Aurora

**Princess Aurora** (also known as **Briar Rose**) is the titular protagonist of Disney's 1959 animated feature film, Sleeping Beauty. She is the daughter of King Stefan and Queen Leah. On the day of her christening, Aurora was cursed to die by the evil fairy Maleficent. Due to the efforts of three good fairies, the curse was altered to draw Aurora into a deep sleep that can be broken by true love's kiss. Aurora is the third official Disney Princess, and the last one to be developed by Walt Disney. She is voiced by Kate Higgins.

## Background

### Personality

Aurora is a kind, elegant, sophisticated, and gentle person as well as a hopeless romantic. At first, she is seen as a slightly naive and carefree young woman as a result of being sheltered for most of her life. Aurora is very loyal to her "aunts" and usually obeys their rules respectfully, although she may disagree with them. Since she was raised not to talk to strangers, Aurora was naturally startled and apprehensive when the handsome Prince Phillip appeared in the forest. However, she was drawn to him before remembering her aunts' rule about not talking to strangers. Aurora then compromised in agreeing to talk to him by arranging to meet him at her cottage, under the supervision of her aunts. Despite her innocence and apparent dependence on others' actions and opinions, Aurora isn't as passive or helpless as she may seem at first sight. For example, she's rather annoyed of how Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, despite Aurora's adolescence, treat her like a little child, what gives a hint that Aurora in fact is prone to independence and not willing to rely purely on somebody's opinion. Also she's actually quite selfless and strong-willed. When Aurora finds out about her real background as a princess and realizes that she can't see her beloved man anymore, she, although she's deeply upset, shows firmness and loyalty to those, who she cares about. Aurora agrees to push her feelings away and do what is right: return back home and fulfill her royal duty as a princess, even if she has to marry a man she doesn't love and barely knows in that way. In later media, Aurora is shown to have matured and become more self-assured, proactive and independent, as well as confident in her opinions and abilities.

### Physical Appearance

Aurora is a beautiful young woman, magically blessed with wavy waist-length golden hair like sunshine, violet eyes, a tall and slender figure, and lips that shame the red rose. Her skin is fair and flawless. Unlike Snow White or Cinderella, her face is less rounded and more refined, giving her an appearance of maturity rather than youth despite being only sixteen.

As a peasant, she wears a black bodice over a grey long-sleeved calf-length frock with a white petticoat and goes barefoot. She wears a black headband and carries a purple shawl when going out.

As her princess self, she wears a pink or blue ball gown with a petal overskirt, a ruffled white petticoat, and long triangular sleeves. During the original film, Aurora's ball gown is blue as seen when Flora and Merryweather fight for the colors of her ball gown either in pink or blue, even at the end of the film where Aurora dances with Prince Phillip in a ballroom dance. But in later appearances and merchandise, Aurora's ball gown is depicted as pink.

### Abilities

In Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams, Aurora was given a magic wand from Merryweather to use, and Aurora was able to wield its magical powers such as making two stacks of papers pick themselves up, transforming her nightgown into a ball gown with a dazzling necklace, matching earrings, and a jeweled tiara. She summoned chickens and cows and temporarily turned a man into a duck. Later in the story, Aurora fixed her problems and gave away the cows to peasants. At the end of the story, she returned the wand to Merryweather.

In the original film, despite Aurora having been enchanted by Maleficent, a powerful sorceress, Aurora's willpower combined with shouts from the fairies temporarily gave her the strength to regain control of herself for a few seconds before pricking her finger on the spinning wheel's spindle and falling into a deep sleep.

## Role in the Series

### Sofia the First

Aurora appears in the Christmas Special "Holiday in Enchancia". She is the first Disney Princess to not sing on the show, instead, she gives Sofia some good advice. When King Roland goes missing, Sofia and her family go out into the cold blizzard snow to find him, but as a result, they get lost too. When Sofia's amulet starts to glow, she wanders off to a spot where she can be alone and finds Aurora. Aurora tells Sofia she can always count on her animal friends to help her through tough times, before disappearing.

In "Forever Royal", when Sofia is battling Vor inside her amulet, Aurora appears to Sofia in spirit form, along with all the princesses who had been summoned to help Sofia in her times of need and they encourage her to be brave and strong for they all believe in her.

## Trivia

* Aurora's name means "sunrise" or "dawn" in Latin.
	+ On a related note, she is also the first Disney Princess to have a name independent of that of the movie she appeared in.
* Out of all Disney Princesses, she has the least amount of screen time, 18 minutes to be exact. During those 18 minutes, she said only 18 lines, which makes her, out of all the Disney Princesses, to have the least amount of lines.
	+ Her first line was delivered 19 minutes into the film, and her last line was delivered 39 minutes in, with the last sound she makes when she arrives at the castle and cries over thinking she'll never see her loved one again.
	+ So technically, this makes the Fairies the real protagonists instead of her, as well as making her the only Disney Princess to be a false protagonist.
		- Coincidentally, Tiana has the second least screen time as a human (19 minutes).
* Her film did not originally do well at the box office nor was it ever re-released in Walt Disney's lifetime.
	+ Sleeping Beauty was also the last Princess film made in Disney's lifetime, and the fairy tale genre was not returned to until The Little Mermaid in 1989.
		- However, the film developed a loyal following in later years and Aurora has gained much popularity when the Disney Princess franchise was created.
		- All the Princesses' films so far were commercially successful during their initial releases, except for Aurora's, thus making her film the only one to be a commercial failure during its initial release.
		- Aurora would, however, later on, appear in the highly successful live-action blockbuster film Maleficent and the hit animated movie Ralph Breaks the Internet.
		- Aurora is also the last "traditional" Disney Princess; as these princesses in that era are more reactive.
		- After that, the later Princesses are more "contemporary" and proactive, starting with Ariel in 1989.
* In the sequel books, she has a palomino horse named Mirette.
* Aurora is the only Disney Princess to actually wear a typical princess gown.
	+ The other Princesses wear clothes that are not commonly categorized as a "typical" princess gown.
	+ For Aurora's case, the gown was meant to distinguish her role as a princess.
* Aurora's alias is Briar Rose, which is also the title of the *Brothers Grimm* version of the tale.
	+ The Brothers Grimm version of Sleeping Beauty is based on the 1634 story by Giambattista Basile called Sun, Moon, and Talia.
* The name Aurora is the daughter's name of the Sleeping Beauty in the version of Charles Perrault and is the name for the titular character in the Tchaikovsky ballet.
* Aurora is the first Disney Princess to have an official alias, Briar Rose.
* Aurora is the first Disney Princess to have both parents present during her film, followed by Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, Merida, and Moana, but Tiana's father later died in the war.
* Aurora is one of the eight Disney Princesses to be royal by birth, second after Snow White.
* Despite having a similar narrative with Snow White, wherein they were both involved in falling to a sleep-like death, Aurora is much more associated with the sleeping trademark.
* Aurora remained silent in the second half of the film she originated in, even after being awoken with the kiss.
	+ She is second only to Dumbo (who didn't speak at all) as the protagonist with the least amount of dialogue throughout their movie.
* Aurora's ball gown is constantly changed from blue to pink and back again as a running gag during her film.
	+ The constant color change is due to Flora and Merryweather's disagreement on what the color should be.
* Her real name, Aurora, which is mentioned few times in the film, is often unused or even unknown by some fans; by them, she is only called Sleeping Beauty.
	+ This is notable in the House of Mouse episode "Jiminy Cricket", Jiminy Cricket addressed Aurora with "Sleeping" and "Beauty" as her first and last names respectively, reflecting on this.
		- In recent Disney Princess merchandise, Aurora is solely referred to as Sleeping Beauty instead.
* The final scene of Sleeping Beauty with her and Prince Phillip dancing and going off into the clouds was an abandoned concept from both Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella.
* In the ballet, her father is named King Florestan the XXIVth, the Prince is named Désiré or Florimund and the evil fairy is called Carabosse.
	+ There are five fairies named Candide (Candor), Coulante, Fleur de farine (Flowing, Wheat flour), Miettes qui tombent (Falling breadcrumbs), Canari qui chante (Singing canary), and Violente (Force).
	+ The Lilac Fairy is the final and sixth good fairy and is considered the most powerful.
* Aurora's original voice actress, Mary Costa, is the only actress alive of the first three Princesses, but Adriana Caselotti and Ilene Woods passed away.
* Strangely, in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Aurora's bed vanishes, as does Aurora herself when completing Terra's and Ventus' scenarios in her world, when she should be asleep in her bed.
	+ Though more than likely for the story of the world, it means that Aurora is awake due to Aqua helping Prince Phillip rescue her.
* Coincidentally, Kate Higgins, the latest voice actor for Aurora, also voices Briar Beauty, the daughter of Sleeping Beauty in the Mattel webisode series Ever After High.
* Unlike most Princesses, her appearance is given more as that of a mature woman, rather than a 16-year old teenage girl.
* Aurora is the first Disney Princess to have an arranged marriage as a conflict, followed by Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Merida.
	+ In her case, she was hesitant to return to the castle due to it meaning having to violate her promise of meeting the stranger she met (who ironically enough was her betrothed).
		- She is also the only one of the four to actually marry the person she was betrothed to.