Beast (2017)

## Beast

 ―Beast

**Beast** is the protagonist of the 2017 movie, *Beauty and the Beast*. He is an egotistical handsome prince who is cursed into a reclusive bestial creature by The Enchantress as punishment for his arrogance. He learns humility from the event and is forced to embark on a spiritual journey to earn back his humanity and thus to break the spell, leading him to discover his capability for compassion and fall in love with Belle. Beast is portrayed by Dan Stevens.

## Biography

### Early life

Prince Adam was once a calm child. Though his servants and his mother (the Queen) tried to give him a through education and raise him to become as, he was constantly corrupted by his wicked and manipulative father (the King) after the Queen died succumbing to an illness. Following the King's death, the Prince becomes as arrogant as his father, even raising taxes on the villages to fund parties for himself. It was not until one winter night during a debutante ball, a visiting enchantress named Agathe placed a spell on the Prince as punishment for denying her any shelter, transforming him into the Beast and the servants into household objects. After erasing the memory of the castle from the townsfolk, Agathe tells the Beast that he can break the spell by learning to love another and earn her love in return before the enchanted rose's last petal falls, otherwise his monstrous form will remain and that the servants will become permanent antiques, much to their distraught.

Because of this event, the Beast felt so extremely ashamed of his actions and despised his deceased father for causing his pain; even furiously tearing up a family portrait of himself and the King in retaliation (though the portrait of the Queen remains intact as the Beast still mourns for her death). Even the servants felt depressed over their role in the event, as they are full of regret of letting the Beast becoming so arrogant due to the King's treatment.

### Meeting Belle

As a old music inventor named Maurice wandered into the castle after being lost, the Beast silently watched as Maurice surf through the castle. However, Maurice decides to leave the castle, but not before he spots a rose in the castle garden. Maurice tries to take the rose, but the Beast catches him in the act and locks him up in the dungeon.

When Belle runs to the rescue, she spots Maurice inside the dungeon before meeting up with the Beast, who reveals that's he locking Maurice up for life for trying to steal the rose. Belle pleads with the Beast to let Maurice go by taking his place, revealing that she's the one who told Maurice to get the rose for her. The Beast grudgingly obliges and lets Maurice and Belle say their goodbyes, before letting Maurice go and locking up Belle in the dungeon.

Eventually, Belle is freed by Lumiere, who gives her a room and he and the other servants intend to incur Belle into making a relationship with the Beast. Upon hearing of this, the Beast is less than thrilled as he finds the idea to be completely ridiculous. Nevertheless, the servants convince the Beast to try by stating that the time is slowly going. Despite this, Belle refuses to dine with the Beast, who decides to let her starve as retaliation for her refusal.

### Rescuing Belle from the Wolves

It wasn't until Belle went into the West Wing (against the servants' orders), that the Beast spotted her and angrily ordered her out. Fed up with this, Belle decides to leave the castle with her horse Phillipe, though they end up being attacked by a pack of wolves. However, feeling guilty for frightening Belle away in the first place, the Beast comes to the rescue by fighting against the wolves before roaring at them to scare them away. The Beast then falls unconscious due to his injuries inflicted by the wolves, and Belle decides to return him back to the castle as thanks.

After tending to the Beast's injuries, Belle is told of the Beast's backstory by the servants, who admit of their regret of letting the King abuse the Beast.

### Forming a Relationship with Belle

After recuperating from his injuries, the Beast listens as Belle reads him stories to cheer him up. The Beast then shows her castle library, admitting that he had an expensive education during his childhood. As time goes, the Beast takes a hobby in reading more books with Belle and taking walks around the garden; he even showed a magical book left by Agathe that transports anyone to anywhere around the world. Using the magical book, Belle transports herself and the Beast to an old mill in Paris where she was born. Spotting a plague mask and a baby rose rattle inside mill, the Beast deduced that Belle's mother was infected by a plague and that Maurice was forced to leave her while taking a infant Belle (per her mother's orders) away to safety. As such, the Beast apologized to Belle for his behavior towards Maurice.

After returning to the castle, Belle and the Beast have a dance, just as Belle reminisced of the time she danced with Maurice as a child. Feeling that Belle misses her father so much, the Beast gave her the magic mirror to look, where they are horrified to learn that Maurice is being tormented by Gaston and the villagers for his silly cravings of the Beast and Gaston's attempted murder on him. Despite knowing that the rose is withering away, the Beast decides to let Belle go free to save Maurice, even apologizing to the servants and telling them to await their fate along with himself.

### Siege on the Castle

Belle saves her father by using the magic mirror to prove the Beast's existence, but Gaston, fearing that his attempted murder on Maurice would be exposed and being jealous of Belle's relationship with the Beast, snaps out by goading the villagers to help him kill the Beast. To that end, Gaston locks up Belle and Maurice in the asylum cart to prevent them from warning the Beast, though Maurice uses Belle's hair pin to free themselves before allowing Belle to run back to the castle

Gaston and the villagers arrive at the castle, but they fought off and driven away by the servants. However, Gaston gets away and shoots the Beast, who is too depressed to fight back. Though Belle arrives to rescue by destroying Gaston's arrows before calling out to the Beast. Seeing that Belle has returned, the Beast regains his will to live and fought back against the Gaston, coldly telling him that he's not a beast on the inside as Gaston thinks.

Shoving Gaston away, the Beast angrily orders him to leave just as he jumps back to the balcony to reunite with Belle. Unfortunately, Gaston finds his guns and shoot the Beast in the back twice, much to Belle's horror. However, the drawbridge starts to break (due to the curse slowly crumbling it thanks to the Beast's injuries), causing a screaming Gaston to fall to his death.

### Death and Return

As the Beast succumbs to his death, he sadly tells Belle that his time has come, taking solace in the fact that he got to see her again one last time, just as the final rose petal falls. The Beast then dies, and all the servants accept their fate in becoming inanimate objects, much to Belle's distraught. As Belle tearfully proclaims to the Beast that she loves him, her sorrow is lifted when an arriving Agathe witnessed the scene and uses the rose petals to revive and transform the Beast back into the handsome prince he was before. As Belle and the Prince kiss, the curse is lifted, all the servants are turned back to normal, and the villagers' memories of the castles are restored as they recognized some of the servants as their lost-lost relatives.

With the curse uplifted for good, the Prince happily reunites with his servants and is last seen performing a ball alongside Belle, the servants and the villagers by his side.

## Personality

As a child, Beast was very kind-hearted and sensitive, as he was devastated by the death of his mother.

As an adult, as a result of Beast being raised by his cruel father and following his kind-hearted mother's death; he became cold-blooded and cruel; to the point of being insensitive, he is also arrogant, ambitious and prideful; to the point of believing what beauty truly is.

However, after being turned into anthropomorphic lion-like beast by the Enchantress, Beast's time in isolation has mellowed his personality; as he has become much more sensitive, compassionate and selfless, but he still retains a cold demeanor; albeit to a far lesser degree.