King Stefan

**King Stefan** is the overarching character in Disney's 16th full-length animated film of 1959, *Sleeping Beauty*. He is the ruler of an unnamed French kingdom, Queen Leah's husband, and the father of Princess Aurora.

In the original film, he was voiced by the late Taylor Holmes (who, in his last film role, replaced the late Hans Conried, his original intended voice actor and performance model who provided some additional voice work in the same film). In *Disney Princess Enchanted Tales Follow Your Dreams,* he was voiced by Corey Burton.

## His Good Ranking

### Debated Validations

* Him opposing the original plan of having Aurora marry Prince Phillip soon might have made him a hypocrite, but since he told King Hubert to take their time, he did this since he wanted Aurora to get to know him and wanted her and Phillip to get better acquainted.

### His Heroic Deeds

* He is a kind and debonair ruler over his kingdom, residents, and all of his servants.
* He is best friends with King Hubert and together, they planned to have their children marry and unite their kingdoms.
* He is a devoted husband to Queen Leah.
* He is a loving father of Aurora, as proven when he cares about her safety by sending her to live with the fairies until her sixteenth birthday, due to her being cursed by Maleficent.
* Though no avail, he ordered his soldiers to arrest Maleficent after placing a curse on his daughter.
* After being freed by Prince Phillip from his enchanted slumber, Stefan, along with Leah and Hubert, reunited with Aurora and Phillip.
* In *Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams*, he has Aurora in charge of the kingdom until he, King Hubert, Queen Leah, and Prince Phillip returns home from the Royal Conference.
	+ At the end of the first segment, he, along with Queen Leah, King Hubert, Prince Phillip, Lord Duke, and the Three Good Fairies attend Aurora’s royal banquet for their return.

### Why He Doesn't Stand Out?

* Like Aurora, Stefan fails to pass the baseline for a lot of reasons:
	+ While it’s true he tried his best to keep everyone in the kingdom safe, he massively fails the admirable standards way too much to Phillip and the Three Good Fairies, who all played active roles in defeating Maleficent and freeing the kingdom, including Stefan, from their slumber.
	+ He spends most of the film worrying about Aurora and having a friendly argument with Hubert about the future marriage of their children.
	+ He did not take part in a battle against Maleficent, though to be fair, he, along with everyone in the kingdom, was put under a sleeping spell by the Good Fairies until he and the others can be awoken when Phillip breaks Maleficent’s curse on Aurora.
	+ While this is only used for extra precaution, this is not truly heroic or successful enough because his attempt of burning spinning wheels does not do enough to prevent Maleficent's curse from taking place, as stated by the Three Good Fairies.
		- Not to mention, his decision of burning spinning wheels heavily relies way too much on Fridge Brilliance, since its not fully expanded enough in detail to interpret how it’ll affect the environment or how the kingdom would be able to get or make clothing and fashion.
	+ Speaking of which, Stefan also suffers from Fridge Brilliance as he didn’t even know that his failure to invite Maleficent would culminate the latter in placing a curse on his daughter.
	+ Overall, he is just a generic kind ruler whose confirmed heroic deeds never go beyond the Goodness Zone, making him extremely bog-standard.
* Despite being a debonair and soft-spoken father, he’s far too jerkish, temperamental, and wrathful to be PG or NPG, as he’s still prone to having some anger outbursts and issues, especially when he got upset of the thought of Aurora not being good enough for Phillip during his discussion with Hubert, leading to the two kings fighting (as mentioned below).
* While trying his best to protect his family and his people, he did not formally explain or confess to Maleficent about their lack of invitation to her, though this was only out of fear of angering her too much.
* He can be a bit of a jerk and quite stubborn, as shown when he got into an argument and a brawl with King Hubert about the future of their children and kingdoms. This all started when Stefan hypocritically offended Hubert about the presumed thought of Aurora and Phillip not being good for each other. Stefan also went too far in insulting and threatening to declare war against Hubert over their children for no good reason.
	+ While his threat of declaring war with Hubert never happened, this is still considered a very lethal act that neither of them fully apologized to each other. However, since the two quickly made amends with each other over their children, this is considered a slightly minor prevention.

## Trivia

* Due to him being the first Disney side character to be depicted as a villain in a live action remake, his live action counterpart is considered Villainous Benchmark, making him the first Heroic Benchmark to have a different continuity and canon counterpart that qualifies as Villainous Benchmark, as well as the only Heroic Benchmark of *Sleeping Beauty* to have a different continuity and canon counterpart that qualifies as Villainous Benchmark.

## External Links

* King Stefan on the Heroes Wiki
* King Stefan on the Disney Wiki

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