Maleficent

Maleficent is an antagonist and the leader of The Villains.

## Character Information

### Personality

Mysterious, shadowy, vengeful, intelligent, black-hearted, proud, ill-tempered, vain, regal, sneaky, soft-spoken, scary, abusive, calculating, gothic, larger-than-life, blasphemous, persuasive, dangerous, powerful, manipulative, cold, wicked, devious, deceitful, dark, elegant, pure evil, cruel, wrathful, commanding, authoritative, influential, ruthless, vindictive, determined, sadistic, intolerant, murderous, power-hungry, tyrannical, cunning, conniving, nefarious, monstrous, bellicose, sardonic

### Goal

To fill the universe with darkness/To stop the heroes

## **BIOGRAPHY**

Maleficent is the main antagonist of Disney's 1959 animated feature film *Sleeping Beauty*. An evil fairy, Maleficent is an incarnation of pure evil, and is responsible for all misfortune in King Stefan's kingdom. Using the pretense of taking offense at not being invited to the christening of Princess Aurora by Stefan and Queen Leah, she cursed the princess. She appears to be particularly disdainful of the three good fairies Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, her polar opposites, who do all in their power to keep Maleficent's evil at bay. She is frequently accompanied by her pet raven, Diablo.

With her dark, elegant design, dramatic and flamboyant animation, and an unlimited arsenal of magic powers at her command, Maleficent is one of the most popular and recognizable Disney Villains, in addition to being one of the primary members of the official franchise.

Outside of the Forbidden Mountain, she is also the leader of the villains, vowing to douse the universe with darkness.

## **APPEARANCE**

Maleficent is a tall, slender, pale green-skinned (although some appearances of her depict her with gray skin) woman with a narrow face and a prominent chin. She is also darkly beautiful and icily elegant. Her tall demeanor is such that she dwarfs the entire cast, as evidenced by her debut scene, with King Stefan only being able to stand eye-to-eye with her while atop the throne steps. She also has yellow eyes and black horns (it is unknown if those are *her* horns or a headdress), which is symbolic of her dark magic. She is clad in a black-and-purple robe with bat wing-like edges, underneath her robe, she wears a dress with the same color pallet but with some red instead of purple, and wears a gold ring with a large mysterious circular black stone in it. Both the horned headdress and bat wing-like robe represent and foreshadow her dragon form. She carries a staff with a glowing green orb at the tip through which she casts her spells.

Maleficent is capable of shapeshifting at will into numerous forms, including a floating hypnotic light resembling a will-o'-the-wisp and a massive, monstrous black-and-purple dragon. Her dragon form is largely black, with her underbelly starting from just below her jaw up to the tip of her tail being purple-colored and ribbed. Her ears are webbed and her eyes are a pupilless green, while her tongue and the interior of her mouth is colored yellow. Her claws and teeth are also colored black, and she possesses spines across her back, some of which form a three-pronged tip at her tail, bearing a faint similarity to the Chauve-souris. Her wings are fairly tiny especially compared to her overall size, although they still seem to allow her to fly to some degree.

## **PERSONALITY**

Maleficent represents pure evil. She is ruthless, dark, and devious, who will do whatever it takes to achieve her evil goals. Additionally, she is very sinister, which is shown when she taunts Prince Phillip after she captures him. Her most famous quote ("*You poor simple fools, thinking you could defeat me. ME!? The mistress of all evil?*") indicates that she thinks herself above everyone, even calling her closest allies "her pets" in a pseudo-affectionate manner. Other than herself, the only entity that she seems to have a genuine care for is her pet raven, Diablo. This is especially evident in her horror at seeing the aftermath of Diablo getting turned to stone. Maleficent also seems to have some emotional instability. This is especially evident in her reaction to the discovery that her goons spent the previous 16 years looking for a baby, where she pitched a nearly truly evil laughing fit before reacting violently towards her goons. She is also shown to be very sadistic, which is especially evident when she proceeded to psychologically torture Phillip simply for her own amusement late in the film.

Maleficent, on top of her deviousness, is very misleading in her personality. But, underneath the mask of stoicism, Maleficent unleashes the full brunt of her wrath with a smile, which shows how she relishes in the pain of others. This is displayed during her first appearance during Aurora's birthday ceremony. When Merryweather states bluntly, "*You weren't wanted*," Maleficent pretends to be shocked and hurt, remarking, "*In that event, I'd best be on my way*." But then she turned around and cast a curse upon Aurora, cackling while taking in the sweet revenge she had attained. Owing to her misleading personality, she also expresses sarcasm, which is especially evident during her psychological torture of Prince Phillip where Maleficent states that when he leaves, he will be "up on his noble steed, straight and tall" despite the vision making very obvious that he and his steed were barely even able to leave due to being near-death.

Maleficent is soft-spoken, proper, and elegant, and has two possible motivations for her crimes, either out of pride, considering she curses Aurora because Stefan didn't invite her to the christening, or she is simply a monster who enjoys being evil. The latter is further suggested by her admitting that she's not offended at all by them not inviting her just prior to cursing Aurora.

## **TRIVIA**

* Her name means "to do evil or harm; harmfully malicious". It can also be seen as a portmanteau of the words "malevolent" and "magnificent".
* Maleficent was nominated for a place in 'AFI's 50 Greatest Villains list', along with the Evil Queen, Stromboli, Man, Lady Tremaine, Cruella De Vil, and Ursula. The Disney Villains to make the final list were the Queen (10), Man (20), and Cruella De Vil (39).
* Eleanor Audley, the original voice actress for Maleficent also voiced Lady Tremaine from *Cinderella*. In fact, they specifically chose Eleanor Audley to voice Maleficent because of her having earlier brought Lady Tremaine to chilling vocal life, as they needed a powerful voice for someone as evil as Maleficent.
* Maleficent is one of the ten villains featured in the tongue-in-cheek Disney's Villains' Lair. Maleficent's section of the book includes the catalog she chose her costume from, and an invitation to Aurora's christening arriving 16 years late (with a small 'oops!' scrawled in the corner). Maleficent is ranked as the second greatest Disney Villain at the end of the book.
* In the original French story, the wicked fairy had not been invited, because for more than fifty years she had never left a certain tower and was thought to be dead or enchanted.
* Unlike most Disney Villains who speak to their respective heroines, Maleficent does not have any direct contact with Aurora (aside from luring her to the spindle) in the animated film. She does, however, have direct contact with Aurora in the storybook sequel *Maleficent's Revenge*.
* *Sleeping Beauty*'s sound effects designer Jim Macdonald used castanets for the sound of Maleficent's jaws snapping as the dragon. He got the sound of her fiery breath by asking the U.S. Army to send him some training films on using flame throwers. The snapping sound of the dragon was also heard when she bangs the ground with her staff to announce her curse and later to silence the goons. The exact same sound effect was used for Tick-Tock the Crocodile's snapping sound. In addition, her growl when Prince Phillip briefly tries to slice her snout was taken from a lamp chimney.
* It is noted in the 1959 film that Maleficent had not been sleeping well (or not at all) for the last 16 years since the day she cursed Aurora. It is clearly seen through her eye bags in the latter parts of the movie set after sixteen years, giving her a more fearsome look.
* In some tie-in storybooks based on the 1959 film and on the stained-glass portrait in the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Paris, Maleficent appears next to Aurora when she urged the princess to touch the spindle on the spinning wheel, despite the fact that she herself is the spinning wheel in the actual film.
* The scream that Maleficent lets out when Prince Phillip hurls the Sword of Truth into her heart is the same as the old peddler's scream when she falls down the cliff from her failed attack on the dwarves.