Beast

An unnamed, Eleven-year-old Prince starts off living in a luxurious, 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. However, the prince sneers at the old lady's gift, and her haggard appearance. The old lady warns the prince not to be deceived by looks; and tells him that true beauty is found within. However, he again 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 turns him into a hideous, terrifying beast-like creature. She also casts a ghastly curse on the entire castle, transforming it into a dark, foreboding place, its lush green grounds into dangerous 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 another and earn their love in return, 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. Acting on Lumiere's astute suggestion of what would thrill an avid reader like Belle, Beast presents Belle with his massive 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.

The Beast defeats the craven fool and 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 the cowardly 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.