I'm finally getting back into reading my huge backlog of dark Disney stuff. I started this one ages ago, but finished it a few days ago and then just finished Maleficent's now.
Ursula's book is the most annoying one so far, because so much of the story isn't about her. It follows a few plotlines.
There's Ursula's past. She's Triton's sister and it's revealed that he hated her, so he basically lost her on purpose. She ended up being adopted by a human fisherman, then grew into her powers, so the villagers became afraid of her based on her looks alone and tore apart her father who was trying to protect her. Ursula turned them all into her soulless servants in return, which prompted Triton to appear and be pissy with her, but then he tried to take her to his kingdom to be part of it. He forced her to remain in an unnatural for her mermaid form though, because apparently her octopus form is hideous to him and he's really rude about it. She ends up being exiled blah blah you know this part.
Then there's the part with the odd sisters. Ursula gets them to help her try to kill Triton, which is the Little Mermaid plot. There is surprisingly little of this in the book. The odd sisters want Ursula to help them find their little sister Circe (the Enchantress from Beauty and the Beast) in return for them helping her.
There's another plotline back in Morningstar, where Tulip is dealing with her returned beauty and voice. She just wants to read and be a better person, but all these suitors are driving her nuts. One of them turns out to have promise though, and he continues to play a small role in future books. He has the amusing name of Prince Popinjay. Pflanze, the odd sisters' cat, is there with Tulip, doing some investigating of her own. Her presence somehow restores the memories of Tulip's nanny, who is actually a very old, very powerful witch/fairy referred to only as the One of Legends. She's telepathic, as are the odd sisters.
I am blanking out on all the details, but the odd sisters discover that Ursula made Circe one of her "poor unfortunate souls" and they are furious. They use their magic to assist in her demise, which happens like it does in the movie. So Ursula is dead and Circe is restored, but now the odd sisters are in some sort of trance sleep.
Moving right on into Maleficent's story, the plot continues with Circe trying to wake the odd sisters while still in Morningstar, so Tulip, Nanny, Pflanze and Popinjay are all still there, too.
The events of Sleeping Beauty are taking place right at this time. Aurora has been cursed to sleep. Maleficent made a brief appearance in the last book, because she tried to warn the odd sisters about Ursula's betrayal.
So Aurora and the odd sisters are all in the land of dreams. Aurora is surrounded by mirrors and she learns she can control what they show her. The odd sisters spend a bit of time tormenting her and then make her show them Circe.
Meanwhile, Nanny has been remembering Maleficent's story, which is infuriating. Maleficent appeared in the Fairylands as a tiny green baby with horns. Fairies are apparently horribly bigoted, so they immediately thought she was evil and left her in the care of the crows. (This is why Maleficent loves her crows and ravens.) When the One of Legends returned for her turn in running the Fairy Academy, she was appalled and bitched out her sister, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother. Fairy Godmother is like Triton. She's an asshole who judges character based on appearance alone. So the One of Legends (Nanny) adopted Maleficent, who was four by that time, and raised her to be a good fairy. Maleficent tries going to the academy, but the other fairies are total dicks to her. The three "good" fairies from Sleeping Beauty exhibit the same assholery as Fairy Godmother. Maleficent shows aptitude for magic beyond just simple fairy magic, so Nanny decides to home school her, using her own spellbooks, some of which were written by the odd sisters, who become favorites of Maleficent's.
All this backstory is mixed with the present time. Maleficent is on her way to Morningstar because she needs the help of Nanny and Circe to keep Aurora asleep. Snow White over in her kingdom is graying at the temples and her children are grown. Her mother, Grimhilde, is dead, but watches over Snow from within the mirrors. Snow gets involved in the main plot because in Grimhilde's things is a fairy tale book the odd sisters had left for Snow White when she was young. (Remember, they were related to her father.) That fairy tale book writes itself as events happen. The Tree Lords reawaken and come to Morningstar to protect it from Maleficent. The fairy lord (and Tree Lord) Oberon wants to punish Maleficent for destroying the Fairylands years ago.
Back into flashbacks. Maleficent is now turning 16 and wants to sit her fairy exams. Only three fairies each year are chosen to be wish-granting fairies and she wants to try her hand at it and get her certification to show she really is a fairy. I like the detail in Maleficent's description that her skin is basically a mood ring. She's only green when she's angry or sad. She's mentioned as very pale purple in this scene. The odd sisters come to celebrate her birthday, which is the next day and the day of the exams. Maleficent has never met them before but loves them instantly. There's a lot of hint-dropping that Nanny has seen her future and it might not be great. The stupid Fairy Godmother comes and tries to get Nanny to not allow Maleficent to take the exams, but Nanny tells her to fuck off basically. Maleficent goes to sleep worried because her favorite raven, Diablo, didn't return home. The next morning, she and the three "good" fairies are the only ones planning to take the exams because, as the good fairies bitchily explain, why would anyone bother when they're going to take all three wish-granting spots? Flora and Fauna are worried about taking the exam separately because clearly Merryweather is the leader. Through some clever maneuvering, Nanny manages to say all three can take the exam together but that means they only earn ONE wish-granting spot and must act as one in the future. This leaves two spots open. The Blue Fairy from Pinocchio is the first to step forward and say she wants to try. She also tells Maleficent that she wishes she'd stayed in school because they didn't all hate her. Other fairies also want to try the test. Each one goes down a path and finds a human charge they have to use magic to help. Maleficent ends up finding Snow White and defeats the queen's father in the mirror, freeing both the queen and Snow. After everyone returns, Nanny and Fairy Godmother sit down to go over the results, though Fairy Godmother keeps reminding Nanny that the choice is hers. Then all hell breaks loose. The odd sisters appear, bringing a crying child. That's Circe as a young girl, who was one of the charges for the test. (Some charges are real. Some are kind of images from the past like Snow was.) Circe claims the good fairies attacked her. Then Maleficent storms in and demands to know where her bird tree is. All the bullshit comes out. Fairy Godmother let it slip to the good fairies that Maleficent was taking the test, so they kidnapped Diablo. Circe saw into their hearts during the test and decided to transform herself to look like a worried Maleficent to test whether the fairies would help her or not. They refused. Somehow Maleficent's entire tree got there and the stupid fairies set it on fire trying to attack Maleficent. Because they're ASSHOLES. Maleficent yells at the fairies upon learning this and Merryweather bitches back at her. Fairy Godmother finally explodes and says Maleficent is going to be evil no matter what and even Nanny knows it. That's the last straw for poor Maleficent, who turns into a dragon for the first time and in doing so, obliterates the Fairylands with green flame.
So she did destroy the Fairylands, as Oberon saw, but she was provoked and lost control of magic she didn't know she had. The real fault here lies with the bigoted fairies. Even Oberon admits there's going to be punishment for them but sadly, we never get that.
As the story moves on, Maleficent and Nanny talk and Maleficent is angry because Nanny didn't try to find her. Apparently, Maleficent stayed in dragon form for years because the transformation hurt and Nanny couldn't detect her because she was a dragon. Maleficent thought she'd killed her, but the odd sisters had transported them into the alternate reality space created for the exams. So all the fairies there and Maleficent's birds lived. Maleficent was basically terrified to go out into the world because she didn't want to hurt anyone else, so she lived in a ruined castle for years and her birds brought her things. It used to be Hades' castle, so that's where the movie minions came from. The odd sisters would come visit her from time to time. They never had word of Nanny, because to punish herself, Nanny wiped her own memories. That's why she's just Tulip's nanny in her first appearance.
Then things get even weirder. The odd sisters develop a spell that will create a daughter for Maleficent out of everything good in Maleficent. Problem is, that leaves Maleficent cold and unloving. This is also how they created Circe, as it's revealed she is their daughter, not their little sister. However, Circe has no memory of the Fairylands events and the odd sisters used to be different and nicer, so there's still an untold story here. The Circe that exists likely is not the same as the Circe in the Fairylands scenes. So this spell explains why both the odd sisters and Maleficent are on the evil side. Circe is pretty wrecked when she learns all this. I completely forgot to work it in, but Snow White is with her, having brought the fairy tale book to Morningstar. The odd sister's house automatically transports itself somewhere, taking Circe and Snow with it, so they're both trapped who knows where.
If you haven't guessed it, Aurora is Maleficent's daughter. And the reason she decided to spell her to die is because when she turned 16, she lost control of her powers and obliterated the Fairylands. She's not trying to hurt Aurora. She's trying to save everyone from her. She saw how Circe got the powers of the odd sisters but much stronger, so she figures Aurora will get her own powers and lose control like she did.
The end gets a little crazy. The odd sisters work from the dreamland to provoke Maleficent into being truly evil and things play out like they do in the movie. Circe works her magic on Aurora through mirrors and is able to bind her powers. Now she has to decide whether she's going to try to wake her three mothers or not.
This book is not easy to review. It switches points of view and time periods A LOT. It's not confusing when you're reading it but trying to summarize it in a coherent manner I don't think it working very well.
Let's just say that Valentino went the same route as she did with Ursula. Both Ursula and Maleficent were not bad people until others treated them with prejudice and cruelty. Ursula was ruined by Triton. Maleficent by the bigotry of the fairies and the lack of honesty from Nanny. I didn't like Ursula in her book though and I did like Maleficent. Death-dealing or not, she's trying to save people. Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that. What's most frustrating about her story is if the damn fairies hadn't been such dicks, everyone probably could have worked together to contain Aurora's powers and she could have lived a normal life and Maleficent could have also remained alive. And I'm sure they're not going to get any sort of comeuppance either, just like Triton got out of it. That's the problem with where Valentino keeps going. She's trying to still stick by the movie world so while she's making the good characters into bullying toxic influences, they're still getting the happy endings of the good characters they are in the movies, and that's getting frustrating.
I do really enjoy the character of Tulip though and Circe is great, too. And Pflanze. I love Pflanze. Next up is Mother Gothel, so I'm intrigued where that's going to go.
