Maleficent

Maleficent, an evil fairy, is the villainess of Sleeping Beauty. She takes offense at not being invited to the christening of Princess Aurora, and attempts revenge on King Stefan and the Queen by cursing Aurora. Like Chernabog, Maleficent is an incarnation of pure evil, responsible for all misfortune in King Stefan's kingdom; she appears to be particularly unfond 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. Maleficent is also famous for her role as one of the primary antagonists of the Kingdom Hearts series. With her gothic, elegant design, dramatic and flamboyant animation and unlimited arsenal of magic powers, Maleficent is currently the most popular Disney Villain.

Placing a curse on Aurora
At the christening of the newly born Princess Aurora, the Three Good Fairies come to bestow three gifts on the child: Flora’s gift is Beauty, and Fauna’s is Song. Before Merryweather has a chance to give the child a gift Maleficent arrives with her Raven, perched on her staff. Angry at not receiving an invitation, she curses the child, decreeing that, before the sun sets on Aurora’s 16th birthday, the child shall die, by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. She then leaves, cackling. Merryweather, unable to undo the entire curse herself, is able nevertheless to alter it such that Aurora will not die, but merely enter a deep sleep, to be broken with love’s first kiss.

Exacting Revenge
As Aurora's 16th birthday draws near, Maleficent punishes her Goons, who have stupidly been searching for a baby for 16 years, to find the princess. When the princess and the fairies return to the castle late that afternoon, Maleficent finds Aurora alone and, as a willo the wisp-like apparition, lures her to a spinning wheel. She pricks her finger and falls to the floor. The fairies arrive in time for Maleficent to scoff at them; she then disappears. She and the Goons go to the cottage, where they wait for Prince Phillip, who had arranged to meet Aurora (whom he only knew to be 'Briar Rose,' a peasant girl). When he arrives, they capture him and take him to the Forbidden Mountain.



Defeat
Flora, Fauna and Merryweather rescue Phillip and give him the Shield of Virtue and Sword of Truth; this is noticed by Diablo, who fetches the Goons. The prince and fairies are still able to escape, and Merryweather turns Diablo to stone. However, Maleficent emerges, sees Phillip escaping and attempts to strike him down with lightning. As he continues, she summons thorns to surround Stefan’s castle. When she sees that Phillip, with help from the Good Fairies, is able to hack through the thorns, she appears before him, and transforms into an enormous dragon. The two battle, but Phillip eventually kills her when Flora, Fauna and Merryweather enchant his sword. She falls from a great height, and Phillip looks down to see that she has become a stain on the land; the Sword of Truth, still embedded in the black puddle, turns black. Phillip then awakens Aurora with a kiss.

Kingdom Hearts Series
Maleficent (マレフィセント, Marefisento) appears as a major character and antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts video game series. She is voiced by Susan Blakeslee in the English versions and Toshiko Sawada in the Japanese versions. So far, she has appeared in every game in the series except for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, during which she is deceased.

Kingdom Hearts
By the start of the original Kingdom Hearts, Maleficent has gained control of the Heartless, dark creatures born that steal the hearts of others, and used them to bring about the destruction of countless worlds, including her own world. Leading a group of other Disney villains and using the ruins of Hollow Bastion as a base of operations, Maleficent seeks out the seven Princesses of Heart to open the door to Kingdom Hearts, having already captured Princess Aurora. Until the appearance of Xehanort, she is built up to be the main antagonist, recruiting Riku to her side by offering him the means to save Kairi after she lost her heart while also manipulating him into believing that, since gaining the Keyblade, Sora stopped caring for him and Kairi and replaced them with Donald Duck and Goofy. After Maleficent is defeated by Sora, Riku, possessed by Xehanort's Heartless, unlocks the darkness in Maleficent's heart, turning her into her dragon form. However, Maleficent is defeated again and fades to darkness, leaving nothing but her robe, Xehanort's Heartless commenting at how she failed to notice the darkness eating away at her own heart.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Despite her death, Maleficent reappears in the midquel Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories as a figment of the memories of Sora and Riku in Castle Oblivion, appearing before the two of them in their own storylines. In Sora's story, Maleficent kidnaps Belle and uses her as bait for the Beast, hoping their romance will let Belle's pure heart flourish so that she may use it for her own evil purposes, though her plans are foiled by Sora and she is destroyed. In Riku's story, she serves as a token of the darkness in his heart and goads him into succumbing to the darkness again, but Riku also destroys her in his attempt to rid himself of the darkness.

Kingdom Hearts II
Maleficent is resurrected a year later in Kingdom Hearts II when her raven, Diablo, takes the remains of her robe to Yen Sid's tower in Twilight Town. She is later reunited with her lackey, Pete, who was absent from the first game due to his traveling worlds in order to create a powerful Heartless army for her. Putting her plans to obtain Kingdom Hearts on hold, Maleficent seeks a new base of operations so she can resume her intent, along with getting her revenge on Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Her plans in the game include attempting to take over the Disney Castle of the past, bribing the Kingdom Hearts versions of Yuna, Rikku, and Paine into spying on Leon's group (though the trio ultimately switch sides after being abandoned by Maleficent and told of Sora's cause), sending Pete to different worlds so he would recruit old and new allies such as Hades, Jafar, Hector Barbossa, Scar, and Oogie Boogie. Eventually, she becomes a reluctant ally of Sora, as he can stop Organization XIII before they can get Kingdom Hearts' power instead of her. Last seen, Maleficent and Pete hold the Heartless at bay so Sora can make his way to Xemnas, with Maleficent intending to take the Organization's castle as payment.

Kingdom Hearts coded
What happened to her and Pete after Sora defeated Xemnas is not shown, but it is made clear that they survived the castle's destruction, as they appear alive and well in the sequel, Kingdom Hearts coded. Maleficent is summoned by Pete to the data world made by Jiminy Cricket's journal, and begins scheming to take it over. She first appears in the data Agrabah, where she destroys the data Sora's Keyblade and summons a group of Shadows to attack him. The data Sora later confronts and defeats her in the data Hollow Bastion in her Dragon Form, but she flees the scene. She is last seen in the final episode, battling Darkside alongside Pete as the data world is being erased. The data Sora attempts to save Maleficent and Pete, but they are erased before he can do so.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
In the series prequel, Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Maleficent encounters Terra and his group when they come to her home world, Enchanted Dominion. Much like in the movie, Maleficent cursed Aurora when she was infant and works to bring it to fruitation. In the process, Maleficent reveals Master Xehanort's goals to Terra.

Later, when Aqua helps Prince Phillip break out of Maleficent's dungeon with Ven's help, Maleficent assumes her dragon form to battle Aqua. Maleficent is defeated just like in the movie by Prince Phillip with the help of Aqua. Unlike in the movie where she dies, the sword merely injures her, and she reverts to her original form. Before escaping, she goads to Aqua that Terra will succumb to darkness. She later frees Pete who was imprisoned in another dimension beginning their alliance.

Disney TV Specials

 * Disney's Halloween Treat: Prince Phillip fighting Maleficent the evil sorceress as the Black Dragon.

Hades
In the House of Mouse episode Match Not Made In Heaven Hades is seen trying to woo the Mistress of All Evil. Maleficent rejects Hades and Mickey Mouse tries to help him. He teaches Hades how to be good. The technique failes and he 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 are seen dining together.

Personality
To make a long story short, Maleficent represents pure evil. She is ruthless and devious, and will do whatever it takes to achieve her goals. Additionally, she is very spiteful, which is shown by taunting Prince Philip 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 is somewhat narcissistic. She thinks herself above everyone, even calling her closest allies "her pets".

Behind the Scenes
Maleficent was voiced by Eleanor Audley and animated by Marc Davis.

Design
The style for Sleeping Beauty was based on the art of Eyvind Earle, who claimed to have a 'Pre-Renaissance' style, with strong vertical lines and gothic elegance. Eearle was involved with the design of all the characters, and designed and painted most of the backgrounds in the film. Though early sketches depict a hag-like witch, it was decided that Maleficent's final, elegant design suited Earle's backgrounds. Davis' decision to make Maleficent a powerful fairy rather than an old crone may also have been influenced by Eleanor Audley's voice, which he recalled suggested a very powerful character.

The design for Maleficent's clothes occurred to Davis when he was looking through a book on Medieval art; one of the manuscript images featured a religious figure with long robes, the ends of which resembled flames. Davis incorporated this into Maleficent's final design. He based the sides of her headdress on the wings of a bat, and the top of her headdress on the horns of the devil.

Animation
After Eleanor Audley's vocal and live-action performances for Lady Tremaine, Walt Disney personally suggested that she be considered for the voice and live-action reference for Maleficent. Davis praised Eleanor Audley's live-action performance for the character, claiming that she created many of Maleficent's expressions and mannerisms that were ultimately used in the animation. The animators were more limited with how their characters could move against the detailed backgrounds. The manner in which Maleficent moved, perhaps limited by her costume, later inspired Andreas Deja to take a similar route when animating Jafar for Aladdin.

Deviations form Source Material
In the Sleeping Beauty ballet the evil fairy was named Carabosse. In some versions of the fairy tale, she only appeared to curse the child at the beginning, and did not appear elsewhere in the story; in these versions, the spinning wheel the princess pricks her finger on is not magical but simply a normal spinning wheel. One version of the story shows the fairy who curses the princess as old and grumpy, but not necessarily evil; this version of the character lived (most of the time sleeping) in a tower at the top of the castle, and, after cursing the princess, goes back to sleep, not appearing afterwards.

Trivia

 * Maleficent was nominated for a place in 'AFI’s 50 Greatest Villains list', along with the Queen, Stromboli, Man, Lady Tremaine, Cruella De Vil and Ursula. The Disney Villains to make the final list were the Queen (10), Man (20), and Cruella De Vil (39).
 * Maleficent is one of the ten villains featured in the tongue-in-cheek Disney's Villains' Lair. Maleficent's section of the book includes the catalogue she chose her costume from, and an invitation to Aurora's christening arriving 17 years late (with a small 'oops!' scrawled in the corner). Maleficent is ranked as the second greatest Disney Villain at the end of the book.
 * Even though her face appears to be green it's actually supposed to be white according to a coloring feature on the DVD re-release.
 * Interestingly enough, the noise Maleficent makes when she strikes her sceptre on the floor is the same than when she snaps her jaw as a dragon.
 * Since the death of Eleanor Audley, Maleficent's original voice actress, Susan Blakeslee has taken on that role in House of Mouse, the Kingdom Hearts video game franchise and the " Hallowishes" fireworks show held at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party among others. She was voiced by Lois Nettleton in both the TV series 'House of Mouse' and the movie 'Mickey's House of Villains'. In the stage show 'Fantasmic' she is voiced by Linda Gary.
 * Tim Burton is apparently creating a Maleficent-based movie. This would mean that Maleficent is the first Disney Villain to receive her own movie.