Beast (Beauty and the Beast)

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Beast (Adam) is a fictional character and main hero in the 1991 version of Beauty and the Beast. He is voiced by Robby Benson. The Beast is of an unidentifiable species (known by fans as a Man-Lion), but the designer distinguished that he used a mixture of gorilla, jackel, and the most relevant appearance, buffalo, for the appearance of the beast.

Contents 1 Personality 2 Beauty and the Beast 3 Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas 4 Kingdom Hearts Series

[edit] Personality

When he is first introduced, the Beast exhibits a personality equivalent of a spoiled child. He is often seen to be rude, impatient, and very easily loses his temper. As time passes, and he shows particular interest in Belle, his attitude becomes somewhat naive, he is uncertian about many things, and often tries hard to please. By then end of the film, he has matured, his child-like tendencies vanish and he becomes quite literally, a gentleman; bold and unwavering.

[edit] Beauty and the Beast

An unnamed, Eleven-year-old Prince starts off living in a shining castle in France. Spoiled, selfish and unkind, the prince is an unpopular person who thinks of nothing and no one at all but himself (similar to Gaston).

One night, the Prince's heart is put to the test when an old beggar woman comes to the castle for shelter from the cold winter, with a single rose as payment. The old lady warns the prince not to be deceived by looks, but he shuns the old lady solely for her ugliness, so she transforms into her true form: a beautiful Enchantress. Despite the prince's apologies, the Enchantress shows the self-centred boy no mercy, and greatly punishes him by turning him into a hideous, terrifyng beast-like creature, and casting a ghastly spell on the entire castle, transforming the green fields into wolf-infested woods, and the good-natured servants into anthropomorphic housing objects.

Ashamed of himself, the Prince, now known as the Beast, conceals himself inside his castle with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. But this spell has a limit: the rose the Enchantress leaves with Beast is in reality a magic one which will bloom for ten years, namely, until his twenty-first birthday. If he learns to love a woman and earn her love by then, the spell will cease to exist. Otherwise, the spell will be permanent.

Ten years later, long after losing hope, Beast finds a stranded old man named Maurice sitting in his private chair in the lounge of his castle, courtesy of Beast's servants. Enraged, Beast shows no mercy to Maurice, and locks him in the freezing tower as punishment for trespassing. But the next night, a beautiful young girl named Belle comes to the castle, claiming to be Maurice's daughter. Belle begs Beast to take her instead, and Beast accepts, under the condition that she remain in the castle forever. Belle agrees, and Beast takes Maurice to the enchanted carriage that takes him home. With advice from Lumiere, his humanoid candelabra, Beast takes Belle to one of the guestrooms, and orders her to dine with him later on.

However, not to the servants' surprise, Belle does not turn up for dinner, and after a cold argument with Belle from outside her room, Beast orders his servants not to feed Belle should she not eat with him. Fuming, Beast runs off to his private quarters, where he wishes to see Belle via his magic mirror. Seeing her show her hatred for him to the humanoid wardrobe, Beast loses all hope once again, knowing that Belle only sees him as a monster.

But later on, while Beast is still sulking, Belle comes to the West Wing out of curiosity, and just before she can touch the beautiful rose, Beast emerges at the last minute. Scolding Belle angrily for coming to the West Wing especially after he had told her not to, Beast frightens Belle so badly that she flees the castle, even though she has to get past the hungry wolves. Fortunately, Beast shows up at the last minute and fights the wolves off, despite getting badly injured during the battle.

Beast is then helped back to the castle by Belle, who also dabs his injuries with a hot cloth. For the first time ever, Beast comes to appreciate Belle, and they start a friendship.

Over the next few days, Beast and Belle spend more time together, starting to fall in love. Beast presents Belle with his personal library as a "thank you" for helping him, and even organises a ball for himself and Belle. After dancing for a while, Beast asks Belle if she is happy, and she responds positively, but says that her happiness will be complete if she can see her father again.

Beast takes Belle to the West Wing and shows her his magic mirror, telling her that it will let her see whatever she wishes. To her horror, Belle sees that her father is stranded in the woods, and Beast, taking Belle's feelings into account before his own, decides to let Belle leave to aid her father. After a tearful goodbye, Belle leaves the castle, and Beast breakes down into despair once again.

However, later on, someone comes to the castle, but not Belle. Instead, it is a lynch mob who have come to kill the Beast, led by a man who was competing for Belle's feelings: Gaston. Though Beast is prepared to let them come and murder him, the servants think otherwise, and manage to defend their master by ultimately fighting the mob off. But Gaston had already escaped from the battle to find Beast.

Gaston eventually finds Beast, and starts his merciless torture by shooting the Beast in the back and hitting him onto the lower levels of the castle roof. Beast is in no mood to fight or to live, but upon seeing that Belle and Maurice had returned to the castle gates, Beast gets his self-esteem back and fights Gaston.

But when he literally holds Gaston at his mercy by holding him by the neck above a chasm, Gaston begs for mercy, and Beast spares the hunter, knowing that it is not in his heart to kill him. Belle then comes to the West Wing balcony, and Beast turns his attention to her, climbing up to the balcony. However, mercy proves to be a weak point when Gaston follows and stabs Beast in the back with a dagger while hanging dangerously from the balcony. Beast then shows no more mercy and swings his arm backwards, causing Gaston to fall from the roof.

But Beast's victory still has its price, as the wound from Gaston eventually takes its toll and causes Beast to die. Fortunately, after Belle whimpers "I love you", the last petal of the rose drops, and the spell ends... in Beast's favor.

A transformation occurs, and Beast turns back into The Prince, coming back to life. The servants then turn back into human beings and the castle returns from the horrid, haunted look to its beautiful, angelic state, indicating that the spell has truly broken.

The next day, a ball is held to celebrate their victory.

[edit] Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas

In the midquel, which takes place not long after the Beast rescued Belle from the wolves, much to Beast's frustration, Belle wants to celebrate Christmas and throw a real Christmas party. Beast hates the idea of Christmas, for it was the very day ten years ago when the Enchantress cast the spell on him and the entire castle.

While Beast sits most of the preparations out, a treacherous servant plots to have Belle thrown out of the castle: Forte the Pipe Organ, since he is more useful to the Beast with the spell.

Unknown to Beast, Belle writes him a special letter which he doesn't see until later on. To his shock, Forte informs him one day that Belle has deserted him for good, when she had actually just gone to the woods to get a Christmas tree. Beast confronts Belle in the woods and saves her in time from drowning, since she fell through thin ice.

Still believing that Belle betrayed him, Beast throws her into the dungeons to rot for eternity. But after some advice from a servant, Angelique, Beast finds Belle's letter in the West Wing and reads it, coming to his senses and realising that all Belle wants is for him to be happy.

Releasing Belle from the dungeon, Beast prepares to join in the Christmas festivities. But Forte doesn't give up and even goes as far to attempt to destroy the entire castle with his loud music. Fortunately, Beast finds him in time and destroys his keyboard, silencing him for good.

Everyone in the castle finally celebrates Christmas, and Beast presents Belle with a special Christmas gift: a rose.

[edit] Kingdom Hearts Series

Beast appears as a major Disney character in the bestselling video game series Kingdom Hearts.

• Kingdom Hearts: During a time in which the spell had not yet broken, Beast's home is attacked by Heartless led by Maleficent, and Belle is taken captive. Determined to stop at nothing to rescue Belle, Beast goes as far as to exploit the power of darkness and risk his own life to transport himself to Hollow Bastion, where Belle is being held captive with the other six Princesses of Heart (Snow White, Cinderella, Jasmine, Alice, Aurora, and Kairi). Upon arriving in Hollow Bastion, Beast is confronted by Riku, who challenges him to a duel and easily defeats him. But Beast is saved at the last minute by Sora, Donald and Goofy, who are looking for Kairi. Allying himself with Sora, since Donald and Goofy have temorarily joined with Riku due to a Keyblade incident, Beast fights the Heartless and protects Sora while they work their way into the Hollow Baston castle. Entering the castle, Beast, Sora, Donald and Goofy fight their way through until they encounter and defeat Maleficent, who ultimately transforms into her Dragon Form and challenges them once again, only to be defeated once more. The four heroes ultimately find Kairi, but the circumstances cause Sora, Donald, Goofy and Kairi to leave Hollow Bastion, and Beast states that he will not leave without Belle. Later on, Beast encounters Sora once again when he returns to Hollow Bastion to lock the Keyhole. During their second search, Beast and Sora find Belle, who embraces Beast and presents Sora with the Divine Rose Keychain.

• Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories: Here, Beast is merely a figment of Sora's memories. He is once again separated from Belle, courtesy of Maleficent, but once more, Beast defeats Maleficent with Sora's help and rescues Belle.

• Kingdom Hearts II: After Sora defeats Xehanort's Heartless (Ansem), all the previously attacked worlds are restored, including Beast's Castle. Afterwards, Beast and Belle return to their home to carry on with their lives. However, the peace is shattered once again when Beast is approached by the ruthless Xaldin of Organization XIII to do his bidding. Beast's exploits in finding Hollow Bastion through strength of heart in the first game had not gone unnoticed by the organization. Xaldin was determined to manipulate Beast into becoming a Heartless. If that happened, Beast would not only become a strong Heartless which Sora would have to destroy and feed to Kingdom Hearts, but also leave behind a powerful Nobody for Xaldin to use as he wished. Manipulated and controlled, Beast is forced to allow the Heartless into the castle and lock the entire servant staff in the tower, with Belle too scared to intervene. Beast starts mistreating Belle. When Sora, Donald and Goofy arrived, they are encountered by Beast, who attacks them without hesitation. Sora wins the battle, and Beast comes back to his senses thanks to his servants who were released by Sora. Xaldin appears to flee. Later on, during a ball, Xaldin returns and steals the rose, throwing Beast into a depression and causing him to ask Belle and Sora to leave his castle. However a pep talk from Sora spurs him back into action. Xaldin confronts them and sends his Nobodies at them. They fight the Nobodies off, but Xaldin escapes to the castle drawbridge with Belle and the rose. Belle manages to escape from Xaldin's clutches with the rose, and Xaldin is then killed by Beast, Sora, Donald and Goofy. Belle gives Beast the rose but he is more relieved that she wasn't hurt. Beast then bids a grateful farewell to Sora, and returns to a normal life with Belle, until the spell is finally broken and Beast turns back into the Prince at the end of the game. Beast's Limit attack for Kingdom Hearts II is Twin Howl, where he and Sora violently shake the ground together.