The Playing Cards are characters in the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. They are playing cards with a human head, arms and legs. They are loyal servants as well as guards for The Queen of Hearts. It is explained in the book that the spades are gardeners, clubs are soldiers, diamonds are courtiers, and hearts are members of the royal family. Alice first meets three cards (the 2, 5 and 7 of Spades) in the Queen's garden painting white roses red. One of them explains that they accidentally planted white roses, and because the queen hates white roses they have to paint them red or the Queen will behead them. After the Queen arrives, she finds white roses and orders the execution of all three of them.