What are the Queen of Hearts' soldiers made of?

The Queen of Hearts’ soldiers are made of playing cards.

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the Queen’s attendants are animated members of a pack of cards. Alice eventually recognizes that the strange figures surrounding the royal court are not ordinary people but card characters.

The card society follows a loose suit-based hierarchy. The Queen and King of Hearts form the royal family, while other cards serve as gardeners, soldiers, courtiers, or servants. The soldiers are associated with clubs and carry out the Queen’s commands, including guarding prisoners and assisting with executions.

They also perform a wonderfully impractical role during the Queen’s croquet game: the soldiers bend themselves into arches. Since they are alive, the arches keep getting up and walking away, adding to the game’s deliberate chaos. The croquet balls are live hedgehogs and the mallets are flamingos.

Modern films and stage productions sometimes portray the card guards as human performers in costumes, but that is an adaptation choice. In Carroll’s original story, the soldiers belong to the pack of living playing cards.