Rose Red

Snow White’s sister, ex-girlfriend of Jack Horner, brief fiancée of Bluebeard, and brief wife of Sinbad. For centuries, Rose’s relationship with her sister was defined by wild carousing and partying, serving as an embarrassment to her sister. Snow’s then husband Prince Charming got tangled with Rose Red in an adulterous relationship when she had stayed with the couple as Snow White’s companion, thus putting an end to the already troubled marriage. In the first Fables story arc, she is believed to be murdered, until Bigby Wolf solves the mystery: She and Jack had faked her death as part of a complex plan to avoid her impending marriage to Bluebeard after using a great deal of his money to finance one of Jack’s ill-fated get-rich-quick schemes.

In the second story arc, she and Snow White go up to the Farm for Rose to do as punishment for her faked death, where they are caught up in a revolution. At the end of that story, Rose finally finds her niche, managing the Farm, which allowed her to stand equal to her sister, the then-deputy mayor. At the end of the arc Rose is shown to have matured greatly and has fixed her relationship with her sister and broke off her bad relationship with Jack for good. She continues to run the Farm, doting on her nieces and nephews, and has occasionally provided assistance to covert operations. Though her life as the original party girl is well behind her, she still maintains a cheerful attitude and independent spirit, evident in how she runs the Farm, regardless of how the current administration would like her to manage things.

She was briefly involved with Weyland Smith before his death in the battle of Fabletown. Rose was also the one who persuaded her sister to trust Frau Totenkinder and take her with them to the mundane world while they were escaping from the Homelands and the invading armies of the Adversary. Rose seems to have stopped smoking as well. She had shown interest in Boy Blue while overseeing his labor sentence, but rejected his advances on the eve of Fabletown’s strike against the Emperor in order to preserve their friendship. Boy Blue did not take the rejection well.[1] Following the war story-arc, Rose married Sinbad, but immediately divorced him on account of her despair over Boy Blue’s post-war condition. She attempted to revive her romantic relationship with Boy Blue in his last moments, but was denied by Blue himself, with him stating that she goes out with whoever seems to add the most excitement to her life, and that he deserves better than that, but he hopes someone else can “fix her”.

Emotionally destroyed by Blue’s rejection and immediate death, Rose has descended heavily into self-loathing and depression, refusing to leave her bed for any reason. She reunited briefly with Jack on her descent toward rock-bottom.

Rose Red usually dresses in red and always has some sort of rose motif in her clothing, even if it is just a scarf tied in the shape of a blossom