Talk:Belle's Sisters/@comment-1672596-20150608173707/@comment-1672596-20150621031316

"PorygonSquared? Never heard of him. I can always trust you to make assumptions, can't I? No, I'm just some jerk who googled your names. You can google mine, if you'd like."

Sorry, my mistake. I had to deal with a similar guy a while back on PokeCommunity a few years back. He hailed from Canada, was largely a wise-cracking, sarcastic guy who largely gets angry and vindictive towards me, and he's also the kind of guy who is low enough to make a wisecrack about September 11, even though people died during that time. Your manner of speaking and argumentative style reminded me far too much of that jerk. Heck, he even stalked me on various threads and made irreverent remarks towards me constantly.

"So, you could give cutting personal arguments to me, eh? Considering that you're an all-around poor judge of character, I highly doubt that. What would you even tell me, anyway? I'm already aware of most of my flaws. I'm hypocritical, egotistical, condescending, blunt, smug, cowardly, sadistic, a [jerk], possibly bipolar, and I have trouble letting go. Just to name a few. I'm not ashamed to admit these things, unlike some people who seem to think they have no flaws at all. Really, what would you tell me that I'm not already aware of?"

Not related to the topic, but if you really wish to get into details about my flaws, fine: I'm autistic, I most likely have poor social skills, I'm somewhat insecure about whether I actually am intelligent or not, I have a strange knack for going to sites that tend to be more abusive than actually respecting anything about me, and am fairly cynical and seem to expect the worst to happen, and I'm also naïve quite a few times. Oh, and most likely stubborn as well, and yes, I can be somewhat of a jerk, even when I try my hardest not to be. I guess that's me in a nutshell, my flaws. So no, I'm far from flawless or perfect, despite what you implied about me. Oh, and as alluded to earlier, I actually DO make mistakes at times, but I usually make sure to learn from them if I do make them and make note that I did. And yes, I did make some misspellings on my prior post.

And actually, I'm a good judge of character, maybe not the best judge of character, but at least good enough to know good things from bad things. I know Sartre was a disgusting monster, as was Che Guevara. I can also state that Voltaire was definitely a monster as well, as was Denis Diderot, considering they behaved unethically by trying to spread lies about Christianity all for an agenda to take it out. And I also noted that the triplets, from slight hints in their character, actually had a lot of things that actually qualified as internal beauty as well, like the fact that they were selfless, forgiving, probably moral if their not participating in the culmination of Gaston's plan and not singing along to the Gaston reprise are anything to go by, and they're implied to be Belle's friends due to helping set up the wedding without even knowing Gaston would be the groom.

"But, we're getting off-topic. Honestly, I wouldn't even have as much of a problem with your opinion if you weren't so forceful about it. Every chance you get, it's "Belle is an awful person. The movie would have been so much better if she had two evil sisters. Belle should have differentiated between good and bad books." If you said it maybe once or twice without acting like your word should be law, I might have been a little more understanding. "Oh, he doesn't like Beauty and the Beast, but since he isn't being a total stuck-up [jerk] about it, I'm not going to complain." And that would have been it."

In case you've forgotten, if you are allowed to express your opinion on here about what films you like or don't like, I most certainly have that as well. And for the record, those are genuine flaws right there. Look, when you have a tale about internal beauty being the moral, you have to make darn sure that the main protagonist, or even both protagonists, actually HAVE a foil that actually proves them to be of that moral. For example, Snow White had Queen Grimhilde. Cinderella had Lady Tremaine/Drizella/Anastasia. Even in The Little Mermaid, which didn't even have that moral to begin with, Ariel had Vanessa. And I can name some other instances of foils like that as well, like Captain America and Red Skull, Batman and Joker, Celes/Terra and Kefka, Cloud and Sephiroth, Yuna and Seymour, Solid Snake vs. Liquid Snake even (and that's probably the loosest bit there).

And anyways, if it comes across as forceful, might as well live with it, because conversations generally ARE forceful. Or have you not noticed that even you come across as being very forceful in your statements, like you are here. And besides, the film tried to force it in as well (really, haven't you read some of the development notes? They actually cut a scene where Belle was baking a cake just because Linda Woolverton felt that Belle, being a liberated woman, would not know how to do such a thing, and this is despite the fact that she was only baking it for herself, not for her dad (obviously since he was out of town at the time) or even for Gaston (as she didn't even know he was coming to propose to her), which isn't somehow taking away Belle's liberty so much as her actually practicing decent survival skills (remember, there wasn't a fast food joint at the time the film was made, so people had to make food from scratch). And that's not even taking into account that Woolverton explicitly had Belle based on the Women's Liberation Movement, you know, that group during the 1960s that pushed for Roe v. Wade, No-Fault Divorce, and all of that?), I'm just being the messenger. You want to blame anyone for being forceful, blame Katzenberg and Woolverton for trying to force these really unnecessary things into the film (the only reason why Belle didn't come across as even more of a jerk than in the final film is because some screenwriters had to reign in on Woolverton).

Oh, and it also doesn't help that secondary sources, such as the New Adventures of Beauty and the Beast and a pin at New Fantasyland had Belle saying things that pointed to her being a misandrist, probably as bad as if not even worse than Gaston's chauvinism (for instance, Belle actually stated that she won't have anything to do with any males in the village and even went as far as to imply that she will always consider them all pigs in the Disney Comics. And in the pin, Belle said while scowling "Men are such beasts."). I had personal experience with a professor who was a huge man-hating feminist who constantly belittled men as being sex-starved hound dogs, bashed Christianity, and even made lies about women's suffering, like claiming women weren't even literate or able to get educated at ALL until the 1960s, and this is despite convents existing or the fact that even women such as the authors for the original tale of Beauty and the Beast writing and certainly reading books, and believe me, it was NOT a pleasant experience. I also recognized quickly when professors were doing similar things unless they were REALLY good at hiding it.

"Now then. You mention The Joker as an example of a gag character. The Joker is not a gag character, he is Batman's arch-nemesis – that is, a very prominent antagonist who serves as a major driving force behind the story. When I say "gag character", I mean something like the cabbage guy from Avatar, or the flatula from Treasure Planet. A character that exists solely for the purpose of a joke or running gag. That is what the Bimbettes are, a running gag, and nothing more. If they were intended to be foils, they would have behaved like foils. "

Okay then, LeFou also was a gag character (comic relief for the most part), yet guess what? He basically turned out to be one of the villains as well. I can also cite Ultros from Final Fantasy VI. He was a gag character as well, and he was actually one of the minor antagonists/villains. Like I said, there is such a thing as being a gag character and actually being a minor villain.

"Lumiere differs from Gaston in one particular way: he is not a condescending [jerk]. Gaston looks down on women and acts like they're property. Lumiere actually treats women like human beings."

Treating women like human beings does NOT entail constantly sleeping around (including going as low as bedding married women, if Human Again is to be believed) and womanizing. In fact, womanizing and sleeping around by its very nature actually treats women like property and objects. It doesn't matter whether Lumiere claims he views them as human beings, he's still treating them like property by his actions. Just like Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men (who, BTW, treats women like Lumiere does, at least Gaston actually does focus on Belle solely, and I don't like Gaston one bit for his character.). Truly treating women like human beings involves actually treating them with respect, actually sticking to one woman, period, and not constantly sleeping around. In fact, Lumiere's actually very similar to Jean-Paul Sartre, especially when like him, he also sleeps around with women and is very unfaithful.

"Belle didn't own up to the fact that it was partly her fault? So, you're saying she was wrong for trying to run away from an abusive environment? "Obviously shouldn't be touched"? It's a rose. The Beast never told Belle about the curse, she had no way of knowing what could have happened."

That rose was levitating, glowing, and more importantly was kept underneath a glass bell-jar. What exactly did she think it meant? Some things don't even need to be stated to you, like if it's kept underneath a container, you aren't supposed to touch it. Heck, my Dad once told me not to touch a model UPS plane once, and museums generally keep things in a glass display for a reason. Oh, and considering that Belle had already deduced beforehand that the servants and the entire castle were enchanted just from casual observation, without even being told beforehand by anyone (well, in a manner of speaking at least), and Belle just a few seconds earlier discovered the (albeit shredded) painting for Beast's human form, she would have put two-and-two together. I would have long put two-and-two together had I been in her situation. Had it been me going through the West Wing, I'd make sure NOT to lift the bell jar and touch the rose. Maybe touch the bell jar, but certainly not lift it up and touch the actual rose precisely because it's pretty obvious that Beast wouldn't want it touched just from subtle cues.

And BTW, that was not an abusive environment. Beast actually GAVE Belle a very decent room when he could have just as easily let her rot in a cell. Heck, even better, he actually gave her free access to the castle (barring the West Wing). You want truly abusive environments, try people who literally chain their wives or children, constantly beat them for trivial matter such as trying to change the channel. Heck, that bus driver who abducted three teenagers several years back and raped them and imprisoned them and later ended up placed in jail and then committed suicide by strangling himself is a very good example of what an abusive life is actually like. Also Glenn Quagmire's sister in Family Guy and her abusive boyfriend who ended up killed by Quagmire in the defense of his sister. Those two examples are far worse than what Beast did to her.

"You forget one thing about some purists: they're okay with some changes, as long as they're changes they personally approve of. It's like moving the goalposts (you should be familiar with that particular fallacy). Making Alice slay a dragon? That won't fly. Giving her a genie love interest? Perfectly acceptable. As long as the one detail the purist cares about remains untouched. (Perhaps "purist" is the wrong word for it...)"

I believe in trying to actually KEEP to the spirit of the moral, and quite frankly, what they did with the Disney version was NOT keeping to the spirit. You may want unlimited changes to the story, but I'm one who actually believes in respecting the work. Now, if the story has a moral that quite frankly can be quite bad and the adaptation actually improves upon the moral, THEN we're talking.

And I'm familiar with that trope, BTW (and no, I don't move the goalposts at all. In fact, I actually TRY to explain flat out how things connect.).

"So, you've heard other people complain about the same things you complain about. Belle still isn't you. And Belle isn't so much smart as she is bookish, for precisely the reason you stated. The premise is incorrect."

Except far too many times, Belle actually IS labeled as being the smartest Disney Princess by her screenwriters [including Woolverton who felt that to promote Belle she should basically slam her predecessors, including Ariel], by her actress, heck, by various journalists and fans, even. And this is despite several Disney Princesses, both after her and even before her actually demonstrating a lot more intelligence than Belle did (like Mulan coming up with the strategy to eliminate the Huns with few casualties on the Chinese's end and coming up with the plan to rescue the Emperor and stop Shan Yu once and for all, for example, or Rapunzel doing a lot of activities involving the mind and not just reading books, or Elsa being skilled at Geometry, or Cinderella being good enough in history to actually connect Gus to Emperor Octavian, or Ariel actually researching objects and when she realizes her initial beliefs were wrong, she alters them accordingly, and that's just the short list).

And I fully realize she's not me (unlike her, I'm male, heterosexual at that). But I also know that how people generally behave is generally how I go about things.

"And one more bonus thing for now: the definition of "consummate" is "showing a high degree of skill and flair; complete or perfect." This has absolutely nothing to do with the argument at hand, I just thought I'd let you know what that word means. Like I said, I have trouble letting go."

Yeah, I know what the word means.