My dreams just spent a morning trying to convince me that:

1. As a girl, Maleficent had green skin and red hair, and would sneak out of her parents' house to visit other houses and buy the things she needed to run away.
2. This connects her to the goddess Persephone, who had similar characteristics.
3. Modern girls and women worship Maleficent/Persephone as a symbol of freedom from the family home. They either identify with her, and pray to her for help in collecting what they need and escaping home, or they pray to her to visit them in the here and now, because she will "buy anything" and take away whatever is bothering them or keeping them trapped--like their children.

It was all very Golden Bough. The dream was so real, so detailed, and so insistent that I had to check that there wasn't some Disney canon in which the young Maleficent had green skin and red hair. (She does cover up and wear an inch of makeup. It's totally possible.) The weirdest part was when I woke part of the way up early on, before the dream had named the character, and thought, "Wait, which Disney character are they talking about?" Oh, but of course--Maleficent. Not, say, Fiona, who would have been a non-psycho choice for a patroness of girls who need to escape.*

So there you have it: Maleficent, patroness of oppressed girls, modern-day incarnation of Persephone. Devotees, tell me how you worship her!


* Yes, my waking self knows she's not from Disney. My dreaming self isn't that scrupulous about distinctions. Obviously.