Happy Friday, y'all!!! Welcome to today's Daily Joe. Once again, I waffled about what to talk about today. I decided to go with Flashback Friday and a really old blog I wrote in 2009. Of course, I've updated slightly but I think it still entertains me. After rereading it, I decided it may be an ongoing theme from time to time. I hope you can get on board, too.
Yesterday, I talked monsters and today...
Villains: Maleficent
Today, I'm talking about a villain from another perspective.
In my opinion, the villains are sometimes the best part of a story. They’re fun and interesting and usually just very misunderstood. That brings us to my favorite villain: Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.
Now, Sleeping Beauty is my FAVORITE OG Disney film. Over the years, they've put out many great movies, but Sleeping Beauty... Love it. Keep that in mind as I rag on it a little.
Back to it.
What do I think about Maleficent? She's just a girl who wants to be invited to the parties but is always left out. She doesn’t have pretty skin like all the popular kids—the green pretty much lets her off the “fairest of them all” list. When she asked for a puppy, her parents got her a raven. Thanks, mom and dad…as if she wasn’t already fighting being creepy with the black clothes and bad skin.
She could have gone emo, but that went against her grain. She likes to smile. So what if it freaks people out and they call her grin evil? What do they know? Sometimes, she’s just thinking about a good cup of coffee. You’d think with all her powers she could get one. Starbucks builds everywhere. Could build near her castle? Noooo! Do they thinks trolls and goblins and dark fairies don’t need coffee? Heck, they need coffee more than anyone. They work nights…a lot of nights.
Night owl, black clothes with bat-wing edges, green skin, yellow eyes like her dad (thanks again, pop), raven for a pet… She’s got outcast written all over her. She was the kid all the teachers warily watched in high school. They should have been watching the jocks who relentlessly picked on her. She could have turned them all into toads. Okay, she did once, but that was an accident.
She couldn’t help it. She’s got all these cool powers and a touch of temper. Of course, people just thought she was freaky, so she went off and hid in that creepy old castle with the goblins. She decided to call them minions to get past the fact that they’re goblins and frankly scare her half to death. It’s a bit of a contest over there… Who’s the scariest? She must always win if only for self-preservation. Of course, the popular kids shun her for that, too.
And then there was that spinning wheel thing. Could people just appreciate the work she got them out of doing?
Noooooo! She just knew the king would overreact and burn them all, too. C’mon, who really dies from a prick of the finger? She was exaggerating. Now because stupid Stefan is such an overreactor, she has to prove her power once again. It’s just like when they'd dated: He was the rich kid, venturing over the tracks and she thought he was serious about seeing past all her baggage. What a bunch of crap he’d spouted. “Your eyes are my sun” my foot. At the first sign of peer pressure, he was gone, but not before he'd overreacted about her apparently being a dark fairy. Please.
Really, the minions are better. More reliable, too.
So then, she tried to go the older woman/younger man route. Stupid Phillip. He was all about being the bad boy and defying his father and experimenting with BDSM. But the first time she'd chained him in her dungeon, look what had happened. He got scared and ran away. Wuss.
So this is Maleficent. Alone, misunderstood, getting angry, fighting for her place.
She has a rich background with many factors that have molded her into the powerful villain she is. If you look deeper though, you find she’s just a wounded little girl who once really wanted a puppy and acceptance.
All villains are like this. They have a story. They weren’t just born the evilest of evil. And that's why they're the most interesting of characters.
So what do you think? Should I do more blogs about villains? Do you have suggestions about ones I should write about? I thinking maybe Imotep or Aro or the Snow Queen (I mean I wrote a whole book about her) maybe Dr. Evil or Castor Troy (from Face/Off) or Hans Grober (Die Hard). So many options!!!
Today, October 15, 2021
We're halfway through the month!! What?!?!
I'm frantically writing some monsters. So good. So juicy. (Wait. I'm channeling the bad vampire. Pretend you didn't read that.)
Talk to you Monday!!
~~ Brynn
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