Maleficent

**Maleficent** is an evil fairy and the main antagonist of *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 his wife, Queen Leah, she cursed the princess. She also appears to be particularly disdainful of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, her benevolent rivals. 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 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.

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 toward 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, beautiful, pale green-skinned (although some appearances of her depict her with gray skin) woman with a narrow face and a prominent chin. 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.

## Appearances

### *Sleeping Beauty*

At the christening of the newly born Princess Aurora, announced by Lord Duke, the Three Good Fairies come to bestow three gifts on the child. Before Merryweather has a chance to give the child a final gift, Maleficent appears with Diablo, perched on her staff. Angry at not receiving an invitation, she curses the child, decreeing that before the sun sets on Aurora's sixteenth birthday, the child shall die by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. Before the guards can react, she disappears. Though she is unable to undo the entire curse herself, Merryweather alters it so that Aurora will not die, but merely enter a deep sleep that can only be broken with true love's kiss. As Aurora's sixteenth birthday draws near, Maleficent punishes her Goons after finding out that they have stupidly been searching for a baby for sixteen years. After angrily calling the goons idiots and imbeciles and intimidating them into running away by conjuring dark lightning bolts with her staff, she sends her raven Diablo to search for the princess. After managing to find the hiding location of Aurora and the fairies, Diablo flies back to Maleficent to inform her of Aurora's whereabouts. With this new knowledge, Maleficent plans her next move.

When the three fairies return the princess to the castle and leave her alone for a while, Maleficent uses a hypnotic apparition resembling a will-o-the-wisp, to lure Aurora to a spinning wheel conjured by Maleficent while the fairies go after her. Though Aurora is momentarily snapped out of the trance by the fairies, Maleficent orders Aurora to touch the spindle; she does, pricking her finger in the process, and subsequently falls to the floor, motionless. As a result, Merryweather, Flora, and Fauna arrive too late and gasped in horror when they run into Maleficent, who briefly mocks them of their efforts of trying to stop her. Right before their eyes, she then uncovers the fallen princess and vanishes, cackling maniacally over the fairies’ failure to save Aurora. She then recruits her goons and they go to capture Aurora's true love (who turned out to be Prince Phillip, rather than a peasant). On Maleficent's orders, Phillip is taken to Maleficent's domain in the Forbidden Mountain. When the fairies arrive at the cottage in search of Phillip, all they find is the prince's hat, allowing them to deduce that Maleficent has captured him. At the Forbidden Mountain, Maleficent visits the imprisoned Phillip in the dungeon. She taunts him with the knowledge that Briar Rose is actually Princess Aurora, and ridicules the notion that "true love conquers all". She then reveals her intent to keep Philip imprisoned until he grows elderly, then let him go to seek out Aurora, who won't have aged a day since.

Maleficent then leaves the dungeon to sleep. Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather infiltrate Phillip's cell and arm him with the Shield of Virtue and the Sword of Truth. As they make their escape, they are confronted by Diablo, who fetches the Goons. As the prince and fairies dodge the Goons and make their escape, Diablo flies to warn Maleficent of Phillip's escape, with Merryweather in pursuit. Diablo reaches outside Maleficent's tower, where Merryweather finally turns the raven into a statue. Awakened by Diablo's constant cawing, Maleficent emerges from her tower where she finds Diablo's petrified form. Shocked by Diablo's state and enraged at the sight of Phillip escaping, Maleficent attempts to strike him down with lightning. As he continues, she summons a forest of thorns to surround Stefan's castle as a blockade. With help from the Good Fairies, however, Phillip manages to hack through the thorns and towards the castle. Infuriated again, Maleficent transports herself to Stefan's castle to appear before Phillip. As a final attempt to kill the prince, Maleficent summons all the power of Hell to transform herself into an enormous dragon.

Phillip charges at the dragon, who drives him backward with her blasts of flame. As Phillip retreats, Maleficent chases him up onto a high cliff and corners him at the ledge. With another powerful flame blast, she blows his shield off. As she is about to burst out laughing and to finish the now defenseless Phillip off, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather magically empower the Sword of Truth, and Phillip immediately throws the sword at the dragon's heart. Maleficent screams in pain and collapses onto the ledge, attempting to devour Phillip for the last time, but he dodges. Her enormous weight, upon impact, causes the ledge to crumble, sending Maleficent tumbling down to her demise below. Phillip looks down to see what remains of Maleficent to see nothing more than her shredded cloak on the ground, plus the Sword of Truth, still embedded in the cloak, turning black.

### *House of Mouse*

Maleficent made frequent cameos as one of the guests on *House of Mouse*. Notably, one episode, "Halloween With Hades", centered on Hades trying to woo her. Maleficent initially rejects Hades, so Mickey tries to help him by teaching Hades how to be good. The technique fails and Hades becomes so mad he tries to kill the mouse. Maleficent likes the *evil* in Hades and agrees to go out with him. Later in the episode, they're seen dining together. However, her later appearances suggest that she broke up with him some time afterward.

In "Mickey and Minnie's Big Vacation", Maleficent in her dragon form, alongside Mushu, Madam Mim, Elliott and the Reluctant Dragon, cause a fire in the club, with Mushu accusing her of this.

Maleficent has been approached by other villains who have tried to win her over, and in return, she rejects them by zapping them with a wave of her staff. Captain Hook tried to charm her, only to be zapped away leaving behind his hook. Jafar also tried to woo her while they sat together, only to end up being literally burnt.

Maleficent also appears alongside the villains as part of their song in *Mickey's House of Villains*.

### Other appearances

A dragon resembling Maleficent's dragon form made a brief cameo in the *Timon & Pumbaa* episode "Guatemala Malarkey" in a pit of fire as one of the cursed temple's booby traps.

Her dragon form also appeared in *The Little Mermaid* series episode "Heroes" as a sea dragon.

## In the Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventures series

After her defeat at the hands of Prince Phillip for the second time, Maleficent was revived by Diesel 10, who told her that she would have a place in his army and help her with her evil plans and revenge if she pledged her loyalty to him. She ultimately accepted. She also got married to Aladdin's enemy Jafar. Maleficent also manage to break her goons out of Arkham Asylum so they would serve her again.

## 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".
* 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.
* 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). 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 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.
* She is one of the few Disney characters to say the word "hell".
* Maleficent is mentioned in a song sung by Miss Nettle from *Sofia the First*.
* She is often referenced as both a witch/sorceress, as well as a dark fairy. Both of these are different types of supernatural beings. These phrases may be labels rather than true to what she is, as she has been confirmed to be an evil fairy.
	+ Despite being an evil fairy, she is still viewed as a witch by other franchises. One rerelease trailer for the film, released during the 1990s, even referred to her as an evil witch.
	+ In *Kingdom Hearts 3D*, Xehanort refers to Maleficent as "The Dark Fairy."
* Maleficent's defeat was the goriest of the Disney villains' defeats during Walt Disney's lifetime; when Dragon Maleficent was stabbed in the heart by Prince Phillip, blood was clearly visible.
* The only time Maleficent is heard singing in animation is during the song "It's Our House Now" in the film *Mickey's House of Villains*.
	+ Her first ever solo song was "Evil Like Me" in the Disney Channel movie *Descendants*.
* Maleficent briefly alludes to Aurora's 100-year sleep in the original tale nearing the end of the film. When taunting Prince Phillip inside his cell, Maleficent tells him "The years roll by, but a hundred years to a steadfast heart are 'bout a day."
* Maleficent and the other fairies appear to hold noble titles or a high form of status in the kingdom, as they are addressed at Aurora's christening with the term "excellency". It is used by Lord Duke when he announces the arrival of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather by calling them "Mistress", as well as when Queen Leah asks Maleficent if she was upset about not being invited, "...and you're not offended, Your Excellency?"
* Maleficent is briefly mentioned in the *Sofia the First* episode "Make Way for Miss Nettle", when Miss Nettleplots to become the most powerful fairy of them all, and openly wishes to become as famous as Maleficent, though she claims she'll be more magnificent.
* Maleficent is often tied with, or else comes close to either above or below, Jafar as the most popular Disney villain. They also share many similarities, as they are both evil spell-casters who wield a staff, have a pet bird, and transform into a reptilian monster (Jafar transforms himself into a giant cobra snake while Maleficent transforms herself into a enormous dragon). These similarities are parodied in one episode of *House of Mouse*.
* Maleficent become Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's enemy in *Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventures of Sleeping Beauty.*

* Maleficent returns alongside Diablo, Jafar and Iago in *Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's Adventures Series* to get revenge on Thomas, Twilight and their friends. She is also Jafar's partner and wife.

## Gallery

Maleficent in her iconic dragon form.Maleficent's deathMaleficent with her pet bird, Diablo in Sleeping Beauty.Maleficent in House of Mouse.Maleficent and HadesMaleficent in her dragon form with Chernabog.Maleficent Jafar and IagoMaleficent in Mickey's House of VillainsMaleficent and Captain Hook in House of MouseMaleficent (2014)Maleficent (Descendants)