The Post Apocalyptic World in Beauty and the Beast

I am going to try out an idea, it is only vaguely related to videogames in the sense that every game maker, author, director, or artist does it. Basically, we ask some questions, and then make a world out of it. If it turns into a world for a game, cool, and it can work equally well in other mediums. Basically, it is world making. Although this blog is about videogames, and the studies of games, I do other things with my life.

So, with every thing said, lets ask the questions. Buzzfeed gives a great set of questions to go with. What is up with Beauty and the Beast? There seem to be giant holes in the story that need to be explained, or figured out based on the movie. It was covered in game for the Kingdome Hearts franchise. Like I said, vaguely to do with videogames.

The first thing we see is that it has been ten years since the prince was turned to a monster. Where are his parents? If he is barely turning 21, doesn’t that make him 11? Why are they calling him prince?

This is actually pretty easy to answer. The Beast is the king of the land. His parents passed away by unknown causes, and left him in charge. He was being raised by his servants when the enchantress arrived.

Prince is a term for any member of a royal family. In France, a show of love is to call your king a Prince. Even a woman can be called Prince. In other words, it is a title of endearment. This also explains half of the cast, they were either servants, or courtiers of the kingdom. Before becoming a horrible monster, he ruled a small part of the area, and sent out tax collectors regularly.

Why would an enchantress do such a thing to a child? Good question. The answer needs a larger explanation than what we have so far. The next question should be, who the crap is Belle?

What you haven’t caught on, is that Belle has just as much of a mysterious past. She can read, she owns land, and seems to spend a lot of time doing nothing. Her father is busy making contraptions, and doesn’t seem to need much in the idea of a job. In other words, they are pretty well off in French peasant terms. Although Maurice may have been one of the Tennis Court Middle Class, he seems to use an inheritance of some kind to keep the family afloat. They also seem to be in hiding, which means Belle’s mother may have met the guillotine. In other words, Belle is pretty well off, but in hiding because of the various wars going on.

Maurice seems to know the area well, but in a way that shows he only knows it from an earlier time. He likely knew the castle the Beast lived in, and even did trade with it from time to time. In other words, Maurice has been in hiding for a long time. Belle was likely a child when she moved to the village.

Even more evidence is given when we realize her name is Belle.

“Now its true her name means beauty.”

From the lyrics of the opening song shows that something is up with the town. They are not speaking French. You don’t say, “Now its true her name means schönheit.” You would only say this means this, if that isn’t your word for beauty. Which means the people are either speaking Patois, or another language entirely.

In other words, Maurice chose a place he had spent time in, but is unconnected to his troubles. The family is using an inheritance, but not saying it out loud. They are in hiding from something. It gets even weirder when you realize that Maurice made a device that even a child turned to a cup can use.

Here is a good question for you, how can Chip do things without hands? Keep in mind, he got a device that was entirely designed for human use to work, even though he was a cup. In fact, how is he still five or six? Why does he live in a cupboard?

Actually, there is another question you need to ask. How is Mrs. Potts his Mom? She would have to be his grandmother at best. The answer seems to be that Chip is an orphan. He lived in some of the crummy places when the magic happened. Mrs. Potts was sort of in charge of him, and the other children servants. So, how is he a cup? He was likely holding a cup when the magic happened. Mrs. Potts was holding a kettle, and Cogsworth was holding a clock. They became the thing they held.

It seems that the magic has slowed down time for the people of this castle. They could actually have been here for centuries without anyone’s notice. Had it not been for the rose, we could think that the town lost touch with the castle before anyone alive was even born. However, Maurice seems to recognize it, and they say its been about ten years.

So, the Beast had been older when it all happened. The face on the painting is his own.

But how could a cup start a machine?

The answer is magic. Chip can use magic, and Maurice designed his machine with magic. The reason why it seems so weird to us, is because it had been using magic the entire time. In fact, we can bet that around the same time that the Prince became the Beast, Maurice went into hiding.

Think about it for a second, there is magic, enchantment, and knowledge of this to Belle even at a young age. The book she was reading may not have been some made up story at all, but an actual historical item. Chip, and the other servants of the castle can use magic to help them with their common chores. Belle likely viewed it as common, while the village she lived in had no real connection to it. Part of going into hiding, was also to hide the abilities they had. They hoped to use the machine to move back into the world as common merchants with small magical skills.

So what happens if Belle touched the Rose? We saw the Beast nearly kill her, and even forbid the entire section of the castle it was in. There are likely two reasons. The first is that this was the Prince’s chambers, and he really didn’t want to be bothered by her. The second is that the only way the castle could be found by Maurice was by magic. The instant the old man arrived, the servants all understood that this stranger could find an enchanted castle somehow.

If Belle had it, and the servants also had it, that means the Beast had skills as well. So what turned him into a beast? He was holding the rose. If Belle had touched it, she would have also been turned into a Beast. The rose was guarded to protect anyone from changing into some horrible form. Far worse, realize that this part of the castle has nothing moving, singing, or dancing. If there had been servants, perhaps the rose destroyed them. You can imagine the response by the young man who suddenly realized what all is happening. Some of his closest servants were killed by an evil rose, left by an enchantress. I would tear a room apart as well.

This finally asks the question, why didn’t the town next door find the castle? They should have known there was a horrible beast nearby, or a kingdom. The answer is sad, and though there is a direction being pointed, there is very little evidence.

The truth is, they did know about it at one time. The map shows the area blotted out by darkness on the map. Someone had to draw that map. Maurice had to recognize the area, and get confused on what happened. It was the kingdom next door, and did not hold any fealty to this prince. The map said the kingdom was gone by some horrible magic, and the people accepted this.

Why would people accept it so well? Because there had been some horrible thing that destroyed everything. If it really was the mid 19th century, the entire French Revolution, and Empire had begun, ended, and restarted. It was a dark time for any country, but pretty destructive for France. In this world, magic is a part of the political climate. The people in the village know that magic exists, and that it nearly destroyed the country. Whole kingdoms had disappeared. A war for dominance happened, and some of the players had incredible powers. Napoleon used more than just cannons to win.

Trade had been closed up, only small merchants like Maurice came through. Since no one really used magic in the village, it became a great place to hide.

So how did Gaston find the castle? He doesn’t have any magic powers. He has the mirror, which can lead him back to the castle. He knows how to follow trails to find game. He also loves Belle.

“Right from the moment when I met her, Saw Her,

I said ‘she’s gorgeous’ and I fell [in love]”

Keep in mind, for that to happen, Gaston has had a crush on Belle since she first arrived into the town. He has been trying to impress her ever since. On the other hand, he also has nothing that would interest a magic using, educated, and fairly well off woman like Belle. Trying to give her some extra meat for the fire really won’t impress her. Gaston has spent years trying to figure out what to do, and failing completely.

His mind bent from all of the wars, and hunts, and now he is trying insane ideas. Maurice in a drunken stupor tells stories about magic, and a world outside of the town. No one believes Belle’s father, thank goodness. Suddenly, evidence shows that they are magic users. The kind that destroyed so much. Gaston hid that fact, but it drove him mad.

With very little brains, Gaston uses his knowledge twice in the movie to get advantage. The first time was trying to get Maurice put into the asylum. The second, was using the mirror to find the Beast. It was simple enough that someone who had observed Belle’s use of magic from a distance could figure out. Gaston had spent years learning tricks from observing Belle.

The mirror turned on powers that the poor country boy had not realized could exist. It gave him knowledge, and power over something that had terrified the village for years. The Beast was only part of it, the idea of magic being used had created a xenophobia in the village of non magic users. Magic destroyed the world, they wanted revenge.

Gaston had hidden his skills, but now used them to chase down the Beast, and hopefully win Belle’s hand. It didn’t work. In fact, it broke the curse on the kingdom, and showed Belle that she could only love magical beings. The Prince, and Belle lived happily ever after. We never see what happened to the village that attacked the castle.

The story is told, and we have an amazing world to work with. It has magic users, towns full of survivors, and cursed kingdoms. This is more than enough for one small adventurer to enjoy. It should be fun to do the same comparison with other Disney movies. Aladdin looks like a Pacific Islander, what is he doing in Aggrabah? Why is the only middle eastern looking guy Jafar? All this and more for another article.