“I want adventure in the great wide galaxy! I want it more than I can tell…”
As much as Belle loves the stories told on the holocrons in the Jedi Archive she helps guard, what she really wants is a real Jedi adventure as told in the legends she knows so well. Her chance comes from a distress signal on a remote planet in the Outer Rim. Thankfully, she makes a droid friend, CHIP2-D2, who explains that the inhabitants of this planet are cursed…
Another redraw of an older piece! Jedi Belle and CHIP2-D2 were originally drawn back in 2015. Belle has always been the hardest Disney Princess for me to draw, so I took an extra long time studying model sheets and screenshots so I could get her just right. With the updated version, I wanted to add more embellishments to both Belle and Chip and include references to the movie with the rose and stained glass. I’m quite happy with the final result, but I must admit that I was getting tired of looking at this piece for so long 😅
so I don't think I ever said this before, but I have been a lifelong Disney fan. and Well they done a lot of things in the last few years that I haven't necessarily agree with, the once upon a studio short was absolutely heart melting. I loved it. It was easily the most respectful to the source material piece of animation. Disney has made a very long time and the sheer number of characters I spent the whole short, trying not to cry because of how much I absolutely love it
with that being said there is only one character that wasn't in here that I Think should have been and that's max goofy's son
Wait, hold up. You wanna run that by me again? People are saying he didn’t deserve to be turned into a beast? When he literally was rude for no reason to that “old lady”?
Yup. Like he was just a teenager, he should be cut some slack, she was setting him up.
But it’s like
Yeah
She was setting him up because she knew he had no love in his heart. Do you know how horrible a King with no love in his heart would be when the Prince grows up? Do you know how awful the “little poor provincial town” would have it in the shadow of a Prince who reaches adulthood with the kind of character and heart that shuts old women out in the cold? The Enchantress did. So she cursed him so that he’d develop into a kind, gentle, loving man. There’s a reason the curse lasted until his twenty-first birthday. That’s adulthood. He had till then to learn to love.
And you know what else?
Of course the castle and servants would be cursed too.
That’s the Beast’s first lesson: you’re being cursed because when you have no love for anything but yourself, it’s the people closest to you who suffer for it. His household is a living object lesson for him to be faced with, day after day, for ten years, about how the consequences of your actions affect more than just you—they affect the people who depend on you. Really important lesson for the King of a kingdom to learn.
And even if that weren’t enough, which it is, don’t come griping to me about the servants being cursed for something the Prince did. Riddle me this: why is the Prince answering the door? Why isn’t a footman doing that? Why isn’t Lumiere doing that?
Why is it they’re turned into furniture instead of little beasts? Why is the first scene they’re introduced in an old MAN begging for shelter from the bitter cold, and choosing to welcome him in despite “The Master?”
Why is their big number “Be Our GUEST?”
The answers to those questions aren’t given but it’s strongly implied that, instead of doing their jobs, and instead of standing up to their Master up to and including the incident with the Enchantress, they used to just stand to the side, making no sacrifices, taking no risks.
The theme of the movie is “true love is self-sacrifice.” Hospitality is one of the most self-sacrificial practices you can engage in. You’re literally making yourself vulnerable: you’re inviting someone into your home, you’re putting their comfort before your own, you’re giving them your hard-earned food and heat and drink and time, you’re allowing them to come into your sanctuary, your safe space, and judge it while you make them comfortable. Be Our Guest, indeed! Standing up to the Master, indeed! They’ve learned their lesson by the time Belle and her father are on the scene.
The thing is, we love to try and excuse away the responsibility of the main character because we love to try and excuse away our own character flaws. Blame it on trauma. That’s not the point. The point is, for the story to work, and for the fictional kingdom to have a happy ending with a Prince who’s like that, the Beast has to grow out of his character flaws. He has a problem, and it needs solving—how he got the problem is irrelevant.
And there’s just so little chance that a Prince, who has everything in life that he could ever want and is dependent on nobody, for anything, would ever feel the need for love. Or worse, he’d never feel the need to correct himself, or change, or grow in any way. He needed to have some discipline—some MAJOR discipline, some KINGDOM-SAVING discipline—in order to even be the kind of guy that could notice a peasant girl’s self-sacrificial loving nature, much less value her and fall in love with her.
Thank goodness for the Enchantress and the Curse. Or else this fairy tale could’ve turned into the French Revolution.
The Clockwork
You really can't help if you're tense, but at least you have the powers of the clock in your hands. You are in control of your journey, but be careful with how you use your time...
The Kettles
A mother and child in the midst of what's left of the world. Your journey will be tough to deal with, a test even, but keeping the both of you alive won't be your only concern.