Beauty And The Beast / Tropes R to Z

Beauty and the Beast Trope Examples
A - D | E - J | K - P | R - Z

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R

• Race Against the Clock: The Beast has until the rose's last petal falls to love another and earn their love in return to break the curse, otherwise he'll remain a beast forever.
• Rage Against the Reflection: The Beast smashed all the mirrors in the West Wing and slashed up a portrait of himself in human form.
• Rage Quit: Gaston during a game of chess during his Villain Song. It's one of the many Image Sources the film provides.
• Raw Eggs Make You Stronger: Gaston eats several dozen eggs for breakfast every day; he says it's to "help me get large".
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Belle's large carthorse Phillipe had to be written out of the stage musical, due to the challenges of having a horse onstage. In a similar vein, Chip's role was greatly reduced, since it was hard to portray a hopping tea cup on stage.
  • While Paige O'Hara was auditioning, a bit of her hair flew in her face, and she tucked it behind her ear. The animators liked that, so they included it in the beginning of the film.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Averted several times as the Beast noticeably stutters when he gets angry and Belle sometimes repeats herself when emotional.
• Recycled Animation:
  • The dance between Belle and her Prince in the finale is reused animation of the dance between Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty. The original Sleeping Beauty pair had been drawn over to become the new Beauty and the Beast pair, and this was done because they were running out of time during the production of the movie.
  • The smoke seen during the transformation of the Beast to the Prince is real smoke, not animated. It was originally used in The Black Cauldron.
  • If one pays attention to the opening shot when it zooms to the castle, Bambi's mom can be seen grazing in the bottom right corner.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Gaston wears a red shirt and black pants and is an egomaniac.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Monsieur D'Arque, the corrupt asylum keeper, has them for quick characterization since this is basically his only scene.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Hot-headed, passionate Lumiere is a perfect Red, while intellectual, rule-oriented Cogsworth definitely qualifies as a Blue.
• Refuge in Audacity: Gaston loudly proclaims some stuff in the reprise that would heavily imply blackmailing Belle by having Maurice arrested under false pretenses of being a dangerous madman and the villagers agree with The Plan. Surely their "pure paragon" of manliness is kidding, right?
• Rejected Apology: After the prince sees that the old beggar woman he turned away turns out be be a beautiful enchantress, he tries to apologise to her. However, she doesn’t accept it for she had seen his cruelty. So she punishes him by turning him into a beast.
• Rejected Marriage Proposal: Early on, Belle rejects Gaston's marriage proposal. She is portrayed completely sympathetically, as Gaston is a loutish, arrogant narcissist who feels entitled to her and she has zero interest in him. She pretends to be flattered and manages to kick him out of her house, while telling him "I just don't deserve you". Gaston ends up humiliating himself in front of several people, he having been so certain Belle would accept his proposal he'd already set up the wedding ceremony. Subsequently, he is driven to extreme measures to gain her hand in marriage, including threatening to send her father to an asylum unless she accepts.
• Related in the Adaptation: In Villeneuve's original version of the fairy tale, the heroine was the daughter of a king and a good fairy. A wicked fairy had tried to murder the heroine so she could marry her father and the heroine put in the place of the merchant's deceased daughter to protect her. In this film the heroine and the merchant, or inventor in this case, apparently are related.
• Releasing from the Promise: The Beast allows Belle to return to her father, thereby, leaving the castle.
• Rescue Romance:
  • A turning point in Beast and Belle's relationship is when he rescues her from a pack of wolves, and she chooses to take him back to the castle and tend to him when she still has the option of fleeing (she fled the castle because she was so afraid of his violent behavior), but it was further helped by the understanding they came to as Belle treated Beast's wounds.
  • Gaston pretends he's doing this when he goes to kill the Beast because he paints the Beast as a monster. Belle doesn't buy it, saying she won't let him do it.
  • Played with at the movie's climax where Belle rescues Beast, not physically but emotionally. Beast lost all will to live and basically resigned himself to getting killed by Gaston. Seeing Belle return to the castle gave him incentive to survive the battle.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: The Prince in the prologue is decked out in jewelry, a crown, scepter, and a lavish suit and cape. The fact that Beast has ditched all but a (now torn) cape and pants showcases how far he's fallen.
• Rewatch Bonus: When the Wardrobe opens her drawers to suggest dresses for Belle to wear for dinner, two of the three dresses Belle will be shown wearing later in the film (the light green one in the library scene and the hot pink one in the "Something There" sequence).
• Roar Before Beating:
  • When Beast finds Belle menaced by a pack of wolves, the first thing he does is grab the nearest wolf and roar in its face. Then he throws the wolf aside and jumps into the melee against the rest of the wolves.
  • You can hear Beast roar when he planned to finish Gaston.
• Roof Hopping: Gaston does this to catch up to Belle when he can't get through the crowd. He later shows off this same skill (as does Beast, though he's justified by having claws) during the Climbing Climax.
• Rule of Funny: The enchanted objects inexplicably moo like cows as they ignore Cogsworth's command to "Come with me!" during the Lead In to the "Human Again" song.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • The bed in the Beast's room is in shambles, with covers and furs heaped on it in a way that suggests an animal's nest.
  • When the Beast is transforming back to a human, his cape wraps around him like a cocoon or chrysalis as if to mimick the transformation between a caterpillar and a butterfly.
• Rump Roast: Lumiere saves the feather duster from the villager yanking her feathers out by setting the seat of the villager's pants on fire with a large flare of flame. The villager is sent screaming up into the air.

S

• Sacred Hospitality: The Prince defying this trope for the disguised enchantress is why he was cursed. The Objects (with the sole exception of Cogsworth) are quick to follow it when another old person (Maurice) comes calling.
• Sadistic Choice: Gaston strikes a deal with the corrupt owner of an insane asylum to have Belle's father thrown in there, so that she has to choose between watch as her father gets wrongfully sent to a horrible place for the rest of his life or being Gaston's wife until the end of her days to save her father. She instead chooses to reveal the Beast's existence to the villagers to prove that her father is not crazy.
• Same-Sex Triplets: The Bimbettes; the only difference is their hairstyles and the color of their dresses.
• Savage Wolves: Beast rescues Belle from a pack of vicious wolves.
• Say My Name: The climactic scene towards the end where Belle calls out "Beast!" (The audio commentary notes that they'd forgotten to give him a name.)
• Scarpia Ultimatum: Gaston "volunteers" to save Maurice from the insane asylum under the condition that Belle marries him.
• Scenery Porn: The CGI ballroom for the title song, certainly, but the castle also qualifies, particularly in the stage musical.
• Scream Discretion Shot: When Mrs. Potts and the teacups pour scalding hot tea onto an intruder, the inevitable burns are censored by a cloud of steam and the camera panning up just before the tea hits and the intruder screams.
• Screams Like a Little Girl: Gaston screams like the opposite of a paragon of manliness as he falls to his doom.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • After Beast rages at Belle for nearly touching the rose, Belle realizes she'd be in too much danger if she stayed. She comes back mainly because Beast saved her from a pack of wolves.
  • The angry mob, upon realizing they're in over their heads fighting a horde of enchanted furniture, turn tail and abandon Gaston at the castle. This includes LeFou. Admittedly, they're in such disarray both during the fight and while fleeing that they would have been hard-pressed to notice that Gaston wasn't with them.
• Servile Snarker: Downplayed. The servants are snarky to each other, but they’re very tactful towards the Beast, especially at the beginning.
• Shapeshifting Heals Wounds: Once the Beast is transformed back to his human form, the stab wound inflicted by Gaston is healed.
• She Cleans Up Nicely:
  • Belle during the ballroom scene. She was beautiful in her plain clothes and the time spent in the castle shows her in various elegant dresses. This was taking her beauty and giving it some extra frills.
  • The Beast himself is even more of an example, when he appears all neatened up, well-dressed and standing straight. It's those big, tender blue eyes.
• Shipper with an Agenda: The main reason why all the servants try to get Belle and the Beast together is because it will break the curse.
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • Just after Beast screams at Belle to get out when he catches her in the West Wing, Lumiere and Cogsworth are last seen begging her not to leave as she runs away. They're completely absent from the subsequent sequence, which includes Belle and Philippe getting chased down and nearly killed by a pack of wolves, and Beast engaging in a brutal fight with them.
  • In the final battle, LeFou is seen running away in defeat alongside the villagers after the one-sided altercation with the servants. All parties are nowhere to be seen as Gaston fights the Beast. The servants don’t show up again until after Gaston falls to his death.
• Shout-Out:
  • Belle's simple country dress before she gets some finer clothes at Beast's castle was designed to be a lot like Dorothy Gale's to indicate her having a similarly innocent and yet strong-and-adventurous personality.
  • In at least one version of the musical, Belle attempts to talk about her latest novel to a disinterested bystander and describes the premise as being about a hunchback in Paris.
  • In the extended version there's also a scene where they read Romeo and Juliet together.
  • During the song "Belle" at the start there's reference to a fairy tale she just read.
  Belle: I just finished the most wonderful story, about a beanstalk and an ogre and...
  • During the "Come down to dinner" fight, the Beast points to the door in a manner that mimics◊ Jackie Gleason from The Honeymooners.
  • The song "Human Again" in the extended version features enchanted brooms. Mickey didn't do as well with them...
  • Also in "The Mob Song":
    • A chest seems to eat an invader, similar to the chest in Discworld.
    • During the mob's approach to the castle, a dark example of this comes in the villagers' reflections in the water as they cross a fallen tree, referencing as it does the Seven Dwarves during "Heigh-Ho".
    • Also, near the end of "The Mob Song", the lyric "Fifty Frenchmen can't be wrong" is probably a spoof on the title of the 1959 Elvis Presley album 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.
    • In one shot of the fight in the entryway, a baby carriage can be seen rolling down the stairs.
  • "Screw your courage to the sticking place" is a lyric in "The Mob Song".
• Shown Their Work: The Beast's hind legs are digitigrade legs (see the Chicken Walker trope page for more information). When he transforms back into a human at the end, we see the "backwards knee" turn into his ankle - which is the correct anatomical match between human and canine legs. Someone did their anatomy homework.
• Show Within a Show:
  • The book that Belle gets for free from the bookshop owner. As a little bonus, from the summary given, the book could well be Beauty and the Beast.
  Belle: (singing) Oh... Isn't this amazing? It's my favorite part because you'll see: Here's where she meets Prince Charming, but she won't discover that it's him 'til chapter three.
  • Belle sings that same melody during "Something There".
  Belle: (singing) New, and a bit alarming - Who'd have ever thought that this could be? True, that he's no Prince Charming, but there's something in him that I simply didn't see.
  • While in the bookshop, she mentions that the story has "Far off places, daring swordfights, magic spells, a prince in disguise." All of these could apply to her adventure.
• Sigh of Love: The three lovestruck Bimbettes all sigh at Gaston at the intro to the "Gaston" song.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Belle reforms Beast first by standing up to him and then with more gentle affection. She's technically a captive with no authority the whole time.
• Simple, yet Opulent: Belle's green and pink dresses are nowhere as fancy as her yellow ballgown but still something that a high-class lady would wear.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Belle shuns the good-looking but thoroughly vain and egomaniac Gaston and disliked the Beast initially because of his monstrous looks and serious temper problems. Once the Beast shows he is brave, thoughtful and capable of good, she falls for him.
• Skyward Scream: The Beast roars his despair to the sky after he let Belle go after her father.
• Slapstick: The servants fight against the villagers was largely this, though there are one or two scenes that dip into frightening territory-like the scene when the Wardrobe dove off a balcony and landed on a guy was hilarious, but after a cut to Gaston looking for the Beast, we cut back to see her fighting other townsmen-and the guy she landed on is lying limp and lifeless in a crater where she landed on him, his weapon still in his hand, arms and legs sticking out of the hole and spread askew in what looks like death.
• Slasher Smile:
  • Gaston employs one when taunting the Beast:
  "What's the matter, Beast? Too "kind and gentle" to fight back!?"
  • His expression when stabbing the Beast before falling qualifies as well.
  • The Beast's attempt at the "dashing debonair smile" showcases all his fangs. It's Played for Laughs.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: The Enchanted Objects are mostly "cartoon face on top of an item", but certain details of their forms correspond to human features, like the implied noses of Mrs. Potts and Chip, the clock-hand mustache on Cogsworth, the "hair" of the Wardrobe, and the candle wax of Lumiere forming hair and, in the castle invasion, melting as if it were fearful sweat.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Gaston gets his own song about how great he is. However, the townspeople agree that he is that great and he is acknowledged as a skillful hunter.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • The Enchantress is the perfect example of this trope: she’s only seen through stained glass in the prologue and isn’t even mentioned afterward, but she’s the sole reason why the plot of the movie exists.
  • The wolves. They only show up twice, but the first time they do, Maurice fleeing from them leads him to the castle, leading him to be imprisoned by the Beast. Belle flees the castle later and runs into the same wolves. The Beast rescuing her proves the turning point in their relationship.
  • Maurice. There really isn’t much to him as a character, but he’s the reason why Belle learned about the Beast’s existence and spent enough time with him to be able to fall in love. He’s also the blackmail behind Gaston’s plan.
  • Chip. Compared to the rest of the named servants, he has the least focus and significance to the plot...that is until the climax where he frees Maurice and Belle from their cellar. If that hadn’t happened, Beast would have died before Belle could break the curse.
• Small Town Boredom: Belle is bored of "this poor provincial town".
• Smooch of Victory: Lumiere playfully kisses Cogsworth on the cheeks after they chase off the invaders.
• Smug Snake: Gaston shows the classic "too confident to fail" attitude when he storyboards his Evil Plan.
• Sneeze Interruption: Played as a gag when Maurice sneezes in the middle of his sentence saying that he's never seen a talking clock and gets steam on Cogsworth's face.
• Soft Water: This is realistically averted, when one logically combines the Disney Villain Death and Freeze-Frame Bonus tropes from above: though his tumble was evidently into the castle's moat (though we never hear the splash for some reason), the villain must not have survived.
• Snowball Fight: Belle is lucky that the enormous snowball done by the Beast didn't hit her (but him, instead).
• Snow Means Love: A whole song about them noticing their feelings have changed is in winter, and it is during an adorable snowball fight.
• The Something Song: "The Mob Song".
• Song of Many Emotions:
  • "Something There" is a song about how Belle and Beast are both curious about each other and possibly beginning to fall in love, but they're still pretty cautious and doubtful. There is also a verse sung by the servants about how they're surprised that Belle and the Beast are potentially coming together.
  • Downplayed for "Be Our Guest", which mentions Belle's fear, the servants' happiness at serving her, and how they used to be lonely, but the emotions are only a minor theme in the song; the main theme being the dinner and Belle's status as a guest.
  • "Beauty and the Beast" is mainly about Belle and Beast's love, but also talks about how they're surprised, confused, and slightly scared.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Gaston in his Villain Song, singing about "expectorating" in the same way as how "slick" he is.
• Soulful Plant Story: Downplayed. The film isn't overly emotional, but there's still the rather emotional element of the rose that requires the Beast needing to fall in love with someone and earn their love in return before the last petal falls in order to break the spell that made him a beast.
• Spanner in the Works: Chip ends up being one in the climax, unknowingly to Gaston. Gaston plans to keep Belle and Maurice locked up while the villagers kill the Beast. Chip figures out how to weaponize Maurice's invention to break down the door, freeing the two so they can ride to the castle.
• Spelling Song: Some cut lyrics from "Gaston" are Played for Laughs, courtesy of LeFou.
  And his name's G-A-S... T...
  G-A-S-T-E...
  G-A-S-T-O... Oh!
• Spirited Young Lady: Belle, with her literary tastes, intelligence, and stealth insults at annoying suits, is a middle-class version.
• Standard Female Grab Area: Justified; Gaston is established as being strong enough to hold all the Babettes at once. When he grabs Belle, he quite easily lifts her by one hand into the cellar before locking the door. For what it's worth, Belle is fighting back the whole time.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In the theatrical version, when LeFou leads another chorus of "No one Xs like Gaston!" this is somehow twice as funny with a live person on stage.
• Stab the Picture: The Beast at one point scratches a portrait of his human self, most likely out of self-loathing, after despairing of ever escaping his curse.
• Stalker with a Crush: Gaston tracks down the Beast to his castle in order to kill him and take Belle for himself.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Gaston's plan for Belle is to cook for him, massage his feet, raise children, and nothing else; certainly no reading or thinking. Though it is worth noting that he considers 'thinking' a dangerous pastime for men too, especially ones as masculine as himself.
• Stealth Insult: Belle throws a few at Gaston early in the film, such as "I just don't deserve you!"
• Stealth Pun:
  • Very stealthy. During the dungeon scene, Maurice screams: "No, Belle!" twice. Belle's decision to take her father's place was a very noble one indeed.
  • While Cogsworth is giving Belle the tour, he asks if she wants to see the flying buttresses in the aviary. Wait for it... Now you get it.
  • The Beast was saved just in time before the last petal fell; as in, he was saved by the belle.
  • It’s never stated in the film, but the dog who’s been transformed into an ottoman’s name is Sultan. This is because the ruler of the Ottoman Empire was called a Sultan.
• Steampunk: Maurice's automatic wood-chopping machine is steam-powered. It appears to be the only thing steam powered in the entire village as well as a new invention.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Most of the Enchanted Objects are pieces of furniture that correspond to their original names, which not only means that their original jobs in the castle were well-suited, but that their transformations are also keyed to their monikers.
• Stock Scream: The infamous Wilhelm Scream can be heard during the mob's battle with the enchanted castle's residents, right after Chip saves Belle and Maurice.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: In a Shadow Discretion Shot in the background during the fight, one of the villagers grabbed a mace which is beating him over the head.
• Storming the Castle: Fitting with Gaston believing himself to be a heroic figure he rallies the townspeople to storm the castle of a horrible monster. It doesn't go well for them.
• Straw Misogynist: "It's not right for a woman to read—soon she starts getting ideas... and thinking."
• Stupid Evil:
  • Gaston is this; it's clear that if he made an effort to be nice to Belle, the way the Beast did, he may have had a chance in winning her over. She tells her father she wants a friend, not arm candy. Instead, Gaston thinks flirting with Belle involves tossing her books in the mud, dirtying them, and physically cornering her when popping the question. Then when Belle reveals she was in a castle with a Beast and has evidence, Gaston thinks the best course of action is killing him and locking Belle and Maurice in a cellar, thinking this will somehow win her over.
  • This is especially true concerning Gaston's plot to blackmail Belle into agreeing to marrying him. Belle appeals to him for help after he feigns concern for Maurice, as it's clear she knows he is her only chance to keep her father from being sent to the Asylum. Had he just voluntarily helped them without asking for anything in return (and without ever revealing that it was HIS plan to bribe Monsieur D'Arque into taking Maurice in the first place), she very likely would have been grateful enough to at least consider marrying him, if not perhaps even fall in love with him. It would still have been evil manipulation, but at the very least it would have achieved his end goal and spared him an eventual Disney Villain Death while trying to kill The Beast.
• Supporting Protagonist: While most of the story is told through Belle's eyes, the main focus is the Beast's redemption.
• Sword over Head: In the climax, Beast overpowers Gaston and holds him over the ledge of the castle threatening to drop him to his death. However, Beast can't go through with it and grudgingly spares Gaston giving him a firm Get Out!.

T

• Take a Third Option: Faced with the choice between marrying Gaston or watching her father get thrown into an insane asylum, Belle does neither. An unusual example, in that the third option proves just as unpalatable as the first two because Gaston turns the mob towards a new plan: kill the beast.
• Take Me Instead: Belle says this to Beast when she wants to be in her father's place, and the Beast accepts her offer.
• Take That!: "Here we come, we're 50 strong and 50 Frenchmen can't be wrong!"
• Tame His Anger: Beast must learn to control his temper before anyone will love him.
• Tragic Monster: Prince Adam was turned into the Beast as punishment by a sorceress for his arrogance and refusal to provide the sorceress (disguised as an old beggar woman) a place to stay in the middle of winter. Only an Act of True Love can lift the curse and by the start of the film the Beast has become quite feral as he's already given up hope that he will ever become human again.
• Translation Convention: All the signs are written in French, implying that the characters don't speak English.
• Tastes Like Friendship: The dinner and show the servants put on pulls Belle out of her despair and awakens her natural curiosity once more.
• Techno Babble: Cogsworth's architecture lecture: "As you can see, the pseudo-façade was stripped away to reveal the minimalist Rococo design. Note the unusual inverted vaulted ceilings. This is yet another example of the late neoclassic Baroque period." Rococo or Late Baroque and Neoclassical are two very distinct architectural movements. "minimalist Rococo" is an oxymoron, as is inverted vaulting. And pseudo-facade is redundant. It's clearly on purpose.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: In the shot where Mrs. Potts mentions Chip's brothers and sisters, at least one cup can be seen with long eyelashes.
• Testosterone Poisoning: Gaston is a parody of the hyper masculine hunter often found in fairy tales and other stories. It's even part of his Villain Song.
• That Wasn't a Request:
  Beast: (to Belle) You will join me for dinner! That's not a request!
• "They've Come So Far" Song: "Something There," in which the two main characters remark on how their view of each other has changed.
• Think of the Children!: Gaston begins "The Mob Song" by telling the townspeople that the Beast is a threat to their children. The Beast has never shown any interest in harming children, but since the villagers don't know that they're quickly whipped up into an angry mob.
  Gaston: The Beast will make off with your children, and come after them in the night!
  Belle: No!
  Gaston: We're not safe until his head is mounted on my wall!
• This Is Gonna Suck: When Gaston opens the door to the West Wing and Beast turns to see an arrow is about to be fired at him, turns his head away. He lets out a growl, but because of his Heroic BSoD, just waits for the inevitable with no attempt to avoid.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The curse heals the Beast's stab wound when Belle says she loves him, and he transforms back into a human. So the Enchantress wasn't all bad, giving him a chance to live.
• Tick Tock Tune: "Human Again" had a recurring bridge of "Tick tock, the time goes, The days pass, the cock crows," causing the song to clock in at nearly eleven minutes in total and ultimately be deleted from the film and replaced with the much more compact "Something There." When the song was restored for the stage adaptation and the film's special edition, all traces of this bridge were removed and the song placed in a slightly different part of the story.
• Time Skip: Belle's father leaves at the end of summer, traveling to the fair. Belle said while helping Maurice that he would win first prize at the fair "tomorrow," meaning he could get there from home by the next day. Such fairs lasted for at least a week, so Belle wouldn't be concerned if her father was gone for at least that long, and even if he was late, there really wasn't anything she could do at that point, other than distract herself from any possible worries. Gaston proposes late-autumn; the leaves are falling. Phillipe comes galloping in soon after, having first had to shake the wolves off his trail. Horses don't pay attention to where they're going when something spooks them, so he would have most likely been completely lost when he finally shook off the wolves, and it would take time for him to find his way back to familiar paths and home. When Belle arrives at the castle and trades herself for her father, the first winter snow begins to fall. Belle spends the whole winter at the castle, during which time her father is constantly searching for her. At the end of the movie, the snow melts and their wedding takes place in the spring, as the flowers are blooming again. Ultimately thanks to time skips, the whole movie takes place over about six months.
  • The main problem the time skips create is in how far the Beast's castle is from the village - even if knowing where you're going helps and magic keeps it hidden, it could be anything from a couple of minutes ride, to several hours, to a week's travel.
• Title Drop: For animated movies it's not as important, but for the magnificent theme song, they use the title drop, and if you haven't figured out what the song is about yet, then think about it.
• Token Good Teammate: The bookkeeper is notably absent from the mob.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Beast was already a tough fighter before, but he gets injured protecting Belle from the wolves, finally fainting from the exertion. When he fights Gaston after he realizes Belle came back, the Beast starts to think about how to curbstomp him. He chases him into a spire and then tackles him onto another rooftop with gargoyles, knowing a human wouldn't fare well from the impact. The Beast then lets Gaston smash a gargoyle while prowling among them and proceeds to win the fight because he wore Gaston out.
• Torches and Pitchforks: "The Mob Song".
• Tragic Monster: The Beast is this due to his past and his suffering that the curse caused.
• Transformation Sequence: Beast gets a rather majestic one as the curse is broken and he is turning back into his human form.
• Transforming Conforming: After ten years trapped in his feral body, Beast started losing his humanity: he walks on all fours, barely wears clothes, and is terribly territorial. Living together with Belle — and his own effort to improve — help him regain most of his humanity. According to Word of God, if she hadn't shown up in time, he would have gone completely and permanently feral.
• Triumphant Reprise: The melody of "Be Our Guest" is heard as the servants effortlessly win their fight against the villagers.
• Trivially Obvious: In the play, Lumiere prompts the Beast to "say something" about Belle's new dress. The Beast addresses Belle gracefully and informs her that the dress is blue. Cue the Beast being dragged aside for the clarification of something complimentary.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: Played with. Initially The Prince was handsome but vain so he was cursed to be a monster. Then he reformed and was still a monster until Belle confessed her love, at which point he turned back, but Belle wasn't impressed.
• True Blue Femininity: Belle's main dress is white and blue (a lot like Dorothy Gale's), which the filmmakers stated is symbolic of her personality and situation.
• True Love's Kiss: Variation—it isn't what breaks the curse on Beast himself (that's just Belle's declaration of love), but it does dissolve the rest of the spell to restore the castle and all the servants.

U

• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife:
  • The title characters, until the spell is broken, at least.
  • After that, however, there's still Lumiere and Babette (the former feather duster). He's very cartoonish-looking (bordering on Gonk), while she's animated to be not only more realistic, but really sexy - they probably only got away with her design because it only showed up in the last couple minutes of the movie, and then only for two or three seconds.
• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: The Beast and Gaston, to serve as a "who is the real monster?" theme.
• Uncommon Time: "Gaston" is a waltz (6/8 time), although Gaston and LeFou dancing together gives that away.
• Unexpected Kindness: After being an ass for most of his interactions with Belle, which is justified in that he's basically a brooding teenager with No Social Skills due to being cursed as a child, the Beast saves Belle and Phillipe from the wolves, risking his life. She has a moment of shock that it was his first truly selfless gesture towards her. Belle returns the favor by helping him back to the castle and cleaning up his wounds. Though they have a fight, Belle thanks him for saving her life; the Beast is then shocked because no one has thanked him before, and calls a truce with her. This makes the Beast realize that he likes making Belle happy, and says he wants to do something nice for her.
• Unflinching Walk: Belle in a somewhat comedic example; she's able to thread her way through town on what appears to be a market day, effortlessly blocking falling water with a hanging sign as she passes under it, all the while reading a book.
• Unfulfilled Purpose Misery: The castle servants (transformed into household utensils by the witch's curse) are overjoyed at seeing Belle enter the castle, because it finally lets them do what their new forms were designed to do (clean, cook, accessorize, etc.), the Beast having no use for banquets or well-maintained rooms.
  Lumière: Life is so unnerving, for a servant who's not serving.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Even though Beast spared his life in the climax, Gaston responds by nearly stabbing him to death, only to accidentally fall off the tower and die. It counts as a Disney Villain Death.
• Ungrateful Townsfolk: Most of the villagers treat Belle like an outcast and Maurice like he's crazy, solely due to their love for books and intelligence respectively, but at the same time, they worship Gaston, who is clearly an uncouth, vile brute. They throw Maurice out of the tavern when he begs them for help, and later watch as Gaston tries to blackmail Belle into marrying him by threatening to have Maurice thrown in an insane asylum. None of them listen to Belle's insistence that the Beast is good, instead believing Gaston's unfounded rant about the Beast coming to kill their children, even locking Belle and Maurice in their own cellar so they won't interfere. All in all, they aren't the nicest bunch of people.
• Unknown Character: The sorceress who put the curse on the Beast and his castle in the first place. We learn nothing about her and she only appears in the stained glass windows of the prologue. Yet without her, there would be no movie.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Gaston's good looks and excellent hunting skills earns him the adoration of every person living in the village, except for Belle. And because he is viewed as the absolute best, his word is everyone's command and they follow everything that he says, like throwing Maurice into the asylum and believe his interpretation says about the Beast without having met him.
• The Un-Smile: When Lumiere tries to get the Beast to smile for his date with Belle, he grins so that all his fangs stick out. Thankfully he learns to smile much more naturally later.
• Ur-Example: Although it's not the first animated movie to do this, Beauty and the Beast is the first Disney movie where famous musicians cover the movie's love/whatever ballad during the credits.

V

• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Gaston invokes this in the villagers to rile them up and storm the Castle to kill Beast.
• Verbal Tic: The Beast tends to stutter when he’s frustrated.
  Beast: You wanna-you wanna stay in the tower?
• Victorious Chorus: During the final ballroom dance/stained-glass window pullback.
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: LeFou and Gaston have this dynamic toward the end of the film, when Gaston ceases to be Played for Laughs and LeFou remains a Butt-Monkey.
• Villains Want Mercy: After invading the castle and kicking him while he's done, Gaston pathetically begs for his life as Beast is dangling him over the edge of the tower. Lucky for him, Beast doesn't have it in his heart to kill him.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Gaston suffers this when Belle throws him out of her house:
  Gaston: (grabbing LeFou by the throat) I'll have Belle for my wife! Make no mistake about *THAT*!...
  • Then he loses it altogether when he realizes Belle loves The Beast, spurning Gaston once and for all.
  Gaston: If I didn't know any better, I would you would have feelings for this monster.
  Belle: He's no monster, Gaston! YOU are!!
• Villainous Crush: Gaston's crush on Belle is villainous because he is going to vile and extreme lengths to make her accept his marriage proposal.
• Villainous Glutton: Gaston may not be fat, but he eats 5 dozen eggs for breakfast after eating four dozen eggs as a child.
• Villainous Valour: Gaston has a good reason to boast about his strength. He fights toe-to-toe and does it pretty well against Beast, even when Beast is finally over his despair and stops letting himself get beaten. He also rips off some kind of marble/stone ornament from the castle with little to no effort, and is shown to be able to carry approximately 400+ lbs (The Triplets sitting on a bench) with one hand and with very little effort, which places his strength at roughly the same level as that of an Olympic weightlifter.
• Villain Song: "Gaston" is a monument to Gaston's titanic ego. Also, "The Mob Song" is lead by Gaston at his most evil and describes his plan to kill his rival in love.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: The praises heaped upon Gaston in "Gaston" are somewhat double-edged, since he bites in wrestling matches, takes cheap shots, and overturns tables when he losses.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Gaston is loved by all the other villagers except Belle and is apparently the most powerful and influential person there. This means none of them object to an ailing old man who's been desperately searching for his daughter being carted off to an insane asylum based on an odd story that might have come from stress. Then they are easily convinced by Gaston to kill the Beast once his existence has been confirmed even though Belle is the only one who knows him and begs them to reconsider. They always thought she was weird anyway for her bookishness ("I wonder if she's feeling well.") What's even worse is that they follow him out of loyalty, and not out of fear, and it is implied from the Villain Song that they love him specifically because of his despicable acts.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Lumiere and Cogsworth. Type 2, good friends who are very different and often butt heads. Their relationship is said to mirror that of the two animators who drew their characters. In fact, a special feature on the Diamond Edition of the film shows the two animators performing the final scene with Lumiere and Cogsworth human again in live-action form.

W

• Walking in Rhythm: In the eponymous opening song, Belle walks through town singing and walking in step with the beat. She of course ignores the townfolk's commentary during her song.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: The Beast spends half the time of the movie wearing only pants and a purple cape.
• Wanderlust Song: Sung by Belle.
  "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere!
  I want it more than I can tell!"
• Welcoming Song: "Be Our Guest", as the denizens of the castle introduce themselves to Belle.
• What Does She See in Him?: Gaston desires Belle, who everyone in town finds odd; it's not that they don't understand what he sees in her (she's widely-regarded as beautiful), they just don't understand why he bothers with such an obvious personality mismatch when he could have any other woman in town, including several who are nearly as good-looking. In addition, he can't understand what she sees in the Beast.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • We never do see what happens to the Magic Mirror—it disappears from Gaston's belt once they break down the doors and is never shown again. It could have been lost/broken during the battle, discarded because he didn't need it anymore, or despite not being drawn there it was on his belt all along and fell with him into the moat. In the end, it would likely have disappeared when the spell was broken. Still, it's a little odd that Mrs Potts explictly draws attention to the fact that Gaston is carrying it when the townsfolk storm the castle, only for it to have no relevance after that point.
  • The Bookseller never shows up again after "Belle".
• What Have I Become?: This was the Beast's personality (with some Jerkass thrown in) at the beginning of the movie, as he's a horrified as everyone else at becoming a beast.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Belle and the Beast give a back-and-forth version of this to each other after the wolf fight. Both Sides Have a Point in that the Beast should control his temper, but Belle intentionally broke the one rule he set over her. They then set a truce where Belle cleans up his wolf injuries and thanks him for saving her life.
• What You Are in the Dark:
  • After Beast manages to fight off the wolves, he is left injured and collapses from them. Belle had the chance to leave and who wouldn't? The Beast imprisoned her father, kept her as a prisoner, and was a complete jerkass up to rescuing her. But instead, Belle takes him back to the castle to nurse his wounds.
  • In the film's climax, the Beast duels Gaston until he gains the upper hand and dangles Gaston off the roof of the castle. Beast can easily drop Gaston to his death, but as he's regained enough of his humanity, he chooses to spare Gaston's life. Gaston returns the favor by stabbing him In the Back.
• Whoosh in Front of the Camera: As the objects lead Maurice to the fireplace, the Beast is seen in the foreground looking from upstairs, then running off.
• Wild Hair: The Beast has this in a mane form at his most beastly. It's better groomed by the end of the movie as he recovers his humanity.
• World-Healing Wave: After the Beast is restored to life and humanity and he and Belle have The Big Damn Kiss, the resultant magical fireworks shower a sparkling rain over the castle and restore it to its original state; the Enchanted Objects are similarly restored to the humans and animals they once were.
• Worth It: As he's dying, Belle proclaims that it's her fault the Beast is in this position. The Beast tells her not to say such a thing, that seeing her one last time come back for him made these last moments worth his death. He uses the last of his strength to stroke her face and reassures her that he's fine with this. Fortunately, the curse decides to heal his wounds and turn him human again after Belle proclaims her love. 
• Would Hurt a Child: Apparently, the Enchantress has no problem with cursing an 11-year-old boy with a Forced Transformation. It has been confirmed by the Beast's artist Glen Keane and in the filmmaker's commentary for the extended edition that the rose "would bloom until his 21st year".
• Wound Licking: The Beast licks his wounds after rescuing Belle from the wolves, while Belle tries to clean them with fresh hot water instead.
• Wrongfully Committed: Gaston tries to blackmail Belle into marrying him by threatening to throw her father Maurice into an asylum (the older man rambles about Belle having been taken prisoner by the Beast). When Belle returns home to save her father, Gaston leads a mob to commit Maurice until she reveals the Beast's existence to the villagers.

X

• Xanatos Speed Chess: Gaston's plotting in the second half of the film is a result of quickly adapting to meet new conditions. Belle refuses to marry him? Use Maurice's rantings to declare him insane and blackmail her. She proves Maurice was telling the truth? Rally the town to kill the Beast now that he knows Belle loves him. Find himself outmatched? Beg for his life and then backstab.

Y

• "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation: When Belle was first taken hostage in the castle, she was kept in the dungeon. Lumiere tells Beast that, if Belle is supposed to fall in love with him, it would probably help to give her an actual room. Despite wording the suggestion in the most tactful way possible, Beast growls at Lumiere so fiercely his flames are almost lit out before storming off. Lumiere takes that as a no.
  Lumiere: (nervously) Then again maybe not!
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A villainous version. As Gaston sulks after Belle's rejection, LeFou and his buddies cheer him up by showing him everything he's got going for him.
• You Have to Believe Me!:
  • There's a beast in the old castle! Really!
  • The Beast is nice! Really!
  • Chip says "Mama, there's a girl in the castle!" but Mrs. Potts dismisses him with "Now, Chip, I'll not have you making up such wild stories." She's proven wrong in a few minutes.
• You Monster!: Belle tells this to Gaston.
  Gaston: Belle, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you had feelings for this monster.
  Belle: He's no monster, Gaston. You are!
  • To the Beast in the "Home" song from the stage show version - "For Papa I will stay / But I don't deserve to lose my freedom in this way... you monster!"

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