nixrambles

[nixrambles]

Hey look! It’s only taken me 4-ish hours and 50 screenshots, but I’m finally 3 minutes into the movie and meeting the Core Four!

I also really wish they’d used these tags more throughout the movie, I love them so much.

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And just for a moment, Ben questions whether or not he’s made the right decision here. Sure he’s about to be crowned King, but he’s also only 16 years old. And he’s grown up in a world where Evil doesn’t exist, except (literally) in the History Books. he understands the concept of Evil and Bad because he’s grown up being told the Tales of his parents and all their closest friends and how they all overcame their Villains in order to get their Happily Ever Afters. But none of the kids in Ben’s generation has ever truly had to deal with anything Bad happening, or living in fear that the Villain could strike at any minute, and this time, they might just win.

It’s all well and good for the adults to have created the Isle of the Lost to lock up all the Villains, to remind them of the foes they had to overcome in order to have this time of peace, but when your children have never lived through that themselves, whilst you sit there and become complacent, they become curious. And we all know what they say about that curious cat...

But then Ben’s face in that last shot shows his determination for this. He knows he’s making the right choice here. He and his friends were lucky enough to be born to parents in Auradon, it’s not the fault of the children on the Isle who their parents are. So yes, he will start by bringing these 4 over, and when that is a success story (because who wouldn’t love living in Auradon?) he’ll be able to bring over all the children from the Isle and prove to his father that he does deserve to be King.

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And Belle’s so proud of him too! She’s not sure if he made the wisest decision with Maleficent’s daughter, but she’ll support her boy 100% because he’s doing the Right Thing.

But then look at Beast in the background, he’s already thinking through how this is going to backfire (preferably on Ben and not him - ha can’t have done the wrong thing 20 years ago), he’s ready to be Angry Beast again. But he manages to hold it in (with help from Belle), he’s just going to sit back and watch while Ben’s plan blows up in his face.

Because how bad can these kids be anyway? Sure they’ve been raised by their Villain parents. But they’re just kids. They can’t really cause that much harm.

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Oh, look at this precious baby! He’s so innocent and hopeful! He’s finally convinced his dad to let him try one of his own ideas for once, and this one will do some real good for kids who are in the greatest need.

Even the music right now makes you feel hopful for Ben, all triumphant and going up.

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That was one of the hardest things he has ever had to say. Just look at the strain on his face. Beast does not want to accept this. Because even just acknowledging it means that on some level, he has to acknowledge his own wrong-doing in letting those children stay on the Isle after they were born.

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Look, I love Ben. And I know his heart is in the right place here, but he really has not thought this through properly. These kids are his age. Which means a “normal life” to them is exactly what they’ve been living for the past 16 years.

What he should have said here is a “better life”. Because that’s what he’s hoping bringing them to Auradon will do. Because although his intentions are good, he’s still got some of his father’s ego and he truly believes that these children will be grateful to him for “saving” them. When in fact, that is the exact opposite of how they feel and what they think of this entire situation.

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And this here is my argument. Can you blame the child for the sins of the parent? According to Beast, yes. And thanks to the mess he created with the Isle, he has got a point. He left innocent children to be raised by the most vile people to exist, so yes. It is very reasonable to assume that they would turn out like their parents. But if they had gotten them off the island before that, then maybe it would be a different story.

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And look at poor Belle! She wants to support her son so badly, and up until that point she could. She was holding Beast back, thinking “okay, these villains aren’t the worst of the worst. At least it isn’t Ursula, or goodness forbid, Gaston (because you can imagine just how well that would go down). And thankfully he hasn’t said Malef - oh shit”

Because the other three, Belle knows she can convince Beast that their parents aren’t powerful enough on the Isle to cause any major harm to Auradon. But as soon as you bring Maleficent into the picture, no matter how much she loves and supports Ben, even Belle knows that she can’t support him on that decision. The daughter of the greatest villain of all time is too much of a risk, even for her forgiving nature.

I’m pretty sure Belle is far more aware of what’s going on on the Isle with those kids than she lets on.

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Yeah, he about to rage...

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Belle’s trying so hard to be supportive here. And I think she would have been in Ben’s corner all the way, up until he said the last name. You can see when Ben says “Jafar” she’s holding Beast’s arm, but it’s not in a scared way. She’s holding him back, to let Ben finish, because although yes, these are villains, they aren’t the worst of the worst.

And I think Ben knows he has his mother’s support for the first 3, because he’s still looking at her. But then when he gets to Maleficent, his entire stature changes. He pulls himself up straight and looks directly into his father’s eyes for the first time. He knows that Belle will help him convince Beast of the others, but this is his proclamation - they decided that at 16 he was ready to be king, so he’s making his stand now.

It’s also interesting that while he is standing tall and is ready to stand his ground, he still looks scared. Like he knows that Beast’s reaction is not going to be a good one - he just doesn’t know how bad it will be.

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And bless Belle, she does stand up for her son! It’s nice to see there’s stil; some fight left in her.

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And Beast is so ready to go into a full-on rage right here. Obviously he never thought his own son would come up with an idea as stupid as this one. And if he did, well then at least he would be able to convince him that it’s a stupid idea and not to do it.

Which I think he’s getting ready to do here. He looks intimidating, and I genuinely think that he’s willing to scare Ben into backing down on this whole thing before it even gets started.

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Look at him! He’s so proud of himself!

And I think it’s also important to notice that he looks at Belle when he says this. I feel like they’ve had many late night discussions when Beast isn’t around talking about things like this. I really just can’t believe that Belle of all people would ever be okay with leaving children to fend for themselves on an island, regardless of who their parents are. So I think he’s looking at her now, thinking that she would be proud of him for this proclamation and that she’ll support him.

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And again with the sweet baby. He’s just so pure!

Although, how did he decide which children needed the most help? When you think about any villain on the Isle, their children all need to be saved, so how did he come to the conclusion that Maleficent, EQ, Cruella and Jafar are the worst parents? 

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See, this kind of proves my point. Beast is starting to look angry here, like ‘how could my child come up with such an impulsive and stupid decision?’

And Belle looks worried. But she’s not looking at Ben in that way, which would make sense if she agreed with Beast on the whole “keep the children on the goodnessforsaken island” sort of way. She’s looking at her husband like she’s worried about how he’s going to react to this idea, and could he possibly hurt Ben.

That’s really interesting, especially since less than 30 seconds ago, she was looking totally infatuated with Beast. Maybe she’s had the same thought - that the man she married really is the beast that she met that first time she went into his castle and although he seemed to have changed by the end, maybe it was only a physical transformation?

Which then begs the question - why did she stay? 

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Okay, so beyond the cool soundtrack and just my inherent love of all things Disney, this is actually what really sold me on this movie the first time I watched it.

I love the idea of what happens after Happily Ever After. And more than that, I love villains having kids as well as the heroes and the idea of Fate. Like, if you’re born to play the “villain” do you get a choice to not be bad? Or are you going to be bad even when you try to be good? (I absolutely adore the Ever After series for this exact reason).

So, in Ben’s mind: just because these children were born to evil parents, doesn’t mean that they themselves are evil. And why should they be punished for their parents’ sins? Which makes total sense. But what he doesn’t take into account is that these children have been abandoned. Beast and whoever helped him created the Isle of the Lost, knew that (if they didn’t already exist) that the villains would have children and then actively left them on the Isle to rot along wiith their parents. So what happened to the kids? Of course they’re raised by evil parents to be evil themselves. If Beast could make the Isle and send a weekly barge there with food scraps and the such, he absolutely could have found a way to get those kids off the Isle when they were still babies and have them raised in Auradon to be good.

Which makes me think that in Beast’s mind: If your parents are Good, you will be Good. But if your parents are Evil, then so will you. And I just wonder how he came to that conclusion after his own Tale. People like Snow White and Cinderella thinking that way? I can see that - in their Tales, there was no redemption for the Bad Guy. There was no real character development for them to be able to see the shades of grey. BUT in Beast’s Tale, he did start off as the Bad Guy and then (through character development) learned how to be the Good Guy and changed his own Fate. So how did he become so narrow minded after all that?

Maybe he just never actually changed from being that selfish little boy who refused to house a beggar woman and that one moment of being good and allowing Belle to go to her father was a once off mind snap that he’s never repeated since? I don’t doubt that he loves Belle and Ben, but I feel like he loves them in a possessive way and only if they agree with what he says.

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Look, I get that Beast would be really angry about this - the Isle being his idea and all. But what gets me is why Belle is so shocked by this decision. After all, she’s the one who gave the “evil” beast a chance in her own Tale, and look what happened! So why wouldn’t she be able to understand where Ben is coming from?

Or is it that she does understand where he’s coming from, and has in fact been thinking the same thing for many years, but won’t (or can’t) say anything to her husband because she knows how he’ll react to it?

Is this how Beast rules? Through making everyone fear his rage and what you’ll do if you don’t obey his every order? ‘Cause that totally sounds like a peaceful utopia...