Article About Belle

[rpowell.livejournal.com]

ARTICLE ABOUT BELLE

I found this article about the Belle character from "ONCE UPON A TIME" called "Feelings About OUAT's Belle". It is . . . interesting.

Comments

[wake-the-dragon.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Rumple/Belle fan, the essay writer has a huge point.

I liked Belle's actress from Lost, but I wished the writers would do a better job with fleshing her out. I liked most of the episode where Belle breaks up with Rumple (forget the name of it), especially the part where Belle gives that speech to him and her father, but I thought they weakned it by having them get back together by the end of the episode.

I like the ship, and the characters, I just wish it was written a bit better.

[lady_songsmith]

I like that she opened the possibility at the end of that episode, but I would have liked to see him actually... courting her, I guess? Trying to prove that he's someone she wants to be with. Instead they're all lovey-dove and she's making passionate declarations of support for him. I'd have liked to see him work for it. Maybe now if she can't remember him...

[wake-the-dragon.livejournal.com]

That's what I'd like to see too. I'm hoping that's the direction the writers will go in, now that she's lost her memory.

[musing-mia.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with everything she said. I've never been sold on Rumple being the Beast or the romance between the two. They've also made Belle so weak as to be close to doormat status. I thought they'd rectified things in her ep with Ruby, but alas that was all for naught. She totally lost me this week when she was so blase about Rumple killing his wife. Umm...no.

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the writer definitely has a point. The actors are great, the characters are both interesting, and this relationship could potentially be good, but it . . . isn't.

[sensitivinferno.livejournal.com]

I completely (but respectfully) disagree with everything about this.

Belle's strength has always been within, in EVERY version. She's the beauty who sacrifices her freedom to save her father and a bunch of sisters who were all bitches in the original story. In the Disney movie, it's established that she doesn't want to settle. She wants what SHE wants. In all versions, her power is to see beyond someone's outward appearance to the good inside. The ONLY difference in OUAT is that the "beast" was an established character. Rumple as the Dark One isn't exactly handsome (by most standards, of course) and he puts on a show to ALWAYS be as off-putting as possible. And yet, from the start, she raises her head high and agrees to go with him. "No one decides my fate but me." This is established in the FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF MEETING HER.

In the original story, the beast was not cruel or mean to her, just hideous to look at. In the Disney version, however, not only did he look beastly but he also wasn't a very nice guy. How is this any different from Rumple? To call Rumple strictly evil is to completely disregard the love of a lame spinner for his only son. A man who made a deal he didn't understand with GOOD intentions to start with. They have made some pretty heavy-handed comparisons in the show between magic and drugs...so that is how I look at it. Rumple accidentally became addicted. Belle trying to bring out the good man he used to be is no different, IMO, than a loved one trying to get their husband/wife to stop using drugs or abusing alcohol. Does being an addict make someone inherently evil? No, but it CAN drive them to do evil things.

Belle's power is perception. The creators have even said this. She sees right down to the hearts of people. They've never come straight out and said it, but it's obvious if you pay attention. Especially in "The Outsider," when one of her most powerful lines (to me) was when she told Hook that Rumple's heart is true, but Hook's is rotten. That means that she sees to the truth of the matter, and we have yet to learn about some of the things Hook has done in his many centuries of life. If he's anything like the Hook of Peter Pan fame, we can only guess that he's killed children, versus Rumple who SAVES children. Whatever it is, Belle sees it. You can't hide your shit from her, and she WILL call you out on it.

Can we also look at the fact that Phillip would be dead if not for Belle? That she saw past the monster, took a moment, analyzed the situation, and made a decision based on what she observed? She did the same thing with Ruby. Ruby, who saw herself as a monster (the parallel with Rumple here is not lost on me) and yet Belle tried her best to convince her that WHO she is and WHAT she is are two different things.

I don't really know what else to say. Belle's wonderful personality traits...traits that I admire so much because I do not share them...aren't really in-your-face, but they are obvious if you observe her and listen to what she says.

/mic drop/

[voyevoda.livejournal.com]

While I've been relatively uninspired by a lot of her dialogue as of late (which isn't the character's fault so much as the writing team sticking to one note), I fully agree with all that you said.

[scw1842.livejournal.com]

Belle's power is perception. The creators have even said this. She sees right down to the hearts of people. They've never come straight out and said it, but it's obvious if you pay attention. Especially in "The Outsider," when one of her most powerful lines (to me) was when she told Hook that Rumple's heart is true, but Hook's is rotten. That means that she sees to the truth of the matter, and we have yet to learn about some of the things Hook has done in his many centuries of life. If he's anything like the Hook of Peter Pan fame, we can only guess that he's killed children, versus Rumple who SAVES children. Whatever it is, Belle sees it. You can't hide your shit from her, and she WILL call you out on it.


I don't buy this argument that Hook's heart is rotten, whereas Rumpel's heart is true. I don't buy it. Not after what I have seen of both characters, this season. And as much as I admire Belle's compassion, I find her common sense rather questionable . . . especially after viewing last Sunday's episode.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with you.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Great article! I feel that the Rumbelle relationship is just bringing out the most annoying traits in both characters. Belle showed some promise when she broke up with Rumpelstiltskin, but that didn't last, and the pluck that she showed in her own scenes didn't really mitigate the bad stuff. (The stuff about how Hook took/stole Milah really annoyed me, because a) hi, an adult woman's decisions here, and b) wow, Rumpel, maybe you should go whine about that to Cinderella, you know, the woman whose husband you TOOK after she tried to stop you from TAKING her baby. For the record, Rumpelstiltskin used to be my favourite character, back when the show would still acknowledge that he was a twisted jerk.)

Also, is anyone else in the uncomfortable position of feeling really bad for this world's Gaston? I recently rewatched season 1, and I found myself fervently hoping that rose!Gaston wasn't magically aware of his surroundings, because hearing Belle say those things about him would just be adding insult to injury. But maybe I'm just biased by my Psych fannishness.

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am. Gaston wasn't nearly as bad in this incarnation as he was in the movie, and what Rumple did to him -- and the way the show glossed it over/used it for comedy -- seemed really unfair.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Good to know I'm not the only one!

[musing-mia.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Milah made a decision. Selfish? Yes. Punishable by death? No. Rumple is no different than any man in real life who hunts down his ex-wife and kills her because she dared to leave him. This is why I will never buy Rumple as the tortured individual, who just needs the love of a good woman to turn him into a good person. Rumple had the love of his son and it didn't stop him from embracing and utilizing all the power of the Dark One.

Hook has a long way to go before he's on Rumple's level of evil. Until he murders deaf women for no good reason and rips Belle's heart out, I'll continue to see him a villain without any real bite.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it's a little creepy how people are willing to equate highly shitty but legal behaviour, such as running off on your family without a word, with second degree murder. Plus, the whole thing has overtones of an honour killing, which just skeeves me out even more.

I like manipulative bastard Rumpel, but I really don't like it when they try to justify his behaviour. Plus, the way the show is trying to retcon his past by making it all about Bae doesn't sit right with me, when we know for certain that Bae wouldn't want him to do any of those things. Plus, of all the villains on the show, Rumpel has been the most likely to do evil stuff just for the heck of it. And he wasn't really any better as Mr. Gold, so it's not just the magic that has corrupted him.

Hook's a nasty piece of work in his own right, and pragmatic to the extreme, but I do think fandom is softening him up more than the show does. Though it does annoy me that the writers seem to think that having him try and fail to do evil things is somehow the same as if he didn't do those things at all. This latest ep, he came off as really incompetent right up until he shot Belle.