Lady Tremaine (2015)

''This page is about the incarnation of Lady Tremaine from the 2015 movie. The mainstream version can be found here: Lady Tremaine.''

"You shall NOT go to the ball!"

- Madonna Tremaine

'''"It is the king I'm thinking of. It would be an insult to the royal personage to take you to the palace dressed in these old rags"

- Lady Tremaine to Ella regarding her mother's dress. Lady Tremaine is the main antagonist of the 2015 live action film/fantasy romance film Cinderella. '''

She is portrayed by Cate Blanchett, who also played Irina Spalko.

Overview
''Lady Tremaine has had her share of broken dreams, which have left her cold, bitter, and mercenary. She longs to have a life that is taken care of from a financial point of view and a secure future for her daughters. However, she is easily jealous of any affection her second husband bestows upon his biological daughter, Ella, whom she grows to resent for her youth, innocence, and goodness.''

''Following the death of her second husband, the financial pressures and panic cause Lady Tremaine's jealousy to grow, and it manifested itself through cruelty and contempt directed at her stepdaughter, who is forced to become the servant of her own house. In the end, though, Lady Tremaine's jealousy, spite, and ambition get the better of her.''

Story
Described by the film's narrator to be "a woman of keen feeling and refined taste", Lady Tremaine was once married to Sir Francis Tremaine, the Master of the Mercer's Guild, with whom she had two daughters: Drisella and Anastasia.

According to her, her first marriage had been a love match, and she viewed her first husband as "the light of her life". When he died, her second marriage to Ella's father had been more for her daughters' sake than her own.

In the beginning, Lady Tremaine did not seem to bear any particular animosity towards her stepdaughter, and instead focused on restoring life and laughter to the estate, which appeared to have been shrouded in a sad, silent serenity after Ella's mother died. However, her methods - such as holding gambling parties to which even the nobility attended - did not appeal to her husband and Ella, the former of whom even remarked that he did not mind missing out on them as they were all the same. Later on, her overhearing a private heart-to-heart conversation between her husband and Ella incited her jealousy and spite of the latter, for it seemed to confirm that her husband loved her stepdaughter more than he did her, and he still dearly cherished the memory of his first wife (Ella's mother).

After he departed on a trip, Lady Tremaine started displaying, little by little, her true colors towards Ella. The first incidence was to indirectly make Ella move out of her bedroom into the attic, and when it was obvious that her daughters were making fools of themselves to Ella, she deliberately did things to distract her while making her work like a servant, such as pretending to accidentally upset a plate of biscuits. When the news of her husband's death came, Lady Tremaine was again angry, hurt, and jealous that his dying words had only been of Ella and her mother. When her daughters inquired about their lack of promised gifts, she rebuked them by stating that it did not matter, for they were all ruined, and lamented about how they were to live.

Due to financial pressures, Lady Tremaine dismissed the entire staff of servants, and had no further qualms about being open about how she truly felt towards her stepdaughter: as described by the narrator, Ella grew to be ever misused by her step-family, who increasingly viewed her as more of a servant than a relation.

Trivia

 * In the overall story of the live-action film, Lady Tremaine is the main antagonist (obviously), the Grand Duke is secondary, the Ugly Stepsisters are tertiary, and Lucifer is quaternary.