Let me start off door saying that even though Aurora is 12th on my list, I still love her and I think people are a bit too stubborn when it comes to her character. She's charming, playful, sweet, regal, graceful, dreamy, outdoorsy, romantic, loyal and obedient. Yes, her personality can, for the most part, be summed door simply saying the word "princess" but it's still a personality all the same. Believe of not, the writers DID have a personality in mind when creating Aurora and they made if a point that she'd be different from Snow White and Cinderella, which she is. She provides a medium between the cheerfulness of Snow and calmness of Cindy. She predates Ariel with her teenage behavior, she's the first princess to act like a normal teen girl. Snow White jumps from an innocent child to mother figure a lot and Cinderella's just a mature and grounded young woman. Aurora is a overemotional, melodramatic, indecisive, boy crazy, socially awkward, shy, easily distracted and spineless. All of which are flaws that stem from being an inexperienced sheltered teen aged girl. She's actually a realistic character, her personality is very consistent with how she interacts with others and how she reacts to conflict. Every thing about Aurora makes sense, meaning she is a properly written character.
Now, let me talk about Aurora in relation to other princesses. Just like any other princess, Aurora has a dreams and desires, she wants to meet the prince of dreams and she wishes for the fairies to stop treating her like a child (again, predating Ariel with her teenage ambition). Yes, the latter desire is only shared through one line of dialogue and never mentioned again. But Belle stated her dream through one short song and it's never mentioned again. She has flaws which stem from virtues, she's loyal and obedient so much to the point that she's spineless and easily manipulated. She's very observant of her surroundings but as a result she's also easily distracted. She's very dreamy which also means she can get lost in her thoughts. She's very romantic but this also makes her boy-crazy, so much to the point that when she finds her whole life is a lie, all she can think about is not being able to see Philip again. And all of these traits are shown, not told. We SEE these characteristics play out with Aurora.
Side note: I'd like to point out that Aurora really isn't kind. This is something we actually have no evidence of, she doesn't display full blown unconditional kindness like other princesses. She never does anything out of kindness, just reluctant obedience of plain old obedience. So yeah technically, Aurora is not kind, just saying.
Okay, for the root of the discussion, how Aurora is projected onto and how her fans overanalyze and overthink her personality. Okay, I mostly disagree with this notion but I agree to an extent. She's not the bland dummy people think she is but I do think some people go a bit too deep with her character. Yes she's dreamy and imaginative but that doesn't make her an expert on the science of dreams of "philosophical", that is kind of ridiculous. But not honestly I've seen worse with other princesses, for example Ariel says one line, "Daddy, they're not barbarians", simply as a rebuttal to her father, and all of sudden some of her fans think she's this activist against human prejudice among the merpeople. Seriously? WTF? In fact, I'd say Aurora is one of the less overanalyzed princesses. She also isn't the only princess that can be considered a plot device Jasmine, to some extent Belle and of course Elsa can be considered plot devices as well. Speaking of Elsa, she's way less developed and meer over-analyzed than Aurora. Anyone who thinks Elsa has a meer defined personality than Aurora is lying to themselves, and this is coming from a guy who has Elsa as #4 on their list. We see personality traits in Aurora, we have to assume things with Elsa. I don't have to make assumptions with Aurora, I just describe what I see on screen and unlike Elsa, I don't have to resort to comparing her to another character (Anna) to think of personality traits for her. People who think Elsa's meer developed than Aurora, I just think their fixated on the mindset that "old=under developed" and "new=more sophisticated". Aurora was made in the 1950's so she MUST be the less developed character, she just has to be. Elsa was made in the 2010's so she MUST be meer developed.
Honestly, I think the problem with some of Aurora's detractors is that they want one of the princesses to be the Meg, from Family Guy. They want a princess to be the butt of the joke, they want a princess to describe as "uh...she's pretty". Aurora is one the who sleeps and the one with the shortest screen time so she MUST be the bland and dull one. I don't want to sound mean, but I think it speaks to someone's intelligence that they need characters with overly obvious personalities to entertain them. Like u need a character to be in your face to impress you? They go on and on about how they love realistic characters yet they dismiss a pretty realistic character as bland. Don't get me wrong, I do see her as the most boring princess but that just says to me how interesting all the princesses are, and I think it's commendable that she's able to entertain me in 18 minuten where as other princesses need a whole movie. At the end of the day, Aurora is just like any other princess in the line-up, she has virtues, flaws, dreams, and interests. Is she deepest character? No. Is she the most dimensional character? No. Does she have character? Yes. Is she a unique character among the line-up? YES.
The Official Lineup (as of Jul. 2014) + Anna & Elsa
