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The Life and Mind of DamnBlackHeart
This is to help me stay actively writing. So expect to see rants, tips on writing, thoughts on subjects, me complaining of boredom, reviews, anime, movies, video games, conventions, tv shows and whatever life throws at me.
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Beauty and the Beast overall theme is that things aren’t always the way they seem; in other words, one should not be deceived by appearances for beauty lies within. Another way to sum it up is to never judge a book by its cover. Someone that looks scary could actually be a nice person. Someone who looks beautiful or nice could actually be a monster. But people won’t know that unless they look pass the appearances and get to know that person for who they really are.
There’s a method that some writers used and that’s to reverse the roles. It usually happens when it comes to fairy tails like stories. For instance, the Beauty and the Beast would be Handsome and the Beastly Beauty or something like that. Basically the Beauty would take the role of the Beast, hence the title of this post: Beauty to Beast. It doesn’t matter that the story changes, from modern times or to a futuristic settling and/or the roles do because one thing that’s always consist is the theme.
That appearances isn’t everything.
Now, when it comes to stories like these writers always have to make sure that the message is clear, especially when it comes to a theme like that. Personality growth is important for the characters in this story. Because a character can’t be so beautiful, cursed to become a beast and then suddenly become humble once they are a monster. Then comes the guy who gets to know her, falls in love and the curse breaks.
That’s not much of a story, there is no struggle, no lesson that the characters learn from it, no depth.
To do that make the Beauty be very vain, using her looks to get her way and looking down at those that disagree or punishing those that make her seem any less then beautiful. Pretty much make her a horrible person that people can’t stand to be around, let alone want to truly get to know her. Maybe there’s a reason why she’s like that but no one wants to know or cares to know because she’s a “b***h”. Heck, maybe she’s not that beautiful but her vanity makes her think she is.
The point is there’s has to be a good reason for her to be targeted with a curse. Once you have that reason, when she becomes a Beast (or whatever it is she turns into…troll, orge, humanoid spider women, a bug, etc.) have her become worst, consume with hatred to the one who cursed her, to the people who turn their back on her, to sorrow and angry at herself for what she has become or has been reduce to.
It takes time for a person to change. It helps when they are force to adapt, to open their eyes and deal with their problem. I find it helpful to keep in mind the stages of Denial to Acceptance which have been alter to fit Beauty’s situation.
1. Denial: I consider this stage to be before she turns into a Beast. She knows the real reason why people hate her or don’t want to be around her but she lies to herself. She makes herself believe that they are just jealous or too awe by her looks or whatever else reason.
2. Anger/Resentment: Once she’s cursed, she’ll be angry at the situation, the people and the person who did that to her. She’ll be angry at herself and basically everything I said early about how she should be once she becomes a beast.
3. Bargaining: She’ll try to break the curse without learning the lesson/real reason behind it. She’ll try to bargain with the one who cursed her that she’ll do good deeds or give up her bad habits, or give them all the riches in the world or whatever, in exchange for having the curse lifted. Even though that’s not how the curse works or what the one who cursed her wanted.
4. Depression: She’ll realize that the situation isn’t going to change. It finally begins to set in, and she’ll ponder on how her monstrous appearance is going to do to her life now. How her future will be like and what she’ll do to deal with it.
5. Acceptance: At the final stage she’ll accept what has been done to her and why. She knows she can’t hold onto the past and has to let it go in order to move on. She’ll try to make the best of her situation now.
These stages don’t happen all at once but over a length of time and/or after certain events or situation she experience. It is over time that she starts to truly change for the better and eventually becomes a good person. Maybe at some point after her acceptance stage she helps someone. That someone could turn out to become a good friend. Maybe they feared her but slowly starts to trust or get to know her.
All in all, how the curse breaks is all up to the writer. Maybe she’s forever cursed like that? Maybe she becomes a vigilant? Maybe her friend is her Handsome (her true love or something)? Maybe they aren’t but their sibling is? Or maybe she falls in love with someone who has no idea she exist? Maybe she becomes capture as a pet or weapon for some lord. Maybe she wants to stay as the monster? Maybe she needs to sacrifice herself in order to break it? Whatever happens in your story just remember that the theme always stays the same but the stories are always different.
 DamnBlackHeart · Fri Mar 02, 2012 @ 04:23pm · 0 Comments |
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