History WMG / BeautyAndTheBeast

While Gaston is shown to be a hunter, so he could be selling the things he kills to the local butcher. However he may have a more passive income with the hunting lodge that the song "Gaston" takes place in. He seems to have his own chair reserved for him and motions to the various antlers on the wall when mentioning how he uses them for decorating. If Gaston owns the only bar in town it could go a long way to explain why everyone in town tolerates him at worst and idolizes him at best, as he is a skilled hunter and probably one of the more profitable business owners in town.

[[WMG: Gaston has terrible farts.]]
The man eats 5 dozen eggs a day, which is going to have side effects on the digestive system.

In his book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker talks about four different subtypes of C-PTSD: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. Fight types are controlling, entitled, condescending, narcissistic bullies who tend to monologue. They criticise others and take the moral high ground. Some can be friendly and charming, but only towards their favorites, and favorites are people who do what the fight type wants them to do. If someone doesn't, watch out! They rage, intimidate, criticise, and resort to physical violence to bring others into line. If a child was the spoiled child who could do no wrong in their parents' eyes and were never limited, they will usually become fight types. Flight types are obsessive compulsive perfectionists who rush around from one task to the next. When they try to take a break, their thoughts continue to race, worrying about and planning the things they still need to do. Some pace. Others become thrill seekers or workaholics. Stimulant addictions are also common. Freeze types dissociate, hide, or fade into the background. They isolate themselves and avoid as much human contact as possible. Sometimes a freeze type will just sit there, not doing anything except sleeping, staring into space, or reading escapist fiction. They tend to get addicted to substances like alcohol, marijuana, narcotics, and prescription anxiety and depression medicines. Fawn types abandon their own needs, wants, and boundaries to be who other people want them to be. They stifle their individuality and find it almost impossible to stand up to someone else's awful treatment. They are helpful, compliant codependents who take care of other people's needs and wants while ignoring their own. They act like coaches, housekeepers, parents, babysitters, confidants, or entertainers. Based on these descriptions, Gaston is a Fight type, and Lefou is a Fawn type.

At one point those three characters really were meant to be Belle's sisters- but this role of theirs was cut, to save time, because they weren't necessary, or both. They were still left in, but as mere background dressing, to establish that Gaston has fangirls.

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[[WMG: LeFou was originally owned by the Beast]]
LeFou is clearly a Little Person a.k.a someone with Dwarfism. In the 18th century, such people were considered curiosities and status symbols, especially among royalty. According to the sequel, the spell was cast on Christmas. LeFou was a Christmas gift from another ruler to the Prince who became the Beast, but the messenger transporting LeFou had trouble on the road, and by the time the messenger arrived, the Enchantress had come and gone, thus sparing LeFou from the curse. The messenger was unable to get past the shut gates, so he took LeFou to Gaston's town and sold him there as a slave to cut his losses. Gaston, with his champagne tastes (eggs being so expensive that the egg seller told someone who wanted a half dozen that they were too expensive for her), either buys LeFou himself or gets his parents to buy him with the goal of making him his personal slave. Hence why he treats him so badly yet LeFou never leaves him.

[[WMG: Gaston and LeFou both have C-PTSD]]
In his book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, Pete Walker talks about four different subtypes of C-PTSD: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. Based on his descriptions, Gaston is a Fight type, and Lefou is a Fawn type.

[[WMG: [=LeFou=] was originally owned by the Beast]]
[=LeFou=] is clearly a Little Person a.k.a someone with Dwarfism. In the 18th century, such people were considered curiosities and status symbols, especially among royalty. According to the sequel, the spell was cast on Christmas. [=LeFou=] was a Christmas gift from another ruler to the Prince who became the Beast, but the messenger transporting [=LeFou=] had trouble on the road, and by the time the messenger arrived, the Enchantress had come and gone, thus sparing [=LeFou=] from the curse. The messenger was unable to get past the shut gates, so he took [=LeFou=] to Gaston's town and sold him there as a slave to cut his losses. Gaston, with his champagne tastes (eggs being so expensive that the egg seller told someone who wanted a half dozen that they were too expensive for her), buys [=LeFou=] as his personal slave. Hence why he treats him so badly yet [=LeFou=] never leaves him.

Above there is a WMG stating that the Enchantress put the spell on the Prince so he wouldn't become like Gaston would become (Especially being one in power), which got me thinking. The fact the Castle and all of it's inhabitants seemed to have been erased from the memories of the townspeople. Perhaps Prince Gaston, his personal manservant, and The King and Queen were off traveling somewhere leaving their Prince in control for a few nights to teach him responsibility. When the Enchantress arrived and cast the spell, Gaston and their parents forgot they were royalty, while their clothes transformed into commoner clothing, and no-one else remembered or suspected anything. The King and Queen had been JerkAsses themselves corrupt with power and greed, so the Enchantress made them "Normal people" as their punishment, hoping the humility would fix them and Gaston (It didn't) Lefou may have even been Gaston's Manservant when he was a royal, and despite not remembering being so, he still subconsciously felt loyal to him.

[[WMG: LeFou was originally owned by the Beast]]
LeFou is clearly a Little Person a.k.a someone with Dwarfism. In the 18th century, such people were considered curiosities and status symbols, especially among royalty. According to the sequel, the spell was cast on Christmas. Lefou was a Christmas gift from another ruler to the Prince who became the Beast, but the messenger transporting Lefou had trouble on the road, and by the time the messenger arrived, the Enchantress had come and gone, thus sparing Lefou from the curse. The messenger was unable to get past the shut gates, so he took Lefou to Gaston's town and sold him there as a slave to cut his losses. Gaston, with his champagne tastes (eggs being so expensive that the egg seller told someone who wanted a half dozen that they were too expensive for her), buys Lefou as his personal slave. Hence why he treats him so badly yet Lefou never leaves him.

* If anything regardless this WMG he's Bi, but leans closer to men. As he shuns every woman in the entire village (Including those three beautiful blondes) except one. While he likes to spend his time in a bar full of rowdy hairy men who constantly praise him on his manliness. Hell, it's even implied that Gaston just wants Belle as a trophy, not as someone to actually embrace. His character trope page even implies he has no interest in sex itself, he just wants kids for the sake of having kids.
* This would also explain him eating 4 dozen eggs as a kid to get larger. He may have been aware of his homoerotic tendencies as a child and tried to become hypermasculine in order to make up for it. Also explains him still being extremely hammy and over-the-top. And maybe the reason he goes after Belle is because he knows he doesn't stand a chance with her and that even if they get married, they probably wouldn't be very intimate with one another. But then again, he becomes increasingly persistent with Belle, but that might have more to do with his general inability to cope with rejection (be it romantic or not) and just general insecurity, or the reputation he has among the townspeople as a man who stops at nothing to get what he wants (may be an example of [[BecomingTheMask]].

[[WMG: Gaston is descended from [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Robert Baratheon]]]

In the original version of the tale, by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the audience gets background on both the Beast as well as Beauty. According to Villeneuve, Beauty isn’t the merchant’s daughter at all. She is the daughter of a king and a good fairy, and a changeling. To protect her (from the same evil fairy that later cursed the prince), she was swapped with the merchant’s deceased infant daughter (who was sent to the country with servants to recuperate from an illness).

** It's all but directly stated that the forest was cursed as well (the stained glass window shows it changing alongside the castle, the opening shot of the movie shows the castle grounds pre-curse and the forest is very obviously different, etc). So it's very reasonable to conclude that all the animals that lived in the cursed forest were affected to become more aggressive and stuff as well.

Just look at the transformation sequence at the end, the beams of light erupting from his fingertips and face, and also remember that he just got (apparently lethally) stabbed.He's not turning back into a human, the wound was deadly and he's regenerating!

The sisters would not have known about the swap. All they would have known is that the child that their [[MissingMom(possibly deceased) mother]] apparently bore grew up to have next to no family resemblance to them or their father.

In the original version of the tale, by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the audience gets background on both the Beast as well as Beauty. According to Villeneuve, Beauty isn’t the merchant’s daughter at all. She is the daughter of a king and a good fairy, and a changeling. To protect her [from the same evil fairy that later cursed the prince], she was swapped with the merchant’s deceased infant daughter [who was sent to the country with servants to recuperate from an illness]..

The sisters would not have known about the swap. All they would have known is that the child that their (deceased) mother apparently bore grew up to have next to no family resemblance to them or their father.

The obvious conclusion they would come to would be that their mother had been unfaithful and Beauty was their half-sister, fathered by their mother’s lover. Hence their disdain for her. Especially annoying to them would be that Beauty was clearly their father’s favourite.

They may not have even come to this conclusion on their own. When the merchant had wealth, he had servants. Servants 1) see everything, 2) gossip. The eldest daughter, since the merchant didn’t remarry, would have been in the position of lady of the house. The servants would answer to her (through the hierarchy), allowing her to hear the gossip through the grapevine.

[[WMG: (Villeneuve version) Beauty’s sisters know she isn’t their sister.]]

[[WMG: The Enchantress is [[Manga/MahouSenseiNegima Evangeline]], and Belle became Chachazero after the Revolution]]

First of all, if someone is knocking on your door at that late an hour, it's unlikely they're up to anything good, so you really shouldn't answer the door at all if you have any sense. Second, the math says the young prince was, at the oldest, 11 years old (i.e., still in the age bracket to be watching Saturday morning cartoons without anyone giving him grief over it). Even granting that he might've been a rude brat to her, the worst punishment that would call for is a stern talking too and/or a spanking, not a traumatic magical transformation that's likely to take him a decade to find a cure for. Third, why was the prince the one answering the door? Any family wealthy enough to own a castle would also have a squad of armed guards to defend it. If anyone at all would've been answering the door under those circumstances, it would've been one of the guards. So what are we to presume happen to the castle guards? Did she turn them into talking swords and crossbows, or did she perhaps add several counts of murder to her list of misdeeds?

First of all, if someone is knocking on your door at that late an hour, it's unlikely they're up to anything good, so you really shouldn't answer the door at all if you have any sense. Second, the math says the young prince was, at the oldest, 11 years old (i.e., still in the age bracket to be watching Saturday morning cartoons without anyone giving him grief over it). Even granting that he might've been a rude brat to her, the worst punishment that would call for is a stern talking too and/or a spanking, not a traumatic magical transformation that's likely to take him a decade to find a cure for. Third, why was the prince the one answer the door? Any family wealthy enough to own a castle would also have a squad of armed guards to defend it. If anyone at all would've been answering the door under those circumstances, it would've been one of the guards. So what are we to presume happen to the castle guards? Did she turn them into talking swords and crossbows, or did she perhaps add several counts of murder to her list of misdeeds?