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Her mother is the Mistress of Evil, but that doesn’t necessarily make Mal bad. Throughout the Disney Channel Descendants movies, this character and her friends choose to fight for good. That doesn’t even change when fans find out who Mal’s father is — the villain from Hercules, the God of the Underworld, Hades.

Mal is the daughter of Maleficent 

She’s rotten to the core — or at least her mom hopes she is. Mal is the daughter of Maleficent, one of the characters banished to the Isle of the Lost for being evil. When Mal gets invited to Auradon, though, and falls in love with Prince Ben, she realizes that she wants to be good. 

Some of Mal’s best friends have powerful parents, as well. That includes the daughter of the Evil Queen named Evie, Carlos who is the son of Cruella de Vil, and the son of Jafar named Jay. Fans meet a few other kids from the Isles of the Lost throughout this movie, as well as Mal’s estranged father. 

Mal is the daughter of Hades from ‘Hercules’

Although she’s not exactly on speaking terms with her father, in the third Descendants movie, Mal has to travel back to the Isle of the Lost to see him. That’s the villain from Hercules, the God of the Underworld, named Hades.

At first, Mal wants nothing to do with her father. She just needs his Ember, which is apparently more powerful than Maleficent’s Scepter. After helping to save one of Mal’s friends, though, she realizes that he’s not all bad. (Living with her mother was pretty rough, after all.)

Does Mal’s father make her a god or a demi-god? In the third movie, the God of the Underworld tells her, “you’re only half-Hades,” meaning that she is, technically, a demi-god like the character Maui from Moana. 

Characters Hades and Mal from Disney Channel's original movie, 'Descendants 3'
Characters Hades and Mal from Disney Channel’s original movie, ‘Descendants 3’ | David Bukach/Disney Channel via Getty Images

Does Mal’s father make her a demi-god?

Then again, because of the relationship between the Isle of the Lost and Auradon, the “demigod” status might be void. When Ben and Audrey first meet Mal and her friends, Evie introduced herself as a princess. 

Audrey was quick to correct her, saying that the Evil Queen had no royal status in Aurdon. That meant that Evie wasn’t a princess outside of the Isle. Of course, with the events of the third movie, a number of people living on the Isle since made the switch to Auradon. Things might’ve changed since Ben became king. 

God-status aside, by marrying King Ben in Descendants 3, that made Mal the Queen of Auradon. (Not bad for a kid from the Isle.)

All three Descendants movies, as well as the television series spinoff titled Descendants: Wicked World, are available on this platform. To learn more about Disney+ and to subscribe, visit their website.

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