Maleficent

Maleficent is a major antagonist in the Kingdom Hearts series, second only to Master Xehanort. She is an evil fairy sorceress who made her first appearance in Disney's . She was first seen in Kingdom Hearts in Hollow Bastion, leading a group of villian who sought the power of Kingdom Hearts for universal domination. However, Maleficent's plans were thwarted thanks to interfearance from Ansem, Seeker of Darkness and her defeat by Sora sending her to the dark realm. She later revived herself and attempted, several time throughout the series, to gain control of Kingdom Hearts. However, at each turn, she is hindered either by the heroes of the Keyblade or Master Xehanort's own machinisms.

Unlike most other Disney Villains in the series, she is more involved with the overall story instead of only appearing in her home world.

Before Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Maleficent was already known and feared throughout Enchanted Dominion. She went to the celebration of princess Aurora's birth despite not being invited by King Stephan. Hearing this from the good fairies, Malefincent pretended to not be upset, deciding to give Aurora a gift like the good fairies had done. She then cursed Aurora to prick her finger on a spinning wheel on her sixteenth birthday and die. However, her curse was soften by Merryweather, who made the curse, instead of death, a deep sleep her true love's kiss could break. Upon hearing that the princess was taken by the good fairies to be raised in secret to prevent the curse from coming true, Maleficent sent her lackeys to look for Aurora. However, they were incompetent and spent sixteen years looking for a baby. At some point between then and sixteen years later, Maleficent met Master Xehanort, who revealed to her the existence of other worlds and the seven Princesses of Heart that could be used to open the way to Kingdom Hearts for universal domination. He told her of Eraqus's pupils; Terra could be of use in getting the pure hearts, Ventus was to be left unharmed, and Aqua would be trouble. Since her meeting with Xehanort, Maleficent became even more power hungry and lusted to gain complete control over all worlds. Some time later, her pet raven, Diablo, who she sent out to find Aurora, had found the princess, who was under the assumed named of Briar Rose. Maleficent used her magic to hypnotise Aurora and lure her to a spinning wheel, which she pricked her finger on. She then captured Aurora's true love, Prince Phillip, planning to only allow him to leave to break the curse when he's an old man.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Observing Flora put King Stephan's kingdom to sleep until Aurora's curse was broken, Maleficent was met with surprise when she met a stanger. After Terra introduced himself, Maleficent acted on cue, pretending not to know of Master Xehanort and directing Terra to Aurora's Chamber. Once there, she offers to tell him what she knows of Xehanort in return for extracting Aurora heart. However, though Terra refuses to do so, she uses her magic to "whisper" to the darkness inside him, making Terra extract Aurora's heart. After musing about what Xehanort told her, she asks Terra to collect the other six hearts, offering him the opportunity to join her in her quest to rule the worlds. He flatly refuses before tremors shake the castle; a giant Unversed was on the lose. Explaining Xehanort left through the darkness, Maleficent leaves herself.

Imprisoning Aurora's heart behind a wall of flame in one of the halls of her castle, guarded by her goons with a maze of walls and teleportation spots, Maleficent immediately toke notice when it was freed. She encountered Ventus, who she told of Terra being the one who extracted Aurora's heart. However, Ventus did not believe her and prepared to attack. Lamenting that she was asked to leave him alone, Maleficent engauged the boy in battle. However, thanks to Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, she is prevented from casting sleep spells, which allows Ventus to win their fight. When he once again voices his belief that Terra would not exract someone's heart, Maleficent explains that Terra did so easily. Aqua then arrived.

The two Keblade users refuse to accept the truth as Ventus is spirited off while Aqua is placed in the dungeon after she refused to become Maleficent's servant. Aqua and Phillip break out of the dungeon with help from Flora, Fauna and Merryweather and make their way towards King Stefan's castle to wake Aurora. Maleficent gives chase and confronts them on the bridge to the castle, where she tries to get Aqua to believe the truth. Once it appears words would not persaude her, Maleficent transformed into a dragon to battle them directly, but is defeated. Aqua explains the power of true love defeated her; Malficent is sickened to hear something like that could defeat her. Gloating that so long as light exist, darkness will as well, Maleficent leaves her world just as Aqua attempts to stop her.

Traveling to begin her plans to capture all the seven princesses. Later on, she crosses paths with the imprisoned Pete and frees him, setting the scene for their alliance.

Between Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and Kingdom Hearts
Sometime after, the Heartless appear and Maleficent decides 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 goes beyond her control and the Heartless soon use it to manipulate her for their own ends. She first captures Aurora and destroys her own world, going off to the now abandoned Hollow Bastion to make it her new base of operations.

Though her travels to worlds in search of the princesses, Maleficent gained allies in Hades, Jafar, Ursula, Oogie Boogie and Captain Hook, offering them the assistance of the Heartless for their own endeavors in exchange for helping gather the princess. With her fellow villains, Maleficent has to goal of unlocking the Keyhole that leads to Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds, to gain ultimate power and knowledge. She then has Pete visit other worlds to increase the Heartless to build up their army, leaving him unnoticed by future heroes.

Kingdom Hearts
Acting as a guide, Maleficent warns 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 uses Hollow Bastion, the former home of Ansem, as a base of operations where she directs the affairs of the group. She uses Ansem's report to help her understand and gain further control of the Heartless.

After viewing Sora's defeat of Guard Armor, Maleficent quells the arguing of her fellow villains by explaining Sora would be useful if darkness swallows him or if he conquers it. She later visits the Rising Falls and finds Riku, Terra's successor and Sora's best friend, helping him find Sora after his return trip to Traverse Town. While spying on Leon's group informing Sora of her, Maleficent lies to Riku, saying that Sora replaced him and Kairi with Donald and Goofy, offering to help him find the still-missing Kairi.

During Sora's adventure in Agrbah, Malefient breifly meets him in person before vanishing. She then sends Riku to capture Jasmine while Sora and the others were busy fighting Jafar. Keeping her promise to help Riku find Kairi in exchange for helping them, Maleficent sends Riku with Captain Hook after finding her. Despite her attempts to appear sincere by claiming to think of him as a son, Riku is correctly suspicious of Maleficent's motives. When Riku is toying with Sora in Monstro, Maleficent wonders why he is bothering as Sora has replaced him with new friends, but soon leaves, being told to mind her own business. After Riku leaves and comes back to Captain Hook's ship, Maleficent tells him of her plans to find Kingdom Hearts, which the path to can only be found by using the Princesses of Heart. She says that he may find a way to recover Kairi's heart when the way is opened, granting him the power to control the Heartless as a gift.

After all her allies fall to Sora and Riku returns to Hollow Bastion with Kairi, Maleficent informs him of the danger he puts himself in by relying too heavily on Darkness. She then unlocks his dormant powers, allowing the ability to wield the Keyblade, an ability given to him by Terra years ago. Realizing this potential, Maleficent lies Riku about this and how only the TRUE Keyblade Master can open the door to Kingdom Hearts. This temporarily gives her the advantage when he manages to take Sora's Keyblade for a while. Conducting the ritual necessary to reveal the Final Keyhole, Maleficent discovers that it's incomplete. Riku, who is possessed by Ansem, Seeker of Darkness (actually Xehanort's Heartless), arrives and explains that because Kairi does not have her heart, she cannot release the power needed to complete the Keyhole.

Hearing the arrival of Sora's group, Maleficent goes to face them herself, ending up getting defeated and forced to retreat. She then proceeds to continue fleeing until the possessed Riku arrives, offering help. Shocking her, Maleficent finds Sora and his allies had followed after her. When they question him about his Keyblade, he demonstrates it by unlocking her heart. This restores Maleficent's power, enabling her to transform into her dragon form. Despite becoming a much more powerful and formidable foe, Maleficent again loses to Sora and is destroyed.

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. The scent of this copy was smelt by Zexion, who informed his fellow underground members of her presence. Maleficent was mentioned by Vexen, saying she could not come back from the Realm of Darkness of her own will.

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.

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 the Mysterious Tower, and the memories of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather accidentally bring her back to life.

Maleficent 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 had done prior to her defeat. 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; universal domination would be more important that simple matters in their own worlds.

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, locking the door they used to go back in time. 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 is next seen in Hollow Bastion, during its invasion by Heartless. The Gullwings were apparently hired by her until she did not show up to pay them like she said she would; she left because of the arrival of Sora and his friends. 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 still harbors bitter feelings towards Sora, she realizes that she cannot defeat Organization XIII herself, since they can easily defeat her Heartless and even wrested control of them from her, and thus decides to aid Sora for the time being. She flees a battle against Saïx, escaping with her life, bringing Sora to the Realm of Darkness, where he found clues left by Riku.

She last appears in The World That Never Was in one more attempt to acquire a suitable headquarters, finding the Organization's castle to perfectly fit to her liking. However, though Pete was worried about the Heartless not obeying them there, Maleficent tells him that he underestimates her as always. After the explosion of Ansem the Wise's Kingdom Hearts Encoder, Maleficent appears before the heroes, offering to destroy the Heartless pouring into the castle while they slay Xemnas, explaining that she will take the castle as payment. Though Sora tries to talk her out of it, King Mickey prevents him from stopping her and Pete.

Kingdom Hearts coded
As the Castle That Never Was ended up being badly damaged by Xemnas in his final fight with Sora and Riku, Maleficent was at a loss with no base of operations. Adding onto her dismay, Maleficent was without any Heartless, her control over the darkness weakened, and all her allies save for Pete defeated. Desperate to make yet another comeback, the sorceress sent Pete, who isn't affected by the Cornerstone of Light, 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, mistakenly thinking he was the real version. After, she gloats and summons Shadows, but they are destroyed by Data-Riku and Mickey. She kidnaps the Journal and has Pete infect him with Bug Blox, which would cause the Datascape to crash. As Data-Sora de-bugged Riku, she interfered with the process, nearly trapping him inside Riku's data. Confronting him in person, Maleficent fights him in her Dragon form.

Later, when the debugging of the journal is complete and the Data World is being deleted, Jiminy Cricket remembers that Pete and Maleficent never left the Data World. Data-Sora rushes back to the Data Hollow Bastion to save them, and finds them fighting the corrupted version of Sora's Heartless, who is completely immune to their attacks. The Data-Sora attempts to save them, but they are both deleted before he can do anything. However, after the battle, Data-Sora and King Mickey walk outside to find them alive, standing next to Data-Riku, who explains that there was a "rift in the data" where he was able to rescue them. Maleficent points out that this makes them even, referring to when she helped them in Kingdom Hearts II. Data-Riku then escorts Pete and Maleficent out of the Data World to make sure they don't deviate from doing so.

A digital version of both later appear when Data-Sora goes to Castle Oblivion and attack him before leaving.

Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
Not long after being forced out of the digital worlds, Maleficent and Pete invade Disney Castle while Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are overseeing Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam with Yen Sid. Yen Sid surmises that due to the increasing darkness throughout the worlds as a result of Master Xehanort's impending return and growing power, Maleficent gains enough strength to withstand the energies of the Cornerstone of Light. Once inside the castle, Maleficent abducts Queen Minnie and gives her raven, Diablo, Minnie's crown and a letter to be delivered to Mickey to lure him back to the castle. Mickey soon receives the items and immediately returns to the castle with Donald and Goofy, where Maleficent reveals to Mickey about her meeting with Master Xehanort years ago and how she learned of seven purest lights that would enable her to rule all worlds.

With Pete holding Minnie hostage, Maleficent demands that Mickey hand over the digital worlds, still set on using them to further her plans. When Mickey refuses to do so, she attempts to attack him, but Lea uses his Eternal Flame chakrams to simultaneously block her attack and strike Pete, giving Minnie the opportunity to break free. Mickey draws his Keyblade on the pair and demands they leave, or he will be forced to defend his castle and friends. Maleficent realizes that they are both outnumbered and overpowered and flees through a Corridor of Darkness, along with an oddly reluctant Pete. It would be later revealed that Master Xehanort's meeting with Maleficent was to aid him as a pawn in part of his master plan to create the χ-blade.

Kingdom Hearts V CAST
Maleficent appears in the non-canonical Kingdom Hearts V CAST. She is yet again a villain and serves as the main antagonist, her lair being the game's final level and featuring the toughest Heartless in the game.

Appearance
Fair and green-skinned, Maleficent's shining, yellow eyes are heavily shadowed with violet make-up, and her lips are painted red. Her head is topped with a black-horned headdress. Maleficent wears a long, tattered black robe with a purple trim and maroon edges which flare out. She carries a staff with a glowing green orb at the tip through which she casts her spells. In Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Maleficent wears a golden ring with a circular black stone in it. This was in her original design in Sleeping Beauty, but was absent in Kingdom Hearts. In Dream Drop Distance it appears once again.

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, but after she is rescued by Data-Riku, she stops her attempts to kill him (at least for the time being), telling Sora that they are "now even". In Dream Drop Distance, even though she does not encounter Sora, she again reverts to her evil ways and tries to take over the data world, but she is foiled by Mickey and Lea.

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. 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.

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.

Abilities


The most powerful of the Disney Villains, 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.

D-Link
In Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, Maleficent becomes a Dimension Link for Terra. While using her Terra can use powerful dark magic attacks similar to Maleficent's. Maleficent's finishing attacks allow Terra to summon powerful lightning and fire magic to attack his enemies.

Gallery
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