It makes me mad to still see people talking about how Beauty and the Beast is about Stockholm Syndrome.
No. Just no. The story doesn't line up with Stockholm Syndrome. Belle does not fall for Adam (aka the Beast) while he's still being horrible to her. Early example:
She does not give him an INCH. He's bellowing and demanding she come to dinner or starve, and she stands her ground. Most people would give in. Belle is not most people. She will not be forced to do anything she doesn't want to, and if you try, you're gonna end up facedown in the mud.
She only starts being nice to Adam after he risks and nearly sacrifices his life to save hers. They had the option to completely split and forget about each other after the West Wing scene (and may I say Belle is hella manipulative in tricking Cogsworth and Lumiere to head off without her, she would be a terrifying villain). Adam could've let Belle vanish into the night, but he didn't. Belle could've left Adam to die in the snow and gone back to her father, but she didn't.
This is a major turning point in their relationship, but even then, she isn't nice when he's mean. When he yells at her while she's patching him up, she yells right back, and he can't even argue that the whole issue started because of his refusal to control his temper.
Since it's Disney, they fall in love over the course of a song.
Early movie Adam would never try to feed the birds. It's not a completely 180, he still gets frustrated when the birds won't fly into his hands, but Belle helps him out and helps him get that one bird to eat from his hands before he's covered in them. Belle watches from behind a tree for a part of this. Adam doesn't realize she's watching him, but he still entertains the birds. He doesn't become uninterested or shoo them away when he thinks she's not watching.
Belle throws a snowball and starts a snowball fight. Again, early movie Adam would never. Midmovie Adam joins in enthusiastically.
(Perhaps a little too enthusiastically, if that giant snowball is anything to go by.)
And can we talk about this little scene?
They're having porridge, Belle is eating it with a spoon like a proper French lady, and Adam is basically eating like a dog. Belle averts her eyes because awkward, and Adam sees her reaction and picks up his own spoon. A spoon that's much too small for his giant paws. A spoon he's visibly uncomfortable picking up. He can't effectively eat with it, and he looks absolutely ridiculous, but he tries.
And Belle sees him trying, so she finds a middle ground: drinking the porridge. No need for silverware, but still more suitable for polite society than eating like a dog.
Again, Adam is making a genuine effort for unselfish reasons, and that is when Belle really warms up to him. They spend the whole of Something There becoming friends and then falling in love.
Tale as Old as Time is the big romantic number, and you know what? Belle leads most of it. The dance was her idea; Adam agreed and arranged for it to happen. She comes down the staircase first, and Adam has to meet her where she stands.
They eat dinner beforehand (where Adam successfully uses a spoon!), and Belle's the one who pulls Adam to the dance floor. Yes, she's in following position, but she's guiding him, placing his hands as they get into position. When Adam gets over his nerves and is ready to take the lead, she lets him.
There's the thing about ballroom dance: you can't dance with an unwilling partner. You also can't dance with a control freak. If I'm in lead position, I have to trust that my partner will understand what I want them to do and execute it well. If I'm in following position, I have to trust that my partner will correctly signal what moves they want and won't try to make me do anything that makes me uncomfortable. There's no micromanaging in dance—if you try to control someone else's movement, you're going to completely ruin both their part of the dance and yours.
All this makes the big emotional moment hurt: when Adam lets Belle go. This is also where the Stockholm Syndrome theory entirely shatters: everything leading up to this point has involved Adam completely relinquishing what little control he had over Belle and losing the drive to demand that control. He respects her and doesn't want to control her. When she passes through the castle gates, she leaves Adam's influence entirely.
Adam really doesn't leave the castle. He never really expects Belle to come back. He lets her go because Maurice is important to Belle, and he can't find it in him anymore to force her to stay. It's hardly even a question of whether to let her go, even though it's such a searing loss that he won't even defend himself or give order to defend the castle from Gaston's army.
He won't even defend himself against Gaston until he sees Belle down in the courtyard. As he's lying there, dying, he expresses shock that Belle came back. And it's THEN that we get the magic "I love you."
That's also why the end isn't completely cheap. No, I don't really like Adam's human design, I think it's a little too symmetrical and "perfect" (especially in the "big reveal" turnaround shot), but the whole "stare into his eyes" shot is meant to establish that Belle can tell that he's the same person she saw grow from a selfish brat into a respectful and selfless man. If he'd just been some handsome rando or a reset to pre-curse Adam, she wouldn't have kissed him.
When the transformation first happens, she's scared. She backs away because she doesn't recognize him. She reaches out to him, but draws her hand back because she doesn't know if that's her Adam. But then . . .
"It is you!"
That's the line that seals it. Belle wants the Adam she fell in love with, the Adam who struggled with spoons, the Adam who gave her a library, the Adam who worked to improve himself and let her take the lead.
She completely left his sphere of influence and came back on her own. If Belle didn't love Adam, she could've let Gaston's army kill him. If Adam didn't love Belle, he wouldn't have agreed so quickly to let her go care for Maurice when it clearly hurt him so much.
Belle doesn't love Adam because she was manipulated or because he turned handsome. She loves him because he grew into a better person who was her perfect partner and complement.
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