Maleficent – Both a Vilian and Hero

Yup as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m writing about Disney movies for a bit before switching to other movies. If there is any violent objection, please comment. Haha :D

This time I’m writing on a fairly recent movie that just came out last month – Maleficent, yup the remake of Sleeping Beauty from the antagonist’s point of view with a few twists. As usual, there will be spoilers in this post.

Forget everything you know about the fairy tale – this story is a much needed adaptation of the original classic. Set in the magical kingdom of Moors, the beautiful fairy Maleficent falls in love with a human, Stefan, but is betrayed by him so that he can become king. Deeply hurt and enraged by the betrayal, she places a curse on his daughter Aurora that she will fall into a deep sleep at the age of 16. Frightened, the king sends his daughter away to prevent the curse from happening, but Maleficent is determined to pursue her to see through her revenge. Will the princess be able to find her true prince to rescue her from the clutches of the evil fairy? 

HINT: Not a typical fairy tale. This should give you a hint about where the story is headed!(Synopsis by Wei Xing)

King Stefan’s greedy and immoral nature that surfaced in his childhood stealing incident escalated and ultimately led to his great fear and demise. By cheating Maleficent’s romantic feelings to cut off her wings out of his greed to be crowned king, he created a cause for her to take revenge by cursing his baby girl. This caused him to live in fear. His desire to go all out to kill Maleficent caused him to not even realise when Aurora’s curse had been broken. Maleficent had decided to walk away instead of killing him despite the great suffering he inflicted on her, and it was his own desire to kill her that led to the fight that ended in his death.

The moral of the story that would be told to children is that selfishness and greed will eventually bring one down. King Stefan is indeed an extreme example. In a more general and relatable sense, this relates to our bad habits and tendencies, which are all rooted in greed, hatred and delusion, the roots of suffering. We may start off with them since we are young, and this movie is a warning that they may snowball in adulthood if not corrected. Thus now is the best time for us to start identifying and correcting them.

Maleficent had great courage because she was in the position to kill Stefan, but decided to walk away. Her action shows that she has let go of the past; she was now very different from how she was when she cursed Aurora. This is a reminder to us that we have a choice in any situation even if it can be very difficult. Revenge does not equate justice. I’ll let you guys contemplate about this quote:

The movie shows that there are underlying reasons why people do things. We often do not have the full picture and should try to judge less and be more forgiving as our judgment is usually not fair. In the original story of Sleeping Beauty, we only hear how the fairy who cursed Sleeping Beauty was “evil” and Sleeping Beauty was victimised by her. However, by telling the story from the antagonist’s point of view, we can completely empathise with Maleficent and understand why she did what she did. Being the unenlightened beings we are, which of us wouldn’t be blinded by hate and revenge if we were as hurt as deeply as she was by Stefan? Having said that, this also shows how when we are angry or hurt, our perception is also twisted. Maleficent took years to realise how innocent and loveable Aurora was unlike her father, to the point that she decided to revoke her curse and was desperate to help Aurora when she realised she could not do so.

You guys may have thought of the last point – that romantic love may not be true love and vice versa. Stefan turned out to be merely using Maleficent and did not love her. True love is to really care for and be there for another; Maleficent was the one who broke her own curse because she genuinely cared for Aurora. This idea can be applied to anyone, especially in relationships. It is a pity that some couples go into a relationship in a hurry for their own self image, excitement, being completely infatuated with the person etc. I feel that partners should really stand by and help each other through the ups and downs, and have to recognise each other’s strengths as well as weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Pfft, stop chuckling :/

Ok it’s the end of this post. For subsequent posts I shall be writing on some more recent stuff including Disney movies.

- Pei Si