Book Talk...

If you are going to read the Villains Series of Disney books back out of this right now.

I read the one about The Evil Queen and really didn't care for it. The book cover is BEAUTIFUL and I do normally like a well known fairy tale spun around and told from a different point of view, but I have issues with this one. And with the hints of the Ursula one that are in the one I'm currently reading.

So if I didn't like the book about the Evil Queen and didn't read the one about Ursula why am I reading this one? Well, Maleficent.

And not just because it's Mal but because the title, Mistress of all Evil, is almost the same as the title of the next Maleficent movie, Mistress of Evil, so I wanted to see if they were tied.

Doesn't seem like they are. This is a retelling of Mal's back story and that was done in a different way in the first movie so I think they just liked the title and used that.

Now I have to decide if I go see the next Maleficent movie or not. I did not care for the first one. For many of the same reasons I'm having a hard time with this Villains book series. And truthfully a lot of stories about women who aren't "nice." But I might go see it, I thought Angelina Jolie was a beautiful Maleficent. I do really like Michelle Pfeiffer. I want them to keep Maleficent front and center in their world because that means that they make more merchandise with her featured.

Yeah...that's really the main reason. For years I struggled to find any Maleficent gear. It was all Princesses and that horrible Tinkerbell, who really is a stone cold villain, just a cute blonde one so they ignore it.

But ANYway...Finding things with Maleficent featured was rare but now I can almost always find something. T-shirts. Statues. Art. It's lovely. Actually all of the villains are having a moment at Disney and I think it's bothering someone there. Like they really love selling the merch but they really don't care for the fact that the bad guys are popular. So they are doing things like the Maleficent movie and these books.

They are explaining. Oh see, they aren't so bad because of reasons. So it's okay that you all like them because we understand that you feel badly for them. Ummm...no.

And the book is doing the other thing the movie did that I HATED which is soften the curse. Flora gave her beauty. Fauna gave her song. Before Merriweather could gift her with what I have to assume was Keeping it Tight Even After Having Kids, Maleficent shows up. She's not happy about not being invited and curses her to die on her 16th birthday. Harsh, yes, but we cannot abide by rudeness. Then Merriweather, who cannot undo what Maleficent did because there isn't a lot of powerful magic in upholding the patriarchy, can soften it to sleep instead of death but you know, awake with true love's kiss so still gotta get a man in there. It makes me crazy that the movie made the gifts even worse (instead of song she gets happiness) and makes Maleficent curse her to sleep and toss the true love's kiss in there because Maleficent doesn't believe in such things (at least they didn't make it a man who was her true love). The book has already referenced the curse and it's sleep as well. No! Maleficent did not curse Sleeping Beauty to sleep.

But they want her to not be so bad. And to explain.

In the first Villains book and in what they recapped about Ursula's it's the same thing. They talk about the why these women grew up to be villains, and wouldn't you just know it? It's because of what a man did to them. It bugs me. Men don't have to have a complicated a woman done did them wrong story to be portrayed as a villain (except maybe Beast who was cursed by a woman, but only after he was rude to her as a man). ANYway...women cannot be allowed to be evil in their own right. Why do I think Maleficent is evil? Well, because she is. The same reason why I didn't need an explanation for why Flora, Fauna and Merriweather are giddy little twinkle butts. It's what they are.

And, again I haven't finished this one so maybe it will surprise me, but not only are they evil because of what a man did to them, they still have to pay the price for being evil. The Queen ends up trapped in her own mirror, Ursula ends up, well, exploded across a village from what I can tell. Even though they want you to understand these poor unfortunate souls are only this way because a man did them wrong, they still have to pay. And there is a Beast book as well, but we know he doesn't pay for being a jerk, he's a jerk, he's turned in to the Beast, he meets someone who can see past the part where he's not always nice and he gets to be a prince again. I cannot imagine the book ends differently.

I hate it. Not just the paying part, though that's a pisser, but the fact that they keep taking away these character's agency. Women are not able to be or do anything except in reaction to what a man did to them or for them. I guess if they show you how lovely they were to start but then a man did them wrong so they had no choice but to turn evil then it increases their likability. Which we all know is the most important thing for a woman to be. And I have to admit that I wasn't as bugged by it when I first saw the movie, it was after it sat with me for a little while that it really started to grate on my nerves. And when I started seeing it everywhere. And watched again the stealing of her wings and oh of course, it's a rape allegory because women only have a small handful of truly awful things that can be done to them...and...well...

I will, of course, take all of this back if the book ends up being amazing.


 (edit: The book did NOT end up being amazing but she did back track from the first time the curse is mentioned and Maleficent did curse Aurora to die. So there was that...but the book was AWFUL. Like truly terrible. And not even mostly about Maleficent even though her face is on the cover. Which is beautiful. The books are all beautiful. If you want to buy them for decorations and just pretend the stories are good I would recommend that.)

(original movie review here)