Mal (Descendants)

"Call me a schemer, call me a freak, how can you say that, I'm just... unique!"

- Mal singing "Rotten to the Core". "I can look into your eyes, and I can tell you're not evil."

- Ben's belief in Mal's goodness.

Maleficent Bertha Alakomoffi is the main protagonist in The Descendants franchise. The VKs (Villain Kids) know her as "Mal" on the Isle of The Lost, and the AKs (Auradon Kids) call her by that name as well.

She was portrayed/voiced by Dove Cameron, who also portrayed Ruby Hale in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..

Isle of the Lost
Mal is the main protagonist in the prequel novel Isle of the Lost.

Maleficent says that, someday, Mal will receive her mother's full name when she proves herself worthy, and that she is currently only worthy of one part of her name. Mal regularly causes trouble for Evie, out of hate because Evie never invited Mal to her 6th birthday party.

She decides to play a dangerous prank on Evie for her school project at Cruella's house while she is away and Mal and Carlos host a party (on Mal's orders), but is disappointed to see Evie come out unscathed. When her mother's raven, Diablo, returns to her, she informs Mal that her scepter is out there, and Mal must retrieve it for her if they are to destroy the barrier and gain freedom. Mal realizes that she needs Jay, Carlos, and Evie, and takes them along as their leader. Secretly, she knows that whoever touches the scepter will be cursed with an enchanted 1000 year sleep, and she wants Evie to touch it as her revenge.

The villain kids make their way through many different obstacles and tests while navigating Maleficent's fortress. At last, they reach the throne room, the scepter obtainable. Evie stretches her hand out to grab the scepter, but at the last second Mal stops her, no longer wanting her to touch it, and grabs it herself, knocking herself out.

While knocked out, Mal experiences a vision of Maleficent's past, when she was all-powerful and interrupted baby Aurora's coronation. Mal realizes that her mother, in a way, was just like herself: a jealous girl who wanted revenge for not being invited.

Upon waking up, Mal realizes that it's only been a few minutes and that she was able to touch the scepter without being truly cursed because she is the descendant of her mother, and her real name is also Maleficent. She looks around to see that the scepter has vanished.

Disappointed, she and the others return home where her mother is waiting for her, scepter in hand and Diablo on her shoulder. She explains that Diablo brought the scepter back, and he told her that Mal was supposed to let Evie touch it, lamenting furiously that sometimes Mal is such a disappointment.

Mal still vows to make Maleficent proud of her, and joins forces with the three villain kids, now much closer to all of them than before (especially Evie), and begin a raid on the town, kicking off the events in the movie.

Descendants
Mal appears in the movie as the protagonist villain/main protagonist, along with Carlos, Evie, and Jay.

She's seen in the beginning of the movie doing a graffiti and walk in the town. She's the best friend of Evie, she loves being evil and making her mother proud of her, because everyone also knows her and all the children of villains as trouble makers. After the song "Rotten to The Core" where she had been dancing with her friends and the other villains children, she stole a lollipop from a baby. Maleficent tells her she does recognize her nasty little girl like she said. When Mal hears her mother she was going to Auradon school by order of Prince Ben she was surprised, because she knows no villains and their offspring can leave the Isle of the Lost, but Maleficent told her she needed her to go and steal the wand from the Fairy Godmother, Mal agrees, and she and her gang take the limo to go to Auradon. When she and her friends finally arrive, all heroes children were scared of them. Ben greeted her with Audrey. When she, Carlos, Evie, and Jay walk in the school museum, they finally find the magic wand, but Jay accidentally activates the museum alarm, and they have no choice but to escape. Later, Mal finally asks herself after talking with Ben if she's really evil, she was convinced once again by her mother to do her nasty work, she give Ben a love spell cookie to be chosen to accompany him in the coronation ceremony for stealing the wand, but Ben then asks her on a date, and she tells Evie to help her to make her go on the date, when Ben shows her the place he wanted to go swimming, but Mal refuses to follow him, later she discovers she had real feelings for Ben.

When she sees he was not in the lake anymore she believed he had drowned and tried to save him, but she realized she can't swim and was about to drown when Ben came to save her. Later at the coronation ceremony, she wanted to give an anti-love spell Brownie to Ben, telling him she put a spell on him, but Ben told her he knew that and the spell was broken when he was swimming, she asked him if his feelings were fake, but Ben tells her he does care and does have true feelings for her. At the coronation ceremony, she witnesses Jane snatch the wand and accidentally free all villains and their offspring from Lost Island, at which her mother takes the opportunity to immediately use her regained powers to travel to Auradon for revenge.

Mal takes the wand from Jane and throws it to the Fairy Godmother, when her mother appears and snatches the wand from the frozen Fairy Godmother, she tries to convince her mother to stop her evil plan, but Maleficent gets angry and turn to a dragon, saying the kids will regret defying her. Mal finally defeated her mother by using a magic spell and transforming her mother into a tiny lizard, the Fairy Godmother claiming that Maleficent can be redeemed just like her daughter. After the ceremony she is singing and dancing with everyone when she and Ben are going to kiss each they are interrupted by fireworks. Mal looks at the camera and the audience, saying that the story isn't over yet, her eyes glowing green like her mother's.

Season 1
Mal appears to have adjusted to live in Auradon but still gets stressed and irritated over everything there. She isn't exactly evil in the series but more of witty and sarcastic girl who is always poking fun at the AKs whenever they do something she finds amusing. Most of the AKs accuse Mal of various bad things happening to them despite Mal's insistence that she's innocent, they eventually turn on Mal after Ben was kidnapped and assumed it was her until CJ Hook revealed herself as the true culprit along with Freddie Facilier who helped sneak CJ into Auradon. After CJ left Freddie apologized to Mal for sneaking her into Auradon and Mal forgave her.

Season 2
Mal appears in this season as the main protagonist and false antagonist. She was informed of the upcoming Jewel- BiLee where she was informed that Maleficent hid her jewel on the Isle Of The Lost, upon hearing this Mal and Freddie went back to the Isle in search of the jewel. After failing to find it, Freddie gave Mal what she thought was a lucky necklace however it began making Mal act odd as if it were brainwashing her. She later returned to Auradon and caused a lot of mischiefs until Audrey banished her from the Jewel- BiLee. She then sneaks into the museum and steals Jafar's staff, giving it to Zevon, the true main antagonist of the series. Evie, Jay and Carlos discover that Mal's jewel was cursed and unknown to them Zevon was in Auradon, knew about Mal's jewel and was using this to his advantage. By the end of the series Mal defeats Zevon, and makes up with the AKs and gets her jewel without it being cursed.

Descendants 2
Six months after the first movie and sometime after Zevon's defeat Mal has became the most popular woman in Auradon. However she is overwhelmed by the stress being good as well as the constant paparazzi is giving her, causing her to use magic in order to get by her day to day life with as little stress as possible. Soon Ben discovers her habit and is outraged sparking a major argument between the two giving Mal the motivation to leave Auradon and head back to the Isle of the Lost.