Maleficent

Maleficent is an evil fairy and the main antagonist of Disney's 1959 animated feature film Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent is an incarnation of pure evil, and 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 King 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 overwhelming evil magic 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.

## Personality

Maleficent represents true 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.

Fauna indicated that Maleficent has no knowledge of love, or kindness, or joy that comes from helping others. However, her later capture of Prince Phillip taunts Phillip regarding his role in undoing the curse, and later her attempts at preventing Phillip from reaching the castle implied that she at least knew enough about love to realize it was a massive threat to her curse on Aurora.

## Physical 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.

## Powers and abilities

Maleficent is one of the most powerful villains in Disney history. She describes her own skills as "all the powers of hell". Her powers are magic-based, and it is also implied during the christening ceremony that her magic was far more powerful than even that of the Three Good Fairies, at least individually, as they admitted they could not outright remove Maleficent's curse, but rather alter it. Using her staff she can conjure up her spells, for example, lightning projection, divination, and teleportation. Merryweather also implied that she was capable of summoning frost storms. She can even cast powerful dark magic spells like her forest of thorns. She was capable of hypnosis as she demonstrated on Aurora to make her prick her finger. She also conjured the spinning wheel and spindle which she used to prick Aurora's finger which shows she is capable of conjuration. She also implied that the sleeping curse's effects, even when not at full power, were sufficient enough to effectively halt aging so long as the curse was in effect. She was also capable of flying by conjuring energy from her staff in a similar manner to a galaxy or a helicopter rotor. This was presumably used as an act of desperation, given the events that had her use it.

One of her most powerful abilities is to transform into a massive fire breathing dragon, with the flame blasts being strong enough to effortlessly knock away Phillip's Shield of Virtue, and her hide in this form was apparently strong enough to even withstand the Sword of Truth barring significant enchantments on the Three Good Fairies part. In addition, her fangs in this form were shown to be venomous in *Maleficent Returns*, which ironically also led to her second defeat.

She also possessed some degree of divination and telepathy, as demonstrated when she was taunting Prince Phillip near the end of the film with the revelation that Briar Rose and Princess Aurora were one and the same. In the storybook sequel, she also was capable of petrifying people, which she demonstrated on Aurora's kingdom, including Phillip, her husband, shortly after her revival, and also attempted to do so on Aurora at the latter's request to save the kingdom, although her protection charm by the three good fairies prevented this from happening.

## Role in the series

Maleficent reprises her role in the film, and becomes a prominent member of the Three Lords Alliance, led by Lord Rottenday.