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Fractured Fables: Beauty & the Beast

I love fairy tales. Even more, I love fairytale retellings. But while you can offer advice on how to retell a story, I want to take this a step further and examine how to retell specific fairytales by examining the origins, themes, and other ways the story has been adapted. Keep in mind, I have not watched or read every adaption of a fairytale, but I’ve been working on a fairytale retelling of my own which has caused me to take a personal interest in this topic. Out of every fairytale though, my absolute favorite is Beauty and the Beast, which is why I’m choosing to start with it. So, let’s dive into this tale as old as 1740 and dissect the tropes and arcs at play so that you can find your own path in retelling this fantastic story.

The Fabled Foundations

The first official fairytale rendition of this story was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740. In this story, Beauty is the daughter of a king and a fairy or enchantress, but ended up in the care of a merchant. She is well-read and astute, and far more kind than her vain older sisters. On a stormy night, the merchant’s cargo ships are plundered by pirates, and Beauty and her eleven siblings are forced to survive as farmers. The family hears news a year later that a cargo ship has been found. The father asks his children what they want. His sons ask for weaponry and horses upon which to hunt, and Beauty’s two older sisters ask for fine clothes and jewels. But Beauty only asks her father for a rose, as none had grown during the spring. (Other versions have placed the story during the winter which is why Beauty misses flowers so much.) When the merchant reaches port however, he discovers his goods have been seized to pay his debts. Riding home dejected, a terrible storm whips up, and the Merchant seeks shelter in a castle. He finds nobody home, but a large dinner laid out for him, and he dines on the food left out. He spends the night, and looks for someone to thank, but finds nobody. Thinking the castle as his own, the Merchant begins to pluck roses from the garden to make a full bouquet for Beauty, but is set upon by a Beast. Stealing from his host after being shown such kind hospitality is a grave offense, for which the punishment is death. (Yes, a lot of stories trivialize killing someone over a flower, in truth there’s a much deeper social faux pas at play). The merchant explains that the flower is for his youngest daughter, and the Beast allows him to go home and give the flower to his daughter, but requests that Beauty come to him of her own free will to be his fiancée. (The story heavily clarifies that she’s to arrive as his fiancée, and not as his prisoner. It’s still a case of marry me or I’ll kill your dad but at least she’s not his prisoner? What a Romeo.) When the Merchant comes home, Beauty pries the story from him, and when he’s told his children what happened, his sons declare that they should kill the beast, while the older sisters blame Beauty for killing their father. That night, Beauty sneaks out of the house and goes to face the Beast alone. When she arrives at the castle, the Beast throws her a lavish dinner, having his servants perform a cabaret performance, and the beast gives her fine clothes and jewels. Beauty notices that while the Beast is dimwitted, he is civilized and has manners. Each night, he asks Beauty to sleep with him, but she rejects him. She dreams of a fairy who tells her not to let appearances be deceiving. But Beauty misunderstands the fairy and comes to believe that the Beast is holding a prince hostage in his castle. She investigates the castle, finding a library, an aviary, a window to the theater, and enchanted furniture, but no sign of the prince she dreamed of. Beauty begins to grow homesick and wishes to visit her family. The Beast reluctantly lets her return. He gives her a ring that teleports her to her father’s house, and she wakes up the next morning in her old room. She tries to share her jewels and gowns with her sisters, but they turn to rags in their greedy hands. Her entire family however decides that her return means that her deal with the beast is done. Her father threatens to disown her if she does not marry his wealthy cousin, and her brothers turn their backs on her until she tearfully agrees to the marriage. Beauty begins to hallucinate of the Beast lying dead, and steals back the teleporting ring from her father. She returns to the Beast to find he has been attacked by a mob sent by her father and lead by her brothers to kill him. Beauty weeps heavily that she did not bring herself to love him sooner, and her tears break the Beast’s curse. He becomes intelligent and well-spoken, telling her that he was cursed after he spurned the advances of a fairy who was in charge of raising him.

The second version of this story came only a few years later when Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont retold the story in 1756. Beaumont greatly reduced the cast, turning the Merchant’s twelve children into only six, with three boys and three girls. She also drops the whole royal baby backstory for Beauty. Beast is instead turned into a monster for being cruel and selfish. The Merchant’s ships are instead lost to storms instead of a pirate attack, and instead of his goods being claimed for his debts, they are instead damaged by the storm. Beauty is not Beast’s fiancée upon arrival, she is his prisoner, and he asks her each night to marry him. This version also introduces the idea of Beast dying of a broken heart or loneliness. This time, only Beauty’s sisters are cruel and beg her to stay longer to hurt the beast, hoping he’ll become enraged and kill Beauty out of anger. Here, there is no forced engagement to a cousin. Beauty’s sisters are turned to stone and forced to watch Beauty live happily ever after until they learn their lesson.

In 1946, Jean Cateau directed one of the earliest film adaptations of the fairytale. In his version, the heroine named Belle has one brother Ludovic and two sisters Adelaide and Felicie. Her brother’s friend Avenant asks Belle to marry him, telling her she deserves better than to live in squalor. But Belle says it is more important for her to care for her father’s health. Her father returns home, telling the family that he has come into a great fortune, and offers to bring home a gift for his daughters (screw Ludovic I guess). Belle’s sisters ask for a monkey and a parrot, but all Belle asks of her father is a rose. Ludovic, believing his family will soon be rich, borrows money from a moneylender allowing his father to be sued if he fails to pay. The next day however, the fortune is seized to pay the father’s debts, and he is penniless. The story plays out as normal with a candelabra leading him to the dining room (bonjour Lumiere). Belle is shown a magic mirror that can let her see anything and Beast asks her every day to marry him. Using the mirror, Belle sees that her father has fallen deathly ill. She asks to go to him, and Beast gives her a glove that will let her teleport anywhere she wants to go, and a key to Diana’s Pavilion, the true source of his riches. Again, the Beast warns that he will die of grief if she is gone longer than she asks. The family has been living in poverty due to Ludovic’s blunder with the moneylender, and Belle’s jealous sisters steal the key to Diana’s Pavilion. Meanwhile, Ludovic and Avenant devise a plan to attack the Beast. Beast sends his horse and the magic mirror to Belle to remind her of her promise, but the boys find it first and ride the horse back to the Beast’s castle. Belle finds the mirror and see’s Beast’s sorrowful face, and she realizes she is missing the key as she drops the mirror. Belle quickly teleports with the glove to the Beast’s castle, and finds him near death from his broken heart. Meanwhile, Avenant and Ludovic find the vault. Thinking it might be boobytrapped, they scale it and Avenant falls through the glass roof. He is struck by Dianna’s arrow and turned into a beast, and Beast is cured, declaring himself to be Prince Ardent. (Seems to be invoking the myth of Artemis and Actaeon, who she turned into a stag for peeping on her and her huntresses while bathing and setting his own hunting dogs upon him). Ardent explains that his family did not believe in spirits, and they punished their arrogance by changing their son.

Most versions after Cocteau’s remove the brothers entirely, and we finally reach the Disney movie, which completely removes all of Beauty’s siblings and changing her father from a merchant to a whacky inventor for no real reason. There were plans to give her a nosy aunt and a little sister in older plans for the movie, but they ended up being dropped. Maurice’s financial trouble is merely hinted at in the song Belle “Every morning’s just the same | Since the morning that we came | to this poor, provincial town.” Which suggests she only recently became poor enough to move here, which is also why she doesn’t fit in, and why she dreams to get away from the town and see the world.

THE THEMES

Before we can address the characters, we need to address what the story is about, both in general (the things most versions are about) as well as specified meanings from different retellings.

Don’t Judge Books By Their Covers

The most blatant and obvious Aesop in most modern adaptations is that first perceptions can be misleading. This also means that Beauty and the Beast is a great fairytale for Enemies to Lovers because that initial perception of one another as being antagonistic fits the core narrative theme of first impressions being wrong.

The Redeeming Power of Love

In most adaptations, it is the love of a good woman that frees the Beast from his curse. But even if you pull a Quasimodo or Phantom of the Opera where the ugliness isn’t a metaphor, the love of a good woman will still tend to repair the emotional wounds and ugliness of the heart, creating an internal transformation, even if the Beast’s external appearance remains unaltered.

You’re alone, and I’m alone. But together, we’re alone together.

In Disney’s 1991 animation darling, we get this beautiful dynamic we don’t see in most other adaptations. Belle and Beast are both outcasts, and both are lonely. Beast has people around him, but he treats them coldly. Belle is largely avoided by most people, but she’s not afraid to socialize with other people. In each other, they find an appreciation for the very thing the other is ostracized for. Belle stops being afraid of Beast’s outward appearance and realizes he’s sweet and kind. After the scene where she dresses his wounds, she never shows much of any judgment of the Beast’s appearance other than a brief awkwardness when eating porridge together. But rather than looking down on Beast, she opts to make it easier for both of them, and suggest a way to eat together that doesn’t make Beast feel bad about himself. Meanwhile, Belle’s bookishness is something Beast seems to admire in Belle. He gives her his entire library because he knows how much she loves to read, and he encourages this passion of hers. I especially love the bonus scene where she reads to him, and he just has this genuine smile and it’s unclear if he’s smiling because he loved the story, because he liked the way she read to him, or because he’s just happy with how much reading the story put a smile on Belle’s face. The movie brilliantly shows how two outcasts considered weird by society found a home and acceptance with one another.

BEAUTY

So we’re going to start things off by examining the Main Character, which is Beauty. Sometimes named Belle, or something along the lines of roses, the word ‘beauty’ translated, or words/names associated with beauty such as pearls, mirrors, combs, flowers, or doves. This isn’t always the case, but often times it is. Because Beauty’s character and role in the story is very flexible, I’d actually argue that in general, you want to develop your Beast first, and set a president for the dynamic you want for Beast and Beauty. While Beauty got the character arc in the original story, Disney ingrained the idea hard into the mainstream populace that the arc is supposed to belong to Beast, and this remains the most common trend. Personally, I prefer to have both Beauty and Beast benefit from their relationship. Both are flawed and both grow and benefit from knowing one another. On that front, I tend to regard the best example of this as Kirishima and Bakugou in My Hero Academia. They’re not based on the fairytale (to my knowledge) but they do fit the dynamic, which I’ll discuss in more depth later on. What one lacks, the other has too much of, and thus they help to balance one another out rather perfectly. Because Beauty’s main job is to be a foil to Beast, Beauty tends to be a little all over the map in terms of characterization. While Beasts tend to be edgy, violent, vengeful, angry, loners, or secretly just a scared little kid deep deep down who really just needs a hug and maybe some cookies, Beauty’s only real character requirement is to make a good couple dynamic with their Beast.

Beauty’s characterization tends to come in about 3 main variations:

The Classic Beauty: This Beauty borrows more from the older versions of the story where she dismissed Beast based on his appearance and had to learn a lesson. These types are flawed in their perceptions of life and reality, and even if they have good hearts, they have a prejudice they need to unlearn. This version of Beauty is often paired with the Noble Beast who doesn’t need to change, though it can work with both kinds of Beast. This Beauty may also be egotistical and full of themselves, needing to learn a lesson in empathy and compassion. Examples of the Classic Beauty: Callum is initially racist toward Rayla having been brought up to believe that elves are bloodthirsty killers. Sansa Stark dreams of handsome princes and gallant knights but is afraid of Sandor Clegane when she first meets him. Yet the handsome princes have her beaten and humiliated, the gallant knights are deceitful and not-so-secretly gay. Meanwhile the sour and cynical dark knight kills her would-be rapists and protects her when he’s able to. Star Butterfly starts her series hating all monsters, but her own ex-boyfriend (and then on-again boyfriend) Tom Lucitore is a demon and a monster himself. Star unlearns her prejudice and befriends many monsters, kicking down divisionary walls and screaming equal rights at the top of her lungs.

The Saintly Beauty: This Beauty leans toward the Disney version. Here, the arc belongs to Beast, and Beauty is the one who doesn’t need to change all that much. This beauty is self-sacrificing, brave, moral, and generous. They also tend to be pious and humble, though these are older expectations and tend to be more downplayed in modern adaptations. This beauty has the patience, good heart, and ability to see the good in everything. They tend to look past the outer Beastliness rather easily. Examples of the Saintly Beauty: Eclipsa Butterfly never seems to be put off by Globgor’s monstrous heritage. If anything, she seems to prefer it. Phillip J. Fry often tries to jump to Leela’s defense when she’s mocked for her appearance, and thinks that her being a cyclops is cool and interesting, even if it shocked him at first. Fry does need to grow as a character, mainly needing to mature, but frankly Leela changes more as the show goes on, and their relationship is more about getting Leela to lower her defenses and let Fry in, while Fry needs to earn her trust. Entrapta’s relationship with Hordak is one of the most direct examples of this. Not that Entrapta is devoid of flaws or doesn’t need to grow, but her sincerity and autistic leaning causes her to just be extremely personal and upfront with Hordak, and unaware enough of her intrusiveness that she’s actually able to get close to him in ways others couldn’t have. She’s also very naïve in a way where she doesn’t really feel threatened when he yells at her to leave, acting almost like armor against his empty threats. Entrapta doesn’t even make any speeches about goodness or changing him. She’s just aggressively friendly to him until he changes on his own. She helps motivate and propel his arc, which is the primary function of the Saintly Beauty.

The Broken Beauty: Despite having a kind heart and positive attitude, this Beauty has an internal monster they need to tame. Often in the form of self-doubt, depression, trauma, or other types of personal issues, This type of Beauty is not a beacon of perfection. But their internal arc mirrors that of their Beast as they both work to overcome the darkness within them. Examples of the Broken Beauty: Lance battles low self-worth and an identity crisis, hiding his insecurities behind a smokescreen of overconfidence. Every time Lance questions whether he’s worthy of his spot on the team, it’s Keith who reassures him that he’s needed and valued in the group. Princess Bubblegum has to learn not to control everyone and everything, as this tendency to fixate on micromanaging others is what pushed Marceline away in the past. She needs to focus less on her work, and more on the people in her life. Eijirou Kirishima is a total sweetheart but doesn’t think he’ll be popular without a gimmick, thinking that his quirk isn’t flashy enough to make him popular. However, Bakugou’s blunt and cocky attitude is a good contrast that helps ground Kirishima and remind him of his own skill and accomplishments. They’re all damaged in some way, and their respective Beasts help support, protect, or lift up their Beauty when they’re at their darkest moments.

BEAST

The Beast is the real meat of the dynamic because how you shape the Beast will speak to how you shape your Beauty. Which is exactly why I put it after Beauty. Because planning ahead is something a smart person would do. The reason being that the Beast has a metric fuck ton of directions they can be taken in and a million different interpretations, so I’m actually going to start by addressing the primary divisions of Beast Archetypes.

The Noble Beast: This Beast is only beastly in appearance. They may look ugly or else otherworldly, but no amount of love from a Beauty will change this. This Beast was typically born this way, or even if it’s a curse that can be lifted, the character of the Beast will not change when they alter forms. Shrek is actually a great example of a Noble Beast. He’s not super learned like the literary counterpart, but he clearly has some level of a respectable moral code, and even his ‘monstrous’ tendencies are almost like a game to him. He just wants solitude. He doesn’t really have to fight to fall in love with Fiona, the arc is mostly hers. It’s definitely his in most of the sequels, but those are aftermath issues where Shrek is the fish out of water ‘barbaric’ monster trying to fit in with her high class snooty family. Raven from Teen Titans is this as well. She’s moody, isolates herself, is cynical, snarky, and the daughter of a Satan allegory. Despite this, Raven greatly desires to use her demonic powers to do good in the world … or at least as much as she can before her dad destroys it. Beast Boy serves as her Classic Beauty, originally finding her creepy and weird, but learning to appreciate her, especially in the episodes ‘Nevermore’ and ‘Spellbound’. The point of this Beast is usually to show that darkness/ugliness/monstrousness does not speak to a person’s true character. The character doesn’t have to alter their appearance because their true goodness was always present.

The Beast Within: This Beast, regardless of outward appearance, is a complete dickweasel. This character is in dire need of a personality transplant. Whereas the Noble Beast is already good that the Beauty just needs to see for themselves, this little bitch is going to require some elbow grease. This beast has varying degrees of flaws. Whether it’s more mild like Blake’s tendency to run away and hide from her problems in RWBY, or Bakugou’s abrasively vulgar personality that needs to be hosed down with holy water in My Hero Academia, this Beast is in desperate need of a life coach. Disney’s Beast is firmly in this camp, as his outwardly monstrousness is a reflection of his own internal ugliness. In a non-romantic example, Kipo is the Saintly Beauty to Scarlemagne’s Beast Within, though their dynamic is far more sibling-coded. He even says in Season 3 that if not for her, he’d likely be dead and hated. Unlike the Noble Beast that tends not to be cursed, the Beast Within is more fast and loose with how animalistic the Beast is. Scarlemagne is a literal animal, Blake is a neko-chan, and Bakugou is a rabid teenager with explosive sweat, but otherwise perfectly human. In Essence these two branching paths of Beasts filter down to one important question: whose arc is it anyway? Beauty’s or Beast’s? If the story is only focused on Beauty trying to unlearn their prejudice, the story will tend to put them with a Noble Beast. However, not always. Star Butterfly was listed as a Classic Beauty, but her Beast is Tom, who has severe anger management issues and is definitely fighting a Beast Within. Though Star’s first monster friend is Buff Frog who is a Noble Beast, as he sides with her to build a better world for his babies.

Types of Beastliness

In truth, what makes a beast is a lot more complex than just an ugly face. The purpose of the Beast is to be misjudged by Beauty and/or to be a bad person redeemed through love. But the Beast can represent many different types of transgressions against their society. In a fantastical world, a Beast could be anything considered dangerous or unfamiliar. They could be a demon, an elf, a faerie, a mermaid, a witch, a dragon, or just about anything else that’s monstrous or scary. In supernatural fiction they may be a vampire, werewolf, zombie, or ghost. In a science fiction setting your beast will likely be something such as aliens, robots, clones, or mutants. Whether you look at Callum’s racism toward the moonshadow elf Rayla, Blake’s faunus heritage, or Tom and Raven being demons, these characters tend toward the Noble Beast characterization.

In some cases the Beast has multiple forms, or their beastly status can change, even at will. Raven, Naruto Uzumaki, and Marceline Abadeer all have regular forms and a more demonic/monstrous form they enter when angry or aggressive. In the Ben 10 Franchise, Kevin Levin starts off as an antagonist who turns himself into a chimeric beast of all of Ben’s alien forms when he tries to absorb the omnitrix. However, even when cured of this monstrous form, Kevin remains an ex-con with a lot of criminal contacts when he starts to date the beautiful and intelligent Gwen. On human lines, your Beast will be an outsider. They could be a minority, neurodivergent, LGBTQ+, overweight, have a disability, have scars or medical disorders, practice a different religion or no religion at all. They could transgress against society in another way, such as by being a criminal or rebel, being sexually promiscuous, being part of a counter culture like punk, goth, emo, or a biker gang, having tattoos, piercings, or unnatural hair color, or your beast could transgress against moral decency by being racist, homophobic, or otherwise biggoted. Otherwise if your Beast is relatively ‘normal’ for their culture/society, their beastliness will come from their character and personality. An interesting case is actual Katsuki Bakugou. Objectively speaking, Bakugou is a good looking young man when he’s calm, but Bakugou’s foul temper and aggression causes him to snarl and glare, which makes him look uglier than he actually is. Thus his ‘ugliness’ is a direct consequence of his bad character traits. So while he’s not based on the Beast directly, there is still an interesting through line.

THE VILLAIN

The Villain of this fairytale is extremely irregular. Mainly because the actual antagonists were erased since this fairytale’s earliest film adaptation. The jealous sisters rarely show up in the story adaptations at all. Instead, this fairytale tends to be divided between 4 primary types of antagonists:

The Romantic Rival - This is your Gaston type villain. The one who battles with the Beast for Beauty’s affections. This villain will usually be handsome, acting as someone from Beauty’s own culture. In RWBY, Blake is simultaneously the Beast and the Beauty. With Adam, she’s the Beauty to his Beast, while with Yang, she’s the Beast to Yang’s Beauty. This duality is even in her name. Blake means both ‘black’ and ‘white’, and her surname Belladonna is both “Beautiful woman” in Italian and the name of a deadly poison. Blake explicitly compares Yang to Adam in volume 3, hinting she’s afraid to love someone who might end up exactly like her monstrous ex-boyfriend.

Society is the Real Monster - In a story where Beauty and Beast are separated by things such as prejudice and racism, they will likely face this type of villain. In The Dragon Prince, Viren is a hateful human who wants to wipe out all elves, and Rayla explicitly states that the dragon prince has to be brought home by humans and elves working together because it’s the only way to repair the relationship between them. In a queer reading of the fairytale, rather than wanting Beauty for themselves, the Romantic Rival may instead aggressively desire for Beauty to marry someone of the opposite sex, trying to force society’s expectations onto Beauty.

The Enchantress - The real antagonist of the original story, whoever or whatever is responsible for turning Beast into a monster could fill this role. It can be looser and more metaphorical, such as with Trigon, the demon father of Raven, and the reason she’s a half-demon herself. The Vampire King turned Marceline into a vampire in Adventure Time, and Marceline fights him in the special Stakes. Sandor Clegane’s story ends when he finally faces off against the brother who burned half his face as a child. The External Threat - When Beauty and the Beast’s relationship is a subplot even within the primary themes of the story, the villain will be something that exists outside of their relationship. Stopping the League of Villains does nothing for Kirishima and Bakugou’s relationship. While Hordak is a clone of Horde Prime, stopping Horde Prime is external to the relationship between Entrapta and Hordak. Kevin and Gwen’s relationship has nothing to do with defeating the Highbreeds, Forever Knights, or the DNAliens invading Earth.

Common Tropes, Symbols, and Iconography

Beauty and the Beast often makes use of the Opposites Attract Trope where Beauty and Beast have contrasting traits. The most popular oppositions include:

Brains vs Brawn (usually Beauty is the brains, but not always) Idealist vs Cynic (Beauty is usually positive, so Beast is negative) Hot vs Cold (Beast is Hot-head or Icy, Beauty calm or sunny) Extrovert vs Introvert (Often Brains/Introvert, Brawn/Extrovert) Light vs Dark (Beauty is usually Light, with Beast as Dark) Angel and Demon (It’s Beast & Beauty taken to an extreme)

As I said before, Enemies to Lovers is a great trope for your Beauty and Beast. Even if they’re more frenemies (such as with Beast Boy and Raven), their relationship should start off sort of weak or on the rocks, and through character development become stronger, healthier, and more supportive.

Some versions make use of a Disposable Fiancé who the Beauty leaves for the Beast.

Beauty’s love for the Beast has a tendency to be treated as Forbidden Love, but this is usually reliant on having Society Is the Real Monster as their primary antagonist.

Beast has long let Beauty go to her father in the story, but Disney really cemented the I Want My Beloved To Be Happy aspect, as Beast actually says this is why he let her go.

It’s pretty hard to tell Beauty and the Beast without doing Love Redeems.

Some more tropes to consider, but don’t have to use:

Attractiveness Isolation Beauty is single since people assume they’re too good for them, and will get shot down. This leaves Beauty lonely and desperate to find someone to love them. Dance of Romance Disney definitely popularized this one, but Beauty and their Beast sharing a dance has become a popular trend in film adaptations since the Disney film came out. Declaration of Protection Usually it’s the Beast making a declaration to protect their Beauty, though it depends on the pairing. This usually is more common among Battle Couples. Goddess of Love If you want Beast’s curse to come as a divine punishment, a deity of Love is the most appropriate, since love breaks the curse. Her Boyfriend’s Jacket If one of them offers their jacket, cloak, or clothing to the other and it’s kept. Lady and Knight Beast is a hulking knight who defends and serves their Beauty. The Hound and Sansa in Game of Thrones are a good example. Lonely Together Two lonely people find belonging in each other. Monster/Slayer Romance A relationship between a hunter or monster slayer and the monster they were supposed to kill. Non-Human Lover Reveal If Beast is somehow hiding their inhumanity through disguises or magic, and reveals their true form to Beauty.

Variations of the Beauty and the Beast Trope

Beauty and the Geek Romance between popular and unpopular kids Boy Meets Ghoul Romance between a human and an undead. Did You Just Romance Cthulhu? Relationship between a human and an eldritch abomination. Divine Date Relationship between a mortal and a god Interspecies Romance Romance between two different species Love Across Battlelines Lovers from opposing warring sides. Mayfly-December Romance Romance between mortal and immortal Muggle-Mage Romance Romance between a muggle and a spellcaster. Seductive Mummy Scary monster is reskinned as a sexy love interest.

Moving on to the symbolism, the rose kind of gets discarded these days. Largely because the aspect of Beauty and Beast is rather mild or indirect in most cases, as most cases don’t come from adaptations of the fairytale. But even in fairytale adaptations, the rose tends to be made less and less important. If you’ve got original ideas for what to do with the rose, that’s awesome, but otherwise, if you’re not sure what to do with it, frankly just make it a symbol and stick it somewhere appropriate.

Like the rose, the curse tends to fall by the wayside, perhaps even moreso than the rose. Not as many cases of Beauty and the Beast fit the curse. Personally, I prefer the Beast to be born that way, or to have become that way naturally. That way there is no kiss that just magically ‘fixes’ what makes them an ‘other’. If the whole point of the story is that Beauty falls in love with Beast despite them being beastly, then removing the beastly part is kind of missing the point. It defeats the whole purpose of love overcoming differences and appearances not mattering.

A Story Simplified

Some fairytales can be simplified to a few story beats, but aside from bare bones ideas like Rags to Riches for Cinderella, most fairytales can’t be boiled down to a basic trope the way this story can. As you may have noticed, many of the examples aren’t retellings of the fairytale. The dynamic of Beast and Beauty has become so wide-spread that it’s a trope in its own right. So, this isn’t just an examination of how to rewrite the fairytale, but is also a guide for how to write romantic subplots with a similar identity. At its core, all that the story truly needs is a Beauty and a Beast and a budding relationship. This is also why in general this fairytale’s retellings are among the most varied and unique, because very few plot points actually have to be kept for the core of the tale itself to be invoked. In the simplest terms, Beauty and the Beast is a story about the transformative power of love, and how loving another person can help reshape the person they are, and through love, free themselves of their own darkness.

Things to Avoid

Avoid mixing the Saintly Beauty with the Noble Beast. When both of them are already fully realized in terms of their relationship, there’s no relationship drama. A good example is Robin and Starfire. He’s a normal human and she’s a superpowered alien warrior princess. She’s the Beast to his Beauty. But aside from instances where her alien heritage is played for laughs, there’s never a point when Robin has to learn to tolerate and appreciate Starfire, and she doesn’t have to overcome a violent or cruel personality. She’s kind of aggressive when they first meet in Go, but she’s being hunted by aliens, of course she’s going to be hostile. This meant that Robin and Starfire had to really stretch to create interesting romantic drama which… yeah they kinda failed at. The closest they got was Robin pretending to be the villain Red X and hiding it from Starfire, which also comes the closest to a proper Beast and Beauty dynamic between them, with Red X as the supervillain Beast to Starfire’s superhero Beauty.

Don’t make Beauty the slave or prisoner of Beast. I know it’s in the original story, but if you don’t want your readers making Stockholm jokes, just drop this aspect. Even as someone who loves this fairytale, I gotta agree, just let it go. I know it’s tough figuring out a reason for your characters to be forced to interact, but the implications of a slave or prisoner falling in love with their master/warden is gross. That being said, it’s not always gross, but it depends heavily on the writer. Prisoner can work when handled right, but slave/master should be avoided at all costs. After all, my favorite adaptation of the fairytale makes use of the prisoner angle, so it can work. But in general, it’s best to try to avoid the implications of falling in love with the person who controls your freedom.

Beast does not mean serial killer rapist. The Beast is flawed, but he is not the villain. At least, not formally. He does have dark traits, there’s no denying that, and good beasts often toe the line of villainy. But readers don’t want to read about a foolish little Beauty who’s head over heels over someone who skins babies alive. Do not cross the line to hardcore villainy. You will lose readers. On the same note, no abuse. That’s not romantic. That’s illegal. Stop it. Go sit in the corner and think about the fucked up implications you could be sending to impressionable young readers. Think of it like writing a bad boy. A bad boy is romantic if he keeps the good girl out past her curfew taking in the lights of the streets at night and talking about the nihilism of life. He stops being a bad boy if he takes hard drugs and endangers the good girl’s life doing illegal street races. A bad boy breaks the good girl out of her shell. A criminal causes the good girl’s father to bail her out of jail.

Fairytale Crossovers

As mentioned before, this fairytale is one of the easiest to blend with other stories due to the simplicity of the bare bones formula required. Pretty much any fairytale princess or heroine can be slotted into the role of the Beauty since they’re all pretty generically good and kind. Meanwhile the Beast once again flexes on how adaptable it is because it has a lot of variety in how it can be played with and reinterpreted.

Aladdin is a jobless deadbeat slacker in the original story and an outright thief in the Disney film. He could also seem ‘beastly’ by being an Arab and a Muslim if his Beauty sees this as monstrous or inhuman. He could have used a wish to turn into the Beast for some reason or be turned into the Beast by the Magician (Jafar’s counterpart) and seeking his lamp to wish himself back to human. Both stories also have a magic ring. In Aladdin and the Wondrous Lamp, it houses a second djinn, and in Beauty and the Beast, it teleports Beauty back to Beast’s castle.

Little Red Riding Hood could herself be the Beast if she’s a werewolf, or she could be the Beauty to the Big Bad Wolf’s Beast.

In Literary versions of Sleeping Beauty, the prince’s mother is an ogress, meaning that her prince should be at the very least a half-ogre. To my knowledge this has never been addressed in any Sleeping Beauty retellings.

Robin Hood is a thief, even if he is a chivalrous thief. On top of that, he’s a wanted outlaw. This makes Maid Marian his Beauty.

In the original story Sinbad is an adventurer and a sailor, but later adaptations have framed him as being more like a pirate. That criminal role could make him a Beast, and like Aladdin he could be considered ‘beastly’ for being an Arab and a Muslim by a closed-minded Beauty.

In Arthurian legend, the Half-Giant king Galehaut slowly conquers his way across Albion and challenges Arthur to combat for Camelot, but stops in his tracks when he sees the beautiful Lancelot and tells Arthur he’ll stop trying to conquer Albion if Arthur introduces him to that hottie. Arthur agrees and Galehaut becomes one of Arthur’s knights of the roundtable, and Lancelot’s life long ‘very close special guy friend’.

Captain Hook is an amputee and a pirate, but is otherwise good-looking, frequently decries anything that isn’t ‘good form’, and he is college educated, making him similar to the Literary version of Beast.

Odette from Swan Lake is turned into a swan. If played with correctly, she could work as a Noble Beast or a Beast Within type.

Rumpelstiltskin is a nasty little dwarf who manipulates people, and was used as the Beast in Once Upon a Time.

Oberon in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream is the king of the fairies and extremely cruel, giving a man the head of an ass and humiliating his wife when she doesn’t give him what he wants, on top of driving the entire conflict of mismatched lovers in the play.

The Little Mermaid is a weak example, but does fit. She assumes her prince won’t love her if she’s not a human like him and becomes a ‘beauty’ before he’s even given the chance to form his own opinion of her. So her prince never learns that she was a mermaid in the original tale.

Retellings where Snow White is a vampire would slot her in as the Beast to her prince’s beauty.

Cinderella works weakly as a Beast in that she is a poor servant while her Beauty is a rich nobleman. Playing with this could result in a Cinderella who is a Beast but has their Fairy Godmother turn them into a beauty for the ball, only for the clock to strike midnight and Cinderella returns to their beastly form. Their Beauty tracks them down and realizes their love is a beast, and decides to live happily ever after together anyway.

In Irish folklore, the Phooka is a shapeshifting faerie associated with Halloween that takes on the forms of black animals, and while it can take human form, its human form will always have animalistic features.

In Welsh Mythology, while it doesn’t fit perfectly, Rhiannon is a faerie woman who marries the human hero Pwyll. While Pwyll and Rhiannon don’t really fit the Beauty and Beast dynamic, the public doesn’t exactly like Rhiannon, demanding that she bear Pwyll a son, and when her handmaidens misplace her child (as one does) they blame Rhiannon who becomes demonized by the community as a baby-eater. Pwyll refuses to divorce or kill his wife, and Rhiannon is forced to pay penance by telling every visitor to the city about eating her baby and piggybacking them through the city. At least until a shepherd brings her son home and her handmaidens are rightfully punished.

In an Irish myth, Fionn Mac Cumhaill meets an enchanted doe that turns into a woman when he brings it to his house. She was turned into a deer by a dark fairy or druid Fear Doirich when she refused to marry him, just like the Beast in the Villeneuve version. But she gets lured out of the house and turned back into a deer by Fear Doirich and never shows up in the myths again. This would require some work to reshape it into a proper Beauty and the Beast tale, but the parallels exist.

While not a fairytale creature, Frankenstein’s Monster is objectively beautiful in the original story despite being composed of dead bodies and having off-putting yellow eyes. Even if you prescribe to the Universal Monster Movie aesthetic, the original Monster waxed eloquently, used the scientific method to understand his world, and read thematically appropriate classic literature like Paradise Lost.

Playing with more generic fairy tale tropes, you could have the princess who falls in love with the dragon that doesn’t ‘kidnap’ her, they’re just trying to run away together. In a similar vein, the dragon only keeps kidnapping the princess so the brave knight will keep coming to save her because it loves the knight and wants their attention.

Retold Recommendations

Of Beast and Beauty isn’t just a good retelling, it’s honestly one of my favorite books. I discovered the book in my high school library and it’s still an underrated gem that I recommend to everyone who asks me for one. A brilliant fusion of fantasy and science fiction, the story is set on an alien planet where colonists landed and an alien (or possibly even a god type figure of the planet) realized the people couldn’t survive on the planet surface. It started turning the colonists into the Monstrous so they could survive on this planet, but the colonists saw it as a horrible mutation spreading like a disease, and they built terraformed domed cities to wall off the dangers and the mutants of the outside. And that’s just what we learn in the prologue. It’s a brilliant story on top of being a good retelling. Isra and Gem are distinct characters who don’t just feel like stock characters being slotted into the roles. Both Beauty and Beast have to unlearn prejudice and stereotypes, and what begins as a tense and uneasy truce between a queen and her prisoner develops into a legitimate bond of trust, and eventually, friendship. But there’s also more to the story than just romance. There’s a lot of political intrigue at work, along with great worldbuilding that takes some of the burden off the romance and gives importance to other problems outside of just whether Isra and Gem will fall in love. I don’t think I can oversell how good this book is.

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