Maleficent
Maleficent is a fictional character, the wicked dark fairy who appears in Walt Disney's 1959 adaptation of Sleeping Beauty. Maleficent is a Latin-derived word meaning harmful or evil. She was animated by Marc Davis, and voiced by Eleanor Audley (who also voiced Lady Tremaine, the stepmother of Cinderella). She cursed the infant Aurora to "prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die" on her sixteenth birthday after not being invited to the baby's christening.
Maleficent is considered the classic Disney villain: imposing, serious, gothic, terrifying, and lacking any of the occasional goofiness seen in some later Disney villains; this has frequently led to her being considered the most effective of Disney's many "evil" characters. An almost archetypal personification of evil, she is responsible for "all misfortune that befalls King Stefan's kingdom." [1] (King Stefan is the father of Princess Aurora.) Maleficient also possesses a range of magical powers and artifacts, which allow her to--for example--use the crystal ball on her staff to taunt Prince Philip with images of a bleak future. She also casts spells, such as inflicting Aurora with a curse of death (weakened to a curse of sleep by the good fairy, Merryweather), creating thunderstorms, projecting lightning, teleporting, and changing shapes. Some of Maleficent's forms in the film were that of a spinning wheel, a Will o' the wisp, and a European dragon. Maleficent was often surrounded by eerie green flames; in the final battle she cries "Now shall you deal with me, O Prince, and all the powers of Hell!" implying that she had phenomenal powers of evil at her disposal, even providing viewers with a demonstration by subsequently transforming into a tremendous black-and-purple dragon. Her pet raven, Diablo, and her army of inept goblin henchmen carried out most of her orders for her.
Other appearances
According to the book, Disney Villains: The Top Secret Files (a tongue-in-cheek book not meant to be taken seriously) that Maleficent's last name is Faery. It is also noted that she is extremely lonely and that she had very good grades in school.
Maleficent is a recurring character on the TV series House of Mouse. She also appeared in the spin-off movie, Mickey's House of Villains where she was constantly shown, but delivered only a single song lyric, "Every evil queen gets due respect." In one scene from another episode, Maleficent sits across from Jafar in human form, and it was informed by Mickey that the two villains were on a date.
Maleficent is also mentioned in the Nightwish song "FantasMic" from their 2000 album Wishmaster, in the lyrics Maleficent's fury / The spindle so luring.
Kingdom Hearts series
Template:Spoiler Maleficent appears as a major antagonist in the PlayStation 2 Kingdom Hearts series, however, she is always overshadowed by other foes, such as Xehanort's Heartless (who used her to achieve his goal) and the members of Organization XIII. She is voiced by Susan Blakeslee in the English version and Toshiko Sawada in the Japanese. With Pete as her then-unseen henchman, Maleficent headed a group of Disney villains who sought to discover ultimate power by controlling the Heartless and unlocking Kingdom Hearts, the "heart of all worlds".
In Kingdom Hearts, the villains Maleficent recruited were Hades, Captain Hook, Oogie Boogie, Ursula, and Jafar. She directs their affairs from Hollow Bastion, the former home of Ansem the Wise. Following the goal of ultimate power, Maleficent uses Ansem Reports to help her control the Heartless and darkness, and recruits Riku to help her gather the Princesses of Heart. The seven Princesses of Heart are explained by Maleficent as necessary to complete the Final Keyhole portal that led to Kingdom Hearts; the Keyhole itself is located at Hollow Bastion. She distanced herself from the arguments among her group, appearing to them only when it was of importance. Over time, Maleficent focused more of her attention on Riku while her group slowly dissolved due to each being defeated by Sora, most destroyed in the process.
Inside Riku's heart, she sees both a powerful darkness and the ability to use the Keyblade, offering to help him revive his friend, Kairi, in return for his services. Riku agrees and Maleficent grants him the apparent gift to control the Heartless. Upon near-completion of the Hollow Bastion keyhole and the imminent arrival of Sora, Donald, Goofy, and the Beast, she battles them. She fails, and has to hastily retreat. As the heroes catch up with her, Riku, who seems concerned about her well-being, appears. Unknown to her, however, is that Riku is now being possessed by Xehanort's Heartless. Failing to realize this, she is struck in the chest by the Keyblade Xehanort created from the hearts of the six princesses she captured. The Keyblade, unlike the one Sora wields, is one that opens hearts; with her heart opened, Maleficent was vulnerable to the immense darkness that is attracted to her. The darkness overcomes her and transforms her into a dragon. In this form, she battles the heroes and dies, leaving only her robe. Upon her death, Xehnanort's Heartless remarks that she was a puppet of the darkness all along, and that while she warned others about not underestimating the darkness, she ironically failed to see the darkness eating away at her own heart. He then steps on Maleficent's robe, which fades into thin air.
Maleficent appears in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as an aspect from the memories of Sora and Riku. In Sora's memory world, Maleficent seeks to steal both Beast's and Belle's (from Beauty and the Beast) hearts for use in her dark magic, resulting in Sora's involvement and her later "death". In Riku's perspective, Maleficent is aware of her status as a figment of memory and is the only figment beside Aerith in Sora's story to understand this. She mocks Riku for his dabbling in the darkness, and reminds him of how he once clung to her and her darkness. Unfettered by her comments, Riku finaly stood up to his former mentor and killed her.
In Kingdom Hearts II Maleficent is resurrected when Diablo, her faithful raven, brings her robe into the Tower, the home of Yen Sid, and the power of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather's memories revives her. From there, Maleficent appears before Pete; after being updated on the events that had occurred after her death, Maleficent's goal of dominion over the worlds was placed on halt for both the finding of a new base of operations and getting revenge on Sora. She eventually made herself known to Sora and company when she attempted to take over Disney Castle by having Pete go back in time to get the Cornerstone of Light, the mystical object that protected the castle from forces of darkness, from Timeless River, which is Disney Castle in the past. To further her goals, she hired the three little fairies, Yuna, Rikku and Paine, to spy on Leon and the Hollow Bastion Reconstruction Committee as well as resurrecting Oogie Boogie. Both alliances were short-lived; Maleficent abandons the fairies when the Heartless invade Hollow Bastion while Oogie drives her away with disrespect due to amnesia.
Despite being Sora's enemy, Maleficent decided to use Sora to destroy Organization XIII for her when it became apparent they were a far greater threat than Sora to her mission to control Kingdom Hearts. Though she kept some Nobodies at bay when they overwhelmed Sora, it changed nothing between them. By the time she and Pete arrived in the World That Never Was, Maleficent's power over the Heartless was fading as the world itself was close to the darkness on which the Heartless thrive. She was forced to assist Sora, giving him safe passage to Xemnas while she and Pete held off the vast army of Heartless created by the ravaging of Kingdom Hearts by DiZ on the condition that she would take Xemnas' castle as her own. Their fate is unknown. Template:Spoilerend
Fantasmic!
In the night time show Fantasmic!, performed at the Disneyland and Disney-MGM Studios theme parks, Maleficent is the most deadly and awesome of the Disney villains portrayed in the shows. Although the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is traditionally seen as the leader of Disney villains (due to her position as the first classic Disney villain created), Maleficent is seen as the worst weapon in the Disney villain arsenal.
In the shows, the Evil Queen decides it is time to finish off Mickey Mouse once and for all, and invokes the worst of Disney villains to help her. They strike Mickey through his dreams and imagination, and Maleficent is the final villain to attack Mickey - the battle between Maleficent's European dragon incarnation and Mickey serves as the climax to the show. It is to be noted that either due to more modern Political Correctness or due to the theme of Imagination and dreams in the show, Maleficent cries out before becoming the dragon: "Now you will have to deal with me and all the powers of my imagination!", whereas, in the original film, she proclaimed "Now shall you deal with me, o Prince, and all the powers of Hell!"
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