Legendary Pictures: Sleeping Beauty and Its Formative Influence on Zelda

Over the years, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto has been outspoken about his love for classic Disney films and about their influence on his own creative work. As an aspiring cartoonist in his youth, he looked to the characters of Disney’s golden age for inspiration; and upon breaking into the video game industry, elements from those animated classics invariably informed his early works. Miyamoto has even admitted that Disney’s Peter Pan served as an inspiration for Link in The Legend of Zelda.

With that said, it stands to reason that, whether consciously or unconsciously, the final fairy tale adaptation of Disney’s golden age in feature animation served as influence on the Legend of Zelda series, and more specifically, on the early years of the Legend of Zelda series. That film, the culturally-enduring Sleeping Beauty, presents a wealth of artistic elements — in its visual style, in its characters, and in its story — that could have been (and likely were) used as a template for Link’s earliest adventures.

The most obvious connection between Sleeping Beauty and the Zelda series lies in the scenario of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which I believe has the most overt references to the Disney classic. Years after his first adventure, Link discovers a slumbering princess from generations past that had been locked away in a far-off temple until a destined hero rose up to wake her. Like Princess Aurora of Sleeping Beauty, this Princess Zelda was the victim of a sleeping spell, so our hero, like Prince Philip, sets out to reverse the enchantment.

I don’t have to hammer home similarities between this narrative and that of Sleeping Beauty. Looking at the mirror images of Princess Zelda and Princess Aurora sleeping on their respective beds sells that more than anything. In fact, other than a few superficial differences — such as Link’s quest to restore the six palaces and secure the Triforce of Courage versus Philip’s singular goal of reaching Aurora — the basic conflicts of the film and the game are essentially the same. A princess afflicted by an enchanted sleep must be woken up by a noble hero; that hero risks his life to restore the princess to the waking world, challenging a dragon and more to do so.

As far as fantasy scenarios go, Sleeping Beauty provides a rich yet simple template to build a game upon, especially given the limitations the 8-bit generation had on storytelling. The conflict, objective, and stakes are clear from the beginning, and there’s still room in The Adventure of Link‘s plot for the threat of Ganon’s return and a grand adventure spanning several “levels.” Furthermore, players familiar with Sleeping Beauty naturally project elements from the film onto the game without the game having to explicitly call those elements to mind. For example, players may project themes of romance on Zelda II, not because the game necessarily presents those themes, but because its parallels to Sleeping Beauty invite those preconceptions.

The Adventure of Link owes more than its story to Sleeping Beauty too. The film’s distinctive art style, the product of artist and illustrator Eyvind Earle, strongly emphasizes straight lines and distinct layers. Not only is this style inspired by medieval art and tapestries, and thus it inherently carries an air of fantasy and antiquity, but at several points throughout the movie, it’s clear that characters and the world exist on specific planes, with each new layer pushing further from the foreground into the background.

This art style seems tailor-made for re-appropriation in an NES title, which can only present images with rigid pixels, limited color palettes, and only two layers (sprite and background). This is even moreso the case in a side-scrolling game like Zelda II. At times, Sleeping Beauty presents its story in a style not unlike a stage play — or a side-scrolling video game — as characters move from left to right within a scene rather than from foreground to background.

Earle’s distinctive art style works to bring the fairy tale world of Sleeping Beauty to life, and that world is full of traditional fantasy elements that have been recycled for centuries. While I don’t wish to assert The Legend of Zelda borrowed any these things from Sleeping Beauty in particular, I do wish to mention that both the film and the games feature castles and towers, kings and queens, knights and monsters, swords and shields, and curses and dragons. It’s clear that both properties are drawing from same well, but in doing so, Hyrule — especially its earliest incarnations — inherently resembles the kingdom presented in Sleeping Beauty.

The first major location in Sleeping Beauty is King Stefan’s castle, seemingly the only settlement and what we can assume is the center — if not geographically, then certainly in regards to influence — of the kingdom. Beginning with A Link to the Past, Hyrule Castle is traditionally placed at the center of its respective kingdom, with all other areas extending outward from it. I believe the choice to place Hyrule Castle adds to the structure’s significance, especially with its first official appearance in the series.

Like the characters of Sleeping Beauty looking toward their castle from even the darkest corners of their kingdom, Link can always orient himself in Hyrule by his relation to the castle. I also want to make mention of Sleeping Beauty‘s castle as the centerpiece of Disneyland, with the theme park’s many lands surrounding the structure. If you look at map of Disneyland, it’s not hard to see its similarities to A Link to the Past‘s map.

Sleeping Beauty‘s second major location is the forest where Aurora and the three good fairies live. While some literary sources present a forest as a symbol for confusion or depression, I actually think both Sleeping Beauty and The Legend of Zelda present the forest, the wilderness, as a symbol of childhood. For Aurora, who is blossoming into adulthood and resents being treated like a child, the forest is represents the boundaries of her childhood. On the day of her sixteenth birthday, she wanders to the edge of the forest and wonders if she’ll find her true love.

The Legend of Zelda sees the forest in the same light. Shigeru Miyamoto certainly conjured up memories of his childhood adventures in the wilderness outside Kyoto when designing the first game in the series. But the idea of the forest as a symbol for childhood is further expanded in Ocarina of Time. Link spends his early years safe in Kokiri Forest, unaware of his lineage and unaware of the threats beyond the forest’s borders. Only after the outside world infiltrates the forest does Link leave his childhood behind and answer the call of the hero. Likewise, Aurora, unaware of her lineage and unaware of the threats beyond the forest’s borders, desires to leave her childhood behind, a desire that is further incited when a young prince infiltrates the forest.

The last major location in the film is Maleficent’s decrepit castle in the Forbidden Mountains. I don’t need to spend too much time demonstrating this location’s similarities to Ganon’s stronghold on Death Mountain in the first Zelda, or even to the many dungeons that dot Hyrule throughout the series. Defined by darkness, precariousness, and ruin, Maleficent’s castle provides the perfect ordeal to be overcome by the film’s hero. He must navigate its labyrinthine halls, resist its army of monsters, and even fight a big bad on his way out. This is the exact template followed by Link, in each dungeon of the first game and in each dungeon of subsequent games. There are always mazes to solve, monsters to fight, and a boss battle to overcome.

Let’s move on to the characters, shall we? While Princess Aurora and Prince Philip sit squarely in the same archetypal framework that Princess Zelda and Link occupy (the Damsel in Distress and the Journeying Hero), there are a few more subtle character archetypes I want to point out.

The first set of characters I want to examine are the three good fairies: Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. On an aesthetic level, these three pixies quite resemble the Fairies of Zelda I and Zelda II (they even shrink down to navigate small spaces), as well as the Great Fairies of A Link to the Past. Their respective colors of red, blue, and green also match those of the three Golden Goddesses as described in Ocarina of Time. And as a further connection to Din, Farore, and Nayru, the animated sequences of the fairies’ gifts strongly resemble the legends told to Link in Ocarina.

But more importantly, I believe that the three good fairies, specifically in regards to their disguises as “three peasant women raising a foundling child,” provide a foundation for an entirely different Zelda character. Impa, Princess Zelda’s loyal maid, isn’t seen in-game until Ocarina of Time, and that version of the character is far different from the bumbling fairies of Sleeping Beauty; but the character is featured in the manuals of both The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link, where her role and appearance strongly resembles Aurora’s three enchanted aunts.

Impa — squat, aging, dressed in a common cloak — is described as a loyal servant to the royal family and as the person who seeks Link’s help in both of these early adventures. While Link is the instrument by which the conflict gets resolved, Impa was the one to give him the push. Likewise, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather may not wield a sword and shield like Prince Philip, but they are the ones that seek him out and provide him the resources necessary to save the day. Both instances present the traditional idea of a well-meaning handmaid, a person that is not physically capable, but is equipped with enough knowledge and loyalty to support the true hero. And while I personally like the character that Impa has become in later games, her early depictions were memorable despite her not even being shown on screen.

Then there are King Stefan and King Hubert. In addition to providing some welcome comic relief, these monarchs, to me, inform the preconceptions players hold toward King Hyrule in early Zelda games. Though they mean well and show a commitment to Aurora’s safety, the kings of Sleeping Beauty are, in the end, shown to be ineffective and uninformed. Beyond getting completely smashed on wine on the eve of Aurora’s return (“Skumps!”), every one of their attempts to save the princess from misfortune are thwarted or undone. And, in the midst of the narrative’s central conflict, Stefan and his kingdom are put to sleep, rendering them completely useless and demonstrating Stefan’s failure to govern.

The kings of Hyrule give off the same vibes in the first several Zelda games. Largely absent from Zelda I and Zelda II, essentially letting children take care of kingdom’s affairs, King Hyrule is depicted in A Link to the Past as having been deceived by the evil wizard Agahnim. Due to his failures, the knights of Hyrule are brainwashed to carry out Agahnim’s misdeeds, leaving Hyrule in a distorted state in which the wills of the monarch are left ignored. A similar fate befalls the king of Ocarina of Time, who ignores the prophetic dreams of his daughter and places his trust in the clearly nefarious Ganondorf. In that game’s dark future, Ganondorf has usurped the king anointed himself king of Hyrule.

These shadow kingdoms of Hyrule, to me, are reminiscent of Stafan’s sleeping kingdom in the Sleeping Beauty, where the royals have no real power and no real authority. And that perception of Hyrule’s Royal Family is implicitly reinforced from the first Zelda game to Ocarina of Time. Only after games like The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild can I see the king of Hyrule as anything but inept.

That leaves us with Sleeping Beauty‘s antagonist and my personal favorite Disney villain, Maleficent. While this character in some way resembles Veran from Oracle of Ages, she is one of the few characters that doesn’t share a significant analogue with some Zelda character, certainly not a Zelda character from the early games. So, with that said, I personally embrace the fact that both Sleeping Beauty and the Zelda series have their own iconic villains. After all, a fairy tale is only as memorable as its villain. Ganon and Maleficent each have a design all their own; they only share an essence of motivation and an opposition to the hero of each respective narrative.

But we have to talk about that kick-butt dragon fight, which is Maleficent’s strongest connection to the Zelda series. It’s significant that The Legend of Zelda‘s first boss fight, Aquamentus, is a western-style dragon, the same type of dragon that Maleficent transforms into. The image of a young hero, wielding only a sword and shield, confronting a fire-breathing dragon has resonated with people for centuries; that’s why that image is featured in Sleeping Beauty‘s climax and why it’s featured in The Legend of Zelda‘s first dungeon. When Miyamoto and team set out to create a fantasy adventure on a scale the video game world had not yet seen, the most conducive way to sell it would be to present a fight with a fire-breathing dragon and do it early. Aquamentus not only fulfilled that role, but it established a long-running tradition of iconic Zelda dragons.

Sleeping Beauty ends with true love’s kiss and the restoration of a kingdom; and, in the same way, as curtains fall on The Adventure of Link, players are treated to an implicit kiss between Link and Zelda. Nevermind that these two particular characters have never met; this ending fulfills an expectation that the player may not even realize that he or she had. The fantasy, the whimsy, the action, and the romance of Sleeping Beauty are equally represented in The Legend of Zelda‘s early titles, so it would only make sense for Zelda II to end in the same way that Disney classic ended, much like how it started in the same way that movie started, and much like its predecessor and eventual successors borrowed elements from that movie to tell their stories.

Traces of Sleeping Beauty, as a seminal work of fantasy animation, are clearly seen in the original Hyrule Fantasy and its three home-console sequels. And thus The Legend of Zelda as a series owes a lot to Disney for laying the foundation by which to build upon. The Zelda series has since moved beyond its Disney-esque roots and built an identity all its own, but that doesn’t negate Sleeping Beauty‘s formative impact on those early titles.

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Rod Lloyd is the managing editor at Zelda Dungeon, primarily overseeing the news and feature content of the site. The Zelda Dungeon Caption Contest and Zelda Dungeon themed weeks are both Rod’s babies. You can find Rod on Twitter right here.