The Nutcracker and the Mouse King recap

On Christmas Eve, Marie Stahlbaum becomes devoted to a wooden Nutcracker that her brother Fritz damages. At midnight she witnesses the Nutcracker leading the toys against the seven-headed Mouse King. After Marie saves him, her godfather Drosselmeier tells her how Princess Pirlipat's curse was broken by his nephew, who was then transformed into the Nutcracker when the ungrateful princess rejected him. The Mouse King threatens the wounded Nutcracker and extorts Marie's sweets and toys until the Nutcracker, armed with Fritz's sword, kills him. He takes Marie through a magical toy kingdom, but she wakes at home and is not believed. When Drosselmeier's nephew appears, Marie promises she would never reject him for his altered appearance. Her loyalty ends the enchantment; he resumes human form, proposes, and eventually takes her to his kingdom as its queen.

On Christmas Eve, Marie and Fritz Stahlbaum wait outside the closed parlor while their parents and godfather Drosselmeier prepare the celebration. They receive dolls, toy soldiers, books, and other gifts, as well as one of Drosselmeier's elaborate mechanical displays. Marie's attention settles on a plain wooden Nutcracker designed to crack nuts in its broad mouth. Fritz forces it to tackle nuts that are too large and breaks several teeth. Marie takes charge of the injured figure, wraps its jaw, and treats it as a person worthy of protection rather than a disposable toy.

Marie stays behind when the family goes to bed and arranges the Nutcracker comfortably in the glass cabinet among the dolls. At midnight the room changes around her. Mice pour from the floor under the command of a seven-headed Mouse King, while the Nutcracker comes alive and organizes Fritz's toy troops and Marie's dolls in defense. The battle turns against the toys. To save the Nutcracker from the Mouse King, Marie throws her shoe into the fighting, then falls through the cabinet's glass and loses consciousness. She wakes with a cut arm and tries to explain what happened, but the adults attribute the vision to fever and imagination.

While Marie recovers, Drosselmeier begins the story of the hard Krakatuk nut. In a royal household, Queen Mouserinks and her mice consume food meant for a feast. The king orders Drosselmeier, then the court's clockmaker, to build traps, and the mouse queen retaliates by cursing the infant Princess Pirlipat. The princess's beauty is transformed into the exaggerated features of a nutcracker. The court astrologer determines that only a young man who has never shaved or worn boots can restore her by cracking the exceptionally hard Krakatuk nut with his teeth and then taking seven backward steps. Drosselmeier and the astrologer are sent out to search for both nut and rescuer.

After years of searching, Drosselmeier and the astrologer reach Nuremberg, where Drosselmeier's cousin owns the Krakatuk nut. The cousin's courteous young son also meets every condition for the rescuer. At court he cracks the nut, gives its kernel to Pirlipat, and restores her beauty. During the required backward steps he treads on Queen Mouserinks, killing her, but the fall transfers Pirlipat's former deformity to him. Although he saved her, the princess refuses to marry him in his altered shape, and he is driven away as the Nutcracker. The astrologer foretells that he can regain his form if he defeats Mouserinks's seven-headed son and is loved faithfully despite his appearance. Marie understands Drosselmeier's tale as the history of her own Nutcracker.

The Mouse King visits Marie at night and threatens to destroy the Nutcracker unless she surrenders her sweets and then her toys. She gives up one treasure after another, but the demands continue. The Nutcracker asks her to find him a sword, and Fritz supplies one from a toy officer. Armed again, the Nutcracker meets the Mouse King and kills him, ending the extortion. He presents the seven tiny crowns to Marie and invites her to see his home. Passing through a hidden route, they enter a brilliant realm of confectionery landscapes, doll communities, and marvelous towns, where Marie is honored for preserving the Nutcracker's life.

Marie sees the capital of the Nutcracker's kingdom and is welcomed in its palace, but later wakes in her own home. Her family treats the journey as another dream, even when she produces the Mouse King's crowns. Drosselmeier's nephew arrives and resembles the Nutcracker's story. Marie openly says that she would not have behaved like Princess Pirlipat: she would have remained loyal to the young man after his transformation. Her declaration completes the condition for ending the spell. The nephew appears to Marie in his restored human form, explains that her faithfulness released him, and asks her to become his wife. After the promised interval he returns with a magnificent escort and takes her to the wondrous kingdom, where she reigns beside him as queen.

The Nutcracker defeats the seven-headed Mouse King after Marie obtains a sword for him, and he gives her the enemy's seven crowns. He then leads her through a magical passage into a realm of sweets, toys, and splendid cities, where she is welcomed as his rescuer. Marie awakens at home and cannot persuade the adults that the journey occurred. When Drosselmeier's nephew visits, Marie recognizes his connection to the Nutcracker. She declares that, unlike Princess Pirlipat, she would remain faithful to someone who had suffered for her sake. This promise breaks the Nutcracker's enchantment. The nephew returns in his true form, asks Marie to marry him, and later takes her away in a golden carriage. She becomes queen of his wondrous kingdom, where the beauty she saw on her journey endures.