Princess Aurora is the main protagonist of Sleeping Beauty. She is the third official Disney Princess in the franchise. She is 16 years old. She is also the last princess to be developed by Walt Disney.
Background[]
The original design for Aurora has developed by Tom Oreb, who based the figure of Aurora on Audrey Hepburn's thin frame and graceful demeanor. Later, Marc Davis worked on sketches of Oreb, improving the appearance and clothing of the heroine so that they were combined with angular forms of background images.
Marc Davis' wife, Alice, designed some of Aurora's costumes. According to the designer, this was her first job at the Walt Disney Studios, during which she became Marc's wife in 1956.
As with other Disney films, an actress was hired as a live-action model, as a guide for the animators. Helene Stanley became the model for the heroine. She had previously worked on this post, fulfilling the role of Cinderella.
Personality[]
Aurora is a kind, elegant, graceful, angelic, loving, and gentle person, as well as a pure and hopeless romantic. At first, she is seen as a slightly shy, playful, and carefree young woman as a result of being sheltered for most of her life. Aurora is very loyal and honest to her "aunts" and usually obeys their rules respectfully, even though she may disagree with them. Since she was raised not to talk to strangers, Aurora was naturally startled and apprehensive when the handsome Prince Phillip appeared in the forest. However, she was drawn to him before remembering her aunts' rule about not talking to strangers. Aurora then compromised in agreeing to talk to him by arranging to meet him at her cottage, under the supervision of her aunts.
Despite her innocence and apparent dependence on others' actions and opinions, Aurora isn't as passive or helpless as she may seem at first sight. For example, she's rather annoyed by how Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, despite Aurora's adolescence, treat her like a little child, which gives a hint that Aurora, in fact, is prone to independence and not willing to rely purely on somebody's opinion. Also, she's actually quite selfless and strong-willed. When Aurora finds out about her real background as a princess and realizes that she can't see her beloved man anymore, she, although deeply upset, shows firmness and loyalty to those that she cares about. Aurora agrees to push her feelings away and do what is right: return home and fulfill her royal duty as a princess, even if she has to marry a man she doesn't love and barely knows in that way.
In later media, Aurora is shown to have greatly matured and become far more self-assured, proactive, independent and responsible, as well as confident in her opinions and abilities.
Physical appearance[]
Aurora is a supremely beautiful young woman, who was magically blessed with waist-length, wavy, golden hair like sunshine, violet eyes, and lips that shame the red rose. She has a tall, slender figure and her skin is fair and flawless. Unlike the Disney Princesses created before her, Snow White and Cinderella, and even the others created after such as Ariel, Rapunzel and Moana for example, her face is less rounded and more angular and refined, giving her an appearance of maturity rather than youth despite being only sixteen.
As a peasant, she wears a black bodice over a gray long-sleeved calf-length frock with a white petticoat and goes barefoot. She wears a black headband and carries a purple shawl when going out.
As her princess self, she wears a pink or blue ball gown with a petal overskirt, a ruffled white petticoat, and long triangular sleeves, a golden tiara, and blue or pink shoes. During the original film, Flora and Merryweather fight for the colors of her ball gown either in pink or blue, even at the end of the film where Aurora dances with Prince Phillip in a ballroom dance. The dress is blue for most of the original film, but in later appearances and merchandise, Aurora's ball gown is depicted as pink.
Trivia[]
- Aurora's name means "sunrise" or "dawn" in Latin.
- On a related note, she is also the first Disney Princess to have an alias not mentioned during her film, except for the title. However, in Disney Princess merchandise, Aurora is usually referred to as Sleeping Beauty rather than by her name.
- Her real name, Aurora, which is mentioned a few times in the film, is often unused or even unknown by some fans; by them, she is only called Sleeping Beauty. This is notable in the House of Mouse episode "Jiminy Cricket", in which Jiminy Cricket addressed Aurora with "Sleeping" and "Beauty" as her first and last names respectively, reflecting on this.
- She is the only princess that has never talked with the villain of her film.
- Out of all Disney Princesses, she has the least amount of screen time, 18 minutes to be exact. She is followed by Tiana who has the second least screen time as a human (19 minutes).
- Aurora says only 18 lines and remains silent in the second half of the film, even after being awoken with the kiss.
- This makes her, out of all the Disney Princesses, to have the least amount of lines. Her first line is delivered 19 minutes into the film, and her last line is delivered 39 minutes in.
- She is second only to Dumbo (who didn't speak at all) as the protagonist with the least amount of dialogue throughout their movie.
- The last sound ever heard from Aurora in the original film is after she arrives at the castle and is gifted her crown from the fairies, she begins crying over thinking she'll never see Phillip again. The crying sounds are not provided by Mary Costa, but are a recycled stock sound effect of Dopey's crying over Snow White's apparent death from the ending of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
- Her film did not originally do well at the box office, nor was it ever re-released in Walt Disney's lifetime. Sleeping Beauty was also the last Princess film made in Disney's lifetime, and the final Disney film within the fairy tale genre until The Little Mermaid in 1989.
- However, the film developed a loyal following in later years and Aurora has gained much popularity when the Disney Princess franchise was created. This makes her film a sleeper hit.
- All the Princesses' films so far were commercially successful during their initial theatrical releases, except for Aurora and Raya's, thus making their films the only ones to be commercial failures during their initial releases. Aurora would, however, later on, appear in the highly successful live-action blockbuster film Maleficent and the hit animated movie Ralph Breaks the Internet.
- Aurora is also the last "traditional" Disney Princess; as these two princesses are much more reactive and passive, though Cinderella was able to take initiative. After that, the later Princesses are more "contemporary" and proactive, starting with Ariel in 1989.
- In the sequel books, she has a palomino horse named Mirette.
- Aurora is the only Disney Princess to actually wear a typical princess gown. The other Princesses wear clothes that are not commonly categorized as a "typical" princess gown. For Aurora's case, the gown was meant to distinguish her role as a princess.
- Aurora's alias is Briar Rose, which is also the title of the Brothers Grimm version of the tale.
- The Brothers Grimm version of Sleeping Beauty is based on the 1636 story by Giambattista Basile called Sun, Moon, and Talia.
- The name Aurora is the name of Sleeping Beauty's daughter in the Charles Perrault version, and is the name for the titular character in the Tchaikovsky ballet.
- Aurora is the first Disney Princess to have an official alias, Briar Rose.
- Aurora is the first Disney Princess to have both parents alive and present during the entire film, followed by Mulan, Rapunzel, Merida, and Moana.
- Aurora is one of the eight Disney Princesses to be royal by birth, second after Snow White.
- Despite having a similar narrative with Snow White, wherein they both fell into a deep sleep, Aurora is much more associated with the sleeping trademark.
- Alongside Snow White, Merida, Moana, Tiana, and Raya, Aurora has not had a sequel to her film.
- Aurora's ball gown is constantly changed from blue to pink and back again as a running gag during her film. The constant color change is due to Flora and Merryweather's disagreement on what the color should be.
- The gag of Aurora's gown changing color from blue to pink through the film was inspired by the filmmakers' difficult decision on deciding the gown's color during production.
- The final scene of Sleeping Beauty with her and Prince Phillip dancing and going off into the clouds was an abandoned concept from both Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella.
- The dance animation would later be reused in the final scene of Beauty and the Beast.
- In the ballet, her father is named King Florestan the XXIV, the Prince is named Désiré or Florimund and the evil fairy is called Carabosse. There are five fairies named Candide (Candor), Coulante, Fleur de farine (Flowing, Wheat flour), Miettes qui tombent (Falling breadcrumbs), Canari qui chante (Singing canary), and Violente (Force). The Lilac Fairy is the final and sixth good fairy and is considered the most powerful.
- The infant Aurora does not make an actual appearance onscreen in the film. She is mostly just wrapped in quilts, but you can't actually see her.
- Despite infant Aurora not making an actual onscreen appearance in the original animated film, infant Aurora actually did appear onscreen in Maleficent.
- Aurora's original voice actress, Mary Costa, is the only actress alive of the first three Princesses. Both Adriana Caselotti and Ilene Woods passed away in 1997 and 2010, respectively. She is also the only surviving cast member of her film.
- Strangely, in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Aurora's bed vanishes, as does Aurora herself when completing Terra's and Ventus' scenarios in her world when she should be asleep in her bed. Though more than likely for the story of the world, it means that Aurora is awake due to Aqua helping Prince Phillip rescue her.
- Coincidentally, Kate Higgins, the latest voice actor for Aurora, also voices Briar Beauty, the daughter of Sleeping Beauty in the Mattel webisode series Ever After High.
- Aurora is the first Disney Princess to have an arranged marriage as a conflict, followed by Jasmine, Pocahontas, and Merida. In her case, she was hesitant to return to the castle due to its meaning having to violate her promise of meeting the stranger she met (who, ironically enough, was her betrothed).
- She is also the only one of the four to actually marry the person to whom she was betrothed.
- In the scene where Maleficent appears in the fireplace and hypnotizes Aurora to prick her finger, the female vocalist heard is actually saying "Aurora!", and it is spoken by none other than Mary Costa herself. While difficult to hear in the film, it is much clearer on the official soundtrack.
See also[]
Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)/Gallery
Videos[]
