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Child-friendly version -

Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip meet in the forest. As they sing "Once Upon a Dream," they immediatly fall in love.

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An evil sorceress without much motive -

The wicked Maleficent places a curse on Aurora, stating that she will perish if she pricks her finger on a spindle before sunset on her 16th birthday.

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Love always wins the day -

Luckily, a benevolent fairy alters the curse, causing Aurora to enter a profound slumber instead. However, true love's kiss remains the sole means to awaken her. Maleficent tries to stop Prince Philip from reaching Aurora, but ultimately fails.

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The original story -

Disney drew inspiration from Charles Perrault's 'Mother Goose Tales', which, in turn, were inspired by Giambattista Basile's 1634 story 'Sun, Moon, and Talia'.

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A modified narrative -

Princess Talia "died" after a flax fragment gets stuck under her fingernail. Abandoned by her family, she remains alone in a palace. Eventually, a king stumbles upon the palace and enters through a window.

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Distant from genuine love's touch -

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 assaulting an unconscious woman wasn’t enough, throw some necrophilia in there too.

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Then he departs -

After completing this terrible deed, the king goes back to his kingdom and completely forgets about Talia for nine months.

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She gives birth -

During this nine-month period, Talia becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins. Surprisingly, two fairies appear and gently place the newborns, Sun and Moon, by their mother's breast. Somehow the fairies are more believable than snoozing through a twin labor.

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True love's suckle -

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.

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All of a sudden the king remembers she exists -

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...

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What a great surprise! -

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.

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The story doesn't stop there -

The king plans to bring her back to his kingdom soon, but their arrangement must remain discreet. The reason? Well, it's because the king already has a queen.

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The wife was not in the mood for jokes -

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.

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Here the plan becomes wicked -

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

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Revenge is a dish best served hot -

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.

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The king enjoyed it all -

The king continuously expressed his satisfaction with the food, while the queen, in a rather unsettling manner, repeated, "Eat, eat, you are  eating of your own.” Her statement was quite subtle. Eventually he got annoyed and said indeed he was eating his own because she doesn't provide anything for him.

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The queen's rage grows stronger -

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.”

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Beauty shows a moment of brains -

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.

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The king listened -

The noise caught the king's attention and he asked for an explanation. The queen confessed that she had prepared a meal using their children, which left him utterly heartbroken. Consequently, he ordered that she be thrown into the fire.

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The cook would also be thrown in -

The cook confessed that he couldn't bring himself to harm the children, and his wife offered the king their twin babies.

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The ultimate surprising turn of events -

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...

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A troubling moral of this tale -

The proverb, "Those whom fortune favors / Find good luck even in their sleep."

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It has undergone several revisions... -

Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' was released in 1959 during Disney's "Classic Era" period.

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But the original perspective remained -

Sleeping Beauty joined the trio of princesses embodying the traditional, obedient, quiet housewife stereotype, prioritizing external beauty above everything.

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The rejected queen is transformed into the malevolent witch -

The character of Maleficent undergoes a significant transformation, shifting from a rejected (yet extremely violent) wife to a jealous sorceress with seemingly vague reasons.

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Live-action progress -

In 2014, Disney released 'Maleficent', which offered a fresh perspective. This live-action adaptation shifts the focus to Maleficent, revealing her as a character who, although not inherently wicked, commits harmful acts due to betrayal by a beloved man.

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Providing justice for Basile's queen -

Maleficent, though casting the sleep spell on the man's daughter, shows remorse and attempts to undo her actions once she becomes acquainted with her. She leads Prince Philip to comatose Aurora, hoping that his true love's kiss will serve as the antidote.

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The best contemporary twist -

Prince Philip's kiss proves ineffective, prompting Maleficent to try an alternate approach. With a kiss on the girl's forehead, the princess is awakened, ultimately establishing the notorious villain as her genuine true love.

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The person who hurt her is the deceased offender -

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.

Source: How Disney princesses have changed radically over the years.

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