Beauty is the beast...
Lydia the Bard's Disney Princess turned Villain Songs
is a series of Dark Reprises about the Disney Princesses...well, turning evil. With explanations of how below in the video descriptions. It's simultaneously disturbing and morose to see one bad decision or accident change sweet girls like Aurora, Ariel, and Rapunzel into almost entirely different people, as bad or even worse than the actual villains of canon.
- "Jasmine's Arabian Nights" was made before the series was truly made, but it's still a fitting start. Here, Jasmine started a revolution for the throne, ending with her killing Jafar, throwing her own father in the dungeon, and rejecting Aladdin in favor of ruling Agrabah by herself. At the end of it all, she proceeds to sing a song of triumph about the land she conquered.
- Also, whether Lydia simply didn't think of it at the time or not when making the description, we notably don't find out what happens to the Genie at all, nor do we get the impetus for Jasmine's change like the others. While finding out Aladdin's lies or Jafar taking over the country likely was the cause, for all we know, she just suddenly snapped and became a bad guy unprovoked.
- "Elsa's Into the Unknown" is more Tear Jerker than Nightmare Fuel, but it is still a somber and slow-paced Sanity Slippage Song of the highest order. Anna has died, presumably from a frozen heart, and Elsa quickly starts unraveling without her last family member and Living Emotional Crutch. Her powers start speaking to her, in what's implied to be Anna's voice, to freeze Arandelle over. She doesn't want to do it and tries to fight back...but she just didn't have the energy to actually do so and soon passively succumbs to her grief and rage.
- "Ariel's Part of Your World" features Ariel becoming a siren bent on outright conquering the world above. Why? For starters, Ursula won, Ursula has married Eric and Ariel has no idea that the woman Eric married is Ursula in disguise and he's under a spell. As far as she is aware, she and Eric spent at least two days bonding only for the former to shun her for another woman he seemingly just met. Ariel proceeds to spend the next three years as a polyp until her father finds a way to break the curse, and by the time he does, she becomes a Woman Scorned something fierce. She starts by drowning sailors and taking their stuff to refill her cave, and plots to take her father's kingdom and lay siege to Eric's, killing him and ruling sea and land with an iron fist.
- Rapunzel's reprises of both "Mother Knows Best" and "I See the Light" is the first video to feature an animatic and boy, does it use it well. The story is that after Gothel "rescues" Rapunzel from the Stabbington brothers and brings her back to the tower, she goes out of her way to make sure Rapunzel never leaves, via stoking the anger and heartbreak she feels at Flynn presumably selling her out. Rapunzel never finds out she's the princess, nor does she realize that Gothel set Flynn up, and in her grieving state, simply soaks up the lessons. After 6 months, Rapunzel sees the outside world as dark, selfish, and cruel as Gothel wants her to. The first half is more Tear Jerker, with Rapunzel bitterly repeating the put-downs thrown her way as a self-loathing mantra, along with the suggestions to let her mother do the thinking for her from the former song to herself, showing that the witch's gaslighting has worked out perfectly. Then Rapunzel's face goes from empty heartbreak to cold fury as she stares at Flynn's wanted poster and swears vengeance on him, as the background goes red, and it suddenly becomes clear Gothel's abuse worked a little too well. She storms out of the tower and back to the kingdom explicitly to kill him, all the while singing about how's she's finally seen the cruel light of the world, her hair covering one of her eyes and the other eye glowing bright red. The last scene of the animatic is Rapunzel glaring down at the boat Flynn used to get to get to the kingdom's shore, frying pan in hand, and an ice-cold statement on her lips.Rapunzel: Let's finish this.
- Also, Flynn manages to avoid being executed and is even released on good behavior. And his first thought after getting out is seeing Rapunzel and explaining what happened, having no idea that it's too late and the girl wants him dead.
- Just the fact that she's so soft-spoken in this song. Even when she found out about Gothel's actions and called her out in canon, her tone was never this cold. Really goes to show how screwed up her emotional state is.
- Belle's villain song starts it early, with the Beast suddenly seizing up in pain during the ballroom dance, leading Belle to smirk and reveal she's taken the enchanted rose. As she mocks him and the castle staff through song, she shows him one of the books she's been poring over all this time - featuring a dark drawing of a monstrous beast running rampant. Whatever Belle did to the rose, it causes the spell to reach its conclusion before the petals finish falling, the servants reacting in horror as they're turned inanimate one after another, the Beast helpless to do anything but try to crawl to the rose and stop it. Belle continues to toy with the Beast throughout, holding the rose and playing with it, ruining her hair and make-up to reflect her state of mind, until finally his human mind is gone and there is only a mindless beast. Even Belle's lyrics are shiver-worthy, for how disgusted she sounds.Belle: You are nothing but a monster to me. Less than nothing, you're not worth my pity.
- Tinkerbell's Villain Song plays up her Yandere elements and mixes them with Tragic Villain. Her fellow fairies are dying because people don't believe in them anymore. She kidnaps Peter and the Lost Boys, trying to keep them young and childish so they'll never lose faith and her friends can survive. Tinkerbell fears Wendy will tempt them away and starts trying to kill her. The Lost Boy's attack on the "Wendy bird" knocks her out and force Peter to save her. Tink convinces the Mermaids to drown/eat Wendy, who gets saved again. With her friends succumbing to illness, Tinkerbell leads a full on assault on the pirate ship and takes away the fairy dust so it will fall. Tink flies after her, taking a moment to mock Wendy that death won't hurt that much while Vidia holds Peter back. An extra push from Tink and Wendy falls headfirst into a jagged rock, the video cutting away the instant before impact.
- Adding to it, Tinkerbell insists it's nothing personal, but she can't risk the boys' affection for Wendy leading them to leave Neverland. Here she's not even jealous of Wendy, she's murdering a girl she feels nothing for so more fairies won't die. It's enough to make one imagine how much farther she'll be willing to go in the future, especially since Peter Pan would no doubt be devastated and try to get away from her.
- A few other horrifying sights are: Peter Pan is unaware that Tink is the one trying to kill Wendy until it's too late and he's stuck in a bubble, unable to stop it and he's shown visibly distressed and in tears as Wendy is about to make impact with the jagged rock. Peter may be forever a child, but it's shown here that he still cared for Wendy. It's never shown if Peter connected that Tink was killing Wendy to keep them there but if he did he now lives in fear of the person he thought was his friend, but has simply been using him to keep herself alive.
