The Queen's Magic Mirror

Peace be upon you, fellow digital wanderer.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the story of Snow White. Maybe not the original 1812 version by the Brothers Grimm in their Children’s and Household Tales, but certainly the sanitised retelling by Disney.

The Disney version transforms what was once a cautionary tale of envy, survival, and justice into a romantic love story.

In the original, there was a Queen. And there was a magic mirror — a mirror that told who was the fairest of them all. One day, the mirror stopped saying the Queen was the fairest, and named a girl by the name of Snow White instead.

The Queen sent a huntsman to kill Snow White — this much remains the same in both versions. But the Grimm version is far more gruesome. The huntsman was ordered to return with Snow White’s lungs and liver as proof. He faked it by killing a wild boar, and brought its organs to the Queen, who cooked and ate them.

There were seven dwarves in the original, but they were not given names, nor much in the way of personality.

The Queen attempted to kill Snow White three times. First, with a lace bodice — a garment so tightly laced it suffocated her. Then with a poisoned comb — as it stroked her hair, it made her deathly ill. The third attempt is the one we all remember: the poisoned apple. The first two times, the dwarves returned just in time to revive her. But with the apple, we know what happened.

Snow White wasn’t saved by a prince’s kiss. In the Grimm version, the prince sees her in her glass coffin and insists on taking it back to his kingdom. During the journey, one of his servants stumbles. The coffin falls. A piece of the apple dislodges from Snow White’s throat — and she awakens.

She marries the prince. The evil Queen is captured. As a punishment, the prince forces her to wear red-hot iron shoes, and dance in them until she dies. This part was left out of Disney’s version — I believe, in that one, the Queen simply falls to her death.

Magic Mirror Symbolism

There are many symbols and interpretations one could draw from the original version of Snow White compared to Disney’s retelling. I’ll leave you to contemplate the rest. In this Code & Codex dispatch, I want to focus on the ‘magic mirror’.

I trust most of you are familiar with the magic mirror — it appears in both versions of the tale. A strange, enchanted object that always tells the truth, but only when asked.

I’ve often wondered: what exactly is the magic mirror? Is it a device you can ask anything — and it gives you the answer? Perhaps the mirror answered based on what it was trained to reflect. Has the Queen ever asked it anything other than who is the fairest in the land? If the mirror truly possessed magical intelligence, wouldn’t it be more useful for other kinds of questions?

Why not ask it for dirt on a political rival? Or for intel on a hostile state? Or for secrets that could expand her power?

(I’ve read some interpretations that suggest “beauty” represents power. If Snow White is more beautiful, then she may one day hold more influence and authority than the Queen.)

But if the magic mirror is limited — if the only answer it ever gives is who is the fairest — then what good is it? What purpose does it serve, beyond stoking vanity, envy, and eventual chaos?

I prefer to believe the magic mirror could answer far more profound questions. It was the Queen’s own vanity that blinded her. She never used it to its full potential. Like many powerful tools, the mirror didn’t limit itself — it was limited by the user.

Our Magic Mirror

We are living in the age of ‘magic mirrors’. Everyone now has their own. It's small enough to carry in our pockets wherever we go. When inactive, its black glass surface reflects our face. When awakened, it provides us with access to whatever information we desire.

But are we using this magic mirror to its full potential, or are we just as vain as the Queen in Snow White? As we scroll through algorithmically generated feeds, we keep looking for — who is the fairest? Who is the richest? Who has more than us?

The algorithmic nature of this magic mirror is designed to keep us engaged — by reminding us of what we don’t have, blurring the line between our ‘wants’ and our ‘needs’.

Another thought I had when rereading Snow White: was the Queen using the mirror — or was the mirror using the Queen? Mirrors reflect. But reflections can mislead — especially when we fall in love with them.

We think we're in control of our digital media consumption, but is that truly the case? Or are we caught like flies in the algorithmic web, spun by big-tech spiders waiting to suck us dry?

Our ‘magic mirror’ today is more magical than ever, thanks to AI and large language models (LLMs). You can literally ask it anything, and it will generate answers that seemingly ring true. I know that fluency isn’t truth, and coherence isn’t wisdom. Nevertheless, the generative capabilities of these next gen AI models are powerful and wondrous.

And yet — what do we use it for? To turn our photos into Studio Ghibli animations? To roast strangers on the internet?

Let’s pause and reflect. Let’s reflect on our use of this mirror. Let’s be mindful of our digital consumption. This mirror can be wondrous — but it can also be deceptive. Let’s not be like the Queen, using it only for vanity.

Both mirrors and microchips share a common ancestor: silicon. One reflects our face. The other powers the algorithms that reflect our desires, fears, and vanity back at us.

In folklore, mirrors told the truth.

In our world, algorithms do — or claim to.

Stay glitch, stay human.

Jibone