Hattice

Hattice is the het ship between the Mad Hatter and Alice from the Alice in Wonderland fandom.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Alice first heard of the Mad Hatter from the Cheshire Cat when asking him which way she should go. The Cheshire Cat gives her directions to both a Hatter and a March Hare, but adds that they are both mad. Alice objects that she doesn’t want to go among mad people, but the Cheshire Cat retaliates that she’s in Wonderland: everyone here is mad. After a bit of chatting with the Cat, Alice decides to see the March Hare, thinking that he would be much more interesting as she had already seen hatters before. She comes to regret her decision upon seeing what the March Hare’s house looks like, wishing she had gone to the Hatter instead.

However, her concerns would prove irrelevant, as she would catch the Hatter along with the March Hare having tea at the March Hare’s house. But the moment the Hatter saw Alice, he and the March Hare would yell at her that the table had no room for her. Alice pointed out that there was plenty of room for her, the table was very long and mostly empty, so she sat herself down on the other end of it while the rest of the party was crowded together at the other. After the Hare offers her wine without actually having any, the Hatter tells Alice that her hair “wants cutting”. The narration points out that he had been watching Alice with great curiosity and had been waiting to say something to her. Alice chides him that he should learn to stop making personal remarks, calling it very rude.

The Hatter acts dejected for a second, but then regains his composure by giving Alice a riddle; “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”. Alice is happy to finally get a riddle instead of being reprimanded for behavior she never thought of as wrong, openly admitting that she believes she can guess it. As the March Hare makes a comment about her not saying what she means, the Hatter tells her that her “meaning what she says” is not the same thing at all. Despite being chided by all the other party guests for that, Alice pays this no mind, still thinking of the Hatter’s riddle and the rest of the party falls silent. The Hatter breaks the silence by asking her what day of the month it is.

Upon seeing that the Hatter’s watch doesn’t actually tell the time, but what day of the month it is, Alice comments on it which the Hatter questions, thinking that such a watch is normal. After the Hatter asks her if her watch tells her what year it is, Alice answers that a watch like that would be useless, which the Hatter retorts is the case with his watch. Alice couldn’t comprehend what the Hatter is saying, even though he was clearly speaking in English, so she just tells him that she doesn’t understand him as politely as she could. After pouring tea on the Dormouse, the Hatter asks Alice if she had guessed the riddle yet, to which Alice admits that she gave up. After asking him about the answer, the Hatter admits that he has no idea either, to which Alice chides him for not using his time more wisely.

The Hatter in turn chides her for using “it” pronouns for Time instead of “he”, which only confuses Alice even further. The Hatter guesses that Alice had never even met Time, to which Alice admits that she only beats it when she’s learning music. The Hatter guesses why Time wouldn’t waste himself on Alice: he won’t stand beating. The Hatter tells her that if you keep a good relationship with Time, he will do whatever you want him to, giving the idea of time flying during boring lessons as an example. As the Hatter explains that Time hates them for supposedly “murdering” him during the concert of the Queen of Hearts last March, Alice realizes that they are always drinking tea because they are perpetually stuck at tea time. As Alice asks him what happens when they start over, the March Hare interrupts, quickly changing the subject.

The Hare urges Alice to tell a story, but the Hatter and Hare both agree that the Dormouse should do the telling instead when she refuses. When Alice is asking too many questions for them, the March Hare urges her to take some more tea, to which the Hatter adds that it is much easier to take more than nothing. Alice calmly reminds the Hatter that nobody asked for his opinion. The Hatter in turn reminds her that she is the one making personal remarks now. When Alice once again questions the Dormouse’s story, not satisfied with the answers she’s got, the Hatter and the Hare both shush her. As they each move one place further, Alice continues to question the story, but the Hatter retorts that they could draw water out of a water well, so they could logically draw something else from a different well, calling her “stupid”. Alice politely ignores the Hatter’s last remark and further pokes holes in the story. As Alice receives another stupid answer, she goes on about how she doesn’t think such a thing is possible, but the Hatter interrupts her, saying she shouldn’t talk when she doesn’t think.

Alice got fed up with the general rudeness of the group and left. She hoped to herself that someone would stop her, but when she turned around to check on them, they were putting the Dormouse in the teapot. Alice promises to herself that she will never return to that place.

Alice briefly sees the Hatter again while he’s witnessing for the Queen of Hearts, being asked If he knows who stole her tarts. Alice doesn’t comment on how she feels about seeing the Hatter again, she is far more fascinated by actually seeing people being literally suppressed for applauding in court.

Alice in Wonderland (1951)
The interactions between Alice and the Hatter are almost identical to the ones they had in the first book, with a few lines shuffled around or ommitted. The Hatter acts slightly nicer and less rude to Alice, since most of his worst lines were given to the March Hare instead.

In this movie, Alice is crashing the Hatter's and Hare's "unbirthday party", which is used to explain why they are sitting at a long table with tea and cake this time. When they explain the concept of the unbirthday to Alice, any given day in the year that isn't your birthday is a cause for celebration, she points out that it should be her unbirthday as well and they happily celebrate it with her. Though Alice still gets fed up with them, the reason she has for leaving this time around is because the White Rabbit appears this time, with the Hatter and Hare destroying his watch in an effort to repair it. Chasing after the Rabbit, Alice still vows to herself that she will never return to that place again.

The Hatter appears again during Alice's trial, being a witness for Alice's "rudeness". When Alice offends the Queen of Hearts during her power high this time, instead of waking up immediately, she runs away from the Queen and is briefly stopped by the Hatter and Hare wanting to continue celebrating with her. When she refuses, the Hatter joins the other Wonderlanders in angrily chasing after her until she finds a way to wake up.

American McGee's Alice
Wonderland was Alice's fantasy escape as a child and would sometimes dream about her having tea parties with Hatter and his friends. On night as Alice has one of her dreams of Hatter and their parties, a fire starts in the real and ends causing a fire in Wonderland. Hatter tells Alice to wake before the smoke and blaze would take her sleeping body. Even though she was able to escape through an open window, the deaths of her family deeply affected her and got placed in an asylum. The trauma Alice suffered from that night not only warped her Wonderland paradise into a realm of nightmares, it had twisted Hatter from a friend to an enemy. Killing those he once saw as friends, or doing horrible experiments on them. Alice learns of the Hatter's cruelty when she saw his gigantic form kill the White Rabbit and then saw the painful state of the March Hare and Dormouse after she was captured by him. Alice is then forced to kill the Mad Hatter, in order to continue her journey to stop the Queen of Hearts. After Alice defeats her and becomes well enough to leave the asylum, the restored Wonderland has Hatter be brought back to life among the others who were killed.

Alice being tricked to slowly forget Wonderland and her past still left Hatter and his realm distorted. Along with his past actions coming back to haunt him, that is why Alice finds him in pieces despite knowing that she wasn't the one who left him that way, from their last encounter. With Alice needing to get through his realm and felt that Hatter might know something about her shattered memories, she offers to retrieve his arms and legs from March and Dormouse. After she completed her task Alice tries to ask Hatter about the train that was wrecking Wonderland, but he doesn't give her a clear answer and takes Alice deeper into the factory as part of their deal, as she reminds him of his promise. After Alice defeated March and Dormouse to save Hatter, he was too devastated with the deaths of his former friends and his domain falling apart, he refused to answer Alice's questions. When he gets crushed from the falling derby, Alice's frustration with him had her stating that "he deserves to die." Alice comes across Hatter again on the train, where he scolds her for wanting to forget before she began trying to recover her shattered memories. The affects on her mind is what caused the Hatter's darker madness and has spread to the other inhabitants of Wonderland. Knowing that he and the others she re-meets on the train were right, Alice goes to confront the Dollmaker.

Fanon
Hattice seems to be a constant in all adaptations, with every Alice fandom having people ship her with the Hatter in some way or form. However, most people don't ship her with the Hatter because of potential chemistry, but rather seeing him as a character who can be easily molded into a love interest for her: He's the only character relevant, iconic and human enough to be truly considered her equal. Since Alice in Wonderland is often treated as a fairy tale, even though it's not, many argue that any interpretation of Alice and the Hatter is just as valid as the next as long as the basics of the characters are clearly visible.

Fans of the 50's Disney movie generally don't ship the Hatter with Alice. However, Disney fans noticed how strangely flirty Alice and Hatter actors are to each other in the theme parks, it helps that adults are often playing Alice, with the Hatter often being played by younger, conventionally handsome actors. One of the most famous works shipping those versions of the characters is the webcomic "When Curiosity Met Insanity", which was actually written and illustrated by theme park workers.

Hattice is also the main ship of the Burton movies, comparable to Scarothy since they both share the fact that they were actually meant to be canon in the early drafts of the script, but only remnants of that remained in the film proper. In particular, the scene of Alice saying goodbye to the Hatter is very reminiscent of Dorothy telling the Scarecrow that she'll miss him the most. A common story to use in Burtonverse fanfiction is to either have Alice permanently move to Wonderland/Underland or have the Hatter find a way to follow her into the real world.

When it comes to their American McGee's Alice counterparts, however, Hattice isn't largely supported in it. With the dark twisted version of Hatter turning from a friend to an enemy who tries to kill the girl he used to have tea parties with. Even though Madness Returns does have the two call a true when he needed Alice's help, and with him being one of the people on the train to help Alice confront her past and the man who is responsible for her traumatic madness.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION

Trivia

 * They both appear in Once Upon A Time and were originally intended to meet in Alice's debut series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. However, due to scheduling issues with Hatter's actor Sebastian Stan, with Stan's take on the character proving too popular for a recast to be an option, they never got to meet in that series.