Gaston (disambiguation)

Gaston is the main antagonist from the film Beauty and the Beast. He was voiced by Richard White.

Personality
Gaston is strong and handsome, and is all too aware of this. He is the rude, vain, sexist and arrogant huntsman who is hailed as a local hero, desired by many of the young women of his village. He is also apparently quite wealthy, as he bribes Monsieur D'Arque (who runs the asylum) with a considerable amount of money. While he is closed-minded and ignorant of the world, he is still capable of being remarkably cunning. Gaston believes that Belle would best suit as his wife based purely on her lovely appearance, and when she turns down his proposal, his desire to marry her only intensifies. Over the movie he evolves from a narcissistic but harmless and humorous buffoon to a menacing, murderous villain. His popularity among the villagers makes him capable of rapidly persuading them to form a lynch mob, whether for a wedding, collecting Maurice for the asylum, or even charging off to attack the Beast's castle.

Beauty and the Beast
Gaston starts off as the local hero of a small French village, pursuing Belle through the village as she borrows a book from the local bookstore. Their meeting starts off well, but Gaston's sexist remarks about women drive Belle away from him and she goes home, leaving him disappointed. The next day, Gaston organizes a wedding outside Belle's garden in an attempt to "surprise" her. He forces his way into Belle's house and attempts to strong arm her into marrying him. While he attempts to corner Belle, she manages to open the door that he has pinned her against. This causes him to lose his balance and fly headfirst into a mud puddle that lies in front of Belle's house. Furious and humiliated, Gaston storms off.

That night, the villagers in a local pub, along with LeFou, sing a song about Gaston's greatness to cheer him up after being rejected by Belle, when Maurice storms in and warns the villagers about a monstrous Beast who has locked Belle as a prisoner in the tower of his castle. Thinking he is talking nonsense, Gaston orders the villagers to throw him out of the bar. In a surprising display of animalistic cunning, he bribes the owner of the local asylum, Monsiur D'Arque, to threaten to throw Maurice into the asylum in order to pressure Belle into marrying him. While D'Arque realises that even Maurice's nonsense about a beast and his odd inventions do not make him insane or dangerous, he is willing to accept the bribe. Considering the management of asylums of the 18th century, this is an extemely harsh threat.

However, just before they arrive, Maurice has left for the castle on his own. LeFou is ordered to stay there and wait for their return.

Belle, however, manages to prove her father's apparently insane claims about a Beast inhabiting the huge castle in the woods to be true by using a magic mirror the Beast had given her. Gaston grows even more frustrated after his plan fails and shocked that Maurice was indeed telling the truth, but becomes increasingly jealous upon learning that Belle has more sympathy for the Beast than for him.

In his jealousy and pride, Gaston convinces the villagers that the Beast is a man-eating monster that has to be brought down immediately, and after locking Belle and Maurice in the cellar of their home, Gaston leads the lynch mob to storm Beast's castle and leave no one alive. In the ensuing battle between the rioters and castle servants, Gaston confronts the Beast alone. He fires an arrow into him, tosses him onto a lower section of the roof and taunts him. When Beast doesn't respond, having lost his will to live since Belle's departure (to rescue her lost father, who was searching for her), Gaston uses a makeshift club to try and kill the Beast. The Beast, however, regains his strength when he sees Belle return, and viciously fights back. Gaston proves to be an even fighter, and declares that Belle is only his, and that she could never love a beast. Enraged, the Beast lunges forth and he soon has Gaston at his mercy by holding him above a chasm by the throat, and the evil hunter pathetically begs for his life. The Beast realises that now Belle has returned to him, he doesn't need to kill Gaston, and merely tells him to leave. In spite of this, Gaston refuses to give up. Determined to finish what he started, Gaston literally stabs Beast in the back with a dagger while dangling precariously from the balcony. The Beast rears backwards in pain, causing Gaston to lose his balance and fall screaming from the roof to his death. Richard White stated in an interview that while he himself doesn't know whether Gaston survived, he does mention that the viewers never saw the body, implying that he might have survived. However, the 2002 DVD commentary confirmed his death, and mentioned that the skull and crossbones seen in his pupils as he falls, which were speculated to be some sort of demonic subliminal message, were intended to confirm his death.

Trivia

 * On an interesting note, most of Gaston's actions were edited out of the final cut of the film: during his battle with the Beast, Gaston was originally intended to shout "Time to die!", but it was changed to "Belle is MINE!" in order to edit violence and fit Belle back in the sequence.
 * Moments prior to his plunge from the castle, Gaston was supposed to stab the Beast in the back, and later in the leg, but the second injury was cut from the final script; it was also originally intended for Gaston to commit suicide after stabbing the Beast in the back and laugh madly as he fell from the tower, believing that if he could not win Belle, nobody else would (which might explain why Gaston chose such a dangerous position to stab the Beast from behind, despite knowing that he would never win Belle's heart).
 * Gaston has recently been enjoying a considerable degree of fan popularity on the internet, with the character himself becoming a minor internet meme.
 * In addition, he was ranked 11th in a poll by UltimateDisney.com on the top 30 Disney villains of all time, and 5th on the Nostalgia Critic's countdown of the top 11 Disney villains.
 * Gaston made numerous appearances on Disney House of Mouse as a main guest character.
 * Spike.com ranked him 1st. in their "The Top 10 Hollywood "Villains" Who Got Totally Screwed". In the section titled "What people forget" it says "Gaston was trying to protect his village. Once they were shown the Beast via Magic Mirror, and they see a vision of a giant hairy monster snarling and howling, they realize what a threat he poses to the village. Sure, she claims the Beast is a nice guy, but she was held in his big scary castle against her will for a good long time before she decided that her captor was really a good yet troubled person and that she could change him into her Prince Charming. It’s an almost textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome! In spite of him attacking her multiple times, having no manners, holding her against her will, and frequently going off on insane tantrums, she still maintains he’s a good guy. He was already known to have kidnapped two people, so who knew what he could have been capable of?"
 * Gaston is the youngest Disney villain to date in his mid -20 Years old.
 * Gaston shares a few similarites with Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective. They both sing songs that praise their glorious selves, threaten to harm someone or some part of their enemies if they don't get what they want, and they battle the heroes on somewhere high during a storm, and both fall to their deaths.
 * Gaston also shares similarites with Mcleach from The Rescuers Down Under. They are both devilish men that shoot gunshots and they try to kill their hero enemies. Mcleach tried to kill Cody and Gaston tried to kill The Beast. Then they die by falling to their deaths. Mcleach falls off the waterfall and Gaston falls off the castle balcony.

Disney Parks
Gaston Is also seen at The Disney Parks. At the American Parks, he is only seen in parade and shows. He is not seen at Tokyo Disneyland, but in Parades. At Disneyland Paris he is a regular character available for meet and greets.