Mal is a sneaky, smart, and sometimes ruthless girl who is a natural-born leader and skilled at art, especially spray paint art. Though she is compassionate, she is also vengeful and does not forgive others easily. She has a knack for casting spells, but only if needed.
In the first film, as the daughter of Maleficent, she wants to be like her mother: pure evil. Yet whenever she tries to prove herself to her mother, she often disappoints her instead. She enjoys coming up with wicked schemes and wreaking havoc and is the most feared in the Isle Of The Lost because of her reputation. She isn't fond of beautiful surroundings or anything pink, calling them gross, but she does sometimes wonder about how life would be off the island. Despite this, she is not necessarily immoral; she is just misguided. Her "mean girl" facade is mostly an act, likely because she does not want to be seen as weak in her mother's eyes; being evil is the only way she is respected by Maleficent, who never cared about Mal. Mal is extremely goal-oriented, driven by her desires to please her mother. This causes Mal to often prioritize her objective over the feelings of others, especially those of whom she manipulates in order to achieve her goals. Despite this, Mal's goals are not her own, but her mother's, and this causes Mal to become morally conflicted and increasingly reluctant to carry out her objective. Ben is the only person who sees through Mal's act (including herself), and saw her for who she was - a good person.
As the series progresses, Mal lets go of much of her fears and goals, becoming in tune with her true self; thus she abandons the hollow life of evil, for a life of being good. With friendship and love, Mal ended filling the hole in her heart that could not be satisfied through what her mother had taught her.
Physical Appearance
Mal is described as a girl with short dark purple hair with highlights of lighter shades of purple. She has green eyes with "flecks of gold" and is of medium height (5'2"). She mostly wears purple and shades of green and pink during the movie. She wears a artfully constructed purple biker jacket with a dash of pink on one sleeve and green on the other, a pair of purple jeans, and battered combat boots. She also wears black fingerless gloves. At Ben's coronation, she wears a lavender dress that is short on the front but long and regal looking on the back. Mal had her hair tied up in a bun. According to The Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel, she has a dragon-shaped marking on her arm, the symbol of Maleficent.
In Descendants 2, while in Auradon, her hair's blonde and longer with purple ombre tips at the end. Her school dress is a turquoise dress with a pale blue ribbon at the waist, gold and turquoise ribbons. She also has a gold necklace with a emerald in the middle and a blue beaded bracelet. When she goes back to the Isle, she goes back to having purple hair, only this time, light, straight, and with bangs. Towards the end of the movie, she has wavy light purple hair with bangs. She wears a purple studded leather jacket with a green and purple hand-dyed tank top under it. She has multiple layered chains and belts around her waist, purple pants, and purple studded boots with purple and green colored heels. She also wears a single purple fingerless glove.
In Under The Sea: A Descendants Story, her wardrobe is now a purple shirt with multiple golden studs. She also wears a black vest, her sleeves are purple, and one on completely studded. She also wears black and purple pants with purple studded boots. She still has her original hair, belts and boots.
In Descendants 3, her hair is short starts of as velvet purple and later in the movie her hair gains blue highlights because of Hades' ember. She wears a midnight blue vest, as well as a purple shirt under it, with her emblem. She also sports a pair of blue and purple leather pants. She now wears purple wedge high-tops with painted blue flames, as are her purple fingerless gloves.
Powers & Abilities
As the daughter of Maleficent and Hades, Mal inherited the following powers:
Fairy Magic: Like her mother, Mal is able to manipulate fairy magic at her will, which usually manifests a green energy glowing in her eyes.
Spell Casting: Mal is able to change and control events through the use of incantations and recitations, which either she creates or comes from her mother's old book.
Potion Making: Mal is able to brew and concoct paranormal potions with supernatural effects. Mal successfully made the love potion and place it inside a cookie, which was later given to Ben. Subsequently, she made the counter potion in order to end the last one all by herself. She was able to create a Truth Potion, for Carlos in the form of a sweet.
Dragon Transformation: Mal is able to transform herself into a giant dragon, like her mother Maleficent. She transforms into a dragon in Descendants 2 and Descendants 3.
Demigod Powers: Because her father is Hades, this would make Mal a demigod. However, it is currently unknown what goddess powers she possesses. Mal can use Hades' ember, but not to the same level as her godly father.
Aside from her magical powers, Mal also have the following abilities:
Art: One of Mal's most notable talents. She's an avid lover of art, especially for graffiti. She is seen doing multiple drawings throughout Descendants, Descendants: Wicked World and Descendants 2.
Driving: As seen in "Pair of Sneakers" and "Wild Rehearsal", Mal is capable of driving cars. In Descendants 2, she learned to drive a scooter.
Swordsmanship: As seen in Descendants 2, Mal is capable to withstand a sword fight with Lost Revenge's Crew.
Her name means "bad" in Spanish, French and Portuguese.
In the first film, it is revealed that her middle name is "Bertha". Which she told to Ben during their first date.
In the Spanish dub for Hispanic America, her middle name is "Igna", making her full name Mal Igna, a wordplay for Malign. In Latin, "Igna" also means fire.
Mal's name, along with Ben's, could be a play on the words "malevolent" - meaning "having or showing a wish to do evil to others" - and "benevolent," meaning "well meaning and kindly."
Mal is one of the twelve characters (including Evie, Jay, Carlos, Ben, Jane, Doug, Chad, Belle, Beast, the Fairy Godmother and Dude) to appear in all three Descendants films of the original trilogy.
Dove Cameron wore wigs during filming. At the beginning of the sequel, Dove said in an interview that she was wearing a blonde wig in the beginning of the sequel since Mal had spelled her hair to blonde.
In the first film, when Mal tries to save Ben from drowning, it is revealed that she cannot swim.
At the time of the first film, she was sixteen years old.
Mal seemingly has the most common sense out of her friends, as she got every answer in Remedial Goodness right by picking the answer that sounded the least fun for villains.
During her picnic with Ben, she is shown to develop a fondness of strawberries.
She loves the color purple, though in All Hail the New Q.N.L.B. Evie describes it more as an aubergine while Freddie disagrees, saying it looks like eggplant and Audrey states it looks more like amethyst.
Mal's main color is purple, symbolizing power, which is a recurring theme with her mother Maleficent.
During the first film, whenever Mal is around Ben, her hair seems shorter and lighter.
In the third film, whenever Mal is around the ember, her hair turns bluer.
The dress she wears for Ben's coronation appears to be adaptable.
In the prequel book, it is revealed she had a dream set near the Enchanted Lake, where Ben and Mal eventually go to on their date.
The junior novelization and prequel novel reveal some additional details about her:
Her full name is Maleficent, like her mother. However, she is called Mal until she can prove to be just as evil as her mother.
She used to despise Evie because she was not invited to Evie's sixth birthday party. She even attempted to use Maleficent's staff to curse her.
She found her mother's staff locked in the ruins of the Forbidden Fortress. Unfortunately it was no longer working, so Maleficent charged her with stealing the Fairy Godmother's wand to recharge it.
She attended Dragon Hall (an evil high school), while on the Isle of the Lost.
Unlike Evie, Jay, and Carlos, she does not have a pet. The reason for this is that she was not invited to Evie's sixth birthday party, where the other children received the villain's pets' descendants as gifts.
She was mentioned to have a human father, who is regarded by Maleficent with contempt. In Descendants 3, Mal's father is revealed to be Hades, who is a god but became a mortal when he was imprisonment on the Isle of the Lost.
She steals from the Slop Shop every day since her mother never has food in the kitchen.
In the Disney Descendants Yearbook, it is revealed that her "Secret Wish" is to learn how to swim and that her "Not-so-secret Wish" is to have a different middle name.
It is also revealed that she wants to be an artist when she grows up.
Her favorite class is "Remedial Goodness 101", stating that she just thinks of what her mom would do and pick the opposite.
Her "Go-To" Object at the museum is her mother's magic spinning wheel. Stating that even though it's boring-looking, it's spooky that a few pieces of wood could put someone to sleep for a hundred years.
In the scene when the gang makes cookies, many questions were asked about how it would work if they added an extra ingredient.
In early concept designs of her outfits, she was originally meant to have shorter hair.
Dove Cameron, Thomas Doherty and Kenny Ortega came up with a "backstory" for Mal and Harry Hook. However, this "backstory" is not mentioned nor confirmed by any of the characters throughout the film. In this "backstory", it's revealed that Harry and Mal used to date. Dove and Thomas even drew secret hook tattoos under their gloves. (It's more like a "fanfiction" than a "backstory" that Dove, Thomas, and Kenny jokingly made and should not be taken as being true).[1]
However this "backstory" is not exactly true to the story because it directly contrast the first Descendants film when Mal says she does not know what love feels like and that they do not date on the Isle.
Despite what Dove Cameron says about Harry and Mal being exes, this never happened in the novels and it is not confirmed in the films.
Mal never admitted to loving Ben, until the Royal Cotillion nearly six months into their relationship. It is also suggested by Jane and Lonnie that the ascending of Mal to a Lady deems her and Ben being engaged to be married. However, she has admitted that she was excited and could not wait until she married Ben.
She can turn into a dragon-like her mother, but she didn't know she could. She isn't the only VK with an ability of this nature, for Uma can turn into a sea creature like her own mother Ursula. Mal even uses this ability against Uma's own version.
Mal and Ben are each others' true love, which is revealed in Descendants 2 after Mal breaks Uma's love spell on Ben with true love's kiss.
Mal, Evie, Ben, Uma, Audrey and Freddie are the only characters to have solos.
Mal, Ben, Uma and Audrey are the only characters to have more than one solo.
Mal is technically classified as an evil pixie and is the only non-human out of the four VKs - according to one post Dove Cameron made on Instagram.
Mal is the only VK with two known parents (Maleficent and Hades).
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