Selflessness, not blindly obeying

I think most of the hate on Aurora comes from the scene where she cries after just meeting Phillip. You have to admit that nowadays it does seem a little ridiculous, but it is the old Disney cliche of girl/boy meet and fall in love in 1 day. However, that same weakness could be attributed to Phillip because he also is immediately smitten with Aurora and tells his dad he won't marry the princess. When I honestly think about it, I don't feel we get to know Aurora well enough to deem her weak or not. I mean Phillip acts smitten but then also slays a dragon, escapes Maleficent, etc. Aurora basically sings in the woods, meets a guy, goes home and gets upset because she finds out she is betrothed, hits her finger on the spindle, falls asleep, etc. And really, it is a valid reason to cry when you are being forced into a marriage. Yes part of her tears are because of Phillip, but I would also be upset at 16 if my guardians told me they had arranged a marriage for me as a child. Plus, what was Aurora supposed to do in that situation? Isn't it just as weak if she refused to do what the fairies said because she had met someone for 20 minutes in the woods? Wouldn't Aurora seem rather bratty to refuse for that reasoning? In my opinion, the development for Aurora is just not there so it is actually unfair to call her weak. A better critique would be to say she isn't as fleshed out as other Disney heroines. I mean Phillip is more fleshed out than her!

Exactly. I think Aurora's a good role model.. She dreams about love and can be naive but at the end of the day, she did what was right for the kingdom even though it broke her heart. That seems to be forgotten by a lot of people who watch this film.

Gosh my answer comes 3 years after most of the other posts. Well, that's nothing compared to the 100 years the kingdom slept.
Here's the thing. Yes, I realize each generation/century alters the story a bit. but the core should stay the same or else, give it a new name and stop calling it sleeping Beauty or La Belle au Bois Dormant or whatever.
Changing the very early version from a rape to a kiss was a charming adjustment. The story is still basically another version of Persephone or a girl maturing archetype At 16 she gets to close her finger (bleeds-)on a prick.
She sleeps or goes under like Properine/Persephone. REawakens and marries. Okay very messy. but it was the model for a girl's adolescence for millennia until Title IX in the West at least. the correspondence in lit/folklore is never a one-to-one correspondence to actual human experience so it's pointless to try to interpret every detail. Anyway, altering the story to make her a Joan of Arc/Don't-rain-on-my-parade heroine just changes the story. it's not Sleeping Beauty anymore. ANd Lastly. I thought we were supposed to like diversity. Must all girls be like Pocahontas or they're just inferior? Sorry, Mary, you're second class citizen because you're not a dynamic person.

Words can't describe how much I love this post. I love Aurora and wish she got more appreciation.

The 21st Disney century princesses reflect 21st century "screw the patriarchy" values. The princess in "Sleeping Beauty" is the product of a more thoughtful, mature, literate time.

June 29, 2020 Monday 2:05 p.m.

The best kind of love is sacrificial; one that not only demonstrates commitment on a deep personal level, but one that also symbolizes the purest example of any kind of relationship that is bound by mutual self-giving love. Aurora shows that she understands what is truly at stake. She is mature and responsible.

~~/o/

Aurora isn't the heroine of the film, the three fairies are the hero of the film She isn't so much a major character, as what the heroes and the villain are fighting over.

She gets no respect because her personality doesn't matter to the plot, if the fairies and Malifecent were fighting over a block of wood nothing much would have changed.