The art of finding the perfect balance
But Disney's 'Maleficent' (2014) completely changed the narrative again. The live-action film re-tells the story from Maleficent's side, who is not evil at heart but does evil things when betrayed by a man she loved.
Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip meet in the woods, where they sing 'Once Upon a Dream' and instantly fall in love.
Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' came about in 1959, in what is known as the "Classic Era" of Disney.
Maleficent casts the sleep spell on the man's daughter, yes, but she also tries to take it back after she gets to know her. After the spell hits, Maleficent brings Prince Philip to the comatose Aurora hoping for the antidotal true love's kiss.
Aurora's father, the man who sought refuge with Maleficent and then betrayed her by drugging her and cutting off her wings in order to become king, dies in the end. Perhaps this was some degree of penance paid for the behavior of Basile's king.
See also: How Disney princesses have changed radically over the years.
The character of Maleficent is one of the greatest changes, as a spurned (yet horrifically violent) wife is replaced by a jealous evil sorceress with seemingly little motive.
The evil Maleficent casts a spell on Aurora to die by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before sunset on her 16th birthday.
Fortunately, one of the good fairies changes the spell so Aurora will fall into a deep sleep instead, but the only way to wake her from her sleep is true love's kiss. Maleficent tries to stop Prince Philip from reaching Aurora, but ultimately fails.
Sleeping Beauty became part of the trio of princesses who personified the traditional, obedient, taciturn housewife stereotype, where outward beauty was privileged above all.
Charles Perrault’s ‘Mother Goose Tales’ inspired Disney, but it was Italian author Giambattista Basile's 1634 story 'Sun, Moon, and Talia' that inspired Perrault in the first place.
In those nine months, Talia grows pregnant and delivers twins, who come with two fairies that put the babies, named Sun and Moon, at their mother's breast. Somehow the fairies are more believable than snoozing through a twin labor.
After such a long hunting trip, and the king's strange compulsion to repeat Talia and the babies' names out loud, she rightfully grew suspicious. She threatened one of his men, and he told her everything about Talia.
The king was alerted by the noise and demanded to know what was happening. The queen revealed that she had cooked his children into the food he'd enjoyed, and he was so devastated he ordered that she be thrown into the fire.
She sent for Talia this time, again in the name of the king, and decided she would burn Talia at the stake for what she did to her. Talia tried to explain that the king took her while she was unconscious, but the queen ignored her “excuses.”
Talia asks to remove her clothes before being burned, and the queen agrees because she wants her rich robes. Talia screamed with every garment she removed, making for a genuinely surreal scene.
Having conquered the villain of the story (the wife of a cheating rapist), the king, his victim, and the kids she gave birth to without her knowledge all lived happily ever after...
The cook revealed that he hadn't had the heart to kill the children, and his wife presented the king with his twins.
The queen ordered her cook to kill the babies and cook them into tasty dishes for her husband. The cook didn't have the heart, however, and took the babies home to his wife, while using lamb for the meal.
To his surprise, he finds Talia and the twins, and overjoyed he recounted what had happened between them. In a big stretch even for fiction, Talia and the king bonded and spent a few days together.
After nine months of never thinking about Talia, the king remembered and decided to go visit her again, giving the excuse of going hunting. You can probably guess his intentions...
The queen sent after Talia in the name of the king, asking her to send the children because he wanted to see them. Talia, clearly brain-damaged, did as requested
After having satisfied himself in this horrendous act, the king returns to his kingdom and wholly forgets about Talia for nine months.
It ends with the proverb, "Those whom fortune favors / Find good luck even in their sleep."
He finds her lying unconscious, as though dead, and is overwhelmed with sadness, but blood coursing through his veins he “gathered the first fruits of love.” As if sexually assaulting an unconscious woman wasn’t enough, throw some necrophilia in there too.
The princess, named Talia, falls "dead" when a piece of flax is wedged under her nail, and her family leaves her in a palace alone. One day, a king happens upon the palace and climbs in through a window.
The king returns to his kingdom with the promise that he'll take her back with him soon. Why all the secrecy? Oh yes, that's right: the king has a queen.
They couldn't find her nipple, so instead began to suck at her fingers, and one of them managed to suck the splinter of flax out. Talia awoke! Instead of screaming in confusion at her surroundings, she simply started to feed them.
The king kept remarking at how delicious it all was, and the queen creepily kept saying, “Eat, eat, you are eating of your own.” Very subtle. Eventually he got annoyed and said indeed he was eating his own because she doesn't provide anything for him.
By now we all know that most fairy-tales stem from dark origins, but the story of the fabled Sleeping Beauty surpasses all in terms of gore, abuse, and essentially the worst capabilities of humankind. The Disney princess' curse, to sleep until she’s awoken with true love’s kiss, is already a little shaky by today’s standards, but Disney’s version is a far cry from the creepy 17th-century original.Click through to learn the real, twisted tale of Sleeping Beauty. You'll certainly never look at Aurora the same way again.
The original tale behind Sleeping Beauty is not for kids
How the fairy-tale you know originated from a nightmarish tale
LIFESTYLE Disney
By now we all know that most fairy-tales stem from dark origins, but the story of the fabled Sleeping Beauty surpasses all in terms of gore, abuse, and essentially the worst capabilities of humankind. The Disney princess' curse, to sleep until she’s awoken with true love’s kiss, is already a little shaky by today’s standards, but Disney’s version is a far cry from the creepy 17th-century original.
Click through to learn the real, twisted tale of Sleeping Beauty. You'll certainly never look at Aurora the same way again.