Maleficent (Maleficent)

Maleficent is the titular main protagonist of the 2014 film of the same name and its 2019 sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.
In contrast to the version of the character seen in the original Sleeping Beauty film, this version of Maleficent is depicted as more tragic and sympathetic, having once been an innocent and good-hearted individual who became cruel as a result of circumstance and eventually redeemed herself after sharing a parental bond with Aurora.
She was portrayed by , who also portrayed Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider franchise and voiced Tigress in the Kung-Fu Panda franchise.
==Biography==
===Maleficent===
As a child, Maleficent lived a peaceful life in an enchanted forest known as the Moors and had a close friendship with the young Stefan until one day he betrayed her and stole her wings as proof he killed her so he could become king. Maleficent becomes enraged over his treachery and as her heart of gold turns to stone she becomes the most evil being in the land and the new ruler of the Moors.
Bent on revenge, she places a curse upon the baby Aurora to fall into a "sleep like death" when she pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. However, after Stefan begs her to spare his daughter's life, she also includes that the curse can be lifted only by true love's kiss and no other power on earth can change it. She also surrounds the Moors with a giant wall of thorns to protect her self and the Moors inhabitants from the soldiers. 
Over the next sixteen years, Maleficent watches over the young princess and despite her dislike for the little "Beastie" she reluctantly takes care of her from afar since the three Pixies are incapable and struggle with their new life as humans. By the time Aurora is fifteen, Maleficent brings her to the Moors and to her surprise she is delighted to meet. Aurora claims she is her Fairy Godmother and over the next few days they spend time together with the other fairies. All the fairies take a liking to Aurora and even Maleficent starts to warm up to her. Seeing her no longer as her enemy she tries to remove the curse from her but she is unable too since no power on earth can lift it but true love’s kiss.
When Aurora says she wishes to stay with Maleficent she delighted. However after learning the truth about her past and her Fairy Godmother's identity she sadly returns to her father. Although ashamed, Maleficent knows if she returns the castle her life will be in danger.
As the sun begins to set Maleficent finds Phillip and hurries to the castle but all is in vain when her evil prophecy has been fulfilled. Maleficent and Diaval, Maleficent's loyal servant, sneak into the castle with Phillip and bring him to the sleeping Aurora, hoping that his kiss of true love will break the spell, unfortunately it doesn't. Maleficent sadly looks upon what her hatred has brought to her dear friend. She gives her a goodbye kiss on the forehead and just before she can walk away a miracle happens, Aurora wakes up. Their friendship was the strongest true love that can ever be.
As they make their way back to the Moors, Maleficent becomes captured by Stefan and his guards. She and Diaval become easily pinned down and just before Stefan can kill her, Maleficent's wings return to her after Aurora frees them. Maleficent and Diaval manage to overpower the guards with the treacherous king still standing and just when Maleficent is close to choking him to death, she decides to spare him claiming "It's all over". However, Stefan refuses defeat and jumps on her. The two fall from a tower but Maleficent manages to gain airborne but leaves Stefan to fall to his death.
With peace finally made between the two lands, Maleficent demolishes the wall of thorns and passes her crown to Aurora making her Queen of both the human and fairy kingdoms. In the last scene she flies happily through the skies with Diaval.
===Maleficent: Mistress of Evil===
Five years after King Stefan's Defeat, Aurora is reigning as Queen of the Moors, maintaining order and peace among the creatures and fairies, While Maleficent is continuing to protect the realm from whatever unknown threat comes. Diaval informs Maleficent that Aurora has accepted Prince Phillip's hand in marriage, causing Maleficent to get angry and warn Aurora against marrying Phillip, believing that it will end up terribly, just like what happened with her and Stefan.
Aurora is then taken to Phillip's Parents, King John and Queen Ingrith, where Maleficent was also invited to dine with them. While dining with the King and Queen, Maleficent grows angry at Ingrith after she finds out that Maleficent has cursed Aurora years ago and is responsible for the disappearances of many humans who went to the moors. Moreover, it came to light that Ingrith and her supporters perceived Maleficent as a villain as much as they believed the late Stefan as a martyr.
When Ingrith proclaims that Aurora will have a real mother and a real family, an enraged Maleficent begins to display her powers, seemingly cursing the king with the same spell that cursed Aurora. The Guards come in, but before Maleficent escapes, she is shot and fell into the ocean below. A winged creature named Connal, saves Maleficent and takes her to the Dark Feys, who are just like her, but they do not possess powers like Maleficent as they lacked Phoenix blood in their veins. The Dark Feys are in hiding because of the conflict between them and the humans. Maleficent then leads the Dark Feys and other Moor denizens against the humans and tries to save Aurora from the Wicked Queen.
When Maleficent and the Dark Feys arrive at the Moors, they see that the Queen's soldiers have harvested all the fairy flowers on tombs. The Flowers' Extract is then mixed with Iron Powder, which produced a crimson red dust that turns the fairies into plants. Ingrith used this as a weapon to eliminate all the faries. Connal suffers from a fatal wound from fighting and dies, but before he dies, Maleficent channels her powers with the Phoenix.
Aurora finds out that Maleficent didn't curse King John after all, Queen Ingrith broke off the Spindle of the spinning wheel so that she can make it to think that Maleficent cursed John to start a war with the fairies. Maleficent leads the creatures to an invasion to the humans. But after Maleficent attacks Ingrith, Aurora stops Maleficent and reassured her that Maleficent is her mother. Upon hearing this, Ingrith aimed her bow to Aurora, but Maleficent got hit by it after stepping in the way, sacrificing herself to save Aurora.
Maleficent got turned to ashes after being hit by the arrow. Saddened by this, Aurora cries her tears onto the ashes; right after Ingrith comes out victorious, Maleficent resurrected from her ashes and transformed into a giant phoenix. Horrified, Ingrith pushed Aurora off the cliff, making Maleficent be distracted to save her in order to escape.
After Maleficent saved Aurora, Phillip decided to not kill Borra, another Dark Fey, and instead make peace with the Moor creatures and the fairies. Maleficent then turns Ingrith into a goat as punishment for her crimes. Maleficent then allows Aurora to marry Phillip unite the two kingdoms.
The next day, Maleficent flies up to Aurora and Phillip, and plans to stay for a little while longer, promising to come back for the christening for Aurora's child.
==Powers and Abilities==
===Powers===
*Dark Fey-Phoenix Physiology: Being a Dark Fey that has the blood of Phoenix coursing in her veins, Maleficent is the strongest and most powerful fairy of the Moors, acting simultaneously as its fiercest defender and unofficial leader. She was also shown to have undisputed control over the Moors' army and resources, which she could effectively utilize to do her bidding. Examples of her formidable powers include, but are not limited to:
**Supernatural Strength: Maleficent was shown to possess physical strength far greater than that of even a well-armored and seasoned warrior's, literally flooring dozens of armed soldiers when they attempted to invade the Moors and later defeating a crazed King Stefan with almost effortless ease. Additionally, she is able to lift a fully grown man with ease and tackle through an army with little effort.
**Supernatural Durability: Maleficent is durable to pain, even when she is badly hurt.
**Wings: Maleficent possesses a pair of tremendous eagle/bat wings that enable her to fly at great heights and incredible speeds. She describes them as strong, enough so to "carry me above the clouds and into the headwinds. And they never faltered. Not even once.", which was an astoundingly accurate statement. In the sequel, Maleficent seemingly flew fast enough to break the sound barrier.
***Limited Aerokinesis: Apart from flight and speed, Maleficent's wings enhance her already great strength and even enable her to access a form of aerokinesis, as seen when she was able to generate powerful gusts of wind to blast her opponents, effectively carry two people into the air simultaneously, and snap an iron chain with ease, despite her vulnerability to that substance.
**Healing Factor: Maleficent can recover instantaneously from injuries, even those caused by iron - provided that she was no longer touching it. During her final confrontation with Stefan, his soldiers first trapped her in an iron net that severely weakened her, and she was barely able to remain conscious because of the pain, but once Diaval removed the net, she regained sufficient strength to stand up on her feet. Her healing factor is so potent that her amputated wings not only remained alive and healthy for sixteen years but also immediately reattached to her back when freed from their cell.
**Immortality: Like all fairies, Maleficent does not seem to age at all. Therefore, she's unable to wither or die by natural means, thus her aging is permanently halted when she reached maturity, retaining the youth and vitality of a woman in her prime. This was shown when she kept her youth to the present age of 50, decades after King Stefan's betrayal. As long as she isn't killed, she may be able to live forever.
**Resurrection: Thanks to the Phoenix blood in her veins, Maleficent can resurrect herself from her ashes if she is killed.
**Magic: Maleficent can manifest her magic in either yellow or green fire-like auras, depending on how she intended to use it. Usages of her magic include:
***Elemental Control: Since childhood, Maleficent has been able to manipulate the elements of nature, especially the manipulation of vegetable life, as demonstrated by her healing broken twigs and missing barks of tree, creating and animating an impenetrable wall of thorns to fend off Stefan's army, and animating tree roots to save Aurora from falling off a cliff. She can also, to some extent, control the weather, as seen when her rage over Stefan's betrayal caused the Moors' skies to become windy and clouded, and how she played a prank on the Three Good Fairies by conjuring a small thunderstorm in their hut.
***Telekinesis: Maleficent has the power to move objects with her mind, which she also demonstrated since childhood. She has used it to manipulate a pair of wooden toys to dance by itself, swat the Three Good Fairies aside, and put people (Aurora and Philip) into a levitation suspension or cause her opponents (dozens of armed soldiers) to fly into the air and subsequently clash into one another, effectively knocking them out. In a state of extreme emotion, her telekinesis was shown to be powerful enough to crush objects, as seen when, after she had learned of Stefan's betrayal, she effortlessly tore apart two stone walls as she walked past by them.
***Matter Manipulation: Maleficent can transmogrify other objects or creatures into whatever form she desired to. Though it was unknown whether or not she's had this ability since childhood, it was shown to be one of her most commonly-used abilities after her wings were stolen. She turned a twig into a walking/magical staff, and frequently turned Diaval into other animals, much to his chagrin. The two most powerful applications of this ability in the film were repairing a spinning wheel that had been burned down for sixteen years, and turning Diaval into a dragon.
***Enchantment: Maleficent is a potent spell-caster. Throughout the film, she used an effective sleeping spell on Aurora and Philip when she deemed necessary, and more drastically placed a curse on the infant Aurora, which turned out to be irrevocable to even she herself when she tried to revoke it.
**Shapeshifting: Maleficent is able to willingly transform into a giant phoenix-like creature.
===Abilities===
*Combatant: To an unknown extent, Maleficent seems to be a capable fighter.
==Weaknesses==
*Iron: The slightest contact could burn her skin, and prolonged exposure could weaken her dramatically. However, when determined enough, Maleficent was able to snap an iron chain holding a chandelier with her wings, proving that even iron could barely slow her down when she was at her most dangerous.
==Trivia==
*She is the first original Disney villain to have heroic qualities, followed by LeFou, Max Medici, and Cruella De Vil.
*This version of Maleficent is very different towards the Sleeping Beauty version of herself.
**In the original version, Maleficent was very evil, while in this version Maleficent was a tragic hero, and is shown to have morals and remorse.
***Because of this, her reason to curse Aurora was changed; Whereas in original version she did so because of not being invited to the party in baby Aurora's favor, this version committed the deed as the retaliation of aforementioned betrayal, an act she eventually regretted through her newfound maternal love for Aurora.
***While this Maleficent did meet Prince Phillip, she never confronted him like the original. Instead, she enlisted his aid to break Aurora's curse when her own early attempt to do so failed (though her own true love's kiss restored Aurora in the end).
**In the original version, Maleficent has light green skin, while the 2014 version has pale skin.
**Unlike the original version of Maleficent, this version is not shown to have the ability to teleport. Instead, she possessed wings whose theft became the reason of her fall from grace.
**In the original, Maleficent and her minions were searching for Aurora for sixteen years with no such luck, while in this version, Maleficent was able to find Aurora, with the help of her pet raven and servant Diaval, almost instantly.
**The original Maleficent dies, being herself killed by Prince Phillip at the end of the original film’s climatic battle, while the 2014 version of Maleficent is still alive and it was King Stefan (the one who became evil) who actually died.
**In this version, she never transformed herself into a dragon, like she did in the original. Instead, she turned Diaval into a dragon. However, in the sequel, she does transform into a large phoenix.
**This version of Maleficent doesn't live in a castle on top of the Forbidden Mountain. Instead, she lives in the Moors.
**The enchanted thorns Maleficent summoned in the 2014 version, were used as a barrier to prevent anyone from entering and destroying the Moors, while in the original version, Maleficent used the thorns to prevent Prince Phillip from reaching Princess Aurora and breaking the curse.
**Lastly, unlike the original version whose race is not revealed, the character's species is established as Dark Faye, a race of endangered horned faeries.
**In Maleficent, she is good and a heroine but in Sleeping Beauty, she is evil and the main antagonist, as her intentions were to cause trouble for the kingdom by cursing Aurora to die by pricking her finger on the spinning wheel when the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday.
**And just as Angelina Jolie (Maleficent) said once, Maleficent and Diaval ended up being something the fans genuinely enjoyed from the first movie and they constantly prove it with the loyalty and huge love through the years.
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