Queen Vanessa

"Who's there? Who dares enter my home?!"

- Vanessa.

Queen Vanessa is a minor antagonist in A Hat in Time. She serves as the primary obstacle in Chapter 3 Act 4, chasing Hat Kid about her manor like a slasher villain. She is also responsible for the creation of the Snatcher, one of Hat Kid's more prominent foes.

Biography
Vanessa was (and technically still is) the ruler of Subcon Village, inheriting the title from her mother. She lived a happy life engaged to her "Prince", a friendly law student. Vanessa's dairy shows she was a dangerous domestic abuser and was likely tyrannical or self-absorbed when dealing with her people; nonetheless her Prince loved her back, happy to move into her manor and writing her frequent letters when he was away at law school.

One day, Vanessa witnessed her Prince with another woman. In truth he was simply buying flowers from a friendly merchant, but Vanessa was convinced he was cheating on her. She became wrathful and ordered her guards to chain the Prince in her wine cellar. The Prince would perish down there, turning into the ghostly Snatcher. Vanessa became bitter and violent &mdash; her magical tears froze the forest around her manor, killing her subjects in Subcon Village and reducing Subcon Forest to a haunted wasteland. She spent her days afterward wallowing in self-pity and killing any trespassers, turning them into icy statues.

When a Time Piece falls in her forest Vanessa stashes it in her attic. Hat Kid sneaks into her manor to reclaim it, in what would be one of the most harrowing ordeals in the young alien's adventure. The staircase to the attic was locked, and Vanessa had hidden the keys about her house. Hat Kid frees the first key by breaking the Queen's piano, but Vanessa grabs the second key before Hat Kid, hiding it in the bathroom as she bathes. Hat Kid is undaunted and grabs the key, making a break for the attic staircase and escaping with the Time Piece.

Appearance
In the past, Vanessa was a beautiful and very tall young lady with flowing blonde hair, Caucasian skin, and a fancy green dress. Following her tragic breakdown she devolved into a hunchbacked demonic figure &mdash; while she superficially resembles her former beauty, she is perpetually cast in shadow, leering from behind her stringy hair with glowing red eyes and lashing out with her claw-like hands. The player is denied from getting any better a look, as the camera becomes distorted and all other light sources are snuffed out if Hat Kid can draw clear line of sight.

Personality
Vanessa is defined almost entirely by her unhealthy obsessions and vapid sense of vanity. Reading her diary reveals she cares very little for anything but her whimsical dreams of being a storybook princess and getting to feel the love of her "Prince". On the day her mother died, Vanessa was saddened not by the loss of her own mother but by being called "Queen" instead of "Princess". Most of all, she is jealous of anything that might take his Prince's attention. She would tear the names of the Prince's law school tutors out of his letters, banned bacon from her house when he said he loved it, and insisted he style his hair to match hers (though he was happy to do so). Despite the obvious signs of domestic abuse the Prince never thought ill of her and loved his "Princess" back.