Raised In The Moors

SS1611 Movies and Psychology

Story book

Mock Chi Yan Chloe
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Movie Summary

Raised in the Moors, an enchanted land that houses supernatural creatures, a pure-hearted winged fairy, Maleficent, encountered a human boy from the neighbouring human kingdom. The two formed an unlikely relationship, even sharing a “true love’s kiss” on Maleficent’s sixteenth birthday.

Yet the boy, Stefan’s thirst for power gradually pulled him away from Maleficent. In an attempt to become the successor of the king, Stefan even betrayed Maleficent by luring her and cutting her wings as a gift for the king. Broken-hearted, Maleficent turned the Moors into a dark forest with her hatred. On the christening of Stefan’s new-born daughter, she appeared
Internal conflicts within Maleficent
Right after she was betrayed by Stefan who cut down her wings, Maleficent was enraged and wanted nothing but revenge. Her hatred and anger even affected the whole realm, as everything turned dark and lifeless in her kingdom. Furthermore, she placed her curse not on Stefan but on his daughter. She performed displacement of Freud’s defence mechanisms by redirecting her unacceptable feelings not towards Stefan, but the environment around her.

On the other hand, Maleficent has conflicts between her id and superego as well. At the beginning, she used to be a pure and kind fairy who likes helping others and bringing warmth to those around her. Her superego is strong in that it prevents her from committing undesirable actions towards others. However, after being betrayed by Stefan, anger and hatred started to build up inside her. Id, as it operates on the pleasure principle and demands immediate gratification, finally drove her turn dark and to take revenge on Stefan’s daughter, Aurora. Although it granted her a short excitement, overtime, Maleficent came to realise what she did was unforgivable and started to care for Aurora sincerely. Her superego, began to regain control and came into conflicts with id, as now her consciousness and morality is more dominant than her pleasure-seeking id. In the end, she regained control over her hatred and the ego balanced both id and superego once more, resolving her
Having loved the original animated Disney version of “Sleeping Beauty” since a young age, the villain inside the movie, Maleficent, always scared me. There was not much to sympathise with her in the original movie, yet here we are given a new chance to understand this classical villain with her back story. Most importantly, we are shown that no one is born evil. Everyone has gone through incidents that shaped who they are, and it is better if we understand their stories before we judge.

An interesting point in the movie is that Prince Philip was not the one to deliver the “true love’s kiss”. To the surprise of the audiences, Maleficent’s kiss was. This is contrary to what Disney has been portraying for years. Traditionally, princes were the ones to save the princesses and offer them a happily ever after. Yet now Disney itself is trying to overthrow this concept by providing another form of love for young girls all over the world to