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otnesse In reply to SillyOlBear1989 [2014-07-01 03:48:41 +0000 UTC]

Actually, among the realistic/non-magical villains you listed, Gaston's the most unrealistic thanks in large part to his reprise where, for some extremely strange reason, despite his and LeFou loudly boasting enough details about his plan for even kindergartners to deduce not only what Gaston's most likely planning, but how utterly amoral said plot was, pretty much everyone in the tavern basically cheered him on. Look, in real life, as well as fiction, the kind of thing Gaston pulled would have been the absolute worst way to do a conniving plot, since the point about villainous plots is to keep them secret to ensure maximum success. After all, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Bill Clinton, all of those guys made sure to keep their specific plans and acts under wraps so that the general public would not know what they were planning, and even using the media to snooker them. At best, even if they do have their plans compromised, as long as nothing critical exposes them, they can justify it as being for a greater good even when they know full well it is not. The only exception to this rule is if they deliberately leak enough details for their enemies to find out specifically because your full plan actually counted on them finding out so as to manipulate your enemies into fulfilling the plan for you (which is exactly the type of plan Claude Frollo pulled). Probably the only ones in the tavern not in the know about Gaston's plan may have been the triplets, and that's only because they were implied to have been in the backroom preparing orders (or in the case of Paula [the one in the green dress], already on her way there) when Maurice arrived and then got thrown out for his rants and pleas, not to mention Gaston actually coming up with the plan, not even returning to possibly either immediately when Gaston was whispering to LeFou or some time during between then and Gaston and LeFou, in reference to conducting their plan, shouted "Let's Go!" The musical may not have been canon, but they at least improved on that bit when they made sure everyone except himself and LeFou left the tavern BEFORE plotting.

And technically, you can add Jafar to that list (remember, his staff's hypnosis aside, Jafar never actually became magical until his second wish), and unlike Gaston, Jafar was at least smart enough to make sure no one found out about his treacherous plans by blurting them out loud.

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SillyOlBear1989 In reply to otnesse [2014-07-01 15:34:31 +0000 UTC]

Excellent points.

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otnesse In reply to Shellquake [2014-10-21 18:38:55 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, agreed, especially when it was pretty clear they had the hots for him (and possibly since they were children, if Disney Comic Hits! 5 is to be taken as canon).

Besides, I'm not exactly sure how Belle is physically more beautiful than them anyways, certainly physically beautiful enough for Gaston to be infatuated with her and not with the triplets. After all, with Team Ninja/Tecmo's Dead or Alive franchise (which is rather infamous for how the female fighters were designed), the female fighters are more likely to have the triplets' body frames than Belle's body frames (in fact, the only character I can think of in that franchise who would come across as having Belle's body type is Marie Rose from Dead or Alive 5). Heck, in the case of one of the fighters, Helena Douglas, she even resembles one of the triplets. And if that's not enough, some of Belle's actions in her film came across as conflicting with internal beauty, and the triplets' overall actions, crushing on Gaston aside, actually came a lot closer to the theme of internal beauty than Belle did (especially when their limited screentime failed to actually give them internal ugly attributes specifically to make Belle seem internally beautiful by comparison), meaning the film's moral was effectively cheapened as a result. At least they got Gaston and Beast right regarding internal attributes, kind of.

Honestly, under a logical standpoint, they were closer to being the most beautiful women in the village, both externally and internally, that's what baffles me about the entire thing, because it made the opening song and, heck, the villainous motive for Gaston seem extremely implausible. With Snow White, they had to seriously redo the Evil Queen's appearance specifically so her character and motives actually were plausible (they originally intended to have her be a batty, cartoon-type, fat, and self-satisfied queen by design). And this was all Jeffrey Katzenberg's fault because he felt the 1989 screenplay was "too dark and dramatic" (honestly, the Disney versions of Cinderella and especially Snow White were much darker than that).

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otnesse In reply to sikeokilla [2014-04-28 03:57:12 +0000 UTC]

I wouldn't really say "brain dead" so much as fall for Gaston's looks easily (although then again, Issue 5 of Disney Comic Hits did imply that they crushed on him since childhood, so its also likely it was more than just his looks that had them fall for him). If they were truly brain dead, Laura would not have come up with that (admittedly ingenious) idea to disguise herself as Belle to ensure she won Gaston in that wife auction in Issue 3 of the main Marvel Comics series, and their reactions to how Belle refused Gaston (even Paula's [the green-dressed sister], since her expression implied that she knew Belle refused as well), plus their surprised/devastated reactions regarding Gaston actually marrying Belle implied that they were at least smart enough to reason that if Gaston married Belle, that means they have absolutely no shot at marrying Gaston, as well as to deduce if someone refused Gaston or not (something Gaston apparently didn't pick up on initially, based on the fact that Belle had to force herself away from Gaston for him to get the hint that she was not interested.).

I'm planning on writing a fanfic on them, a sequel to BATB in fact starring them. Take note however, that despite their being the comic relief in the original film, the fanfic they're starring in is going to be very dark due to the main events of the fanfic taking place during the French Revolution (the Jacobins are going to be attacking the village since they won't side with them, and mostly because of the village being implied to be Christian). It probably will include in the prologue some bits from their point of view from the original film, as well as supplementary materials and some bit of exclusivity.

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RidersofArmageddon In reply to otnesse [2017-03-24 14:02:28 +0000 UTC]

Do you have a link to the fan fiction story. It might be an interesting read.

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sikeokilla In reply to otnesse [2014-04-29 07:14:30 +0000 UTC]

Well I never did read the Disney comics, I'm not really a marvel fan. I mostly base my summation of them on how they were in the movie as anything done in later iterations was more or less a way to milk characters who were for the most part meant to add to a specific idea or motif. Sort of like Gilligan's Island, sure I love the original show but the animated one in space? Come on no one took that seriously. 

To be fair it sounds like marvel did a good job of revealing that there was more to the characters than faceless french tarts drooling over a huge slab of testosterone. But I still wish that their identities were more separated from their infatuation. I think your fanfiction will be a success based on what you've written. Good luck to you.

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otnesse In reply to sikeokilla [2014-05-25 04:01:43 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, they gave them more personality, alright. Unfortunately, they also did so at the expense of one personality trait in the film. Basically, Marvel for whatever reason made them conniving and jealous of Belle being the object of Gaston's desires over themselves. Don't get me wrong, if they were shown or implied to be that in the film, or had been neutral on that subject, I wouldn't particularly mind about that. However, when they depict them as such when the film had them being angered and shocked that Belle refused Gaston's advances with the "What's wrong with her?! // She's crazy // He's Gorgeous" exchange (which actually threw jealousy out of the window since that reaction conflicts with jealousy: That reaction implies that they thought Belle should go with Gaston, expecting it, in fact, even if it meant they couldn't get a shot at Gaston, something a jealous person would not do or feel at all.), that's where I draw the line, as it seemed like they didn't do the proper research into the film. I may be autistic, but that doesn't mean I can't pick up on emotional states and recognize them. It may not be to the level of non-Autistics, but it is above other Autistics due to my studying an emotion chart at a doctor's office. Also doesn't help that their actions during the wedding indicated they would not have been the type to be conniving. Otherwise, they would have, as soon as they discovered that Gaston was the groom of the wedding, tried to sabotage it simply to spite Belle, not basically cry up the perfect storm.

And thanks for the compliment with the fanfic. I may have to rewrite the bits from the comics in the prologue to avoid the jealousy angle (not because I don't want that as I won't care one way or the other about them being jealous in itself, but because, again, jealousy conflicts with the film's depiction of them) as well as give a reason for their actions that doesn't involve jealousy of Belle (actually, based on their helping set up the failed wedding and not knowing Gaston being the groom, it's not unreasonable to assume they viewed Belle as a friend). My main motivation for making them the main protagonists is because, really, they fit into that atmosphere given their being implied to be Catholics (plus considering they were constantly ignored by Gaston, and their lovestruck nature to Gaston had them not noticing the other males in the village, it's very likely they were virgins, despite their collective official name). Belle really wouldn't fit in because... well, let's just say recent experiences at College, plus researching extensively into atheist persecution of us Christians since the French Revolution and Enlightenment/Age of Reason, and the kind of crap various intellectuals pulled both during that time and during the 20th century, including making derogatory lies about us and promoting Communism in what can best be described as fraudulent information, just wouldn't have Belle seem like one of the victims of the revolution. I can't say anymore as that may give away a Empire Strikes Back-twist regarding Belle (though my other comments betray that anyways), but I can tell you the opening of the main chapter: The villagers discover the servants from Adam's castle, as well as Adam himself, stumbling into the village extremely wounded, they managed to bring them over to the tavern, and they interpret what Adam said while half-conscious when asking of Belle's fate that she may have been killed by the Jacobins who had raided the castle and wrecked it. Adam lives, as do the other servants, though they are plagued with guilt about what happened, although midway you'll learn what they are feeling guilty for is not what the villagers, or the audience, was initially led to believe. Since Claudia, Laura, and Paula are implied to be Catholics in the film, you're probably going to expect several religious references to them (also, I'm going to make them literate with the bible as well). I'm pretty much going to use actual recorded events of the French Revolution, particularly massacres by Atheists against Christians of all stripes, as the basis. Also, they may be visited by a certain enchantress (made an angel here to fit with the religious themes), although I'm splitting the characters into two: The first angel, the one who cursed Adam and his servants, will use the design from "The Enchanted Christmas" and will effectively act as the "final boss" due to her being fallen as a result of her actions (particularly cursing children such as Chip who had absolutely nothing to do with the Prince's behavior, either enabling or causing the behavior, something that God would not have supported at all), while the second, the one that the triplets let inside and get blessed as a result, being based on the design used in the first film. The French Revolution and the Philosophes' anti-Christian preaching and fraudulent behavior, and to some degree the Illuminati's involvement, would also act as the primary reason why the angels sent by God were involved in the first place, trying to implement a plan to eventually restore Christianity in France since it would be shattered as a result of the revolution.

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otnesse In reply to otnesse [2014-03-29 15:04:20 +0000 UTC]

*not blurt out their entire plans to anyone save for those they knew full well would actually support them, and said supporters actually had a reason to support them in their evil acts (Iago hated the Sultan just as much as Jafar did due to being force-fed crackers that he hated, and the Hyenas, aside Scar promising them an implied surplus of food, something they obviously needed, hated Simba and Mufasa just as much as Scar did).

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otnesse In reply to ashleyjordan [2014-03-28 15:03:16 +0000 UTC]

Trust me, his fate was peaceful compared to what they originally planned to do with him: Basically, Belle would have thrown a rock at Gaston, have him fall off, he survived the fall with a broken leg, and was mauled to death by several wolves. If you find that fate awfully familiar, that's because how Scar ended up killed was in fact reused from that ending (ironically, they chose that for the same reason Gaston's original death was cut: because how Scar ended up killed, being burned alive on Pride Rock while laughing, was considered too graphic for a Disney film).

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otnesse In reply to Shadowgirlari [2014-03-28 15:00:40 +0000 UTC]

Used to have sympathy for and respect for Belle. In a way, I still do have respect for her. Unfortunately, I can't really say I'm sympathetic to her anymore after having a genuinely horrible professor for History in Spring 2011, not to mention similar bad professors afterwards. The fact that the film took place in the leadup to the French Revolution and my being unable to help but notice that she would have been of the Jacobin type makes matters worse. Shame I actually lack sympathy or trust for Belle now, as I really did used to.

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otnesse In reply to DahliaFay [2014-03-28 02:45:27 +0000 UTC]

Actually, among the "normal" villains (ie, Cruella, Frollo, Gothel, Hans, Jafar pre-second wish, etc.), he struck me as the most unrealistic precisely because of how he "plotted" (which in real life and, heck, even in fiction, how he plotted would actually ensure a quick downfall among even his most loyal base, not have them cheer him on). Couldn't he at least wait until he got outside the tavern to rattle off the details of his plan?!

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otnesse In reply to ForsakenDreamsTheif [2014-03-29 21:00:37 +0000 UTC]

So please enlighten me, "andvent book reader:" What's the positives of literature and reading, and intellect in general, regardless of gender? How can I be sure that andvent book readers such as yourself can actually see very despicable people as the scum they are and not end up promoting a mass murderering sociopath who admits to want to kill a lot of people as being the most complete human being of the century, whether by interacting with said people in person or actually reading their works? Sorry for having to be very blunt with my question, but circumstances right now require me to be very blunt about this question. Right now in college, we've got a lot of teachers and students who are doing very well in various academic areas, pretty much so-called experts in the field, yet they promote the decadence of the 1960s and also the events of communism and other left-wing causes, also bashing us Christians whenever they can. This is just from my experience. There have also been a lot of "andvent book readers" who have indeed promoted a lot of very bad people. Jean Paul Sartre, for example, promoted Che Guevara as being the most complete human being of the century, yet the guy was actually an absolute psychopath, closer to the most complete monster of the century. Sartre, BTW, was reported in Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals" to have consumed his entire library works when he was a small kid, and was actually one of the high ranking students in his class regarding Philosophy, yet for some reason, he failed to even see that Guevara was a very bad man, and failed to see how Communism was bad. If anything, he promoted them and other revolutions, even having a hand in the Cambodian Revolution by the Khmer Rouge. And Pope Pius XII, a guy who risked a lot to save the Jews from Nazi Germany, is demonized by various "andvent book readers and intellectuals" as being a Hitler supporter, all thanks to that financial failure, critical failure, KGB-backed propaganda play The Deputy, which they all fell for hook line and sinker. I can't even trust Belle to not fall for those evil ideologies now. I'm sorry for having to be accusatory, but right now, I'm not trusting of intelligence, education, and all of that, especially considering the bad experiences I've had of them as well as the bad stuff they promoted even before I was born, and against Christianity, no doubt.

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ForsakenDreamsTheif In reply to otnesse [2015-02-10 20:16:03 +0000 UTC]

? Sorry for the long reply, life's a little complicated for me at the present.
I... don't quite understand what your statement is but after viewing some of your comments on the page I surmise your real argument is against intelligence itself? If so, I still fail to grasp your need to question as you did, and, (though unknowing as you were if I was Christian or not), did bring up Christianity and the ways that those who are intellectual twisted view points against even the best of men/women, and stated "us". I wouldn't have a blinkered opinion on this because it was the in the rising interest of the people to receive education that reformed us into the workers and helpers of today.
Do not get me wrong. I am in no way stating that anything you have stated has no merit, simply that it is not education to blame. Yes, those who have greater knowledge will always use it on the less informed. But to keep people ignorant is their goal. If we were to remain as unintellectual as we once were there would be an overwhelming amount of people being taken advantage of to-day. These are the positives you asked about.
(Or was that a sarcastic remark about my spelling of advent?) I don't mind. My computers abhorrently slow so an adding or taking of letters isn't unusual.
Also, "regardless of gender" is not something that should be brought into a education debate, (as one was insinuated to be brought forth), because women have had even less opportunity until recent years to further their education and become independent which was against the dictatorship of men who wanted their wives to be dumb, obedient, housewives. Education has done a lot to free women as well. But women are not the only ones who have been freed by education. People of color were also held captive by their lack of access to knowledge and forced into work. It was thanks to the "reasoning and intelligence" of people who helped bring about the freedom of equality as we see it to-day. Granted, nothing is perfect but compared to third-world countries we live in blissful freedom.
You say that you are sorry for being accusatory. I am grateful for that. However, being accusatory over such an innocent comment as mine was utterly irrational since I said nothing to incite an "accusatory manner". If I had then a debate was warranted. Since I am not saying that you have erred in what you've stated, there is little point to debate much further. Only to point out such subtly that you, scrupulous as you were in pointing out my grammatical error, missed in your own chafe. I have also had instances in my own career which made me second guess whether the knowledge I'd gained was worth what they pushed at my college. I have to say, though, that knowledge is power and strong are those that know how to wield it.

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otnesse In reply to ForsakenDreamsTheif [2015-02-11 03:46:36 +0000 UTC]

Apologies to TaijaVigilia if this may come across as spam, but I really needed to respond to ForsakenDreamsTheif.

Yeah, that's largely my argument regarding intelligence. And actually, my question to you regarding positives about book lovers was actually sincere, not sarcastic at all (and the "andvent" was because I wasn't sure what you meant by it, like advant garde or something else, so I apologize for any misunderstanding for my frankly poor use of quotes). I had some literature professors who were quite horrible: Namely, they used their positions as literature professors to push a huge left-wing agenda on the students, like flagrant admissions to being "tree-hugging liberals", claiming that either Thomas Aquinas or Gregory Mendel claimed that nature was a whore which "must be raped" (Yes, the professor actually said something like that), basically promoting the free sex and second-wave feminism of the 1960s and claiming Christianity invented misogyny even when they have absolutely no bearing on the subject at hand (like for example, Chaucer's long dust by the time the 1960s came about, and Chaucer has everything to do with my professors because the professor who was divulging nostalgically in that depraved era was teaching Chaucer when doing this), not to mention were flat out false, as well. That's not even getting into the Grover Furr incident, either. And it was pretty obvious that they were book lovers since why else would they specifically choose literature courses for pushing their agendas and brainwashing the students. It's not just the literature fans who fall for this, as I know one student who was a philosophy major yet was so far to the left that you might as well think he's an alien from Venus. I'm not kidding, he went as far as to scare his female relative from a parochial school for no other reason than he felt they didn't teach the Inquisition correctly, yet not only did he utterly dismiss my points about how the French Revolution (which, BTW, actually was caused by people who were dead-set against religion) actually racked up a higher bodycount at a far less amount of time and the nature of their executions were much more horrific (to such an extent that, compared to the rapes (some even entering necrophilia), drownings, cutting women down literally, burning people alive and shooting them with shotguns to have them bleed out to death, the Guillotine actually was very merciful compared to them, and even then their bodies were put into obscene positions mirroring Sade's works), but he actually inferred that it wouldn't even matter what they would do to him as he's dead by that point anyways. Oh, and he's a huge Noam Chomsky fan as well.

And as I briefly alluded to in my original post, there were plenty of intellectuals who fell for what are obviously bad things, if not outright created them. You probably already know about Sartre, the Pope of Existentialism (who basically fell for Che Guevara, not to mention acted as a cheerleader to the Soviet Bloc, even after he officially severed ties with them, not to mention trained the Khmer Rouge who ironically enough proceeded to wipe out a lot of intellectuals in Cambodia during their "Year Zero"), but there are others. The Enlightenment, particularly the Encyclopedists, basically promoted for the destruction of Christianity, and their teachings influenced the Jacobins, Gironquists, Cordeliers, and other factions in the Revolution. Jean-Paul Marat, Louis de Saint Just, and Maximillien de Robespierre alone actually made clear that they specifically based their actions and plans on what Jean Jacques Rousseau taught, the same man who left his own children to die in orphanages the very day they were born, and there's plenty of evidence that the Enlightenment and especially the Philosophes played a huge role in Communism later on via the French Revolution. Karl Marx also advocated for the destruction of Christianity, and he was revered as an intellectual and brilliant, even when his "theories" were garbage, and was influential enough to have created the USSR. Marx was specifically inspired by the French Revolution's reign of terror to the extent that he openly admitted that once he and the other communists are in power they will be obliged to re-enact the Reign of Terror (or as he put it, the year 1793) and the people's vengeance would be such that even the Reign of Terror would pale in comparison. Ernest Hemmingway also managed to bury a story during the Spanish Civil War when the Stalinist Left liquidated their own in a very brutal manner, and basically acted as cheerleader to Castro's Cuba until his pool broke. There's a far more extensive list out there and the internet can help you with some. I suggest you read Paul Johnson's Intellectuals, as you'll see more of what I'm getting at. And ask yourself this, if intelligence improved things, please explain why all the people listed above, despite their intelligence, actually made the world worse off than before, promoting Communism and its mass murders, even forming such an evil as Communism, and basically advocating genocide against Christianity, not to mention making blatant lies against Christians (like "The Deputy" managing to promote the lie that Pope Pius XII was Hitler's Pope despite it being a flagrant falsehood, all because intellectuals such as Lillian Hellman and IF Stone managed to buy it hook line and sinker). If intelligence and literacy truly meant a thing, truly was an improving force, people like IF Stone and Lillian Hellman, if they existed, would be far different people and actually be speaking out against Communism. They certainly wouldn't have even a remote impact at all. Nor would the Philosophes or Karl Marx or even people like Sartre, Beauvoir, or Foucault have even a slight influence on people. And believe me, their influence was massive, especially among university students (who obviously would have been literate and educated. How else would they be there if they weren't literate or educated?).

As far as whether women had an opportunity for education, I know a few people who managed to actually go to school well before the 1960s (which the mythology is that women were practically barred from school and prevented from even becoming literate until the 1960s. Even during the 1950s where women had limited amount of job opportunites besides schoolwork). My aunts who were born around the 1940s and earlier definitely went to school, public school at least. My grandma went to school as well. And I know plenty of famous women authors who most certainly were literate like Emily Dickenson or even the authors of Beauty and the Beast, also Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame. That's not even getting into convents, monastaries, and other things teaching women, men, and children how to read and write. If anything, it's precisely because of people like Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan that women are actually in a far worse shape than before, being brainwashed by the faculty and staff to turn against their families and even hate men. Believe me, I've bore witness to what happened, and I've also read up on it.

Do you understand what I'm trying to get at now? More than a few times, intelligence, especially secular intelligence, IS the reason the world is going to hell in a handbasket now, at least it seems to be. And at this point, I fear Belle may turn out exactly the same way especially when we don't even get any indication that she actually knows how to discern good literature from bad literature (remember, literature, especially the ones written by the Philosophes, were pretty much the reason the French Revolution happened, and by extension every Communist revolution in the 20th century).

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ForsakenDreamsTheif In reply to otnesse [2015-02-11 20:15:28 +0000 UTC]

I must apologize to TaijaVigilia, too. We're taking up so much of your page.

Haha! I'm glad you didn't take what I said offensively. I was merely stating that even though their were valid points in your argument, (thank you for making it clear that you weren't slandering me XD), education has done a lot of good for the world. I dare not give nearly as many examples as you, lest I take up way too much room on this rapidly filling page, but for one there is Martin Luther King Jr.
Yes, I know he had many problems in his life, as we all, but he was the revolutionary figure who brought about such a vast and widespread change in the U.S. to help equalize people of color. He was well educated and it's thanks to him that we can exchange in a more equal and thriving society. Then there is Malala Yousafzai. Shall I need to divulge the necessity of education in this example? She is one of the major women and children activists for change and equality in the treating of women and their right to have education. She was shot by those who feared her knowledge and protests. There is also Abraham Lincoln, he helped to bring about the abolishment of slavery. I will simply list a few more for this list is becoming lengthy, Mikhail Gorbachev, William Wilberforce, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstien, who was, as you know, a genius, and was also a champion of human rights and campaigned for a more peaceful world, Marie Curie, and, last but most definitely not least, Jesus Christ.
You cannot deny that Jesus was "smart", (if you will pardon the use of such a tenuous word), and an advocate for peace and change. His words and life changed the world more drastically then anyone aforementioned on this list. Before you point out that He started as a lowly carpenter, yes, I've taken that into account. But He had the upbringing of a Jew and must I mention the preaching in the temple (where He was actually "teaching" the elders and anyone who was there). As He already had knowledge privy to Him and His Father alone, He had all the knowledge at his disposal. For us to simply gain that knowledge that He is freely giving us, do you not think He wants that? What we choose to do with that knowledge is another matter entirely.
And ask yourself this, if intelligence exacerbated things, please explain why all the people listed above, with their intelligence, actually made the world better than before. I shall endeavor to phrase my answer to your previous question in the best and simplest of ways, even if the answer should be plain. As I have stated previously, "knowledge is power and strong are those that know how to wield it." So you see, not everyone uses that power for good. But if we should pick and choose who is to gain or have right to education and knowledge, then we are no better than they. Yes, these men/women may have made this world worse, but it will only be those who attain knowledge and use it for good to resurrect what they've done. 'Those who have greater knowledge will always use it on the less informed. [Because] to keep people ignorant is their goal.' They want us to be easy to manipulate. Only by seeing through this deception have we been able to prosper. (I will not attempt to say how much or little). However, to rectify the wrong, (those with intelligence as you infer), one must be able to match and quite possibly outwit them. How is one expected to make a difference if they've been starved of knowledge?
If intelligence and literacy truly meant nothing, truly was an
exacerbating force, people like Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ, wouldn't have tried so hard and succeeded in bringing about reputable changes across North America and the entirety of the world.
While the people you've mentioned might not be the ones speaking out against communism, you can be sure that there are indeed people who are. With education. Education is a tool. Do you blame a tool for the what the crafter designs? That is akin to blaming the computer for someone having downloaded inappropriate content onto it. (Sorry for such a queer example.) As to the remark about influence on university students, if you receive intelligence through an unreliable source your judgment is sure to be affected. Only bare minimum facts can not be altered no matter in what way they are conceived, (i.e. murder, defiling..ect.)
I will allow that women (who hid their gain of knowledge), did in fact acquire substantial intelligence but that is as far as I go. Women, even when it was acceptable to learn, were still ill used and weren't allowed the privileges of men. As an example, just in 1982, so not too long ago (only 33 years ago), women were looked down upon, ignored, only given partial credit, and dismissed when it came to views, pay, discoveries, theories and of the like that could have ultimately steered the world towards good. A great example to demonstrate what I mean, have you ever heard of Remington Steele? In it a female detective is waiting for people to consult her. But since no one will come to a "female" for insight, she decides to change her business office name under the guise that a male detective is in charge, a.k.a. Remington Steele. Only then does she get patrons. I will not give women all the credit, but think about it. If women had the same chance that men had there would be a great change in how society worked and such. As to the authors you've mentioned, as I've stated, their pay was far below that of an average male author.
Also, I hope you're not alluding to the fact that I hate men? Absurdly not, I resent what they have done, but that is the past. If anything, I must credit education and be an advocate of it for the simple reason that I am female and that I can obtain the knowledge which was so recently barred from women without privilege. It is in this instance that what you said made me feel slighted. (For it to finally be acceptable as a female to be granted knowledge that was far out of reach for many females in history and then hear someone repudiate it's importance and necessity in human life). As someone once told me, "The thing that separates us from all other creatures is our brain and capacity to learn." It is a sin not to want or strive for knowledge since it is our God-given right, do you not agree? The whole educational institution may be to blame, but not knowledge itself. As you allude to brainwashing, how might one break away from some brainwashing if you remain as ignorant as before? Why then, by your own argument, you must gain more knowledge to overcome it. How does one understand or even fight against this evil if you never learn?
Do you understand what I'm trying to get at now? More than a few times, intelligence, especially secular intelligence, IS the reason the world is able to pick itself back up or even have a chance of fighting against this overpowering malevolence which threatens to silence us forever. You must fight corrupt knowledge with pure knowledge. And at this point, I fear we won't be able to discern good literature from bad literature if we remain naive to all these atrocities by putting the blame on intelligence and education.

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TaijaVigilia In reply to SilverLady7 [2013-04-28 16:55:10 +0000 UTC]

Thank you and I did think about making a comic for many years but I have too many ideas and it would either be long and run into hundreds of chapters like some mangas OR I'd have to have someone else to edit (butcher) it for me... but in the meanwhile I'm rather enjoying reading what others are doing, for example there's this delightlful ongoing BatB comic by Megan Kearney: [link]

On topic of Gaston yes that's exactly why I think he's such an effective villain because he's what happens in so many situations of domestic violence. He starts off reasonably "normal", sure he's a bit vain and arrogant but not that bad (rest of the village except Belle adores him and by all accounts Belle doesn't seem to mind him *that* much either since she smiles at him and entertains his primeval ways) and then snap he becomes a calculating blackmailer and murderer, I almost wish there was more on his character development at that breaking point but then it would had been too dark for a wholesome family film.

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otnesse In reply to TaijaVigilia [2014-03-28 03:12:34 +0000 UTC]

He'd be even more realistic if Gaston just shut the heck up during the reprise and not leak any details of his plan loudly to anyone in the tavern. The Gaston reprise is the main reason why I consider him a completely unrealistic villain among the "normal" villains. Jeez, even Scar was more realistic in how he plotted than how Gaston was, and he's a talking lion!

Actually, maybe if they made him a philosophe and basically spewing stupid, pretty much insane comments such as the Social Contract yet people falling for him, and basically decrying Belle for being literate, he'd be even more realistic, especially when someone like that did in fact exist: His name was Jean Jacques Rousseau, and he and his treatises were one of the main reasons why that horrific event known as the French Revolution and the massacres against us Christians by atheists occurred. Heck, even better, have him be an expy of Marquis de Sade, who unlike Rousseau, actually was alive long enough to see his work, the Revolution, bear fruit, even having a hand in the manner of how executions via guillotine were carried out.

I also found that Belle, especially with her characterization (being a bookworm and a intellectual, not to mention a likely atheist who very likely looked down upon her own people, even bashing them) was completely unrealistic in regards to how she handled Gaston. In real life, people like her are actually MORE vulnerable to falling for despicable people like him than the triplets were. I can even cite a few examples: Maximillean de Robespierre alongside his Jacobin Club, an elite club of smart people filled with a lot of people who were of intelligent, rich positions such as lawyers, who basically fell hook line and sinker for Jean Jacques Rousseau's teachings and tried, with a lot of shed blood, to enact his insane ideologies alongside his fellow contemporaries. Jean-Paul Sartre, consumed his entire library as a child, got straight As in education, was a major proponent in the philosophy branch "existentialism," and a playwright/author, most certainly literate. He ended up falling hook-line-and-sinker for the Communist ideologies, even supporting that sick mass murder Che Guevara (whom, BTW, was so bad he'd make even Frollo and Gaston seem like beatified saints and decent people in comparison) and referring to him as, and I quote, "the most complete human being of this century," not to mention supporting the terrorist Frantz Fanon's revolution against France, even telling him in the preface for "the wretched of the earth" to basically "kill two birds with one stone" regarding murdering Europeans, as well as his having a lot of blood in his hands for training the Khmer Rouge and supporting their ideologies (which resulted in nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population being wiped out). Heck, he even supported the Nazis, claiming that after they were liberated, they were "more free" under the German Occupation. On that note, Simone de Beauvoir is pretty much the closest you can get to a real life version of Belle, being very literate, intelligent enough to even surpass Sartre in Philosophy, and yet like him, fell for Communists, and heck, even continued to grovel at his feet even when, by virtue of being a big enough womanizer that he actually would make Lumiere blush in embarrassment over his actions, sleeping with progressively younger women as he got older, he frequently betrayed her. That's not even getting into how intellectuals like IF Stone, Lillian Hellman, and the like, despite their status as being "intelligent," basically fell hook-line-and-sinker for that dirty white lie about Pope Pius XII being a Nazi sympathizer that was pushed by the KGB-backed propaganda play "The Deputy," resulting in his name being marred even to this day, and this was despite there being plenty of ways to easily refute the lies, such as, oh, I don't know, asking the chief rabbi of Israel, who can attest that Pius XII risked his own life as well as that of his parish to save all the Jews he could save. Or hey, how about Michel Foucault, also a very intelligent individual and literate, yet supported the so-called "moderate" Ayatollah Khomeini even though he intended to massacre homosexuals (keep in mind that Foucault was homosexual), not to mention infecting a lot of people with AIDS, deliberately I should add, before he ended up meeting his maker from the disease. Sorry for the rant, but this is something that really needed to be addressed.

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SilverLady7 In reply to TaijaVigilia [2013-04-28 18:20:26 +0000 UTC]

Well, I think that Belle smiled at him just to be polite - both because of her education and especially because she treated Gaston rudely it would backfire on her and her dad and put the entire village against them (with Beast she didn´t have to take the same care, hehe ). I was frequently forced to be polite to people that didn´t deserve it just to keep my job, when I was working.

Thanks for the link! It´s an interesting way of retelling the traditional tale - with some add of the film, obviously. (I liked Virtue)

That is the same reason why I still haven´t made any long comics - it´s hard enough to get inspiration on my unfinished fanfics (not Batb ones), and with a comic would take much more work.

But you can make short comics, of just one or two pages, like I do. A short, funny (or sad) story.

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otnesse In reply to SilverLady7 [2014-03-29 15:20:03 +0000 UTC]

"Well, I think that Belle smiled at him just to be polite - both because of her education and especially because she treated Gaston rudely it would backfire on her and her dad and put the entire village against them (with Beast she didn´t have to take the same care, hehe ). I was frequently forced to be polite to people that didn´t deserve it just to keep my job, when I was working."

Funny. Had that been the case, I'm genuinely surprised that the villagers didn't just carve her to pieces for some of the really bad things she said about the villagers (namely complaining about the provincial life). Honestly, she decried Gaston for being rude and conceited, yet her saying twice (three times including the reprise later on) "There must be more than this provincial life" in a tone that made clear she hated her village strikes me as meeting the definition of being rude and conceited, which to me seemed hypocritical. It's not even that bad of a village. Springfield, Gotham City, Quahog, and the like were even worse than the village as they were extremely broken (trust me, if you watched The Simpsons and Family Guy, or followed the Batman franchise, you would definitely agree that the village was by comparison extremely stable and normal). Even Batman/Bruce Wayne didn't act that way towards Gotham, and he actually would have a perfectly justified reason to decry it in that manner specifically because of its broken society. Ariel may have been similar to Belle regarding a desire to go beyond her home, but even she did not hate on her own race/people, unlike Belle who basically did that to her own village. With her personality, I wouldn't be surprised if, when the Revolution comes about in the aftermath of that film, she basically pulled a Sephiroth on her own village with several Jacobins.

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TaijaVigilia In reply to BriteStarRobot [2013-04-27 16:18:27 +0000 UTC]

Yes absolutely!

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BriteStarRobot In reply to TaijaVigilia [2013-04-27 18:00:33 +0000 UTC]

The photo opportunities with them would be sensational, and it'd be very nice for girls to share their experiences with swooning over cute guys.

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TaijaVigilia In reply to Jeana1 [2013-04-27 16:19:08 +0000 UTC]

I keep being told that those are their names but so far nobody's been able to point out where are they mentioned? Is it from the House of Mouse or something?

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otnesse In reply to TaijaVigilia [2014-03-28 02:37:33 +0000 UTC]

At least according to BriteStarRobot, they were in the Diamond/Platinum Special Editions of the film, though I have yet to verify this.

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