
“ | If I didn't know better, I'd say you were making a threat. | „ |
~ Queen Ingrith to Maleficent. |
“ | Do you know what makes a great leader? The ability to instill fear in your subjects and use that fear against your enemies. | „ |
~ Queen Ingrith. |
Queen Ingrith is the main antagonist of the 2019 fantasy film Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. She is the (former) queen of Ulstead, wife of King John, mother of Prince Phillip, and Aurora’s future mother-in-law who plans to kill the fairies as revenge for her brother's death.
She was portrayed by the legendary actress Michelle Pfeiffer, who also played Catwoman in Batman Returns, Velma Von Tussle in Hairspray, Eris in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, and Lamia in Stardust.
Personality[1][]
Queen Ingrith is motivated by the tragic death of her brother, who she believes was killed by one of the enchanted forest creatures. She is willing to protect her people, and for her, the ends justify the means. She is also wicked, cunning, selfish, and has fear for the unknown, which in turn leads to her aggression towards the fairies.
Biography[2][]
Beginnings[3][]
Diaval finds Princess Aurora to be accepting Prince Philip's proposal to marry him, informing it to Maleficent, who grows wrathful toward it, warning Aurora not to marry him out of knowing that this story of love would not end as she thinks, much to Aurora's and the other fairies' dismay, resulting Aurora escaping back into the human kingdom, in which Ingrith is deciding on taking her as her new daughter.
Maleficent arrives at the reunion, where she is using her powers to cast a new curse; where shall be no reunion nor love between Aurora or the prince, yet Aurora refuses to the spell, When the queen disdainfully proclaims that Aurora will now have a real family and mother, Maleficent gets angered and seemingly puts King John into a deep slumber.
Maleficent escapes from the castle moments before the guards arrive to take her. She flies away but gets shot down by Gerda and falls in the ocean, this resulting in her being saved from drowning by Conall, a male fairy with feathed wings like Maleficent's.
He introduces Maleficent to other fairies living in exile because of the conflict with humans. Maleficent reluctantly agrees to lead them and other Moor refugees against the humans to rescue Aurora. Another fairy Borra is driven more by hatred of humans than survival and wants to utilize Maleficent's powers, which are descended from a phoenix, to win the war.
Ingrith has arranged a wedding for Aurora and Phillip in 3 days, inviting creatures from the Moor (including Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistlewit) and people from other kingdoms to celebrate, with the forest creatures going first.
Maleficent flies away to the Moors and appears shocked when she discovers all the soldiers have picked all the Tomb Blooms, magical flowers that grow on the fairy graveyards are gone. Their pollen were mixed with iron powder to create a red-colored mixture which reverts fairies to inanimate objects. Queen Ingrith intends to use it as a weapon to obliterate all fairies.
In the ensuing fight, Conall is fatally wounded protecting Maleficent. As he dies, Maleficent starts to channel the phoenix's powers within her.
Plan Revealed and Defeat[4][]
Aurora discovers that it was Ingrith who "cursed" the king by pricking him with the spindle that still contains the sleeping curse that was inflicted upon Aurora. Queen Ingrith is orchestrating the war to kill all of Moor's fairies as revenge for her brother's death when he ventured to the Moors many years prior. She does that by locking up the fairies in the castle lobby with Gerda giving shots of red mixture via pipe organ and locking Aurora on the top floor of the castle. Flittle sacrifices herself to block the organ whilst the other fairies defeat Gerda by causing her to fall to her death.
In the following morning, Maleficent is leading the forces of the Dark Fey with Borra straightly into an invasion against the human kingdom, which leads to a massively destructive and violent lengthy battle between the factions. In the ensuing chaos, Maleficent attacks Ingrith, forcing Aurora to stop her from doing so from hearing about the good in her. Diaval transforms into a half-crow/half-bear hybrid and frees the fairies in the lobby. Maleficent suddenly gets killed protecting Aurora from Ingrith's arrow, sacrificing herself.
Ingrith throws Aurora from the tower to distract her enemy and tries to escape. Maleficent swoops in and saves Aurora, and they crash on the battlefield where Borra and Prince Philip are fighting against each other. The prince states that he chooses peace with the fairies and refuses to kill Borra. He orders the army to cease fighting, effectively restoring peace between the two factions.
Maleficent returns to her human form and Ingrith falls to her supposed death, but she survives and Maleficent transforms her into a goat, vowing to only turn her back to human if she reforms. Otherwise, Queen Ingrith possibly will most likely spend the rest of her days as a goat. However later when she was turned into a goat, she was not already evil and she could be redeemed and later turn into a human again, but later she will be a good queen.