Beauty and the Beast was one of the most successful and beloved movies to come out of the Disney
Renaissance.
Following the story of Belle, she found herself at the hands of a cursed prince and slowly
began to fall for him, leading to true love breaking the enchantment on his castle.
It’s a story of learning who a person is beneath the surface rather than assuming one’s
worthiness at face value.
That said…
The characters in this movie have a lot of problems.
To the point where there’s quite a bit of depth to their morality.
And that’s what we’re looking at today.
I’m Kifinosi with WickedBinge and this is Beauty and the Beast: Good to Evil.
As usual, we'll be starting with the most pure and noble character and working our way
down.
These characters are The Good.
At a tied ranking for the gold medal of most good, we have Chip and the Bookseller.
The Bookseller was one of the first people Belle interacted with in the film, and was
the only one aside from her father to be supportive of her love of reading.
He wasn’t shown spreading gossip about her and even gifted her the book she had checked
out multiple times, knowing she would appreciate it.
Chip earned his top placement for a couple of reasons.
First, being a small kid, he was more curious than malicious.
He had zero intention of doing anything to make anyone upset, and happily showed Belle
his trick of making bubbles just to try and cheer her up.
Before Belle fled to find her father, Chip managed to sneak into her bag, and so had
witnessed the mob rallying and throwing Belle and Maurice in the basement before storming
the castle.
Because of Chip’s quick thinking, he was able to figure out Maurice’s wood-chopping
device enough to free them and help them save the Beast.
The silver medal of most good goes to Phillipe.
Phillipe was the horse owned by Belle and her father, and we have to give high praise
to this creature.
Phillipe had tried to steer Maurice away from the dangerous part of the forest.
When that failed, Phillipe was the one that ran back to the village and found Belle, taking
her to where Maurice was last seen.
Our bronze medal ranking for most good goes to the featherduster, Fifi.
Her primary role in this film was being Lumière’s love interest, but she was also seen tagging
along to help steer Belle and the Beast towards one another.
She was typically shown to be bubbly and friendly, though she tended to easily be distracted
when it came to Lumière.
Next we have the fan favorite, Mrs Potts.
She was the mother hen of the castle, not only to her own son Chip but to all of the
residents.
She had been there to try and comfort Belle when she spent her first night in the castle,
and hadn’t minded breaking the Beast’s rule of her going without dinner.
In fact, she was one of the few in the castle not as concerned about the Beast’s wrath.
She helped to lead him through composing himself and controlling his temper, determined to
help him win over Belle.
Following is the focus of the film herself, Belle.
Belle was considered the odd one out in her village just because of her father’s inventions
and her love of reading, so she spent much of her life disinterested in the other people
in the village and cut herself off.
Still, though she was aware of the gossip behind her back, she still tried to approach
everyone with kindness and patience.
She encouraged her father’s fascination with creating new machines and pushed him
to aim for being a famous inventor.
When Maurice was sick in the Beast’s dungeons, Belle didn’t hesitate to come up with a
plan to free him, though it meant giving up on her own dreams.
She was justified in being angry with the Beast at first and refusing to be around him.
After all, what sort of person-cursed or not-would willingly imprison an ill old man and leave
him to die?
When the Beast let her leave, it was due to seeing Belle upset at watching Maurice sick
and alone through the mirror.
Afterwards, when she was nursing Maurice back to health, Belle stood alone to protect her
father from Gaston and the rest of the village looking to commit him.
When they rallied in terror over the Beast, Belle had attempted to stop them from storming
the castle.
By the end of the feature, Belle arrived back at the castle to try and save the Beast that
she had grown so close to, once again putting her own safety at risk for someone important
to her.
After his daughter is the inventor Maurice.
Belle no doubt got her sense of loyalty and protection from her father.
Maurice always showed pride in his daughter, refusing to believe that she was as odd as
the people in the village claimed.
When Belle had given up her freedom for him, Maurice had attempted to stay, refusing to
allow his daughter to sacrifice herself for him.
As he was dragged away to be taken back to the village, Maurice was heard begging for
her to be let free, telling Belle he was old and lived his life.
Though he was still ill, Maurice quickly attempted to rally the village together upon his return
to try and get them to face the Beast that was holding Belle prisoner.
When everyone laughed at him and called him insane, Maurice quickly grabbed supplies from
home and went back to find the castle again on his own, putting his health at further
risk.
Though Maurice wasn’t entirely certain what happened during Belle’s time at the castle,
he stood by her when she wished to return to try and save the Beast.
With that said, we've arrived at the neutral territory.
These characters fall in The Grey Area.
Taking the first spot in this section are the Triplets, also known as the Bimbettes:
Claudette, Laurette, and Paulette.
Not much is known about them aside from the fact that they’re all infatuated with Gaston.
They were seen ogling him in the beginning of the movie, crying as he had everything
set up to marry Belle, and gushing over his strength during the tavern scene.
They often get written off as simply superficial, but we have to cut them some slack.
After all, the village saw Gaston as a sort of hero, providing protection and supplying
meat from his hunts.
It makes sense that they would admire him.
Following is the Wardrobe.
She had an interesting energy about her as she cluelessly riffled through her dresses
to find clothes for Belle to wear to dinner.
She didn’t appear to really understand why Belle was reluctant to share a meal with the
Beast.
In all fairness, the Wardrobe was typically kept in that single room save for the end
scenes when the mob was storming the castle and she helped to protect it.
In many ways, her obliviousness to the seriousness of the situation Belle was in was understandable.
And though the Wardrobe wasn’t entirely clear on why Belle initially hated their master,
the Wardrobe was seen listening and sympathizing.
Taking the next ranking is Chef Bouche.
Chef was another in the castle that was kept secluded from many of the others shown through
the movie, being stuck in the kitchen even during the mob scenes.
However, we had to grant him a fairly high rank in our neutral section for how he reacted
to Belle.
He mourned Belle not being able to enjoy the food he spent so much time preparing.
When Belle snuck down the kitchens, Chef quickly started on cooking once again to try and impress
her and give her a good meal.
He took a ton of pride in his work and was happy to have someone new to show off for.
Next we have the anxious clock Cogsworth.
How can we describe Cogsworth?
Neurotic, proud, stubborn…
But underneath all the nervousness and insistence on staying on the master’s good side is
a good guy.
Cogsworth was reluctant to have Maurice stick around, but for good reason, knowing how the
Beast would react to someone wandering into the castle.
He tried being as welcoming as he could towards Belle, while still trying to get her to follow
the rules the Beast set into place.
It would be easy to write him off as controlling, but he was only trying to keep Belle from
facing the Beast’s poor temper.
When Belle first tried to flee, Cogworth attempted to stop her, not only because they needed
her to break the curse but because it was too dangerous to go out into the poor weather.
Cogsworth didn’t start to back off of his controlling behaviors until Belle returned
with the Beast and showed that she was capable of standing up for herself and form a connection
with the Beast in her own way.
After that, Cogworth focused more on coaching the Beast through how to properly impress
Belle and win her over.
Speaking of an expert helping the master win Belle over, next we have Lumière.
While Cogsworth is the uptight straight man, Lumière was much more laid back.
Though he was stuck in a cursed form, he didn’t see any reason to not continue enjoying life.
He fawned over Fif, welcomed guests with open arms, and did his best to make Belle comfortable.
He had been there to try and keep Belle from fleeing from the castle.
He helped to try and coach the Beast, helping him to get ready for dinner with Belle and
learn to control his temper.
Like the other enchanted residents, Lumière was shown defending against the mob and saved
Fifi from one of the men from the village.
The next ranking goes to Chandeleria.
Featured in Belle’s Magical World, Chandeleria was hard of hearing and so was constantly
lowering herself in order to easily be involved in conversation.
This caused a conflict between her and Lumière.
The candle had believed that Chandeleria was only lowering herself to burn brighter and
make him appear useless, causing him to snap at her at the idea of being literally outshined.
Eventually she was able to explain that she was simply hard of hearing and had no intention
of stepping on anyone’s toes and the two were able to make peace.
Finally, we have the prince himself, Adam.
Or as he’s commonly referred to: The Beast.
The Beast was a conflicting character.
When he first met Maurice, he assumed the man was only there to gawk at his form and
in his anger tossed Maurice in the dungeon, keeping the man from returning to the village
to talk about the hideous master of the castle.
When Belle showed up, the Beast hadn’t been sure how to make her feel welcome, having
been isolated after being cursed and only having his servants for company for years.
Still, despite the rocky start the two of them had, with the Beast demanding she leave,
he still followed her to save her from the wolves.
When she didn’t cower away from him and thanked him for saving her, he slowly began
to open up and tried harder to meet her halfway.
He did all he could to try and impress her and slowly worked to make the castle feel
more like home, and even gifted her the entire library.
When Belle was concerned for her father, he offered her the mirror to check on him.
When Maurice was shown to be in poor health, the Beast reluctantly allowed Belle to leave
in order to care for her father.
The Beast had accepted that he had fallen for Belle, and so refused to keep her prisoner
any longer.
When she came back, he found the strength to fight against Gaston, though he had initially
tried to spare the huntsman’s life.
The following spot goes to Angelique.
The castle’s decorator, Angelique was very particular about how she wanted everything
to look.
She was initially set against the idea of doing anything special for Christmas since
the Beast had made it apparent that he didn’t wish to celebrate the holiday, causing her
to have some conflict with Belle who had wanted to celebrate.
Her distaste of anyone slacking or not taking jobs as seriously as herself caused a sort
of rift between her and the other residents of the castle, and it was hinted that this
may have been what kept her and Lumière apart as a potential couple.
It was eventually revealed that a miscommunication between Angelique and the Beast was what caused
the prince to be reluctant to celebrate Christmas and Angelique was able to patch things up
with Belle before helping to defeat Forte.
Next is a tied ranking with Webster, Crane, and LePlume.
Webster tended to gain the annoyance of many of the others in the caste, including the
Beast, since he often went off rambling with his extensive vocabulary.
Because of this, Webster had initially felt guilty about causing a rift between Belle
and the Beast.
In response, he had decided to recruit Crane and LePlume to help him fake an apology letter
to the Beast under the guise of Belle.
This had backfired, with the Beast banishing the three of them before Belle was able to
help them make up for their mistake.
Finally, we've reached the dark side.
These characters are The Bad and The Evil.
The first person in this section is The Enchantress.
While teaching the lesson not to judge someone based on appearance is all well and good,
we can’t say we understand punishing the castle as a whole for the Beast’s actions.
Not to mention the fact that the Enchantress had placed the Beast in a horrible position
simply for being denied entry into his castle.
Damning someone to take on a form that would scare off anyone that first sees the Beast
and then telling the prince he can only break the curse through true love just feels as
though she was trying to set him up to fail.
Taking the next ranking is Fife.
Unlike LeFou, Fife was displayed as much more annoying in his praise for Forte.
He was a suck-up, yes, but mostly because unlike LeFou, he was promised something Fife
considered important: the opportunity to perform.
Under all the manipulation he was roped into, Fife was shown to be able to have a warm heart,
but that didn’t excuse the fact that under Forte’s orders Fife nearly caused Belle
and Chip to drown.
In the end, Fife was able to decide to help Belle rather than Forte and after the villain’s
passing finally was able to perform his solo.
Following we have Gaston’s friends, the mob.
We mentioned in the ranking covering the triplets that Gaston had a reputation among most of
the village of being a sort of hero.
So it wasn’t all that surprising that when their top huntsman showed the image of the
Beast and claimed that the creature was a threat that they followed Gaston to storm
the castle.
However, these people that supported Gaston didn’t have any reason to really think that
Maurice needed to be locked up.
If they just showed the inventor some sympathy, they likely would have come to the conclusion
that the old man was in a state of panic over his daughter being missing.
Next on our list is Forte.
The main antagonist of The Enchanted Christmas, Forte made his distaste towards Christmas
and Belle clear.
He sent Fife to try and destroy the relationship between Belle and the Beast, even insisting
Fife make it so Belle couldn’t return to the castle.
He used his music to try and manipulate the Beast, with his power coming from whenever
he played.
Unlike the other residents that were cursed by the Enchantress, Forte actually preferred
his new form as a pipe organ, finding himself to be not only more suited as a composer for
the castle, but enjoying the power that came with it.
He was even willing to have not only Belle but the prince both killed if it meant he
got to stay in this form.
In the end, he was defeated by Belle after she learned how he controlled the prince.
The bronze medal of most evil we’ve granted to Gaston’s sidekick, LeFou.
We covered in our sidekick ranking that LeFou was far more manipulative than people initially
gave him credit for.
While Gaston was dealing with an issue, LeFou was shown encouraging anyone nearby to take
the huntsman side in order to keep the villagers against whatever was causing Gaston grief.
He aided in trying to pressure Belle to marry Gaston and went along with the plan to have
Maurice committed, being the one to remind everyone about Maurice’s stories of a massive
beast in the forest in order to paint the inventor as crazy.
The silver medal of most evil goes to the legendary huntsman himself, Gaston.
To the people of the village, Gaston was many things.
He was a provider of food, using his skills as a huntsman to keep them not only fed but
well protected.
He was strong and likely aided in the occasional chore when he wasn’t off gathering food.
However, from Belle’s perspective, Gaston was nothing more than a judgemental and controlling
man who didn’t want to take no for an answer.
He didn’t consider Belle’s thoughts on actually being married, with his pride convincing
him that Belle would be honored to carry his children for him.
When Belle rejected him, Gaston flew into a rage and plotted to get back at her.
He didn’t actually care for Belle, only wanting her because he considered her beautiful.
He was even willing to have Maurice committed in order to blackmail Belle into marrying
him.
When Gaston thought Belle had feelings for the Beast, he led the charge against the castle
and insisted on killing the Beast himself in order to get rid of the competition.
So who was it that outranked the famed antagonist as the most evil?
Well, we decided the gold medal had to go to the owner of the asylum: Monsieur D'Arque.
We had to place him as the most evil due to the fact that he went along with Gaston’s
twisted plans out of the need to be cruel and get some quick money.
There’s also the fact that considering the time period, D'Arque likely did more than
just cart people off to be “treated.”
Human experimentation and cruelty wasn’t in short supply in asylums, and such institutions
tried their best to keep the facilities full because they got paid a flat rate for each
person in their “care.”
D'Arque was motivated by greed and had no care for anything else.
Before we go, we wanted to hand out some extra medals to the characters that fit them the
best.
Taking the Darwin Medal we have to give to the Triplets.
These girls were so easily impressed with Gaston’s muscular form and skill as a huntsman
that they didn’t see him for who he was.
Which was unfortunate because they seem like nice enough ladies.
The Lust Medal goes to Lumière.
Always seen flirting and going off to spend time with Fifi, there was no one better suited
to this medal.
Taking the Wrath Medal is the Beast.
He did end up gaining more control over his anger, but his previous reputation as an angry
and temperamental beast earned him this medal.
The Greed Medal goes to Monsieur D'Arque.
When Gaston gave his plan to commit Maurice, the asylum owner was initially reluctant.
That is until Gaston handed over a bunch of money, assuring the man would go along with
the plan.
The Sloth Medal we have to grant to LeFou.
While LeFou was typically seen trying to be a part of the party, we can’t think of anyone
more worthy of the Sloth Medal than the man who waited for days in the cold waiting for
Maurice and Belle to come home.
As much as he complained, he was able to maintain that spot.
Going home with the Pride Medal we have Gaston.
It should come as no surprise that the man with the biggest ego would get the Pride Medal.
Gaston is never in a good mood unless he’s getting what he wants or being praised for
his skills and brawn.
Finally, taking the Gluttony Medal is once again, the huntsman himself, Gaston.
How could we give this medal to anyone other than the man who bragged about eating five
dozen eggs everyday?
It’s really hard to top that.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking.
And tell us what we should cover next.
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Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies.
But most importantly, stay wicked.