Just as the Mouse King prepares to deliver the killing blow, the Nutcracker thrusts Pantaloon's sword into his chest and stabs him, fatally wounding him. The rodent's body falls down from the tree, causing his army to retreat out of fear of losing their king and rightful leader, and the dolls cheer at the Nutcracker's victory. Clara is also amazed at seeing the Nutcracker's survival, saying that she was frightened for him. However, Pantaloon has also been damaged by the Mouse King in a brief fight, so the other dolls and Clara decide that they must take him to the Land of the Dolls to nurse him back to health. After Drosselmeyer shrinks Clara down to doll size, she goes inside his toy castle with the Nutcracker and the other dolls.
While inside the toy castle, they enter a portal that leads them to the Land of the Dolls. Clara and the Nutcracker meet two swans, whom the latter introduces as Hero and Leander, and they go on a flight on one swan through a snowy forest with Christmas trees, with Pantaloon and Trudy riding the other swan and Marie fearfully riding a duck. The swans approach the Gingerbread Castle, and fly through a magical waterfall which gives Clara and the Nutcracker new attire and heals Pantaloon. They eventually make it to the castle where a guard greets Clara and the Nutcracker and leads them to the court. Soon, as they enter the castle, the Nutcracker is hailed a hero by the cheering toy subjects. He and Clara share a beautiful "pas de deux" dance together, a defining moment for their relationship. After their dance, the Nutcracker kneels to Clara and offers her to stay with him as his princess and rule the Land of the Dolls together with him for eternity. Clara is delighted at first and praises him and the fantasy world, but upon realizing the real world needs her, she becomes doubtful about the Nutcracker's hand in marriage. She rejects his offer by saying that even though she loves him and everyone in the Land of the Dolls and sees it as a wonderful place, she wants to grow up and do other things like joining a ballet, and that she cannot stay in this world forever. However, this negates the magic that animated all the dolls, and they revert to lifeless toys. As Clara desperately tries to make amends with them and panics about leaving her real world behind, she runs into the crazed dying Mouse King, who suddenly emerges before her! The Nutcracker attempts to intervene and save Clara, but he is also transforming back into a wooden nutcracker. He is forced to watch on helplessly as the Mouse King attacks Clara, who tries to fend him off. Finally, the Nutcracker loses hope and succumbs, shedding a single tear whilst saying Clara's name before he entirely turns back into a nutcracker, thus he is unable to rescue Clara. Then he vanishes along with the other dolls after the Mouse King falls from the castle's balcony to his death, followed by the rest of the Land of the Dolls.
When Clara returns to the real world and runs to Drosselmeyer's toy shop panicking over the Nutcracker's disappearance, the Nutcracker himself returns in human form as Hans, meaning that his spell is finally broken and he is no longer a nutcracker, though it is unknown how it happened after he vanished with the Land of the Dolls. He reunites with Clara and greets her, to which Clara responds by greeting back and still calling him "Nutcracker" because of his familiarity.
Live-action productions[]
The Nutcracker[]
Characters dressed as The Nutcracker[]
Jerry Mouse[]
Relationships[]
Quotes[]
Gallery[]
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Trivia[]
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