Maleficent

Maleficent is a major antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts series. She is an evil sorceress who made her first appearance in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. She was first seen in Kingdom Hearts in Hollow Bastion. Unlike the other Disney villains (with the exception of Pete), she plays a large part in the overall story rather than just in the world she came from.

Kingdom Hearts

 * First Entry

''A sorceress of awesome power. She controls the Heartless, and is said to have destroyed many worlds. No one knows what her true intentions are.''

She first appeared to curse Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty" (1959).

Second Entry

''A sorceress of awesome power. She leads the villains who seek to harness the power of the Heartless. She has also tricked Riku into joining her and is using him as part of her evil plans.''

She first appeared to curse Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty" (1959).


 * Third Entry

''A sorceress of awesome power. She tried to use the Heartless for her own evil ends, but the Heartless were actually using her. She turned into a huge dragon when cornered by Sora and his friends.''

She first appeared to curse Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty" (1959).

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
''A witch who commands the darkness. Sora faced Maleficent and her Heartless once before.''

She stole Belle's heart to perfect her dark powers, though Belle had seen through her plan.


 * Reverse/Rebirth

A witch who commands the darkness.

Maleficent's charms won over Riku, and she empowered him with darkness.

In Castle Oblivion she stood before Riku again, this time as a token of the indelible darkness in his heart.

Kingdom Hearts II
Sleeping Beauty (1959)

''A sorceress of frightening power. In the last adventure, she controlled the Heartless and led a group that was trying to harness the power of darkness. As part of her villainous plan, Maleficent tricked Riku into making the choice to dive into the realm of darkness.''

''In the end, Maleficent yielded to the power of darkness herself and was defeated by Sora and his friends. But by using her last bit of evil power, she was able to come back again some time later.''


 * Timeless River

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

A sorceress of frightening power who's behind the strange goings-on at Disney Castle.

Maleficent is determined to take over Disney Castle, and she's using the power of darkness in her evil scheme.


 * Halloween Town

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

''A sorceress of frightening power. She's using the Heartless as part of her scheme to bring all the worlds under her control.''

Lock, Shock, and Barrel are just what Maleficent needs to make trouble for Sora and his friends while they're in Halloween Town.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Sleeping Beauty (1959)

A terrifying evil fairy with a command of dark magic.

She attended the celebration of Aurora's birth, despite not being invited, and prophesied that 16 years later, Aurora would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die.

Maleficent's gleeful account of Terra's misdeeds has left Ven troubled.

From Master Xehanort she learned about the existence of other worlds, and that she could rule them all by gathering seven hearts of pure light.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Maleficent appears in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, her role down graded to that of a minor antagonist, only appearing in her home world of Enchanted Dominion. At some point in time, Master Xehanort made contact with her and enlisted her help in luring Terra to darkness and told her about Kingdom Hearts and the seven Princesses of Heart. From this point on, Maleficent became even more power hungry and lusted to gain complete control over all worlds, not knowing she is simply being used by Master Xehanort as part of a much bigger plot that would unfold in the following decade.

At her home world, Enchanted Dominion, she mostly plays out the same role as in the original movie, only this time manipulating the darkness in Terra's heart to force him into stealing Aurora's heart in return for helping him locate Master Xehanort. As in the film, she captures Prince Phillip and imprisons him, but Aqua and Ventus free him. Throughout Ventus and Aqua's visits, Maleficent attempted to make them believe Terra had turned to darkness by referencing his visit but leaving out that she had controlled him when he stole Aurora's heart. This led to both Ven and Aqua fighting her. Ven fights her in her human form alongside the three good fairies. She then confronts both Aqua and Phillip on the bridge to King Stefan's castle and transforms into a dragon to battle them directly, but is defeated. Before she can be finished off, Maleficent flees the scene and begins her plans to capture all the seven princesses. Later on in the game, she crosses paths with the imprisoned Pete, and frees him, setting the scene for their alliance.

Kingdom Hearts
A year after the events of Birth by Sleep, the Heartless soon appeared and Maleficent decided to use her immense power of darkness to control the creatures and build up a destructive force to aid her in her plans to conquer all worlds. Over time though, her darkness went beyond her control and the Heartless soon used it to manipulate her for their own ends. She first captures Aurora and destroys her own world, going off to Hollow Bastion to make it her new base of operations.

With the aid of Pete, Maleficent soon became the mastermind behind a council of Disney villains seen in Kingdom Hearts, them being Hades, Jafar, Ursula, Oogie Boogie, and Captain Hook. Pete, as her then-unseen henchman, had helped assemble this group and was off building an army of Heartless for her to increase their forces. Acting as a guide, Maleficent warned each of her followers that they should be wary of the darkness, ironic as she herself was perhaps the biggest victim to the darkness. She led this group in pursuit of ultimate power by controlling the Heartless and unlocking the Keyhole that leads to Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds.

She used Hollow Bastion, the former home of Ansem the Wise, as a base of operations where she directed the affairs of the group. She used Ansem's report to help her understand and gain further control of the Heartless and recruited Riku, Sora's best friend, to her side. Once she saw that Riku could wield a Keyblade, she used the Darkness in Riku's heart to corrupt him and turn him against his friends.

Maleficent eventually told Riku her plans to find Kingdom Hearts, involving the Princesses of Heart. Maleficent persuaded Riku to go after Kairi, as she is also a Princess. Maleficent lied to Riku and told him that she'd help Kairi regain her heart once she had control of the Kingdom Hearts. She in the meantime convinced Riku to commit sinister actions, such as abducting several of the Princess of Heart, gave him the power to control the Heartless, and even ordered him to attempt to murder those who interfered in her plans. Riku, blinded by his jealously of Sora and lust for power, did as he was told and became more and more corrupt as his heart gave in to the darkness.

While Maleficent's plan seemed to be working, her allies were falling to Sora. With each failure, she would have to make another plan or just ignore it for another time. One by one, each of the Disney villains was defeated by Sora. Maleficent's knowledge and control of the powers of darkness had enabled her to control the Heartless, or so it seemed. Unknown to Maleficent, the Heartless were simply using her to reveal the Keyhole in Hollow Bastion, and in the meantime were eating away at her heart. Overconfident in her abilities and underestimating Sora's, she fought him and lost.

When Riku, possessed by Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, unlocked her heart, the darkness seeped into it, and Maleficent turned into a far more powerful version of her dragon form, but the darkness did not see her through. Although she proved a far more dangerous enemy as an empowered dragon, Sora still defeated her for the second time, the darkness ate her heart and she faded away into darkness.

By defeating Maleficent, Sora obtains the fifth page of Ansem's Report, and Donald learns the Cheer ability. Defeating Dragon Maleficent rewards Sora with the Fireglow Gem, which unlocks the ability to summon Mushu if taken to the Fairy Godmother.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Maleficent appears to Riku as a memory-based illusion in Castle Oblivion. She is one of only two characters, along with Aerith in Sora's story, to realize that she is not real. She mocks her old student, and how he once clung to her and the darkness, before he stands up to her and destroys her. Also, in Sora's story, she is the boss of Hollow Bastion and is revealed to need to steal hearts in order to practice her magic and attempts to use the love found in Belle and Beast's hearts to make herself invincible. When Sora and company attempt to stop her, she turns herself into a dragon and attacks, shooting flames from her mouth, causing earthquakes by stomping, and trying to eat Sora, but she fails and is defeated. Zexion later makes note of this to Lexaeus.

Kingdom Hearts II
Maleficent is revived in Kingdom Hearts II, in which she poses as a secondary villain but still plots against Sora and the others. Her raven, Diablo, brings her empty robe to Yen Sid's tower, and the memories of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather accidentally bring her back to life.

In Kingdom Hearts Another Report, it is hinted that Organization XIII is inadvertently responsible for her return. Xemnas once sent Axel and Roxas to Hollow Bastion to wipe out Heartless and release a raven from a cage suspended from the ceiling. It is heavily suggested that this raven is Diablo and was released to revive Maleficent. The Organization may have planned to use her to create more Heartless for their plans. Like in Kingdom Hearts, she attempts to control the Heartless to locate Kingdom Hearts. However, she now competes with Organization XIII for supreme power and considers the group and Nobodies in general as vastly inferior to her and her Heartless, even as far as calling them "white husks".

Maleficent, with the help of her only loyal follower remaining, Pete, goes from world to world reviving her other followers and building an army of Heartless. Although only Oogie Boogie is witnessed being revived, it may be guessed that she is also responsible for the return of Ursula and for Barbossa, Scar, Hades, and Jafar using Heartless. Indeed, when she first meets up with Pete again, she asks about "the others," suggesting she was supposed to be holding a meeting with "them" like she did in the original game. Pete, however claims that "they must have had something better to do", perhaps meaning he was busy with his own endeavors. This infuriated her, and she demanded from Pete what could be more important than her return.

Maleficent reveals herself to Sora and his friends at Disney Castle when she tries to fill the Hall of the Cornerstone with Darkness in order to take over the Castle and make her new base of operations, worrying Queen Minnie. Maleficent is defeated however by Sora when he and his friends go back in time and stop Pete from destroying the Cornerstone of Light. Maleficent appears in Halloween Town and tries to destroy Christmas town by resurrecting Oogie Boogie but his memory loss causes him to drive her away and Sora defeats Oogie Boogie. She then appears in Hollow Bastion during its invasion by Heartless. This is the turning point in the game, where she and the Disney villains finally lose control of the Heartless to Organization XIII. At the climax of the battle she holds off the Nobodies so that Sora may escape and devise a way to defeat Organization XIII. Although she hated Sora, she realized that she couldn't defeat them herself, since they easily defeated her Heartless, and even took control of them from her. She flees a battle against Saïx, escaping with her life, bringing Sora to the Realm of Darkness.

She last appears in The World That Never Was in one more attempt to acquire a suitable headquarters, aiding Sora once more by fending off an immense wave of Heartless with the help of Pete while Sora defeats Xemnas, though she claims that she will take the castle for her own afterwards. The outcome of this is unknown.

Kingdom Hearts coded
Having apparently survived the destruction of The Castle that Never Was, Maleficent was at a loss with her plans with the Heartless gone, her control over the darkness weakened, all her allies save for Pete defeated, and still without a base of operations. Desperate to make yet another comeback, the sorceress sent Pete to Disney Castle to spy on the king and bring her up to date on events. Pete eventually entered the journal world when Mickey turned the journal into a data world to find answers to unsolved questions. Maleficent was summoned into the data world by Pete when he was sent there. Together they decided that they could use the data world to forward Maleficent's original plans to find Kingdom Hearts and fill the worlds with darkness. The pair planned to build up a huge army of Heartless under their complete control by using the Journal's data on the creatures and then send them into the real world to conquer Disney Castle and the rest of the worlds. Maleficent planned to either destroy Mickey or simply leave him trapped in the Journal's data world.

She reappears in person in the data version of Agrabah. At the entrance to the Cave of Wonders, she strikes down the data version of Sora and destroys his data Keyblade. After, she gloats and summons Shadows. The Data Sora later fights and defeats her in her Dragon form. She and Pete are erased in the seventh episode along with the Journal's contents after the debugging is complete. The Data Sora attempts to save them, but is unsuccessful.

Although she seems to have finally perished, future appearances from her are still possible.

Other Appearances
Maleficent appears in the non-canonical Kingdom Hearts game, Kingdom Hearts V CAST. She is yet again a villain and serves as the main antagonist.

Personality
Maleficent is a scheming, manipulative and highly cunning sorceress, who seems utterly determined to take over the dominion of Kingdom Hearts. She is mostly seen in a cool, calculated manner, easily manipulating Riku into helping her aims, whilst she pretends to care for helping him find Kairi. In Kingdom Hearts II, she is highly vengeful towards Sora, because of him having destroyed her in Kingdom Hearts. She doesn't tolerate failure, as shown when she berates Pete for his attempt to take over Kingdom Hearts without her, saying to him "Mark my words, there'll be no place for you when our time comes. Useless imbecile!".

Despite this, she seems to tolerate the incompetent Pete as her helper. She is not without scruples, however, and has aided Sora on some occasions, yet, for her own evil reasons, saying to him at one point "Do not misunderstand me, I shall have revenge on you yet": indeed, by the time of Kingdom Hearts coded, she appears to have reverted to her evil self and is once again attempting to destroy Sora, albeit a digital version of him.

Another important aspect of her character, like most Disney villains, but exceptionally notable in her case, is her superiority complex. This is readily apparent in nearly every instance in Kingdom Hearts II whenever the subject of Nobodies and Organization XIII are brought up and when facing them personally, and this view of herself extends to any Heartless she commands, despite the all-too obvious difference in power and capabilities of Nobodies in general over the Heartless.

However her superiority complex is not entirely unfounded as she is easily one of the most powerful characters in the series, her magic rivaled only by Master Xehanort's. Thus her views of the Organization as insignificant could be, to her, quite true. Although she has never physically battled a member of Organization XIII, so it could be the opposite. Ironically, the Organization seems to view her the same way that she views them; as a relatively insignificant threat, shown when Saïx calmly summons some Nobodies to destroy Maleficent's Heartless and smugly calls her a fool. In contrast to Pete, she possesses extreme and completely legitimate confidence, while her minion is a coward and doubts of their chances of winning.

Appearance
Fair and green-skinned, Maleficent's shining, yellow eyes are heavily shadowed with violet make-up and her lips are painted red. This dark witch's head is topped with a black-horned headdress and she wears a long, tattered black robe with a purple trim and maroon flare edges. Along with these other physical descriptions and the fin-like spikes on the sides of her neck further hint towards her dragon-transformation powers. The spikes along with the collar of her robe create an upside-down pentagram. She carries a staff with a glowing green orb at the tip through which she casts her spells. In screens and trailers for Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Maleficent wears her golden ring with a circular black stone in it. This was in her original design in Sleeping Beauty, but was absent from Kingdom Hearts.

Origin
Maleficent made her film debut in Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Appearing unexpectedly at Princess Aurora's birth ceremony, she was greatly angered upon not receiving an invitation to the occasion. Hiding this behind a calm demeanor, she then proceeds to give the infant a "gift" in the form of a curse, saying that she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday and die. King Stefan attempting to seize her at that moment, she escapes through her mastery over dark magic. Fearful for his daughter's life despite the fact that Merryweather's gift for the child will cause Aurora not to die but sleep should she prick her finger, King Stefan then issues a decree that all spinning wheels in the kingdom are to be burned. In a last attempt to delay Maleficent's curse and prevent Aurora from pricking her finger, the Three Good Fairies decide to take her into the woods to live and be raised as a peasant in an abandoned cottage once belonging to a woodcutter until after the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday. The fairies succeed in keeping the girl's location and identity a secret, and an enraged Maleficent sends her loyal raven Diablo to search for the girl, after her Goon minions fail her.

Diablo discovers Aurora's whereabouts, and Maleficent then lures the girl to a spinning wheel upon her return to King Stefan's castle. Aurora pricks her finger, and then Maleficent departs for the old woodcutter's cottage, aiming to capture the princess's betrothed, Prince Phillip, who intends to meet the peasant girl that was Aurora there. Capturing the prince, Maleficent then places him in her dungeon, intending to keep him there for 100 years. However, Prince Phillip escapes Maleficent's clutches with the help of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, while the witch attempts to stop him from reaching Aurora's sleeping form and King Stefan's castle with a forest of thorns. As Phillip cuts through them, a desperate Maleficent appears before him. Transforming into a mighty dragon, she then engages the prince in a climatic battle. In the end, Maleficent is stabbed in the heart by the Sword of Truth, with Prince Phillip going on to awaken and marry Aurora.

Fighting Style


The most powerful of the Disney Villains and the leader of her band in the Kingdom Hearts series, Maleficent is known to avoid physical attacks, using sorcery instead. She may wish for others to fight under her command instead, taking on the form of a monstrous dragon when situations look bleakest. It is her great rage and lust for power that grants her this ability.

She is a Dimension Link for Terra in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, where his attacks use more dark magic attacks similar to Maleficent's. While in link with Maleficent, Terra is able to summon powerful lightning and fire magic to attack his enemies.

Quotes

 * "In your heart, there is darkness just waiting to be awakened."
 * "The truth can be most cruel, even amongst the closest of friends."
 * "The Keyblade has chosen him. Will it be he who conquers the darkness? Or will the darkness swallow him? Either way he could be quite useful."
 * "Have you ever heard of Christmas Town?"
 * "What in the world do you think you're prattling on about? Kingdom Hearts belongs to me! The Heart of all Kingdoms! The Heart of all that lives! A dominion fit to be called Kingdom Hearts must be my dominion!"
 * "Do not misunderstand me, I shall have my revenge on you yet."
 * "Why Pete, this castle is perfect! Perhaps we should...acquire it?"
 * "Once again, you underestimate me."

Trivia

 * According to Jiminy Cricket, Maleficent is personally responsible for the destruction of her world and for the capture of Aurora.
 * In Kingdom Hearts II, the Gullwings apparently once were followers of Maleficent until she did not show up to see them like she said she would.
 * In Kingdom Hearts, Maleficent is the only Disney villain whose home world isn't featured and thus also the only Disney villain to be fought in a different world (namely Hollow Bastion). In Kingdom Hearts II, Pete is also fought outside of his home world.
 * Maleficent is an antagonist in every game except Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, which is the only game she does not appear in so far.
 * Maleficent is the first character to speak a curse word in the series ("All the Powers of Hell" is spoken before her boss battle in Aqua's story in Birth by Sleep). While Axel used this same word in Chain of Memories, this is the first time the word was spoken by a voice actor in the game series.