Headscratchers / Beauty and the Beast (2017)

What’s the point of school?

• At the beginning of the film, we see boys going to school (as was the norm in that time period). However, the villagers are shown as being anti-intellectual, meaning they don’t like/are suspicious of intelligence. So what is the point of school if the don’t like intelligence?
  • You're confusing intelligence with critical thinking. "School" in Ye Olden Day rarely continued much past the sixth grade, and was focused exclusively on making sure young boys could read, write, and do enough basic math to be productive members of society and maintain whatever profession they planned to enter. The community doesn't see a need for girls to be literate because they are not expected to work outside the home, but boys certainly needed to have at least the basics. This "school" was absolutely not teaching them how to analyze poetry or have a political debate, but the kids in Villeneuve need at least some "intelligence."

Shouldn’t Clothilde be a beggar?

• At the beginning of the film, Gaston tells Belle that women whose fathers have died and don’t marry live on the streets. However, at the end, Clothilde (who, at the beginning, was buying “6 eggs” and helps destroy Belle’s washing machine) was revealed to be Cogsworth’s wife. So without her husband to “take care of her” while under the Enchantress’s curse, shouldn’t SHE be living as a beggar like Agathe? Or did the Enchantress enchant her into thinking she had another husband?
  • She may have been old enough that she's regarded as a more "experienced" widow, or Gaston may simply not think of her when citing his example as she's too old to draw his attention.
  • There's a huge legal difference between never-married and formerly-married single women. Eighteenth-century French widows were allowed to inherit their late husband's property and maintain a business if he had one. But that did not apply to unmarried women with deceased fathers. The enchantress probably enchanted her and the community into thinking her husband had died (definitely not a stretch, especially considering the recent war), meaning that she was legally allowed to keep the house and work to support herself. Agathe, however, would not have been allowed to own property in her own name. Neither would Belle after Maurice's death, for that matter.

“A handsome young prince”

• In the prologue, the Enchantress calls Adam “a handsome young prince”, yet his father is nowhere to be seen except in the portraits. Did the Enchantress kill him to remove his influence on his son? If that’s the case, would Adam become a King when he turned back into a human and Belle his Queen?
  • "Prince" has never exclusively meant "son of a King." In fact, historically, a prince was far more likely to be an independent ruler of a state called a principality (just as a king rules a kingdom and an emperor rules an empire) than the relative of a monarch. Adam is the ruler of his territory; that office just happens to come with the title of Prince, which he had already inherited from his father before the Enchantress shows up. That's as high as he can go. And Belle becomes Princess when they marry.

“I want to be a farm girl”

• After Gaston shows Belle what happens to unmarried women after the fathers die, Belle says she wants to be a farm girl. But at the end of the film, she marries the Beast-turned Prince. Would she have to give up her dream of being a farm-girl? If so, that goes against her character. Or would she start up a farm just outside the castle? This troper just came out of watching the latest Cinderella film starring Camila Cabello, where Cinderella gives up being a Princess to run a dress shop.
  • What she meant was that she'd much rather be a farm girl (subsequently leading a rather harder life) than married to Gaston.

Belle the Beastess

• If this movie solves plot holes from the animated version, why didn’t it solve the hypocritical ending that the movie says “true beauty is found within,” but yet the Beast changes back into a human? Why didn’t they just have the Beast STAY a Beast or have the Enchantress turn Belle into a Beastess?
  • The Beast turning human again isn't about beauty, it's about him regaining his humanity. Staying a beast - or Belle becoming a lady beast - could put them in life long danger.
  • The movie was also trying to personify the Enchantress a bit more than she was in the animated film. A lot of viewers complained that the enchantment was an unjust punishment regardless of how cruel or selfish Adam had been, not to mention what it put his servants through. That's why she chooses to end the curse despite that the specific requirements to do so weren't fulfilled — she's seen the error of her ways and recognized that Belle and Adam evoked the cure in spirit, if not in technicality.
  • And besides, in both versions, it's not Adam's handsome human appearance that wins Belle over. It's explicitly shown that she doesn't accept him until she realizes that he's the same Beast she fell in love with on the inside.
  • How would them being Beasts “put them in life long danger?”
  • Maybe "lifelong danger" was the improper way to put it, but them both becoming bestial monsters would've put significant strain on their ability to live anything resembling a normal life. Everyone in the village is still terrified of the Beast, so Belle and Adam wouldn't be able to go out in public. What's worse is that they would have to find a way to live at the castle without the restored servants, whose families in the village probably wouldn't want them living and working in a place where not one but two beasts are known to reside. Also, Belle loves Adam in spite of his looks, not because of them. Just because she's willing to look past his startling outward appearance doesn't mean she would prefer it over a human form like her own or that she would ever choose to become a beast.

Why is the curse lifted when the last petal falls well ahead of Belle proclaiming her love?

• I get that Agathe sees that they do love each other, and Beast has succumbed to his injuries and the enchanted objects to the curse, and it would be a shame to leave them all dead when Belle does love Beast. But it was specified that Beast must learn to love and have that love reciprocated before the last petal falls. Love is reciprocated after. So what's the point of the deadline if she basically just says screw it? Why not just restore life but enforce the condition that the requirements had to be met before the last petal falls?
  • The central theme of the movie is how one can learn how their initial judgment was wrong (this is explained better and more thoroughly in the Fridge section). Essentially, she learned, just like Belle, the Beast, and many other characters, that her initial beliefs and perceptions had been wrong, and corrected her mistake in a show of humility.
  • Her spell, her rules. If she wants to break them a little bit and let the Beast off the hook and allow him to fulfill the spirit of the enchantment (if not precisely the letter) then she can do that. It defeats the purpose of the enchantment and gains nobody anything if she decides to be a stickler over 10 seconds.
    • This could also be a case of Exact Words. In the opening narration, it states that the prince will remain a beast "for the rest of his days" should the last petal fall. Well, he was dead, thus had already technically served the deadline's punishment!
  • The criteria was that the Beast must love and be loved in return. It never said anyone has to announce that fact. Belle doesn't have to say she loves him to break the curse, she just has to love him.
  • It's possible she also abused a few loopholes in the curse itself. She never explicitly said that he had to have someone say they loved him, only that he had to learn to love and to have that love reciprocated. Belle may not have said it aloud before the end of the film, but she may have been in love with him (silently) from before the petal fell. Thus, the timer was stopped. Alternatively, she never specified the curse would be forever, only that Adam couldn't lift it after the last petal fell. Thus, seeing how much he'd changed and that Belle truly loved him, SHE could undo the curse. That could, in fact, be why she had stayed in town; so that, even if he didn't meet the original terms, she could undo the curse if she could see that he'd grown out of the man she cursed.

How did Belle manage to get her dress off that quickly while riding a horse?

• It's still laced up in the back, I can understand she ripped it but how?
  • Probably the side seams. She can't reach the stays in back, but the sides are within easy reach.
• She probably got Maurice to help her unlace it while they were still in the carriage.

How long has the curse been a thing?

• Unlike in the original story, where the curse had a clear beginning (ten years ago) and a clear end (the prince's twenty-first year), they're more coy about the passage of time. However, this just raises more questions. We see petals falling while Belle is at the castle, and there are four left when he lets her go. So that means in the day or so it took for her to go there and come back, four petals fell. Assuming they fall at a set rate, how long has the curse been in effect, anyway?
  • Right, and the Beast is a prince, and in the opening scene most of the people are wearing white wigs popular in the mid to late 1700s. But Gaston came back from a war, perhaps the French Revolution? That would set Beauty and the Beast sometime after 1799. But, the inhabitants of the castle don't age, and while Mrs. Potts does look younger than her grey-haired husband, the age gap is definitely not more than 40 years. It might even be as little as 10 years.
    • According to Gaston's actor, Luke Evans [1], Gaston was sixteen years old when he protected Villeneuve from Portuguese marauders in 1740. Assuming Gaston is supposed to be about as old as his actor (37), that would place the events of the film in the 1760s.
    • Gaston's introduction makes it clear he was in the Seven Years War, achieving the rank of captain. If it has been 12 years since that time, it's the year 1775—in June, after Lexington and Concord. News of the American Revolution has not yet reached the Beast's principality, so no one in the village is yet gossiping about it.
  • We could assume that maybe it's been in effect longer than Belle and Maurice have been in the village - since neither of them finds it familiar whereas the other villagers do. We can assume Belle is meant to be younger than Emma is - possibly just twenty - and she was a toddler when they left Paris. So that puts it at around eighteen years.
  • Something to keep in mind is flowers wilt faster as they inevitably die. One could assume it took significantly longer at first, but as the years/decades past, it grew weaker. Who's to say the Enchantress didn't intend for that outcome either?

Why are Mr. Potts and Mrs. Cogsworth the same age as their enchanted spouses?

There is no explanation for how long the curse has been going on, but it seems to be a significant length of time. None of the enchanted people are able to age, but presumably all of the villagers are aging normally. Why, then, are they the same age when they are reunited?

• Maybe they aren't aging normally. We know that the Enchantress has power over time (she freezes the castle in eternal winter and night) and people's brains (she erases the memory of the castle and its inhabitants from the villager's minds). Perhaps she stopped or slowed the time flow in the village as well, and enchanted everyone there to simply accept that fact that nobody aged—the days and nights kept passing, but nothing changed (remember: "Every morning just the same / Since the morning that we came..."). Barring that, she may have kept the adults from aging, but kept the children growing to avoid suspicion. Heck, this might even explain why the villagers are so distrustful of Belle—since she and Maurice are outsiders, they're not subject to the spell and thus are literally more contemporary than them because they're not magically affected. It helps that the Enchantress was nearby in the form of Agathe the whole time—she could have easily been reinforcing the spell or altering it as was needed.

How did Lumiere suddenly form a body at the beginning?

• The first time we see him, he's a regular candelabra like in the animated film. In the very next scene, he suddenly has a body and can move around freely. There's no implication that he's able to switch between forms, and the only time we see him as a full candelabra again is when he transforms into an inanimate one towards the end.
  • He does look very different, but I sort of thought maybe he could twist himself up into the candelabra form. The first form does have a head, and the base could maybe be his torso twisted around if you squint (looks painful), but his arms would have to stretch twice as long.
  • A Wizard Did It. Literally. He's a magic candelabra who can twist himself around. Plumette, Chip and Mrs Potts can fly to an extent, so it's just part of his enchantment.
  • There's actually a very brief indication that he can switch between forms at will. When the villagers break into the castle, he appears in his normal candelabra form, only to switch to his human-shaped body when the castle staff attack. It seems like his normal candelabra form is supposed to be his resting, less animate form (analogous to his introduction in the 1991 original, when he is shown to be able to hide his eyes and mouth). At any rate, it's an unusual creative decision to give him two forms that he switch back and forth from.

Why were Cadenza and Mme Garderobe cursed?

• According to the novelization, they were just visiting the area and performing at the prince's party - as opposed to being among the servants who turned a blind eye and did nothing. So why were they punished along with the servants?
  • There is a small moment in the prologue. When the Enchantress in disguise knocks on the door, you see Mme Garderobe turning around - and she's got a very angry look on her face. She looks furious that her singing was interrupted and possibly that's the reason she didn't help. We know nothing of her personality from before she was cursed, and she could have been a complete diva and thus suffered Break the Haughty.
  • Or maybe it was because they were visiting that the Enchantress got particularly angry at them. The servants couldn't have spoken up for the Enchantress in beggar form because they ran the risk of losing their jobs, but Cadenza and Madame Garderobe were stars in their own right; heck, they were the only ones providing music for the party, and either/both of them could have said "Let the old woman in, or we'll leave." The worse that could happen is that a small-time prince might not pay them, and they clearly aren't wanting for money or fame. So they had the most leeway in terms of speaking up for the beggar woman, and they chose to stay silent—so they got hit with the curse too.
  • For the same reason the innocent child was cursed: the Enchantress' curse is rather arbitrary. She decides the rules and no-one ever said she was entirely fair.

That dang book

• I get how it fits thematically (Books as an escape!) but that dang book creates so many questions. They can touch and take objects, so it seems to be real rather than illusion. The Beast says "The outside world is no place for a Beast" but then he goes with Belle and suggests they visit some landmarks. Are they invisible or did he just feel like trolling Parisians?
  • I got the sense that it was some kind of magical double world, like a copy that doesn't have people in it, because it's day at the castle but it's night in Paris. Alternatively, he was more confident to go outside because it was nighttime, or he just wanted to impress Belle and didn't care about what people thought.
  • It's not stated but I assume it's the real deal. They visited the actual place where Belle and her family lived. Perhaps this was the Enchantress giving the Beast an opportunity? The Beast calls it a cruel trick, but maybe it was her way of giving him the chance to go out and meet people in other areas.
  • It's an old house on the edge of the city that's been abandoned for over a decade. They can go there because nobody else will. Part of the cruelty of that book is that the Beast could go anywhere he wanted, but he would be hated, feared, and maybe killed anywhere people were, so the only places he could go and be safe were places where nobody else was.

Why Chip?

• This was a problem with the original movie and it's even more of a problem now with the backstory explained: why in all the seven hells is Chip cursed? He's a little kid! It's not like he raised the prince to be as he was or like he could be expected to speak up for the Enchantress against all the adults there. He just had the bad luck to be in the castle at the time. What kind of Blue-and-Orange Morality is this?
  • Simply put, just because he was in the castle at the time the curse took effect. Cadenza and Garderobe were not servants of the prince, they were only performing there. But they were caught up in it too. The curse isn't going to skip over Chip just because of his age. It may not be fair, but it is a curse and all...
  • The curse does seem to have a range as to who it affects, at least from what we see in the prologue. The ones who got out of the way weren't turned into anything. We can assume Mr Potts was also a servant, but he ran out in time. Chip can be seen running towards the Enchantress and Mrs Potts scooping him up. So it looks like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Alternately the Enchantress cursed him so he wouldn't be left without his mother. At least if he's cursed, he and his mother are together in the enchantment.
  • But what about Mr. Potts? Technically he shouldn't have been there at ALL since the Potts live in the village, if Mrs. Potts had to go to the castle to help with the big fancy party we assume in the late afternoon/evening...why in Hades did she bring Chip along?
    • Why wouldn't she? I mean, it's a HUGE castle. If I were Chip I would love to go there, so I suppose he just asked his mother if he could come with her on her workday.
  • Nobody ever said the Enchantress was being entirely fair. She cursed the castle and everyone in it, including Chip. His father wasn't there because he's not a servant at the castle, he's a potter in the village. Hence, no curse on him. The area of effect was "the castle" not "people I blame."

Ethnic diversity in 1700s France

• Not that this is a problem, but how did so many people of African descent wind up in an isolated, provincial, Late-Renaissance French village? Is this 21st century political correctness at work, or Truth in Television ?
  • It's very difficult to know because there's a law in France that makes it illegal to collect data on ethnicity and race - a law established in the late 1700s at that. There was mass immigration to France in the 1800s as the Industrial Revolution happened. There's an unofficial survey that estimates about 50,000 African-Americans emigrated to France from Louisiana after Napoleon sold the territory to the United States - and that was 1803. The French also had colonies in Africa since the 1600s, so yes, there would be travel back and forth. It's also important to remember that the idea of ethnic diversity being a new thing is Older Than They Think - it's just that the old Hollywood movies employed Monochrome Casting to make it look like everywhere was white at first. But there has always been some travel between the continents. Europe and Africa are quite close to each other, and the Romans went to Africa and recruited slaves; slavery in France continued up to the 1790s and it was very fashionable among the nobility to have a African/Moorish page or maid. So while there may not have been sprawling communities, there definitely were free born immigrants, their descendants, and escaped or freed slaves scattered about.
  • More than that, French involvement in Saint-Domingue—what would become Haiti and the Dominican Republic—led to massive influxes of people of African and Caribbean descent into France, so much that Louis XVI passed a law called "La Police Des Noirs" to register and regulate their arrival. And these weren't just servants and slaves: the 'gens de couleur' from the colonies were often richer and more fashionable than even the Parisian nobles, and enjoyed privileged access to the court. There were even several mixed race people among the nobility, notably the Chevalier Saint-Georges, a fencing master and violin virtuoso called "the Black Mozart" by his contemporaries, and Alexandre Dumas, who was a count and a general in the French imperial and revolutionary armies as well as the father of the famous novelist. These individuals did live a handful of years after when the film is apparently set, but France was visibly multicultural and multiracial long before parties like the Front National would have you believe.
  • Still, the film's depiction is a gross (and somehow misleading) overrepresentation: Censuses give the number of about 5000 so-called "coloured people" in Metropolitan France in the 1770's, most of which were settled in Paris and in coastal cities. In rural parishes, colored people were rarer than hens' teeths : for example, in the province of Poitou, which had 1.1 million inhabitants in 1770, only six of them were black. Moreover, the colored population was mostly male, as they were brought in France mainly as laborers. As they were not allowed to marry, the presence of mixed-race people in this context is an utter improbability. Also, no need to say a black vicar is no more probable : In Real Life, the first ones, David Boilat and Arsène Fridoil, were ordained in 1840, and such remained a very rare occurrence in Metropolitan France until the very end of The '90s.
    • Everyone's totally okay with enchanted singing furniture and magic curses and big musical numbers, but black people in 18th-century France is where we draw the line?
    • The first detail is fantastic, and the latter one is mundane. Mundane things usually exist for mundane reasons, which can be discussed or puzzled out. Fantastic details require no explanation, because that's the whole point of MAGIC!!! in the first place; it's something impossible that happens anyway.
    • But why the need to explain it and puzzle it out in the first place? Even discounting all the reasons mentioned above, the whole thing could simply boil down to "oh, that's part of the setting. Okay." Why is it a big deal--why do people's imaginations accept magic and fairies and curses, but stick at black people (or gay people, or women in leadership roles, and so on)?
    • Since when did Homosexuals and powerful women enter into the discussion? I thought we were discussing historical ethnicity. Anyway, to answer your question, I think you're mistaking innocent curiosity for contempt. Believe it or not, some people just want to learn more about the world around them rather than just accept whatever fancy they see at face value. The ethnicity of renaissance France is a pretty complex and interesting topic, so even if it isn't directly applicable to the movie, it's educational all the same. To quote Richard Feynman, it's The Joy of Finding Things Out.
    • There is also a difference between Doubting and Questioning. To doubt means you have already rejected something, and are intent on disproving it. To Question is to seek confirmation, where you will be satisfied with any answer so long as you learn the truth. Just because someone questions something doesn't mean they're trying to reject it.
    • To quote Lindsay Ellis on a similar question :
  "I honestly hate to point out historical accuracy issue in a Disney movie because I don't care... however, since the movie decides to play up the historical aspect of the film, and decides to definitively set the film in a period of French history... [I must stress that] this was not a thing and I hate this because not only was it not a thing, it doesn't go anywhere."
  • The answer is probably the same one to the question "why is a French prince living far away from anywhere the French royal family live?" The answer is that it isn't 1700s France, it's a fairytale version of 1700s France.
    • Well technically... to answer your rhetorical question, one should note that if the Beast is not a "Prince du Sang" (i.e. blood relative to the royal family), he could still have the title of "prince", which has been granted to certain local families. You would have as much as thirty-six "principalities" in France in 1789.
    • Because the title of "prince" has never automatically meant "member of the royal family" in France.

Expanding the Enchantress's Role made the original plot holes worse...

• I get the idea of people wanted a better reason WHY the Enchantress did what she did, but in the attempt they actually made things worse story wise? I mean she blames the servants for not raising the Prince properly...forgetting they are SERVANTS to ROYALTY, if they tried to disobey the Prince's Dad; at best they are unemployed...worse they are killed. She hides the castle from all...solving the problem of nobody knowing about it but also greatly reducing the chances of a girl finding the place to break the spell till she makes sure Maurice gets there and Belle following. Not to mention all the shattered families (Mr. Potts, Cogsworth's Wife). Its getting to the point the more you look at it the more the original version's "Stupid Idiot refusing Sacred Hospitality and getting punished" makes more sense.
  • She doesn't necessarily blame them, they blame themselves. Although they cannot directly interfere, it's not outside the realm of possibility to coax him from afar. The amount of servants implies an absentee father— common amongst nobility of that time. In fact, few even raised their own children. Regardless, a curse isn't meant to be fair. As mentioned above, we have no idea what any of them were like prior to the curse. Some were likely victims of being at the wrong place at the wrong time (Mrs. Potts, Chip) but others could have had similar narcissistic personalities that were humbled over time.
  • I suppose that the enchantress is some all knowing being. She knew exactly where Maurice was tied up, she knew where Belle and Beast were at the end of the movie to break the curse. I'm pretty sure that she planned everything out and that she expected Belle to arrive at the castle one day and it probably was just one big plan to teach the prince a lesson.
  • With regards to the servants, yes there is more they could have done. They couldn't defy the Prince's father of course. But that doesn't mean they couldn't have comforted the Prince themselves or at least tried to make sure he was raised with some good morals. If you've ever suffered from abuse or bullying, sometimes people who simply are there for you and help you through it can make a lot of difference. It seems that the servants just stood back, let the abuse happen and the poor boy suffered on his own.
• What was the whole point of her entrance to begin with? In the original, she more or less knocks on the door and asks for shelter for the night. Here, she just straight up breaks in and asks for shelter. Was it to give the Prince a more sympathetic reason to kick her out besides pettiness? If anything, it looks like she's setting them up to fail her big test. Sure, you just broke into my house and demanded shelter instead of asking for it like a reasonable person. Let me give you a place to stay.
  • Wasn't there a storm going on at the time she appeared? And she only proceeded a few steps into the ballroom, where all the people were gathered at the time, before asking to be given shelter for the night. It wasn't like she helped herself to a room there and cursed Adam for not going along with it. Do you not think it'd be cruel to turn someone away when they had nowhere else to go for the night, even by today's standards?
    • The castle has a front door (and probably also had back doors and side doors), but she barged in through the terrace, and interrupted a party to which she was not invited. It was cruel to turn her away outright, sure, but the prince was well within his rights to be unhappy that she'd intentionally made a scene when she had plenty of less disruptive ways to seek the shelter she needed.
• This is rather assuming that the Enchantress is meant to be a total moral authority. She played a trick on the prince, he failed, she made a curse. Nothing in that makes her good, just judgemental. For her cursing the prince is worth the collateral. This is part of why I think she's one of The Fair Folk.
• "Plot hole" is defined as "a narrative inconsistency," such as someone being in two places at once or suddenly having a third arm. Disagreeing with a character's motivation (a magical character who spends fewer than five minutes on screen, of all things) is not and has never been a plot hole.

Maurice and the horse

• When Maurice is let go by the Beast, one would assume he'd ride the horse back to town to get help quickly. But when the Beast scares off Belle the horse is still there. Why would Maurice leave the horse behind?
  • Belle told him she was going to try to escape so he probably left Phillipe there for her in case she actually managed to do it.

Belle and Paris

Why does Belle remember her mother and Paris? Belle speaks of her mother fondly, and keeps referring to "The Paris of my Childhood" and yet when shown in the film, we can clearly see that she's at most two years old. so how does she remember all this so clearly/fondly?

• She wouldn't. She could simply be projecting fondness because of the stories Maurice would tell her about her mom. It's obvious Maurice is still head over heels in love with her mother so Belle accepts and celebrates the pedestal her father put her on. "The Paris of my Childhood" bit can also be interpreted metaphorically. Belle is well-read and feels out of place in Villeneuve and, aware that her heritage is Paris with its high society and culture, possibly believes that she emulates the city's identity inside of herself.
  • Maurice also seems to make a lot of artwork and inventions based off their home in Paris. So Belle might 'create' memories herself based off her father's artwork.
• Paris is very big, and was so even in the eighteenth century. Maurice may have moved her out of the heart of the city, where the plague outbreak was centered, but technically stayed within the limits of "Paris." Belle remembers when they moved to Villeneuve, so she obviously lived somewhere else for awhile, and she never actually says what specifically she remembers about the "Paris of her childhood"—it could be that she's actually remembering their life on the outskirts of the city.

Evermore

• It was a very nice song to listen to - probably my favorite in the entire movie - but do the lyrics to "Evermore" make all that much sense? The context in which Adam is singing it is that of him letting Belle leave his castle to help her father, at the cost of ever seeing her again, and being trapped as a beast for the rest of his life. Most of the song reflects this feeling by having him lament her leaving and that she's touched him in a way no one else ever has; however, he also sings at a few points, "I'll fool myself; she'll walk right in," suggesting that he thinks there's a chance she will come back. So...how much does he actually think he's giving up by letting her leave? Did he expect her to come back, or not?
  • He doesn't think she's going to come back. He's been keeping her against her will and despite them forming a quasi-friendship he doesn't think she returns his feelings for her. In his eyes Belle has no reason to return.
  • Then why does he sing lines like "Now I know she'll never leave me" and "I'll fool myself; she'll walk right in," if he doesn't expect her to return?
    • Because the rest of that line is "Now I know she'll never leave me, Even as she runs away." He's coming to terms with the fact that she's leaving him and all he has now to rely on are memories. He says repeatedly throughout the rest of the song that her memory will shape his behavior for the rest of his life, meaning that she won't physically be there to do it herself. "I'll fool myself; she'll walk right in" means that he will occasionally indulge in wishful thinking that she might come back (the "I'll fool myself" bit is rather a clue there), not that she actually will come back.
  • More or less he is trying to fool himself. Since the curse's time limit is looming over the castle, it gives him comfort. He has been miserable and downhearted for so long; and Belle gave him hope for the first time. Combined with the fact that by letting her go, he is sacrificing any chance in his own mind for freedom. That hope and his love for her is all he has left to cling to since his servants will be forever inanimate. He will truly be alone "till the end of his days". So while he is "Wasting in my lonely tower", he'll imagine she comes back to him. It gives him something to look forward to "As the long, long nights begin, I'll think of all that might have been, waiting here for evermore." Despite this, he is sure she will never return to him.
  • “Now I know she’ll never leave me” is an ironic line; he doesn’t literally mean he believes she will come back, he means that her memory, her place in his thoughts, will never leave him. He’s going to be haunted by the thought of what could have been. “I’ll fool myself,” is bitter and sarcastic, he’s not actually sincerely trying to fool himself, he’s acknowledging that he’d have to fool himself to believe she’d come back, but he can’t, he’s too aware of the loss.
  • The "Now I know she'll never leave me" lyric represents emotional context rather than the physical context. In his mind, she's never returning, but he'll remember her forever. He's not gonna forget the only woman he's ever loved, even he never sees her again.

The Town Following Gaston

• Shortly after Gaston returns with the asylum folks, he is confronted by Jean about leaving Maurice to die in the woods. Gaston is able to weasel his way out of that by restating Maurice's crazed stories about the Beast in a castle surrounded by eternal winter and just as he's about to send Maurice away, Belle shows up, wearing a fancy ballgown and carrying a mirror that shows the Beast in question. Instead of asking Gaston to explain himself (because if it turns out someone is telling the truth about something this crazy, it might stand to reason that everything else he's said is true), they suddenly decide to side with him and go find the Beast.
  • The Beast turning out to be real has little to do with whether Gaston left him to die in the wilderness, since Maurice was still in a panic to try and save her. And anyway, they were probably too focused on killing the Beast to think about that.
  • Agreed. They still considered Gaston their hero, and Maurice was just... that weird guy with the weird daughter. The townspeople are depicted as being rather narrow-minded, so it's more likely that they would listen to Gaston calling them to action against the Beast before they ever stopped to consider what Maurice told them.
  • They probably planned to sort out the Gaston-Maurice fiasco after they dealt with the massive beast with the razor-sharp fangs and killer claws for the feast. Gaston is certainly stoking their anger and exaggerating the Beast's danger, but for once the villagers do seem to correctly prioritize the dangerous threat to the whole village (as far as they know) over another squabble between residents.

Belle's lack of escape attempts

• Belle makes plans to escape the castle almost from the moment she makes the deal with the Beast to take her father's place and makes good on the attempt at least twice (once after her meeting the Wardrobe and the second time after the Beast catches her in the West Wing). However, after the Beast saves her...she doesn't try to escape, even though she reminds the Beast after their big dance that she's still his captive. Why is she still there even though she could conceivably leave? In the original film, the only thing keeping Belle there was the fact that she gave her word, something she was prepared to break when the Beast threatened her in the West Wing and was prepared to keep it after he saved her from the wolves. Here, it seemed they were trying to break the whole Stockholm Syndrome thing that the first film has been accused of...only to forget about it and unintentionally have it in the story.
  • As has been debated many times before, Belle and Adam's relationship isn't a case of Stockholm Syndrome because her feelings for him are triggered by a change in his demeanor, which is not the same as developing sympathy for your captor as they originally are. If anything, her initial intention to escape makes her relationship with Adam seem a fair bit healthier than in the animated film, since it lends credence to the notion that she could leave if she really wanted to and is only there by choice.
  • She felt bad about the Beast getting hurt while saving her from the wolves, so she decided to wait and help the servants nurse him back to health out of a sense of duty and fairness, only to grow more fond of him, the staff, and life at the castle in the meantime. By the time he was recovered, she had warmed up to the idea of staying with him.

LeFou, on Gaston's hunting methods

• This is probably a very petty thing to ask about, but this movie's version of "Gaston" has a new line that's a little strange. When Gaston sings about how he kills animals by shooting them from behind, LeFou asks "Is that fair?" Aside from song purposes, why did he say that? It doesn't seem likely that he wouldn't have known how Gaston kills animals, considering how they spend so much time together. Was he just trying to act as a conscience for Gaston, trying to make him question what he does?
  • Rhetorical question. Lefou KNOWS Gaston's hunting isn't fair and that he doesn't care. He's just trying to help emphasize a fact. Like all the other things mentioned in the song. It should be noted that these lyrics were written for the song in original, but made the cutting room floor for some reason.
  • LeFou was probably the one loading the gun for Gaston's hunts, so of course he knows full well that he shoots from behind. The song makes a point that Gaston is bragging about doing this; he's proud of sneaking up behind an animal and killing it without giving it a chance to run or fight back, and he openly admits that's exactly what he's doing. Without having heard it put quite so bluntly before, it genuinely might not have occurred to LeFou that what Gaston is doing isn't fair.

Where were the wolves?

• Ok, so Maurice is tied to a tree by Gaston, intending for the wolves in the forest to devour Maurice in the night. But the next time we see him, it's morning, and there's no evidence that he was actually attacked, when Agathe comes to save him. So, what happened that night? Is this something that can all be chalked up to the Enchantress' spell?
  • There are theories that the wolves themselves are just castle staff or guards who have fallen under the enchantment, so if the Enchantress wasn't responsible, they might've recognized Maurice as the father of the girl who's on the cusp of breaking the Beast's curse, and refrained from attacking him as a result.

What language was LeFou actually speaking when Gaston heard hear him speaking French?

• Ok, so when Gaston heard LeFou speaking French, was he actually speaking French or was that just what Gaston heard?
  • Belgian?
  • He was speaking French. As for why Gaston didn't understand him, my theory is that Gaston knows just enough French to say "I don't speak English" in French, and LeFou knows just enough French to say "I don't know what you're saying" in French.

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