When the world first met Maleficent, in the early 17th century, she was neither witch nor evil fairy. In the earliest known version of Sleeping Beauty—Giambattista Basile's Sun, Moon, and Talia—the 'villainess' is, in fact, a queen betrayed. When her husband the king cheats on her and starts a new family with the younger Princess Talia, the queen orders the illegitimate children of their union killed, cooked, and fed to her husband. Then she orders "a large fire lit in the courtyard of the palace, and command[s] that Talia should be cast into it." The king swoops in and saves the day by having his wife burned in Talia's place and taking the younger and more amiable princess as his new wife. As luck would have it, their children had in fact been spared, and, in a Henry VIII kind of way, everyone but the wronged queen gets to have their happily ever after. If villainizing powerful women is not enough, the original tale has another dark secret: rape. Remember the married king who cheated on his rightful queen and started a new family with Princess Talia? Yeah, that all happened while Talia was sleeping. That's right. In the original story the king rapes and impregnates the princess, fathering two children upon her in her sleep. Disney's 2014 Maleficent pays homage to this buried secret [SPOILER ALERT] when the fairy's former love cuts her wings off of her body in her sleep. The rest of the film becomes about reclamation of women's bodies and women's power.