YAYYY i'm so glad you like it!!!! as for lefou, i personally really like him a lot due to his characterization! he's a guy who's dedicated himself to one person so much that he's idealized gaston in his head!!! personally i think he attached himself to gaston to find some sort of purpose in the town, go gain some sort of recognition. what i really find fascinating about lefou though is his violence. he is a bully, like gaston! and a lot of his aggression has to do with his height. like his aggressive moments mostly are when he has a height advantage over the other person (thinking about him jumping on the kills and attempting to murder lumiere. bro is willing to kill and murder fr) he's also manipulative! in the mob scene it is *lefou* that handles the crowd at first before the beast is revealed and gaston takes over. he's really great and making people see what they want to see tbh, he's just too attached to gaston to really do anything more with it. and that's the thing about gaston and lefou. they both fundamentally kinda fucking suck! their biggest flaws feed each other, gaston with his ego and lefou with his people pleasing. it's this sort of feedback loop that keeps them in this sort of stagnant stasis in regards to their relationship. gaston leads, lefou follows, that's how it's always been and that's how it'll always be. if lefou is gaston's right hand man, that has to count for something, right? *he* has to count for something. circling back to the height thing, i think that another interesting part of lefou's character is his disability! as a disabled person myself, i've always had a soft spot for disabled/disability-coded villains. lefou is somewhat implied in the original movie to have a form of dwarfism, as his physical characteristics are consistent with people who have dwarfism, meaning that he is disabled. he's smaller than everyone else, and he KNOWS he'll never measure up to someone like gaston so he settles for being number 2. lefou is kind of fundamentally a pathetic man too wrapped up in his own fears and people pleasing to see the reality of his situation. (aside: this is why i dislike batb 2017 and batb lefou's characterization. where is desperation. where is his mangy stray dog energy. you can have a redemption arc for lefou, but ya gotta come from the baseline that he is also a shitty person!! i think flattening him into a "soft boy" does a disservice to his character. also sideeying them removing his disability) lefou in a wolf at the door, however.......he's trapped in this weird place with gaston and he's seeing gaston as his most human. he would actively get mad at gaston after realizing he's not the perfect idealized paragon in his head. lefou straight up trying to kill gaston after this is a big plot point btw. after this however they're just both forced to coexist and lefou slowly falls in love with gaston as a human rather than having a crush on the unattainable ideal! and gaston starts to see lefou as human as well. ough two people that have subsumed themselves into a role so much that they don't feel like "real" people anymore. gaston is reduced to an ideal, lefou is reduced to a fool. but through this ordeal, they slowly start to feel "real" again. aaaaaaaagh sorry for the long ask lol
I love long asks don't worry hehe.
Anyway! I really love how you see LeFou, it's like, the same way I see him, which is interesting because I am not a huge LeFouhead or whatever. Ok, watch out my reply is all over the place lol.
- LeFou is a bully!!!! I also hate that they "redeemed" him in the 2017 film by basically sanding down his edges, (I feel the same way about Gaston in that movie tbh, they make him a little too likeable) he is just as cruel as Gaston, even when he isn't directly in front of him and doesn't have to be.
- His disability is a HUGE thing that contributes to his character, it adds an extra level onto Why he puts up with Gaston/ idolizes him. I really like the idea that Gaston is everything LeFou wants to be, and that manifests as a kind of superficial crush. I also never picked up on the fact that LeFou is specifically aggressive towards beings smaller than him, that is a interesting detail.
- LeFou enabling and being Gaston's hype man leading to Gaston giving him special attention apart from others is soooooo integral to their relationship. I honestly want to take apart their relationship and look at it so closely. It's toxic as hell, Gaston is physically abusive, and dismissive of LeFou, but who else gets to spend as much time with him as LeFou? He gets to carry Gaston's kills, he gets to cheer him up at the tavern, he gets to be part of the secret plans to send Maurice to the asylum. Sure everyone admires Gaston, but LeFou is making sure that he remembers that. It's so interesting it drives me crazy!!!
I just rewatched the bit where LeFou works up the crowd during the mob scene, and DAMN, he is not given enough credit for how charismatic he is in his own right. I've focused mostly on Gaston, (because I am obviously biased lmao) but with the tavern scene as well, it's amazing how LeFou can work a crowd. I forgot about the mob scene, but the tavern scene was influencing a plot point I was going to use in my fic hehe. He doesn't actually need Gaston, but he lacks confidence to do anything by himself.
I really love how you are using his and Gaston's character in your au, it's honestly delicious. Character based horror is soooo fun to play with and you are doing it so well. ❤️
