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| 3 | !Disney Film |
| 4 | [[AC:FridgeBrilliance]] |
| 5 | * If we go by the speculated timeline where the prince was cursed as an eleven-year-old and had only ten years to get someone to fall in love with him by his twenty first birthday, then the Enchantress's curse seems pretty harsh for a child. Consider this: if the prince acted so selfishly at that age, think of what he could have been like if he was never cursed. He would have inherited his kingdom and could very well have become a tyrant due to his selfish, apathetic and temperamental nature. Now the Enchantress's actions make way more sense since she saved many people from being ruled by a potential despot (although there is still the matter on why the prince's servants were cursed when they didn't do anything wrong...) |
| 6 | ** We never actually see any indication of him being a tyrant, any time he gets angry in the film is because he has a good reason to be: Maurice literally breaks into his house, trespassing where I live definitely gets you jail time (nevermind the servants because they aren't the ones who ''own'' the place) and the second time he gets angry is because Belle broke the ''single'' rule he set up for her. |
| 7 | ** If you truly think about it, only the servants and the servants' children failed to age, not the poor Beast. The servants were all non-living objects that age in name only, not in look. Beast, as the only one cursed into another organic body could age. It makes perfect sense to this troper. Combine that with how the Beast is shown (in the extended version) to be only at the "decoding" stage of literacy (pronouncing the "w" in "two" as he's trying to read ''Romeo and Juliet'' back to Belle). Even nobles back then had limited reading ability at the age of 11, and that's if they even got reading lessons. Well, besides Belle, who's going to sit with the beast and teach him to read? Most of the servants doubtfully know how to read, and Beast was too impatient before Belle to learn from the ones that did. |
| 8 | ** WordOfGod: In [[http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~ina22/splaylib/Screenplay-Beauty_and_the_Beast.pdf the original screenplay of the movie written by Linda Woolverton]], the prologue directly mentions that the Prince was 11 years of age when he was cursed. The screenplay mentions that the Prince was the reigning monarch of the kingdom he lived in and that Lumière and Cogsworth (not yet named) were his regents. As for the West Wing Portrait of him, portraits of King Edward Tudor (Edward VI) depict him as looking 18 years of age, when in reality, he was 13 years of age when it was painted, this was the case of children who were the reigning monarchs of their country. |
| 9 | ** All the evidence in the movie points to one thing: he was clearly a child when he was cursed. Even when I was a kid and I saw this movie for the first time, I was struck by the Beast's lack of manners or even basic knowledge of table etiquette. Sure, he'd been a beast most of his life, but he should at least know how people eat at the table from the memories he's had as a human; especially a prince, of all people! But if the prince had been ten or eleven years old when he first got cursed, then it all makes sense. The beast doesn't know how to eat like a human because he was [[NoInfantileAmnesia too young to remember how he did it]] ''before'' [[KarmicTransformation he was transformed]]. |
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| 11 | Even the way that he acts around Belle shows that the last time he was around people was when he was a child, he mentions he's never felt this way before and has to ask Cogsworth and Lumière (adult men who have experience with women, mind you) for help when he wants to give Belle a gift; and the way he presents the library to Belle is shown in a rather 'childish' way. He tells her to close her eyes because it's a surprise and he clearly has childlike excitement about it. Belle had to teach him ''everything'' about basic human interaction. |
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| 13 | The Beast is clearly thrilled when birds start feeding from his hands, he is definitely nervous when Belle places his hands on her body to lead him into a dance, he can't dance very well (the first few verses of 'Beauty and the Beast' have him constantly glancing at his feet) and just look at the look he gives Cogsworth and Lumière when Belle rests her head on his chest and the absolute delight he has when Cogsworth, Lumière and Mrs Potts turn back into humans. In fact just about EVERY interaction with Belle after he saves her from the wolves has the reminiscent of a boy experiencing his first crush (And in this instance, his only crush). That's why it is such a big deal when he admits to Cogsworth that he's in love with Belle, the movie's not just about a beast turning back into a Prince, it's also metaphorically about [[ComingOfAgeStory a boy growing into a man]]. |
| 14 | ** The Beast's young appearance/build in ''Enchanted Christmas'' is exactly the same as my brother's when he was ten years old, he could've simply been tall for his age which isn't uncommon. As for the portrait, it's possible that the Enchantress placed a spell on it to depict what he would look like had he still been human, possibly to pour salt in his wounded pride about what could had been if things had been different that night. |
| 15 | ** If you are looking at the stained glass in order to discern the prince's true age, you are looking in the ''wrong place''. Depictions of people in stained glass are typically more symbolic rather than literal about a person's status. Besides, the attire worn by the prince in the stained glass seems to be more reflective of Medieval times rather than 18th century France (when the events of the film take place). I think the likeness of the prince, seen in the stained glass, is more of a symbol of his societal standing than of his actual appearance. |
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| 17 | If you are looking to the likeness of the prince in his torn portrait, I do see cause for confusion because [[OlderThanHeLooks he looks to be nearly the same age in the portrait]] as he does when he becomes human again ([[YoungerThanHeLooks but maybe also slightly younger]]. Let's say . . . um . . . 17). This could possibly be a simple mistake on the portrait artist's part! There are many portraits in which the sitter is portrayed noticeably older (sometimes younger) than they actually are when the portrait is painted. This may be because the prince wished for it (which would give him even more reason for ripping it; he thought he would never be able to live up to the expectations he created for himself when he ordered the portraitist to depict him in such a handsome, noble, striking way) or simply because the portraitist was not perfect in his craft and had a hard time depicting age. |
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| 19 | If you are also trying to figure out Chip's true age, it is [[VagueAge very possible that he was ten]] at the end of the story... This means that little Chip was born as a human ''just before'' the {{curse}} was cast! This explains why Chip seems so comfortable being a little teacup and never mentions how much he misses being human- unlike the adult servants. In "Enchanted Christmas" Adam and Belle presented Chip with a storybook, much like the one that Lumiere presented Adam when he was only a year older than Chip. Maybe Adam sees this as a minor rite of passage for Chip? Maybe Adam saw more in Lumiere's gift than he let on and this is why he thinks a storybook to be a good present for a pre-teen boy... |
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| 21 | I think the servants had been trying to calm Adam when he found his parents would be spending yet another Christmas in Paris instead of home with him. When none of them promised that they would make sure his parents would come home, he became stubborn and refused to show any thanks for the gifts offered to him. He chose to act out as a spoiled brat. However, this is only my opinion; the prince's behaviour is up for interpretation. No matter what age the prince was when he was cursed, the animators did wish him to be 21 at the end of the story. |
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| 23 | This means that the Beast is 20 years (i.e. on their 21st year) of age by this point. This has been confirmed by Glen Keane, and also in the filmmakers commentary for the extended edition, where it is specifically stated that the Beast's/Prince Adam's 21st birthday would occur at some point after the enchanted rose has lost all of its petals and the curse had either been broken or else become permanent... One of the Disney animators described the beast as a normal 21 year old male- unsure of himself, nervous about love, and even with a hint of childish innocence- trapped in a hideous, formidable form. |
| 24 | * Even though the whole castle is in overdrive to make Belle welcome and happy, no one tells Belle that they need her to break the curse, or how. Were they forbidden? Trying not to cloud her feelings? After Gaston's pushiness, it was a wise approach. |
| 25 | ** Besides that, turning the servants into non-humans would ensure they couldn't just quit and leave and stop [[TakeAThirdOption any servant girl from breaking the spell herself]]! |
| 26 | ** Given Belle's personality, if she heard that her host was under a curse, her kindness and GenreSavvy nature could drive her to trying to push herself to love him just to break the curse, instead of ''genuinely'' falling in love with him anyway. |
| 27 | ** They act very secretively about the curse and given Cogsworth's reaction when Belle refers to castle as "enchanted", it seems they were probably forbidden to tell her. Belle most likely inferred a lot of what was going on, though she didn't know her role in breaking the spell. |
| 28 | * Just as Gaston is the Beast's EvilCounterpart, so too is [=LeFou=] Belle's Evil SpearCounterpart. If you think about their roles in the relationship with Gaston and Beast, while Belle doesn't take any of the Beast's crap lying down, [=Lefou=] is utterly dominated by Gaston, and barely even has a will of his own anymore. In the end, which pairing is better off for it? Also, what was the original meaning behind this series? |
| 29 | ** Add to that the fact that [=Lefou=] is very goofy looking opposite Belle's beauty the way Gaston is very good looking opposite Beast's beastly-ness. |
| 30 | ** Plus, one of Belle's virtues is her knowledge and intelligence. "[=LeFou=]" means "The Fool." |
| 31 | ** Also, the servants and the villagers are foils to each other. The villagers cheer on Gaston's horrible behavior while the servants try to help the Beast overcome his. |
| 32 | * You know how people complain about how the human form of the Beast is 'ugly'? Well, isn't that exactly the point? That Belle came to appreciate, and eventually love, the Beast after he started showing more of his heart of gold despite his fearsome appearance? Why shouldn't the same thing hold true even after he becomes human? It would have been so easy and predictable to fall into the BeautyEqualsGoodness trap after the curse was lifted, invariably shooting the message in the foot. The fact that it didn't, and that the human form of the Beast isn't exactly a looker, actually fits much better with the intended "seeing past the exterior" message, and the redemption isn't made cheap by turning him into a stunning {{Bishonen}}. |
| 33 | ** In addition, the point isn't that he was rewarded with prettiness, he was rewarded by having his ''originally'' human state returned to him. A lot of people seem to forget that the Beast was a Prince to begin with, he isn't some hideous guy who was magically made beautiful through the power of love. Part of the Aesop is to learn to appreciate what you have, and the Beast only learned to do that after what he had was taken away. |
| 34 | ** Plus, not once in the movie does it ever say that the Prince was at all attractive. We're told in the prologue that he had "everything his heart desired" and was young, but his actual appearance was never mentioned. |
| 35 | ** It's not that the Beast's human form is "ugly", but like WordOfGod stated, "It's the Beast people fall in love with." Hence, they figured no matter how handsome they made his human form, people would still be disappointed. Some of the animators even made a joke when directing the scene where Belle sees his human form for the first time, discussing if they should have her touch his face and ask "Can you grow a beard?" |
| 36 | *** This shows up as early as the original fairy tale, in fact. Since Belle (and, by extension, the reader) only gets to know Beast, losing the big furry nice guy and being handed some nobleman in a suit is... well, jarring, to say the least. In fact, Belle has to look into his vivid blue eyes to make her recognize that this is who he was all along. All the way back to the original, the Prince has to do some fast talking to get her to realize who he was a few moments ago. |
| 37 | *** The beard joke is used in the live-action adaptation. |
| 38 | ** And this sounds like heavy YMMV as plenty of people find the Prince to be stunning. It probably has more to do with his design being more ''just another pretty face'' than his distinctive look as the Beast, not ugly. |
| 39 | * The Beast is very adamant about Belle staying out of the West Wing; initially we assume this is because she may damage the magic rose in some way, thus dooming the Beast without him ever having a chance to earn her love. If you look around, though, it's [[FreezeFrameBonus obvious]] that the West Wing makes up his personal chambers - and he's been using them to indulge his beastly urges. He doesn't want her to see how far he's gone and ruin any chance he has of breaking the spell, and he's also very ashamed of the fact that he's allowed himself to become more animal than man. Also, at the time the film takes place, it would be very improper for a woman to hang around unchaperoned in a man's quarters, especially if he were of the nobility. The audio commentary on the special edition DVD has confirmed this. |
| 40 | ** After the ballroom scene, the Beast has no qualms about taking Belle into the (cleaned up) West Wing to look at the mirror, signifying how things have changed and how much they've come to trust each other. |
| 41 | * How about a simple one that also demonstrates FridgeBrilliance: a making-of video (watch it right [[https://youtu.be/BJX0EoHx3w8?t=6m here]]) reveals that if Mrs. Potts jumped onto the hard floor from a high place, she would crack/shatter. The animators [[HandWave resolved]] this by adding a soft cushion to support her fall. ''Problem solved!'' |
| 42 | * An extra level of cruelty in the Enchantress's curse: his only window to the outside world is a magic mirror that will show him anything he wants, but in order to use it he has to look into it, seeing his reflection first. The Beast destroyed every other mirror in the West Wing so he doesn't ''have to'' look at himself. Every time he uses the mirror he has to confront what he's become. |
| 43 | * The more anthropomorphic an enchanted servant is, the higher their station was in life. For example, Lumière, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts (the former two especially) seem to the highest in the chain of command so they are able to talk and reason just as they would in their true forms, and their bodies are more human-like, whereas lowly footmen and parlor maids ended up more like actual coat racks and cutlery. There’s even a middle ground for people who seem to have been merely in charge of their specific area ( like the wardrobe and the stove.) Thus the people who had the ''most'' interaction with the Beast (likely the most influence over him) had more ways to continue doing so while they were still enchanted. |
| 44 | ** Actually not all the magical servants were human to begin with, the reason why the cutlery and plates etc. could move was because of the servants themselves controlling them; the castle is implied to possess telekinetic magic to help the servants with their daily duties. |
| 45 | * One must wonder why no one from Paris bothered to investigate when all contact from the Beast's castle ceased due to the Enchantress's curse. The main story is clearly set around the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century France- which possibly meant the Beast was cursed around the time of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution. The royal government in Paris would have much more to worry about, they would likely assume people in the Beast's castle fell to the Revolutionaries. |
| 46 | ** This also implies the Enchantress inadvertently ''saved'' the Beast's life, since the Revolutionaries, instead of simply slaughtering everyone therein, avoided further attacks on the cursed Castle itself- even if they had only encountered the Enchanted Furniture, instead of the Beast himself. |
| 47 | ** I don't think it's set in the LATE 18th century or that it's all that clear at all. Gaston's gun suggests to me an earlier time than that, such as the 1600s or early 1700s at the very latest. It appears to be his only firearm (I don't see a musket in the tavern, which I sometimes suspect he owns). Such a great hunter, in my opinion, would want something more accurate than that thing (the barrel's flaying out, while useful for a good spread while shooting birds, throws accuracy out the window). Of course all this is just speculation, but I don't see any signs of it being right before the French Revolution. |
| 48 | *** Gaston's gun is a blunderbuss, which was invented in the late 1500s or early 1600s, and was essentially obsolete by the 1770s. |
| 49 | ** According to these articles [[https://scarielsgrotto.com/2017/06/21/is-the-fashion-in-beauty-and-the-beast-historically-accurate-a-collab-with-blue-belle/]][[https://www.belleandthenovel.co.uk/single-post/2017/06/21/Beauty-and-the-Beast-Battle-of-the-Outfits-In-collaboration-scarielsgrotto]][[https://uproxx.com/hitfix/beauty-and-the-beast-french-revolution/]], the film(s) has been analysed to have taken place right before 1740, which makes sense considering the fact that the original fairytale was published in that year. Meaning that there is ''49 years'' between the movie and the revolution. Also the last source (which focuses on the Live-Action Remake) explains that Prince Adam would be rather low on the aristocracy hierarchy and would therefore escape execution. |
| 50 | ** It could also be possible that while a ''prince'', the Beast is not accepted by the royal family, possibly because he is illegitimate. It would make sense why he is the only royal in the castle, since his father would want to keep him far away to avoid the scandal of fathering a bastard. This would also explain why the Prince was so spoiled and cold when he was cursed: his family literally abandoned him and left him in a castle to be raised by servants. |
| 51 | *** He's a prince because he's the ruler of a principality. |
| 52 | * Why is Gaston so obsessed with marrying Belle despite the fact that other there are other - and ''very'' attractive - women fawning over him? Easy - other women provide no challenge and therefore no glory, but Belle's carefree spirit makes her a ''challenge'' to conquer and thereby prove his manliness. In other words, Belle is just another ''Trophy wife'' for Gaston's own collection. |
| 53 | ** Gaston is a HUNTER. Hunters seek the hard to attain prey, not petting zoo fodder. |
| 54 | ** Plus Belle's family is rich. She doesn't need to have a job and has the money and leisure time to spend all day reading. |
| 55 | ** He believes that as the most good-looking man in the village he deserves the most beautiful woman in the village, which is ironic because her physical beauty is the least significant thing about Belle. He doesn't care about her personality at all. Yet Belle's intelligence and sense of adventure mean she could never be content being married to someone like Gaston. |
| 56 | * A minor one- when the wolves are going after Belle and Phillipe, it seems as though they're just attacking mindlessly, since Phillipe is far bigger than them. However, one wolf deliberately goes for the horse's neck, and the pack later coordinate to cut Belle and her horse off from going any further. The animators seem to have learned a bit as to how wolves hunt: they coordinate to put themselves at the best advantage, go for the neck to quickly take down their prey, and are known to be able to bring down large prey like elk and bison. Those touches certainly add to the suspense and terror in the scene. |
| 57 | * It's a stretch but consider that in the beginning of "Belle" Belle is singing about how bored she is with life in her poor, provincial town. Belle is seen making a cameo during the "Out There" sequence in ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}''. The brilliance comes from the fact that if the latter scene is taken as fact, Belle and her father originally lived in Paris during Frollo's mad burning rampage. They moved away to the setting of ''Beauty and the Beast'' to get away from the violence. As dangerous as it must have been, life was still exciting for young Belle whilst in Paris and the move couldn't live up to expectations. |
| 58 | * Even as a kid, I wondered why the Beast didn't just drop Gaston from the roof once the former has the latter at his mercy. Part of it could be chalked up to [[CharacterDevelopment Character Development]], but Gaston pleads for his life saying "I'll do anything!" ''Which is exactly what Belle said to free her father.'' |
| 59 | ** Another possibility is that he realized he'd be no better than Gaston himself. |
| 60 | ** This troper always thought that Beast was remembering begging for mercy from the Enchantress before she cursed him and how he had received none. |
| 61 | *** And it's a nice mirror to the beginning of the film where Maurice had begged the Beast for mercy but received none either. |
| 62 | * The scene with Belle, Gaston, and the mirror: when I was a kid and first saw the movie, I remember thinking, "Why did the enchantress let her mirror be taken out of the castle, let alone be used by the villain to bring down the hero? Wasn't she trying to help Beast become a better person?" Setting aside the fact we don't know how powerful the Enchantress was, let alone whether she was even nearby and watching to know what was being done with her magical devices, ''who said she really wanted to help the Beast?'' The curse did have an escape clause, yes, but it mostly seemed to exist as punishment. So if the Beast died due to letting the mirror out of his sight, and someone who couldn't see past his appearance used it to track him down and kill him, that not only [[NeverMyFault wasn't her fault]], it may have been her intention all along. Or she at least didn't care. |
| 63 | ** A more charitable interpretation also exists, however: the Enchantress knew, either in specifics or generalities, what would happen and how the Beast's spell could be broken, and so she allowed the mirror to be taken and used by the villain because [[ConflictBall it was the only way to force a confrontation between hero and villain]], as well as to make Beast and Belle admit their feelings for each other--Beast because, by letting her use the mirror and take it with her "to remember him", he realized [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy he had to let her go if he truly loved her]] and Belle because she needed to see the pain her leaving caused him to understand how he truly felt, and to see Beast in danger [[NiceJobBreakingItHero by her own hand]] (and eliminate the loose end of Gaston) before she could admit how she felt. So, OmniscientMoralityLicense. |
| 64 | ** If she really wanted him stuck that way forever, why would the magic of the curse bring him back from the brink of death to live a happy life? She could have let him die and simply been a converted corpse. |
| 65 | ** Further thoughts on the mirror: on the surface it was only a PlotDevice to enable the confrontation at the end. It also seems to be a cross between the Enchantress [[JerkAss being a bitch]] (by taunting Beast with images of a world he cannot have or ever be part of) and also the key to his freedom--because short of a girl [[ContrivedCoincidence just stumbling on the castle]] (as Belle did after her father had done the same), the only way he'd ever find someone was if he located her in the outside world and then either visited her, kidnapped her, lured her to the castle, or something of that nature. (Interestingly, the fact Beast could have done this but didn't suggests it was a SecretTestOfCharacter and in that respect at least, he passed, albeit [[DespairEventHorizon out of despair and disbelief that anyone could ever love him, so why bother]].) However, the mirror can also be viewed as [[RuleOfSymbolism symbolic]] of the outside world in general, that Beast could not hide from it forever if he wished to be human again, and in fact had to interact with it eventually--and the way it was used by Gaston is the logical conclusion, that eventually once his presence and nature was discovered, the outside world would find him, force its way in, and refuse him mercy or kindness...[[LaserGuidedKarma just as he had done]] to the "old woman". |
| 66 | * Another minor one. Viewers may wonder why Belle goes to the West Wing when she knows that it's forbidden. Curiosity is the main reason. But consider as well that Lumiere had just organized an amazing dinner show to make her feel less like a prisoner--it worked ''too well.'' Getting comfortable allowed her puckish curiosity to come back with a vengeance, and since Belle wasn't afraid anymore, she felt like breaking the rules wouldn't have any life-threatening consequences. |
| 67 | ** Even the alternate theory is this...Belle reads a lot. And in the opening, she is shown reading a fantasy novel, or perhaps a ''fairy tale.'' Belle figured out that the castle was enchanted, she asked "I wonder what [Beast] is hiding up there..." She's GenreSavvy enough to realize that in an enchanted place, where the scary-looking monster tells you ''not'' to look is probably where you'll find the key to breaking the enchantment. |
| 68 | *** It ''is'' a fairy tale she's reading, and a bit of Fridge Brilliance on top of it. Take a close look during the fountain scene, when Belle is singing, ''Oh, isn't this amazing? / It's my fav'rite part because, you see / Here's where she meets Prince Charming / But she won't discover that it's him 'til Chapter Three.'' [[spoiler: If the lyrics didn't already give it away, the fairy tale Belle is reading at the fountain is an English-language version of "Beauty and the Beast", copied from one of Andrew Lang's "fairy book" series. This makes it a ''bit'' of an anachronism, since the "fairy books" came out in the early Twentieth Century, but then this ''is'' a Disney movie.]] |
| 69 | *** Yet a third theory/explanation, formed while watching the movie again: It's actually a pretty consistent character trait of Belle that she ''doesn't listen to people,'' especially not when they try to tell her what to do. It's at the same time one of her greatest strengths ''and'' greatest flaws -- it means she doesn't let anyone force her into doing anything she doesn't want to do, and that she thinks for herself rather than letting other people dictate what she should and shouldn't think, but it also gives her a casual, thoughtless and almost callous disrespect for other people's rules or even advice, which in turn lands her into trouble a number of times (and really didn't improve her social standing in the village any). |
| 70 | *** And maybe the reason she went to touch the rose wasn't because of curiosity, but because she thought it would break the curse on the castle. |
| 71 | ** Another possibility is that Belle ''had'' read the story of Literature/{{Bluebeard}}, and wanted to check the West Wing to make sure she wasn't in ''that'' kind of castle. (As for why she wasn't scared, so the above comments.) |
| 72 | * This is another Beast and Gaston comparison. The Beast rejected the old begger woman, causing him to be cursed into becoming a beast. Gaston and his "friends" throw Maurice out of the tavern when he comes begging them all for help. What ends up happening to HIM? |
| 73 | ** Come to think about it, some of Gaston's most definitive traits can be said to apply to the Prince in the prologue as well... Gaston is also an arrogant jerkass, who despises anyone below him, yet is adored by the people surrounding him. Gaston's popularity gives him essentially the status of the village's prince, while Adam is an actual prince... Even the way the Prince tries to apologize to the Enchantress, when she reveals her true nature, somewhat mirrors the way Gaston pleads for mercy, when the Beast lifts him over the ledge. If the Prince never got cursed, one could easily imagine the arrogant Prince growing into someone that's not unlike Gaston! |
| 74 | *** According to the lyrics of Gaston's villain song, Gaston views the perfect man as big, brawny, a strong fighter and covered in hair. Now who in the film fits that description to a much greater extent than Gaston? That's right, [[{{Irony}} even by Gaston's own personal standards]], the Beast is a better man than he. |
| 75 | * The Beast lets Belle free, most people assume that it's because he loves her and [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy wants her to be happy]] even if it's not with him. This works but also consider that he was first cursed because he was callous and willing to trade another human life for his own convenience. It's the same situation here except now he makes the right decision. He could have said nothing, Belle would have kept her promise and stayed and maybe even confessed her love for him before the last petal fell. But it would be at the cost of Maurice's life, and Belle deserves someone better than that. Unfortunately his desire to be that better man for her means he may never be a man again. |
| 76 | ** This is actually part of the Beast's CharacterDevelopment in Disney's part in their retelling of the story. In the original fairy tale, the Beast lets her go on the condition that she comes back in a week. Also, she only was allowed to leave solely because she feels homesick, unlike the Disney version where her father is actually in mortal danger (thus saving the Beast being taken over by his moral conscience since he is not setting her free at the cost of remaining cursed for eternity). While the Beast did not request that she go back to the castle, she still had to return as she inadvertently imperiled the life of the Beast by revealing his existence to the villagers, making them decide to lynch him at Gaston's prodding (in the original, she returned to him after feeling guilty of not keeping her part of the bargain and seeing him dying of heartbreak and loneliness). |
| 77 | * This is somewhat stated above, but think about all the servants that were turned into objects. Now obviously you have Mrs. Potts who is the head of the kitchen, but think about that for a second. While she is a tea pot, it isn't like she herself could cook a meal or bring the plate out without some kind of help. You also have all those plates and spoons that appear in the musical number (Be Our Guest). While some people think they are servants that were turned into objects, that doesn't explain why some objects have faces and some do not. In this case, Mrs. Potts is head of the kitchen, so naturally the curse allows her to control all the things in the kitchen. She can tell a pot to get on the stove or tell a cart to bring food out and they will obey her as she herself wouldn't be able to do those things. The same could be said of Lumiere, who is the castle's Maitre'd (the head waiter). So he could also control plates, glasses, and dishes, which explains how he managed to pull off the "Be Our Guest" song. This could also extend to anything having to do with being a waiter, including control over candles and table sheets. Cogsworth is the only one really not able to control much, as he is the Beast's scheduler, meaning that he would only be able to control clocks, explaining why he couldn't really stop the song "Be Our Guest" as those items in the dance weren't under his realm of control. |
| 78 | ** In fact, the moving objects without faces seem to be more ''extensions'' of the characters than anything else, as they don't mind expending some of them out of necessity. Take a look at the battle between the palace staff and Gaston's mob of angry villagers, and you'll see the plates throwing themselves at the villagers and ''breaking themselves over their targets' heads''. It seems unlikely they'd go sacrificing themselves like that if they were living beings, whereas if they're mere extensions, of course the servants throwing those plates aren't going to mourn breaking a few plates any more than any of us might mourn losing a few of our fingernail clippings. |
| 79 | ** Alternatively, the dancing plates and cutlery are really just the plates and cutlery the castle always had, enchanted to move on their own. Lumiere and Cogsworth have some (very) limited dexterity, but the rest of the talking servants don't; how else would they set the table? |
| 80 | * It seemed rather jarring for the Beast to just surrender completely when Gaston shows up simply because Belle had left, despite the likely possibility that she'll eventually come back willingly. However when the invaders show up he must have realized that they left town when Belle was already back there. The Beast thought Belle had personally sent Gaston. |
| 81 | ** In the stage play, at least, Gaston wants the Beast to think this: he cries out, "She despises you, Beast, and she sent me here to destroy you!" |
| 82 | *** Beast responds "No." to this, in a very 'you're clearly lying.' way, indicating that though he's ready to wait for death to set him free (a line from an earlier musical reprise of his) he's no fool; he knows Belle wouldn't have sent someone to kill him. |
| 83 | ** Considering the fact she was the only one who knew where he was, and had taken the mirror with her, then it would indeed seem logical for him to conclude she'd sent Gaston, or at least not tried to stop him from going to the castle. |
| 84 | ** I had always thought that the Beast simply had a very clear idea of when the rose would finally wilt and the Rose's curse would no longer be able to be broken. Belle would probably eventually have come back, but she would have taken her time, and the last petal fell only a few days after she left. When Gaston came by, the Beast had probably resigned himself to [[AndIMustScream living for the rest of his days]] [[ThisWasHisTrueForm as a beast]]. In that situation, is it surprising that he wouldn't put up a fight? He'd probably thought to himself that it would be better to die right then than to be the Beast for the rest of his life, growing more and more animalistic, and finally dying as less than a man. |
| 85 | * During the stained glass prologue, there is a banner with a Latin phrase under the first image of the Prince. It says "Vincit qui se Vincit," which translates to "He conquers who conquers himself." |
| 86 | * Throughout the movie, as the Beast learns to be more gentle, kind, and human... Gaston is becoming increasingly forceful, cruel, and beast-like. In the end, HE is unquestionably the real beast that must be killed. |
| 87 | ** That was something Howard Ashman himself brought up during story meetings (as discussed in the documentary included in the Special Edition). Originally, Gaston was just a comic relief character with no real depth to him, just somebody courting Belle. Howard Ashman suggested "If our Beast is going to be this ugly and hideous creature with a heart of gold, why don't we make Gaston this handsome figure who has the heart of a pig?" And the rest was history. |
| 88 | ** This is even reflected during their battle, where Beast shows a much more calculating and señf-controled approach, ignoring Gaston's insults and waiting for the right moment to attack. Meanwhile, Gaston displays a highly more animalistic approach, savagely attacking Beast at any chance and even trying to provoke him into attacking by angering him, displaying an impulsive and short-sighted style. |
| 89 | ** It's also the main argument against Stockholm Syndrome. If Belle could be won by a pushy, arrogant man who wouldn't take "no" for an answer, she'd be Madam Gaston before the movie even started. As it is, it's not until the very last moment that [[LoveEpiphany she realizes she loves the Beast]] -- which is just after she's seen him at his most human. |
| 90 | * When Belle goes out to get her father, she brings him back to their house. The castle can't be too far away, and it probably has better care, so why not bring him to the Beast's castle? There's both a [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Watsonian and a Doylist]] explanation: Watsonian, that he'll be much calmer if he woke up in his own house than if he woke up in the castle and Doylist, It was a way to show that Belle had not contracted StockholmSyndrome, as someone with Stockholm Syndrome would have brought him back to the castle. |
| 91 | * In the mob at the end, all of the villagers are there...except for the [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse bookstore owner]], the only person who was nice to Belle. |
| 92 | * During the library scene in the song "Something There" Belle tries to get the Beast to read King Arthur. After he reveals he can't read, she says it's "the perfect book to read aloud". The legend of King Arthur began as oral folklore, told as a story for hundreds of years before very being written down. Thus, it's "perfect to read aloud". |
| 93 | * In spite of how physically outmatched he is, Gaston holds his own against the Beast for a while, and is actually forcing his opponent on the defence for most of the fight. It's only normal: the Beast isn't used to fighting, while Gaston is an hunter and fights animals of all kinds. It's a battle between [[UnskilledButStrong an overwhelmingly strong combatant with little idea on how to fight]] and [[WeakButSkilled a relatively weak opponent that can see the Beast's moves before he'll think about them]]. |
| 94 | ** To compound this, the only moments Gaston is actually in trouble are those in which the Beast fights more closely to a man than like an animal: Gaston is a hunter used to fight stronger animals, but a stronger ''man'' he never fought. And as it happens, one the Beast's human-like attacks (grabbing his weapon just as Gaston is gloating he's about to kill him. At that point, most animals would have been too cowed to attack, and even then they would have tried to bite him and not to grab his weapon) is the one that disarms and stuns him long enough for a NeckLift… |
| 95 | * Maybe it would have served Belle better to yield to Gaston's advances. If she had started behaving like the Bimbettes towards him, he would probably have lost interest. |
| 96 | * The "''Mob Song''" concerns with the widespread fear of a "beast" that, according to Gaston, will "make off with the children" and it's armed with "massive paws and killer claws for the feast". It may sound odd for those who didn't already know about this, but some kind of man-eating animal ''actually'' ravaged the region of Gévaudan (not far from both Provence and Gascony, where the cartoon could be set in) between 1764 and 1767. As Gaston said, the "beast" had huge paws and "razor-sharp" fangs: the animal (a wolf, possibly) that devastated that region of France had huge paws (50 inches wide) and a remarkable size: 3 feet tall, 4 feet long and weighing almost 150 pounds. The exceptional size was due to a disease called acromegalia, but it would be scary to meet it alone nonetheless. Now imagine those peasants had already heard rumors about this monster, and that this animal used to target weak individuals such as women and young boys. Gaston may have cleverly manipulated the villagers' fear of being attacked by this werewolf-like creature in order to accomplish his plan. Oddly, this was even more justified when everyone saw the Beast's face in Belle's magic mirror, confirming the spreading rumors about the Gévaudan events. That was the moment they panicked and finally took action. Furthermore, that explains why no one in the tavern believed Maurice: no one in the town ever saw the Beast in the first place, and his reputation as a mad inventor did all the rest. |
| 97 | * Earlier in the movie, Maurice barely managed to escape from the wolves by crossing a huge iron gate. When he tried to open it, it seemed it was already closed since a long time. However, it suddenly opens, letting Maurice slip over the edge and close the door just in time. I suppose that thing could have been one of the servants, and its action would have been a very stealth introduction to the rest of the servitude and their kindness, if we compare them with the actual owner of the castle. You know, if that thing had been sentient, it would have saved a man from being mauled by a group of vicious wolves. |
| 98 | * Why do Cogsworth and Lumiere have trouble getting along? Because one is British, the other is French, and it's the 18th Century. Really, it's a miracle that they've never tried to murder each other. |
| 99 | * Many see the Enchantress going overboard by punishing the servants too. Yet, she had two reasons: first, in older times servants tended to share the fate of their lord, enjoying the rewards granted to them by higher powers and being punished with them for their sins (see [[Literature/TheBible the Plagues of Egypt]] or [[Literature/TheIliad the plague Apollo visited on Agamemnon's army]] for two examples), thus they share his punishment; second, ''they were responsible for his upbringing'', meaning they ''do'' have a fault in him denying hospitality by making him a spoiled jerk. |
| 100 | ** There's also the question of whether they protested when the Prince turned the woman away and ordered her out. |
| 101 | ** Yet another possible reason, at least if the Enchantress was in some way trying to teach the Beast something with transforming them, is that it might be a stealthy way to remind him to care about others. How? By turning the servants into objects, she's mocking the idea of seeing them as anything less than people, and also making them share his fate in some way makes it so the Beast might be inclined to consider the consequences of his selfishness, not just on himself, but for ''others'' as well, and that other people can have problems and suffer too, which is exactly what he ''wasn't'' thinking about when he dismissed her as an old woman. Considering the moments of guarded empathy the Beast shows even early on before his CharacterDevelopment, it might have worked... |
| 102 | * Lumiere and the others are very eager to make Maurice comfortable despite the fact their boss is a psychotic hellmonster who would be pissed to see him there. Well, given the ''last'' time they turned down a guest looking for a place to stay, I figure they don't want to take any chances. |
| 103 | * Something interesting that took me some time to notice: at the beginning of the film, the Beast [[FurryReminder walks on his four limbs, his clothes are somewhat ripped, he is clearly hunched forwards, much like a wolf]]... but then, as Belle's influence on him increases, the Beast starts to take care of himself, [[FourLegsGoodTwoLegsBetter walks much like a person would]], his back becomes straighter... Belle manages to bring him from his animalistic urges, helping him [[HumanityEnsues return to his own humanity]]. |
| 104 | * Why does the Beast look so concerned when Belle sees Maurice dying in the mirror? Given the amount of time that has passed (the movie starts in autumn and ends at the beginning of spring) and how close they've become, chances are very good that the Beast and Belle did talk about her father at least once and the Beast would know how close the two of them are. It also stands to reason that the Beast has grown to care for Maurice...and the Beast is aware that it's his fault that Maurice is in the situation he's in. |
| 105 | * Belle referring to Gaston as "positively primeval" is, on the surface, a StealthInsult. But it also serves as {{foreshadowing}} for his becoming more animalistic much later on in the film. |
| 106 | * Considering the personalities of the three main servants of the castle, the objects they have been transformed into ''make a lot of sense''. Cogsworth is a stickler for rules and schedules, so he would become something as precise and [[ButtMonkey in need of]] [[StealthPun winding up]] as a clock. Lumiere is passionate about romance (in regards to both [[ReallyGetsAround himself]] and [[ShipperOnDeck between Belle and the Beast]]), and fire is often associated with passion, with candles especially as the centerpiece of romantic dinners. Lastly, Mrs. Potts is [[TeamMom motherly to the Beast, Belle and the other servants]], always at hand to calm and reassure those in despair or in rage. Especially in her actress's native Britain, [[BritsLoveTea what is more associated with helping to calm and relax than almost any other meal?]] |
| 107 | * During the "Gaston" number, the scene where he's playing chess with the other guy is supposed to be a hilarious scene of him just rage quitting due to a loss, but apparently his opponent moved his bishop as if it was a knight piece, so Gaston's anger is actually justified according to this clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4VlCFEJsRM |
| 108 | ** Looking again, the black pieces are almost all in starting positions with knights and bishops swapped, looking like this is just an animation error. Still, it looks like black has only lost most of their pawns with the main pieces still in starting positions whereas Gaston is down to 2 pawns and the King. Gaston's opponent crushed Gaston with nothing more than pawns and an effective knight! |
| 109 | * It is mentioned elsewhere that the book Belle is reading could in fact be some version of ''Beauty and the Beast''. It could also be a version of ''Aladdin'' (which came out the year after this film did, but is similarly based on very old tale). If so, it's doubly interesting since the street beggar Jasmine met turning out to be a PrinceCharming would be a subversion, since it was Aladdin being a ''Prince'' which was a magic illusion, in contrast with the Beast's situation. In both Disney films, the enchantment is removed, allowing both characters to be themselves with the women they love. |
| 110 | * As mentioned on the [[Funny/BeautyAndTheBeast Funny page]], Gaston sings about his love for Belle while pointing a gun at her. At first glance this is a funny moment ("How can ''that'' idiot be the best hunter?"). Then you realise that Gaston sees Belle as his prey, and that scene becomes {{Foreshadowing}} of how despicable [[{{Jerkass}} Gaston]] becomes and how little he truly cares for Belle. |
| 111 | * More of a meta example: Belle is her town's resident bookworm. Belle's voice actress is Paige (page, [[DontExplainTheJoke as in a book]]) O'Hara. |
| 112 | * Beast's decision to imprison Maurice suddenly makes sense, if one realizes that Maurice is an old guy, who, due to his inventor status, looks subtly like a wizard. Basically the male counterpart of the Enchantress's original form. Beast decided to get back at these kinds of people by letting them stay, but only as prisoners. |
| 113 | * Gaston keeps getting praised for his skills as a hunter, but note at the beginning, and later in the tavern, how he handles his blunderbuss. Like everything else about him, his firearm's handling is pathetic and simply a means for him to show off or throw his weight around. The best example is how he points it at Belle in the opening number. Even for a weapon that only fires one shot at a time, anyone who knows firearms knows you ''never point them at anything you don't want to lose''. What happens by the end of the movie? |
| 114 | * It's described, in detail, in the Fridge Horror section, just exactly how awful of a thing the curse was. Which is a little troublesome, if you put the Enchantress in the same category as the Fairy Godmother in ''Cinderella'' or the fairies in ''Sleeping Beauty''. But the opening narration never describes the Enchantress as ''good''. It describes her as ''beautiful.'' Beauty has a tendency to equal [[BeautyEqualsGoodness goodness]] in Disney movies...but if there was one movie where that would be subverted, this is it. |
| 115 | * Some viewers might dismiss the presence of the enchanted rose in the Prologue as FridgeLogic: how could the Prince not notice the strangeness of being offered a rose in the dead of winter? It's probably for that reason that the 2017 version replaces the winter setting of the scene with a spring/summer rainstorm. But what if the Prince's lack of observation was part of the point? He was so disgusted by the old woman's ugliness and rags that he barely even noticed the obvious sign of magic in her hand! That showed just how much of an ignorant, classist RoyalBrat he was and probably confirmed to the Enchantress that he deserved to become a beast! |
| 116 | * In the opening song, a woman who "needs six eggs" is told that they are "too expensive". Later in the movie, Gaston says that he eats five dozen eggs every morning. Three guesses as to why eggs are so expensive in this town... |
| 117 | ** Actually, those are two different shots. The woman needing six eggs is talking to the egg vendor while the man who says "that's too expensive" is talking to a different vendor. |
| 118 | * Dehumanizaton and objectification is a recurring theme with the male characters. |
| 119 | ** The young prince only viewed people by how they served him. What's the difference between a maid and a teapot if they only exist to pour your tea? The curse turns that inner worldview into reality, with a twist, metaphor made literal. His dehumanization of others made him less human as well. The people around him went from metaphorically objects to literal ones, and he was so dehumanized from the curse that he was robbed of a name. He needed to learn to see the humanity in others before he could be truly human himself. This also ties in nicely to his age. We've all met that incredibly cruel teenage boy who never changed and grew up into a horrible man. The Beast needed to learn to be compassionate before he became a legal adult or else he would never learn. Having the curse also be broken by entering a romantic relationship also ties into that aspect of maturity. Being able to function in a relationship is a vital skill, and we all know how terrible monstrous husbands can be. |
| 120 | ** The objectification thing also applies to Gaston. He's objectified Belle into being his next hunting trophy, he literally points a loaded gun at her like she's a deer. His madness being driven from his desire to claim his object ruins him. The Beast learns to understand Belle, her wants and needs, and really admires her as a person. Gaston just wants breeding stock, not a person with hobbies and personality traits. |
| 121 | ** Also, watch the two scenes of Gaston propositioning Belle and her fight with the Beast together. She politely and deftly avoids upsetting and directly rejecting Gaston, shrinking away from him. She raises her voice and gets in the Beast's face, telling him exactly what she's thinking and feeling. Everyone points out that them yelling at each other is abusive...but the dynamic of walking on eggshells desperately trying to avoid danger is what being in an abusive situation constantly feels like. And when the Beast is mad, he destroys his own stuff, but Gaston doesn't even care that he's damaging Belle's property. Abusers use destruction of their victims' property as a manipulation tactic, fussy children in a tantrum ruin their own stuff. Children learn to manage their feelings as part of becoming adults, abusers don't stop harming their victims. Belle learning that the Beast wouldn't ever harm her or her stuff makes her feel safe enough to stand up for herself, something she doesn't have with Gaston. |
| 122 | * The part where Gaston tells [=LeFou=] to not move from that "spa" until Belle and her father get back seems like a mistake on the voice actor's part, but it might just be "spot" in a French accent. |
| 123 | * ''Beauty and the Beast'' is a gender-flipped version of ''The Little Mermaid''. Both the Beast and Ariel want to find their humanity, and as specified by their respective witches, it has to be through true love. |
| 124 | * This troper saw a gag post that pointed out that Belle was willing to get physically intimate with the Beast AS a beast had he not transformed back in time. But it made this troper think that, you know what, she probably would and she'd be content with it. Why? People say she's in a GildedCage and has the whole faulty StockholmSyndrome argument, but look at her life before the castle. She and her father are ostracized for being who they are, and Belle has it worse because her beauty makes her a subject of objectification. It's no wonder she immerses herself with books of fantasy, because her reality is so shitty. Conversely, once she's surrounded by the servants, they're nothing but the nicest crowd of people she's probably been surrounded with in her entire life, even if Cogsworth and the Beast took a while to come around. Listen to what she says after the dance: her only regret is missing her father. She really is happy in the castle otherwise, having to be prompted by the Beast to leave in order to save him by "formally" releasing her, and given the type of people the villagers will soon prove themselves to be, can you really honestly blame her for wanting to stay in the castle with the Beast and the servants? I don't think it would be a difficult decision, especially for those who also know what it's like to be bullied and ostracized by others around you. |
| 125 | ** I also only hope that the bookkeeper, the only villager who was even nice to her, enthusiastically even, was saved. |
| 126 | * During his PepTalkSong, [=LeFou=] can't spell Gaston's name properly. This isn't a mere joke: literacy was a lot rarer in the 18th century, so [=LeFou=] not knowing how to spell wouldn't be uncommon among men in a small village. Even people who were literate in this era could still misspell a few words. |
| 127 | * Gaston is in many ways a [[DeconstructedCharacterArchetype dark parody of the fairy tale prince]]. |
| 128 | ** A lot of fairy tales feature a prince who courts a fair maiden. While these stories are meant to be romantic, Gaston's actions are anything ''but''; he treats Belle like an object he's entitled to rather than a woman he's trying to court since he shows blatant disrespect for her interests. He even goes so far as to have Maurice committed just to blackmail Belle. |
| 129 | ** A lot of fairy tales feature a prince who slays a foul beast and gets the maiden's love through his bravery. Gaston is planning to slaughter [[MurderTheHypotenuse a sapient being out of pure jealousy]] than heroism. A being who, in the beginning, ''was'' guilty of kidnapping, hostage taking, and blackmail but who did grow out of his cruelty and learned to be more empathetic to others. |
| 130 | ** [=LeFou=] is also a twisted take on the bumbling but liable sidekick of the prince. Usually, this character serves as a combination of comic relief and the [[MoralityPet moral conscience of the hero]]. [=LeFou=], however, acts like an enabler of the "hero's" worst traits, encouraging Gaston's worst habits while allowing him to be an abusive brute. |
| 131 | * At first Gaston seems like a DumbJock, and Belle calls him "brainless," but he turns out to be all too cunning and a master manipulator, as he bribes Monsieur d'Arque to lock up Maurice unless Belle agrees to marry him, and later whips the other villagers into a frenzy to kill the Beast. Is this inconsistency in his portrayal? No! It drives home the message that appearances are deceiving. Not only is Gaston the story's true monster despite being handsome and popular, he's also much smarter than he seems, in a dangerous way. |
| 132 | * Another sign that Gaston is a dark reflection for the Beast's character is in their introductions. We don't get to see the Beast's form at first until Belle tells him to step into the light so she can see him better (this is an effect that has been lost in the remastered versions). Where is Gaston standing when we first see him? In the shadows of a building. |
| 133 | |
| 134 | [[AC:FridgeHorror]] |
| 135 | * Along the lines of the above Fridge Brilliance, if the events of the story happened BEFORE the French Revolution, then the Beast broke the curse, had his castle restored to riches, and got together with Belle just in time for the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror Reign of Terror]]. Hello Madame Guillotine. |
| 136 | ** That's assuming the story is set shortly before the French Revolution. If its set in, say, the early 1700s there won't be anything to worry about for a long time. And if you take Belle's cameo in Hunchback of Notre Dame as canon then it averts that particular horror completely. |
| 137 | *** But Hunchback takes place centuries before this. That's like saying Scar wasn't actually killed by the hyenas because Hercules was wearing his skin. |
| 138 | ** Well, maybe Disney will adapt ''Literature/TheScarletPimpernel'' in a few years and give Belle and Adam cameos among the people whom the hero brings safely to England. |
| 139 | ** According to these articles [[https://scarielsgrotto.com/2017/06/21/is-the-fashion-in-beauty-and-the-beast-historically-accurate-a-collab-with-blue-belle/]][[https://www.belleandthenovel.co.uk/single-post/2017/06/21/Beauty-and-the-Beast-Battle-of-the-Outfits-In-collaboration-scarielsgrotto]][[https://uproxx.com/hitfix/beauty-and-the-beast-french-revolution/]], the film(s) has been analysed to have taken place right before 1740, which makes sense considering the fact that the original fairytale was published in that year. Meaning that there is ''49 years'' between the movie and the revolution. Also the last source (Which focuses on the Live Action Remake) explains that Prince Adam would be rather low on the aristocracy hierarchy and would therefore escape execution. |
| 140 | ** The Disney Books YA novel ''Rebel Rose'', the first in the ''Queen's Council'' series that take place after several princesses' movies and combine them with real history, depicts the story as taking place shortly before the Revolution--but Belle and Prince Lio (his nickname in this version) see which way the wind is blowing after a visit to Paris, and decide to secede their principality from France and rule it independently, also taking into account the wishes of the people and ruling their domain more fairly than Louis is ruling his. So any way you slice it and any version of canon you accept, they seem to escape the Revolution. |
| 141 | * In ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', Belle only narrowly escapes having the rest of her life wrecked by a marriage everyone else thought was a good idea. Gaston [[VillainWithGoodPublicity was considered quite a catch by the town]]. |
| 142 | ** There's also the fact that Gaston clearly pictures "six or seven" children as a part of his life married to Belle, all boys. Belle is quite obviously not thrilled by this idea. What if she had been pushed to marry him, and then tried to refuse having any children? Or what if she had girls? |
| 143 | *** Given the time period the film takes place in, childbirth would be quite dangerous to the woman, especially considering how frequent Gaston would likely expect it to be. |
| 144 | * The longer you think about the situation of the household staff in ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast,'' the eerier it gets. Has Chip simply not aged in the entire time he's been a teacup, or does he have no memory at all of being human? And he's got like twenty brothers and sisters... all teacups... The twenty-first year may have even been 21 years ''as a Beast''. Which means Chip (who is SO not ten or twenty - Lumiere says something about ten years going past, which, if you assume 21 means the Prince is 21, means he pissed off the enchantress ''at 11'') was either in stasis the whole time, or, more likely, since he asks about sleeping in the cupboard, ''was born during the curse''. How would that even work?! |
| 145 | ** Given how it's... hopefully... impossible for Chip to have been born [[FridgeLogic while Mrs. Potts was a teapot]], Chip had to have been born before the curse. He could just be a small, late-blooming ten-year-old... Which would explain the sleeping in the cupboard line. As you guessed, that would imply Chip has no memory of being human. This is incredible FridgeHorror in that if Lumiere's ten years line is true, the Enchantress ''cursed an infant'' for the Beast being a jerk. |
| 146 | ** Or, alternatively, the Beast, being organic, aged normally, whereas the servants, being objects, did not. |
| 147 | ** Or simpler still, the curse hasn't lasted a decade, but just a couple years. |
| 148 | ** Made worse in the stage version, as the staff are slowly becoming less human- part way through the show a wind-up cog appears on Cogsworth's back and Mrs. Potts says that her arm is getting harder to move. Worse still, Lumiere is ''melting''. Several other servants are mentioned to have totally turned into solid objects- one is a brick wall, one became a vanity, etc. |
| 149 | * All the furniture is alive, they are transformed humans. The Beast sometimes starts breaking stuff when he is angry. The West Wing is filled with broken furniture (hopefully the living ones vacated the premises whenever he had a tantrum... ''hopefully''.) All the furniture in Belle's ''bedroom'' (in addition to the wardrobe) [[ParanoiaFuel is probably alive.]] |
| 150 | ** No. Not all the furniture is alive; much, in fact most, of the furniture, fixtures, and so on, would have to be normal, non-living furniture, fixtures, etc. which predate the Prince's transformation. And Chip's "twenty brothers and sisters" comment is most certainly hyperbole, unless he's counting all the children of the castle's staff. He's only about ten mentally, possibly less; either is appropriate. |
| 151 | ** Actually he has six siblings; I've counted. |
| 152 | * Given that the servants were turned into every kind of household object from chairs to tableware, does this mean that there's a toilet that used to be a person? How awful must that guy's life be... |
| 153 | ** Pretty shitty, I'd say, being constantly dumped on like that... |
| 154 | ** Maybe the Piss Pot Boy, [[Film/HistoryOfTheWorldPartOne who incidentally is a dead-ringer for the Prince.]] |
| 155 | * Gaston's motivations are, to a child, reprehensible but not foul: he wants to marry Belle like moms and dads are married, live together, eat dinner together, etc. After you think about it as a grown-up (or at least a teen), though, it becomes quite obvious that "marry" is a euphemism for the fact that ''he wants to rape her'', turning him from "[[{{Jerkass}} bad man]]" to "disgusting sack of shit." Creepier, he did want to be married as mums and dads are married, her cooking and cleaning and giving birth to strapping boys, but with no personality of her own. And then you realize he could have had anyone of those blonde women and he knows it - he just wants to take away the personhood of the beautiful but strange woman, because that would be winning. Gaston is indeed first and foremost a hunter, and Belle is simply prey to him, and the only thing so far that has eluded him. That alone makes the whole dynamic very, very creepy. This FridgeHorror is best captured in the one scene when Gaston bursts into Belle's house to "propose" to her -- following her around the room, backing her against walls, knocking over furniture, trying to kiss her, and all with a disturbing, almost ''hungry'' look on his face. As an adult, you wonder how far he would have gone if Belle hadn't thrown him out. |
| 156 | *** [[ValuesDissonance At that time in history, the only reason she had a choice was because her father let her, and anything a man did to his wife couldn't be considered rape. Let us remember that, in times long past, women were more or less pieces of property. Women like Belle ended up married to men like Gaston all the time.]] Even worse, such situations are still commonplace despite changes in law, particularly in cases like Gaston where the man is well-liked and influential, making coercion easier, and the victim's claims less likely to be believed. This renders Gaston a disturbingly realistic villain. |
| 157 | * After cracking the plan to have Maurice thrown in the loony bin, Gaston and [=LeFou=] perform a short reprise of the Gaston song. Gaston himself sings "No one takes cheap shots like Gaston." He knows full well that he's playing dirty here, and he doesn't care. In fact, he's ''patting himself on the back for it''. The man considers himself a genius for stooping to such a vile and despicable method to achieve his already disgusting ambition. This lyric, coupled with the above revelations of his motivation essentially being to seize and destroy Belle's individuality, have convinced some that Gaston is second only to [[WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDameDisney Frollo]] as Disney's most evil villain. |
| 158 | *** What makes it even worse, is that towards the end of Gaston's reprise, the villagers sing the line "And his marriage we soon will be celebrating...". That's right, although they may not know exactly what it is, the villagers are fully aware that Gaston is going to do to something terrible to Maurice, ''and yet they just cheer him on''. |
| 159 | *** Gaston could have easily faked in believing in Maurice, saved Belle, and have won her heart under false pretenses (by, for once, not being an ass). While on the surface this may have been a nobler route (at least in Belle's eyes, before she found out the horrible truth), YMMV on whether or not Gaston's current hairbrained scheme was better than him actually thinking this one up, and could easily dip way into Fridge Horror. |
| 160 | * Also, how about during the fight between the villagers and household objects towards the finale where the one guy was ripping the feathers out of the feather duster (who was screeching in pain) while giggling and smiling in a creepy manner? Consider how that would've looked like if she was her human self. Right, essentially he would be tearing at her skirt, making the whole thing an attempted rape scene. Or pulling out her limbs one by one, which is even creepier. Or both. |
| 161 | ** [=Lefou=] attacks Lumiere by holding a huge frigging torch next to him. Lumiere is made of wax. |
| 162 | *** And he's already beginning to profusely sweat (read: melt) by the time Cogsworth comes to the rescue. |
| 163 | * Maurice is out in the cold for at least three or four days searching for Belle, and it's not unlikely that he was out for longer. What if Belle hadn't asked to see him in the magic mirror and arrived to rescue him when she did? And [=Lefou=] stands in the same spot while fall turns to winter. Think about that one a while. |
| 164 | * The West Wing is much darker and more gothic than the rest of the castle and appears to be littered with piles of fur/carcasses of animals. Does that mean the Beast killed and ate numerous animals and just left their carcasses laying around? |
| 165 | *** [[WordOfGod Yes.]] In fact very late into development there was a scene after the "Come down to dinner!" fight that showed the Beast dragging the carcass of an animal he had killed back to his room to eat it. It was cut when they realized it was way too dark and might cause people to lose sympathy with the Beast. |
| 166 | *** This would have been something of a CallBack to the Jean Cocteau movie, which ''did'' show Beast having his dinner when Belle walked in on him. [[spoiler: The blood of the deer was still steaming faintly...]] |
| 167 | * During the Mob Song, you can clearly hear female voices at one point. So that means there were women (probably the Bimbettes) in the mob, and they were beat up by the castle denizens. |
| 168 | *** [[DoubleStandard So women getting beat up by the castle denizens (who a few are female as well) is Fridge Horror but men getting beat up is a-OK?]] |
| 169 | *** I meant that the women were probably defenseless against the denizens, while the men at least put up a fight. |
| 170 | *** I think what the previous commenter meant is that, given the time period, the women of the village would have had little ability to fight back, on account of having never been ''taught''. The men would know, but the women...not so much. |
| 171 | *** [[TooDumbToLive Then why did they go with the men in the first place if they can't fight?]] |
| 172 | *** Maybe they went with the mob to protect their families because there are no men in the family? Or, if it's the Bimbettes, to try and impress Gaston. |
| 173 | *** The former seems to be the case. In "The Mob Song," an unnamed village woman expresses terror that the beast was "set to sacrifice our children to his monstrous appetite." |
| 174 | *** The female voices were most likely old women (as the only females present at the mob congregation to evict Maurice into the Asylum were old women). And the only other time that female voices were heard were when the servants were rushing down the stairs, meaning it's also more likely that the female voices were actually those of some of the servants rushing to block the door. |
| 175 | *** When the servants are rushing downstairs, the line is "Hearts ablaze, banners high, we go marching into battle, unafraid although the danger just increased." It seems unlikely that the servants would say ''that''. |
| 176 | *** Women who voluntarily go with the mob to the castle knowing full well the beast will be killed are probably just as deserving of some attack by the servants as their asshole men were. And whether or not the women had been taught to fight, there were farms in the village. Any woman who'd been on a farm knows how to use a pitchfork. And what about a kitchen knife or a rolling pin? |
| 177 | ** Some stage adaptations actually include women in the mob song too...If anything the FridgeHorror would be the fact that in some stage adaptations, they include children getting beaten up...though usually more PlayedForLaughs. |
| 178 | ** Wouldn't this just be a case of Slapstick Knows No Gender? |
| 179 | * The [[CrapsaccharineWorld crapsack village]] seems to be on Gaston's side and comes along on his rampage. |
| 180 | * Some of the castle's inhabitants are humanoid, such as Cogsworth and Lumiere. Some just have faces. Others, like the plates have nothing. I have no mouth indeed. |
| 181 | *** For some reason it was the forks that bothered me the most. There were people at the castle so boring and non-descript that they got turned into a fork. A fork. If you try to attach a meaning to it (eg oral fixation) it gets even worse. Or maybe the enchantress didn't see the value of some people, which is pretty bad in itself. |
| 182 | *** Or, alternatively, some items of furniture didn't used to be people. The castle must have been furnished before the curse, after all, and there's no way even a castle that size needed enough servants that every item of furniture in the place would correspond to one. |
| 183 | *** [[WildMassGuessing Maybe]] the lesser items like the cutlery were made from rats or bugs that happened to be in the castle at the time. I mean, we've got the dog turned into an ottoman, and it is not far-fetched for the pests to be present in a castle like the Beast's. I'd hate to be around when they turned back, though. |
| 184 | *** According to WordOfGod, the second one is true. An audio commentary from 1991 stated that not every moving or talking object in the castle has a one to one human equivalent, it's just more fun to have musical numbers with dancing flatware and furniture in a Disney movie about an enchanted castle (or, to quote Lindsay Ellis: [[AWizardDidIt It's an enchanted castle. Ergo, the stuff in it is also enchanted]]). And this makes sense, because if literally ''every single thing in the entire castle'' used to be a human, then there'd be no furniture, flatware, silverware, glasses, cleaning implements etc. left in the castle. The ''real'' FridgeHorror here is what happens to ''these'' living objects once the curse is lifted? The curse gave them life, but that will inevitably leave them when it's lifted/reversed. [[CessationOfExistence At least the former employees got to live on as humans...]] |
| 185 | * The stage version of "Be Our Guest" has the lines "Singing pork! Dancing veal! / What an entertaining meal!" which, when you think about it, could imply that some of the castle staff were transformed into ''food''. |
| 186 | * There was a short gag when Gaston's mob attacks the castle where one guy falls into a blue chest, and the chest then licks its lips and burps. It just ate someone, what happened to him after everyone was transformed back, did the man survive?! |
| 187 | *** On the DVD at least you see that guy crawling away, covered in some kind of goo (spit, perhaps?) so all parties survived, but that scene is still scary. |
| 188 | *** The dude eaten by that chest is in fact the baker of the town. (Go to the first scene of the town and take a look at the baker. Then skip to this scene and watch him get eaten.) Uh... that's a bit of a nightmare for him as he makes edible items. Being eaten alive... poor guy... |
| 189 | * Looking back at the scene where the villagers fight with the castle's denizens, does anybody remember that scene where the Wardrobe leaps off the top balcony and '''crushes''' a guy underneath her?! Yeah you may think "aww he's fine", but look at the next scene where she's fighting more villagers; the dude is '''STILL UNDERNEATH HER AND NOT MOVING'''. Yep, that guy ain't resting kids, he's dead; crushed underneath by a furniture piece. |
| 190 | ** What's worse, what if that guy has a family and one of his friends that survived the battle happened to see the scene unfold. That's not gonna be a pleasant story to tell his wife and kids..... |
| 191 | ** Maybe it's an animation oversight? |
| 192 | ** Couldn't he just have knocked his head hard on the floor and passed out? |
| 193 | ** Actually, if you look closely when the villagers are fleeing, the man she supposedly crushed is seen laying on the steps. |
| 194 | * One disturbing thought I had always had as a kid during the mob scene at the end was when the wardrobe shut the villager inside herself and he emerged wearing the clothing housed inside. Obviously combs, brushes and drawers wouldn't be capable of enough dexterity to clothe a struggling person in an enclosed space. Would this mean the Prince's staff was turned into clothing as well? If that's the case, was Belle wearing someone in the ballroom? |
| 195 | ** Obviously not, seeing as she was wearing it at the end after the transformation. |
| 196 | * Chip and his siblings slept in a cramped cupboard. If the curse was broken while they were in there they would have been crushed to death. |
| 197 | ** Come to think about it, if any of those "children" were accidentally dropped by Belle or Beast or just tripped and broke into pieces... would they just die for good? What would happen if the curse was lifted just after? Would bloody pieces of children just appear on the floor? |
| 198 | ** Buy why does Mrs. Potts only care about Chip, if she seemingly has all those other children? Why do we only see Chip when the curse is broken? Is Mrs. Potts playing favorites to an absurd degree? Are they not real children, but just animated teacups magicked into existence to fill the ranks? How many others throughout the castle are like that? |
| 199 | *** That IS Fridge Horror - and a good part of the reason you don't want to spend your life as a teacup. |
| 200 | *** Maybe they weren't really brothers of Chip but just other children in the castle at the time and they call themselves brothers because they now live together (for 10 years no less), are all cared for by Mrs. Potts, and are all teacups? Maybe that's just the easiest explanation for Belle. Have any of the others ever called her "Mama"? |
| 201 | *** Then there's the possibility that the reason she seemingly shows so much favoritism towards Chip is because he's... well... [[VisualPun chipped.]] Sounds kind of funny at first, until you realize that means he was almost killed as a teacup, and since the crack running down him would mean he has less structural integrity than any of the other teacups, of course Mrs. Potts would want to keep him at her side at all times, for his own safety. |
| 202 | *** I always thought that the chip which gave him his name came about because of the gap between his teeth, as seen when his human form is restored at the end. Which also acts as more proof that he both was born before the curse (and was already at least a toddler, to have been losing baby teeth for his permanent teeth to grow in) and had his aging arrested--he spent ten years with that gap in his teeth because they couldn't finish falling out/growing in. At least that also means he didn't feel the discomfort of the teeth being stuck there or pain from the new ones crowding in behind... |
| 203 | *** Would there be anything similar to toilets back then? If so I really, really pity the poor servant who got the short straw when the time came to transform into household appliances... |
| 204 | *** There would have been toilets in a sense, or at least you'd be able to use it like one. In the city you'd most likely use a chamberpot. In the country you may or may not use an outhouse. In a castle there'd be a bathroom built into the outer wall with a sloped hole in that wall on the outside to dispose of waste. Since such a thing would be part of the castle's structure rather than a regular object I doubt anyone became the toilet. If I'm wrong, yeesh. |
| 205 | *** There would have been inanimate objects in the castle before the curse, including the unmentionable stuff. The bathtub and the dining room table weren't enchanted, for example. Besides, Belle and the Beast would be the only two inhabitants of the castle who would have to deal with that sort of thing while the curse was in effect. |
| 206 | * Did the Beast imprison any other souls who were looking for shelter in the past? Ones who were less lucky than Maurice and Belle? |
| 207 | * French Youtuber Bob Lennon spent an hour or so in a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4Vby3qanA livestream]] (unfortunately, in French) tearing down this movie and explaining the horror and the {{squick}} one could notice. Notable examples include: |
| 208 | ** If the castle's staff were transformed into the object they were using and considering that, at this time, people crapped in buckets, what happened to the guy whose job was to emptying those buckets into the forest? |
| 209 | ** Gaston seemed to be the best hunter of the village, considering all his trophies. So, now that he's dead and since, at the end of the movie, there seems to be a very harsh winter, the villagers will probably starve to death and so will the people of the castle, since they need to eat again. |
| 210 | ** If it's winter, wouldn't they have ALREADY brought in the harvest? Gaston is just one man and while he's probably the BEST hunter, he can't be the ONLY one. Plus, there's plenty of pigs, sheep, and cows if they really feel like butchering a few of them for meat. |
| 211 | * Seeing how much the villagers, especially the bimbettes, fawned over Gaston, you can only imagine [[DrivenToSuicide the worst]] for many of them once they learn about his death. |
| 212 | * ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' points out [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20787_6-unresolved-movie-plot-points-with-horrifying-implications.html the possibility that the angry mobs would probably kill the Beast]] even after he was transformed back into a human. |
| 213 | ** 'Cracked' articles should honestly be taken with enough salt to result in mummification. If the villagers aren't too freaked out to go back on their own to the castle, they're going to be running into armed, angry soldiers defending a fortified position with purpose-built melee weapons (assuming there aren't more modern weapons in the castle in good condition, such as muskets). Said soldiers would be the ones that got turned into suites of armor (seen during Belle's tour of the castle and during the clean-up sequence in "Human Again"). Having just been returned to normal, they're not going to take too kindly to their home being invaded a second time by the same mob. If the villagers go get help from other villages, they're going to run into the same soldiers armed and ready for trouble along with the prince. With everything looking normal, the people from the other villages are going to depart thinking the original village is full of crazy people. |
| 214 | * Monsieur D'arque, who runs the asylum, says he loves the idea of throwing Maurice in there for no good reason. Imagine all the other undeserving people he could have locked up, and the condition he would keep the asylum in. At the end of the movie he still runs it. |
| 215 | ** Well, to be utterly fair (but probably no less horrifying), he wasn't at all interested in locking up Maurice until it was part of a plan for Gaston to get Belle to marry him. Before that, even as Gaston described her father's various foibles, Monsieur D'arque simply muttered, "Maurice is harmless." |
| 216 | ** To add to the horror, asylums in those days were often... pretty unpleasant, to put it mildly. Maurice would have been trapped there for possibly the rest of his days had Belle not proved him to be telling the truth about the Beast. And Gaston almost certainly knew this. As if his aggressive advances on Belle weren't enough, for him to convince Monsieur D'arque to commit someone who was simply a bit eccentric is needlessly cruel and malicious. Gaston is willing to stoop incredibly low in order to get what he wants. This is even [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the stage adaptation with the extra verse added to the end of Gaston's musical number: |
| 217 | -->'''Gaston''': Yes, I'm endlessly, wildly resourceful |
| 218 | -->'''Le Fou''': As down to the depths you descend |
| 219 | -->'''Gaston''': I won't even be mildly remorseful |
| 220 | -->'''Le Fou''': Just as long as you get what you want in the end |
| 221 | * The villagers were easily swayed by Gaston, participated in his fight against the Beast, adored him. Now what if another person like that comes along with evil intentions? |
| 222 | * So the Beast let Belle go, because he loves her, how romantic. Except for, um, the hundreds of other lives in the balance. If Belle hadn't come back then what would have stopped them from turning against their master in anger now that all hope was gone, much like the Village had done against Belle? |
| 223 | ** The fact that they're good people who wouldn't murder a guy for respecting a woman's wishes? |
| 224 | * Imagine the outcome for Belle in the forest with the wolves attacking her if the Beast hadn't come when he did. |
| 225 | ** What about when the wolves attack Maurice? Imagine his fate if he hadn't reached the castle in time when the wolves came upon him and he slammed the gate. |
| 226 | * For all of the vitriol hurled at the Enchantress for cursing an eleven year old boy for not letting her into the castle, the Prologue and the rest of the story makes a few things clear. One, the story starts proper on "one winter's night" with the old beggar woman asking "for shelter from the bitter cold". Two, the stained glass windows has lightning present, implying that there was a storm going on. And three, the castle is deep into the forest, as evidenced by Maurice searching for at least several months for the castle and it's implied that Gaston asked the Mirror the direction to the castle. What if the old beggar woman hadn't been an Enchantress? That's right, she would've ''frozen to death during a winter storm''. Yeah... even an 11 year old can see this. |
| 227 | ** If I were Prince Adam I'd be a little more concerned about the fact that some old woman has ''mysteriously'' gotten past the palace guards, ''mysteriously'' managed to acquire a rose (Those things were '''expensive''' during those days), meaning that she possibly stole one and most importantly, I'd be wondering wow did she get a rose in winter! In ''Winter''! Everyone who has a passing knowledge on botany knows that roses do not bloom in winter, they go dormant and lose their flowers and leaves in order to prepare for the coming springtime. Basically it's highly possible that he ''knew'' that she was an Enchantress and that's why he didn't let her in, in fact in the 'Enchanted Christmas' flashback he isn't all that surprised to learn that she was an Enchantress. Honestly, though, if a strange old woman came to YOUR home or apartment and asked to stay the night, would you EVER let her in, regardless of her appearance or the type of flower she offered? That'd be like me going up to the White House and saying, "Please give me shelter from the cold! In exchange, I humbly offer you this single 'Mets 2014 Season Schedule' refrigerator magnet. NO?? THERE IS NO LOVE IN YOUR HEART AND YOU MUST LEARN A LESSON!" |
| 228 | *** I wouldn't really compare her asking to spend the night in a castle in Europe during the 18th century to you letting a random woman in your apartment. While I'm not sure if France had this same culture, a lot of cultures traditionally maintained a strong belief in hospitality during those days. While a castle might not just let any beggar waltz on in willy nilly, the idea of sheltering a stranger from a snowstorm wasn't outlandish back then, that's why there's so many fairy tales and folk tales that have that exact moral about taking in a stranger. |
| 229 | ** It's detailed in the Headscratchers page that SacredHospitality was a social ''duty'' in preindustrial times, with travel being so much harder before modern cars and roads. Anyone with room to spare should have felt honor-bound to let travelers stay the night, especially an old woman in the dead of winter. The Prince just threw a tantrum about how ugly she was and told her to leave, and if the Enchantress didn't have magic, ''her death would have been inevitable.'' |
| 230 | * Considering the fact that the Beast becomes more... well, bestial the longer he stays as a beast, how much of his refusal to fight back against Gaston is him wanting to [[DyingAsYourself die in full possession of his mental faculties]]? |
| 231 | * The Beast is a combination of different animals, having the mane of a lion, the beard and head of a buffalo, the brows of a gorilla, the eyes of a human, the tusks of a wild boar, the body of a bear, and the hind legs and tail of a wolf (and supposedly a mandrill's rear). This makes him all the more fearsome to the locals because he has parts from animals they've never seen or heard of. |
| 232 | * You could imagine how Gaston's parents and other family members might react if they find out about his death. |
| 233 | * Unless wolves dragged it away, Gaston's body is still lying on the castle grounds somewhere. Oh, speaking of wolves, did you know they don't always wait for their prey to die before starting to eat it? Yeah, now imagine what would happen if they came across an alive-but-mortally-wounded Gaston.... |
| 234 | ---- |
| 235 | |
| 236 | !1980s Television Series |
| 237 | |
| 238 | (None yet.) |
| 239 | |
| 240 | !Traditional Fairy Tale |
| 241 | |
| 242 | The fact that this fairy tale was used as small comfort to girls forced into arranged marriages, and arguably deliberate propaganda to persuade people to continue the tradition of arranged marriage. |
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