Very well thought out thelonebamf. Also, Regin-a-vision. Fantastic. 😆
Belle (and Beauty and the Beast) was always my favorite Disney movie. It came out when I was 5 and I knew from the first time I saw it that I was supposed to grow up to be Belle (coming up on my 26th birthday and this still applies). From what I hear around the chat room and then here on the forums, it seems that the problem with Belle in ONCE isn’t really *her* but her relationship with Rumple, labeling it as abusive. Somewhere in our lives we lose that little bit of magic that exists in children where we overlook the reality of Belle and her Beast and start to see it in the cold harsh light of reality. Yes, Belle and the Beast are not the normal relationship and we can toss around words like abusive, and Stockholm Syndrome but my response (granted a VERY biased response) is that this is a fairy tale. Larger than life characters who exist in extremes (Belle as an almost over the top good person–not leaving with Robin for instance because of her deal with Rumple) but also exist in a world where hope and redemption are real and achievable. And so while B and B isn’t realistic and in the “real” world would be frowned upon, isnt’ that why so many of love it? Because it doesn’t exist in this world. It exists in that magical place of imagination where even the monsters get a happy ending, where the unloved can find true love in the most unlikely of places.