“The LORD your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” ~ Zephaniah 3:17
I’m not sure if Disney intended to make Aurora a second Zellandine. I like to think he did. He was a master storyteller, after all; and the fact that he sets the tale in the 14th century – the century in which Perceforest was written – hints that he was at least referring to Zellandine.
Six hundred years separate Zellandine and Aurora, and yet they are incredibly similar. [1] Like Zellandine, our Aurora is clever. She knows her “aunts” are up to something on her birthday; but like Zellandine, Aurora is gracious, and she allows them their little ruse. Like Zellandine, Aurora longs for love; however – like Zellandine – she’s not going to just jump into any man’s arms and is cautious when she first meets Phillip (she quite literally turns up her nose at him!).
We all know “Briar Rose” is the long lost Princess Aurora, betrothed to Prince Phillip. We know they’re “meant to be.” Interestingly, the only other Sleeping Beloved to develop a relationship with her savior before the death-like sleep is Zellandine. The other Sleeping Beloveds are all awakened by strangers.
But as Phillip says, he’s not a stranger – they’ve met before, “once upon a dream.” Yes, they are destined to be together, and the fact that they fall in love without realizing they are actually betrothed just confirms the truth.
And so we forget a poignant detail: they don’t know this. They don’t know “Briar Rose” is our Princess Aurora. They think she’s a humble peasant girl. Our knowledge clouds our minds to the reality of their situation, and we gloss over the heart-break of Briar Rose when the three fairies tell her the truth.
Our Aurora sobs when she finds out she can never see her true love again. She doesn’t smile as she returns to the palace (it is a far cry from Perrault’s triumphal entry). She sobs when the fairies place the crown on her head.
At this point, Aurora’s story can go any of the ways we’ve seen before. She could be telling the same tale as Zellandine, a tale of how to survive abuse. She could be telling Talia’s story, an example of how to stay pure-hearted in a loveless marriage. Or, she could be showing how to overcome false identities, as in the Perrault and Grimm versions.
At this point, we don’t know how the story will go; but one thing is certain: her heart-break is very real. As we’ve seen throughout the tales, our Sleeping Beloveds choose to put their hearts into a death-like sleep rather than face the pain of an aching heart. Like our Zellandine – and every other Sleeping Beloved we’ve met – Aurora’s heart is asleep long before she pricks her finger.
And don’t we do the same? Isn’t it “easier” and “safer” to kill our hearts ourselves rather than taste the bitterness of broken dreams?
But in that moment, the moment when all seems lost, our Warrior-Lover comes to the rescue. For the Warrior-Lover shines brightest when the world is at its darkest…
Sources
[1] For more on Zellandine’s personality, see this post here.
