The original children's story tells of a villainous witch who casts a spell on a young innocent baby in retaliation to the land's ruler. The kingdom descends into darkness until one fateful day, the hero arrives. He kisses the fair maiden to awaken her and slays the wicked witch.
In the original story, the hero is Prince Phillip. The victim is the Aurora. And the villain is the Maleficent.
This is a classic setup for every great story. It's called the "Drama Triangle". For drama to exist in any relationship, there is a need for all three characters.
Similar to most remakes, I expected a story told in the same way with super special effects and sustainable acting.
What I got was much better. They flipped the character archetypes.
In the retold version of Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, a dark character, plays the victim. Aurora's father, King Sebastien takes on the villain role. Aurora is the hero.
The story took on a whole new meaning as the viewer sympathizes with the dark witch.
Now think about real life for a moment. Doesn't the Drama Triangle get flipped depending on perspective?
We don't see ourselves as the villain in the story of our lives. We see ourselves as either victim or hero.
If take the victim role, we look for our knight in shining armour to save the day.
If we play hero, we fight evil to right the wrongs of our world.
In either case, when we set ourselves up to be one of hero or victim, we've now entered the Drama Triangle. Arguments ensue, feelings get hurt, fights break out and vengeance devours the weak.
If we don't want drama in our lives, we must decline the roles of victim and hero. No participation, drama crumbles. It has no choice. It's only effective when there are three characters in the game.
Don't play the game!
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