Everything You Need to Know about the Enemy

You know those posters, “Everything I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten?” Well, tonight I bring you – everything I ever needed to know about the enemy I learned from watching Sleeping Beauty:

1.) The Enemy Shows Up Uninvited
2.) The Enemy Bestows Gifts, Which One Usually Expects to Be Good, but Certainly End in Death
3.) Getting Rid of All Possible Weapons of Evildoing Will Not Stop the Enemy
4.) You Can’t Reason With the Enemy
5.) The Enemy Really Is “All Bad”

Fauna: Well, perhaps if we reason with her. Flora: Reason? Merryweather: With
Maleficent? Fauna: Well, she can’t be all bad. Flora: Oh, yes, she can.

6.) The Enemy Ruins Everything – Especially One’s Nicest Flowers
7.) The Enemy Anticipates Your Next Move
8.) The Enemy Knows a Lot, but Doesn’t Know Anything about Love or Kindness
9.) The Enemy is Not Very Happy

Merryweather: But what won’t she expect, she knows everything. Fauna: Oh
but she doesn’t dear. Maleficent doesn’t know anything about love, or
kindness, or the joy of helping earnest. You know, sometimes I don’t think
she’s really very happy.

10.) The Enemy has a Hoard of Servants to Help Find Our Weak Spots
11.) The Enemy Hunts Out All of Our Weak Spots, No Matter How Hard We Try to Hide
12.) The Enemy Tells Us the Worst-Case Scenario and Makes Us Believe It
13.) The Enemy Rejoices in Other People’s Pain and Suffering

Maleficent: Come, my pet. Let us leave our noble prince with these happy
thoughts. A most gratifying day. For the first time in sixteen years I
shall sleep well.

14.) The Enemy Will Do Everything Possible to Keep the Story From Reaching its Happily Ever After
15.) The Enemy is a Huge, Fire-Breathing Dragon That Can Only Be Defeated by the Sword of Truth.

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Brandon laughs because I love fairy tales. I love Disney movies – especially the older movies, but Disney has redeemed itself as of late, too, with such great movies as Meet the Robinsons (which I cry after, always), The Incredibles, Toy Story, and more. I love the princesses and their innocence, the way they wait to be rescued, the princes and their noble steed and their courage and the ways they romance the bride. I love the goofy supporting characters that bring along the lighter side and also have their own ways of trying to make it all better but inserting their own goofs in the process – unknowingly complicating the end results.

I love it all – even the villains, who give us such great lessons in the character of evil, the nature of evil, just like Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. She’s wicked. She’s miserable. She’s convinced that if she makes the rest of the world miserable, it’ll make her happy. Ah, yes, so easy to recognize evil when it’s tall, dark, and grotesque. I wish it could be like that all of the time, instead of being enticing, attractive, fun, and only a little bit guilt-inducing or conscience-pricking.

I must go now – Meet the Robinsons is on, and I just can’t help myself. I mean, there’s a black hat with claws and one red eye. It has “evil” written all over it.