Once Upon a Timeis an audience favorite TV show that ran between 2011 and 2018. The premise of the show was that every fairytale character we know and love was trapped in our world, where all their happy endings were stolen by a dark curse cast by The Evil Queen. The show featured hundreds of characters from fairytales and mythology over its seven-year run,giving characters new backstories and character connectionsto help expand their stories in theOnce Upon a Timeuniverse. However,one character that the show really wasted was Maleficent fromSleeping Beauty.
Maleficent first appeared in the season one episode “The Thing You Love The Most” where it’s revealed thatThe Evil Queen stole the dark curse from Maleficent. The character then had two minor appearances until she became a reoccurring guest character in the fourth season, where she joined the iconic ‘Queens of Darkness’, an evil trio made up of Ursula, Cruella De Vil, and Maleficent with their aim to do whatever it takes to get their happy endings. This excited audiences asit made them believe Maleficent’s full story would be told, but that was far from the truth.
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In Once Upon A Time, Not Much Is Known About Maleficent’s Past
The Show Ignored Maleficent’s Origin Story
Throughout the series, a lot of Maleficent’s backstory was alluded to, but we didn’t get to see much of it onscreen. In season one, it was hinted that Maleficent had a history with Cora, as Regina spoke the words: “love is weakness Maleficent, I thought you knew that.” As Cora’s catchphrase is “love is weakness”, there must have been some kind of interaction between the characters at some point. In season two, when Hook faces off against a zombie version of Maleficent beneath Storybrooke,it’s obvious that he knows her, so there’s obviously some untold history between those two characters.
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“Leaving Storybrooke”(CGI Only)
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In the second season, we discover that Maleficent has put Princess Aurora under a sleeping curse, and turned Prince Phillip into the Yaoguai, keeping the two lovers apart, but we didn’t see any of this onscreen. In fact,we only saw Maleficent and Princess Aurora onscreen during one scene together throughout the whole series.Similar to the origins of the character, we know that she has some kind of history with King Stefan and Briar Rose, but her hatred for the characters as well as the story of how she became a villain were never fully explained or portrayed onscreen.
Maleficent Was Reintroduced In Season 4 With A Family Secret
She Was Introduced In The Fourth Season As A Main Villain, But It Didn’t Last
When Maleficent’s return was announced for the fourth season of the show, audiences were excited to see her take the spotlight and be a real villain that would be difficult for the heroes to defeat.What audiences weren’t expecting was a heartbreaking lost family storyline, which saw the heroes helping Maleficent track down her missing daughter and eventually turn away from her villainous ways to be a good mother.
The season had so much potential to show Maleficent as a vengeful, undefeatable villain, but the chance was just wasted as the writers opted for another family plot instead. The season arc even gave Maleficent her own backstory episode called “Enter The Dragon”, but this episode didn’t show audiences what they wanted to see.Instead of an interesting episode abouthow she became a villain, or learned magic, the episode focused on her losing confidence in herself, and The Evil Queen having to be her friend to help her believe in herself, leaving this to be a poor-quality episode.
Maleficent’s Story Never Lived Up To Its Potential In OUAT
There Was A Possibility of A Lot More Story, But It Just Never Happened
Season 4 of the show ended with Emma agreeing to help Lily and Maleficent track down and find out the identity of Lily’s father, as she was conceived when Maleficent was in her dragon form, meaning she didn’t know who Lily’s father is. This was the one storyline that audiences were impatiently anticipating throughout the rest of the show. However, due to scheduling conflicts with Lily’s actress, Agnes Bruckner, the storyline was not filmed, leaving viewers devastated. However, the identity of Lily’s father was revealed to be Zorro in a throwaway line in the series finale.
The character had so much potential and seemed like she could have been such an interesting character to explore more.
The fact that we were not able to see Maleficent on her journey to help Lily find her father, means thatwe missed out on seeing Maleficent’s strength and resilience in the series.The character had so much potential and seemed like she could have been such an interesting character to explore more within the lore ofOnce Upon a Time. It’s just a shame that the writers wasted the character the way they did.
Once Upon A Time
Cast
Once Upon a Time is an adventure fantasy-drama series created for ABC that features fairy tale characters and their Disney incarnations in a modern setting. When Emma Swan and her son Henry accidentally drive into the town of Storybrooke, they soon discover the inhabitants are those from fairy tales, and they have no knowledge of the modern world inhabited by Emma and Henry. Robbed of their pasts and given new identities by the Evil Queen known as Regina, the hope of the town’s residents lie solely in the hands of Emma, who has stronger connections to the town than she knows.
