Aurora

* Animated
* Live Action

Little Princess

Tiny Princess

Sweet Princess

Princess Aurora

Queen Leah (mother)

King Stefan (father)

Maleficent (Godmother)

Hades (Godfather)

King Hubert (father-in-law)

Ariana Rose (niece)

Tulip Morningstar (cousin)

Mal (half Sister/cousin)

**Princess Aurora** is the 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 the three good fairies, the curse was altered to draw Aurora into a deep sleep that can be broken by true love kiss.

She is also a character mentioned and briefly appears as an extra in the Disney Channel Original Movie, *Descendants*. She is one of the heroes who is also the mother of Audrey. She is the titular character in the original movie, *Sleeping Beauty*.

Aurora is one of the main Auradon heroes in Descendants: Life after Happily Ever After and is played by Reese Witherspoon.

## Character Information

### Personality

Aurora is kind, elegant, shy, and sophisticated, 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. In later media, she is shown to have matured and become more self-assured, independent, and confident in her opinions and abilities.

Though it can arguably be said that as a character, she is very difficult to pin down, due to her short appearance in the movie, at least awake, that is. She was mentioned a few times in the movie.

Little is known about her relationship with her daughter, although it is said that she wanted to raise Audrey with a perfect childhood, showing she loves and cares for her daughter very much. However, this may have had the opposite effect of what she intended as Audrey grew up to be far more vain and mean than Aurora, though her morals were intact.

In Descendants: Life After Happily Ever After, we learn a lot more about Aurora's family life and relationship with her daughter. Its shown that Audrey is very close with both of her parents and her narcissism and entitlement was a result of Queen Leah forcing her old fashioned beliefs onto her which Aurora does not appreciate and encourages Audrey to be who she wants to be and passes down a old necklace to Audrey as a symbolic reminder that she is her own person but Aurora never confronted her mother directly but she finally drew the line when Leah started humiliating Audrey in public during Family Day.

## History and Timeline

### Before Auradon

Aurora's parents name her after the Roman goddess of the dawn because she fills their lives with the radiant sunshine. Soon after she is born, she is presented to the kingdom at a christening, where she is betrothed to Prince Phillip, the son of King Stefan's good friend King Hubert. Also invited are the three good fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, who bestow blessings on the newborn princess. Flora and Fauna give the infant princess the gifts of great beauty and song, respectively. However, before Merryweather has the opportunity to give her gift, the evil fairy Maleficent arrives. Angered because she isn't invited to the ceremony, Maleficent puts a curse on baby Aurora. According to Maleficent, before the sun sets on Aurora's sixteenth birthday, she shall prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. Maleficent disappears, leaving everyone in shock and horror at Aurora's doomed future. Though unable to lift the curse, Merryweather is able to soften it. Instead of death, she would alter the situation by placing Aurora into an enchanted sleep, which is the fateful prophecy she'll keep, only to be awakened by true love's kiss if this is to happen.

Meanwhile, Stefan has every spinning wheel in the kingdom destroyed in a desperate attempt to prevent the fulfillment of the curse to protect his daughter. Still fearful for the princess' safety, the three good fairies agree to hide the princess as a peasant for 16 years, until the danger has passed. They take the baby to a cottage in the forest and raise her, disguising themselves as her mortal aunts and renaming her Briar Rose. On Aurora's sixteenth birthday, her "aunts" send her out into the forest to pick berries, so that they can prepare her birthday party in secret. While Aurora is out, she has a conversation with her animal friends and dreams of meeting a handsome prince, as she is singing "Once Upon a Dream". At first, she is singing to her forest friends. But she soon meets Prince Phillip, who has followed her melodic voice. Not knowing who Phillip is, or of their betrothal, she at first believes him to be a stranger and attempts to leave. However, she dances with him for a bit and ends up falling in love. When he asks for her name, she then leaves, due to realizing she isn't allowed to give her name to strangers. She does, however, tell him where she lives and asks him to meet her there that night.

eanwhile, Briar Rose comes home to a splendid birthday party. She tells her aunts about the young man that she met, but gets confused when they are not happy for her. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather reveal Briar Rose's true identity as Princess Aurora, as well as the fact that she has been betrothed. The fairies sadly explain that she can never see the young man again, not knowing that he was actually her betrothed. Heartbroken, Aurora breaks into tears as she heads upstairs to weep on her bed. She doesn't speak again for the rest of the film (even her love interest Phillip does the same thing). The fairies bring the brokenhearted Aurora back to her father's castle, but in disguise with a hood and cloak to avoid anyone seeing her until the proper time. Before she can see her parents, they take her to a room where they conjure a crown and place it on her head to help her realize her royal identity. However, a heartbroken Aurora begins to cry and the fairies decide to leave her alone to grieve. While they are gone, Maleficent places the princess in a trance and leads her up an abandoned tower staircase. Just then, at the top floor of the empty room, Maleficent conjures a spinning wheel. The fairies realize that Aurora's in trouble due to their mistake of leaving her alone and frantically run up the stairs to stop her, but before they can, Maleficent forces the girl to prick her finger on the spindle, invoking the curse. When the fairies arrive too late to find Aurora, Maleficent mocks them for their failed efforts of trying to stop her by revealing the sleeping princess before vanishing, cackling maniacally in triumph.

Disappointed about their failure, the fairies place Aurora, now in an enchanted slumber, upon a bed at the top of the highest tower. Knowing that everyone would be heartbroken and disappointed if they had discovered this news, the fairies decide to put everyone to sleep until Aurora awakens. While putting all the residents in the kingdom to sleep, the fairies discover that Phillip has been the man that Aurora met all along after overhearing King Hubert speak of his son meeting a peasant girl before he falls asleep with everyone else. So the fairies go to the cottage to get Phillip, but are then prompted to go to the Forbidden Mountain, Maleficent's domain, after discovering that Maleficent has captured and imprisoned the prince. They rescue Phillip from the dungeon and arm him with the Sword of Truth and the Shield of Virtue. After fending off Maleficent's minions, they finally exit the Forbidden Mountain just in time and head for Stefan's castle. Just then, Maleficent tries to prevent Phillip from doing so by assaulting him with her magic in various ways, culminating it by creating a forest of thorns in front of the castle, though Phillip manages to hack through the thorns with little effort. Angered at this, Maleficent suddenly appears in their way and transforms herself into a dragon. After defeating Maleficent in her dragon form with some help from the fairies, Phillip enters the castle and walks up the staircase to the tower room, where Aurora is still sleeping. He gives her a kiss, true love's kiss, which finally awakens Aurora and breaks the curse. Aurora smiles after she realizes that her betrothed and her love are the same person. Thanks to Phillip, all the royals in the kingdom also awaken from their indefinite sleeping curse.

The couple goes down to the ballroom to meet Aurora's parents and Phillip's father, who are also freed from the sleeping curse by Phillip’s true love on Aurora. She reunites and hugs her parents to embrace them, and kisses Hubert on his cheek before sharing a dance with Phillip. While the couple dances, Merryweather and Flora reignite their rivalry once again on their respective colors as the two bickering fairies relentlessly change the color on her dress with their magic. Aurora's ball gown keeps changing colors as she and Phillip continue dancing and share another kiss, with the final words in the book, below the illustration of the couple romantically kissing (and the color of Aurora's ball gown still changing between blue and pink) "and they lived happily ever after".