#l'babe

I really like Florent L'Belle and I really think he's an amazingly fascinating character, in his very own way.

He's a common character type, the fabulous guy, taken to the extreme. There are just no redeeming qualities left. He literally just acts like he's perfect and steps on everything and everyone without a second thought. He's so self-absorbed that he easily stabs a man without feeling any mental struggle about it whatsoever. 

Yet he's a man of discrepancies. 

There is no doubt L'Belle is intelligent. Even the attorneys end up praising his scheme multiple times during his case. His set-up was brilliantly elaborate. A man like this could have gotten so far - any other man like this, with this brain but a different personality. As opposed to his in-depth scheme, L'Belle is unbelievably shallow. His motivations are superficial and his pride is doubtlessly his downfall. He could make millions with his cosmetics. But he doesn't. Because all his intellect just fails and stops functioning when faced with his emotional side - emotional about himself and nothing else. He destroys himself by loving himself, ironically.

And then there is the question of his ego as such. L'Belle claims he's beautiful through and through. It's in his DNA, his inherit right to always win. The ultimate self-confidence, you'd think. If it only were true. But it isn't. A main topic of Dual Destinies, as I see it, is 'Masks' as opposed to 'True Self'.  L'Belle is so on the 'Mask' side of that. He covers himself up with layers and layers of make-up. Not a single color, not a single smell is natural. He is his own creation. He has confidence in his ability to fabricate perfection. Evidently he does however not have confidence in his natural perfection. He is in complete denial about his white hair, claiming something that ugly could never be him. L'Belle doesn't think he's beautiful. He says his beauty is in his DNA, but it isn't. L'Belle is the king of denial. 

He is the creator of himself, a self he can now consider beautiful. He is his own exhibit. And exhibit himself he does - show himself and his work off everywhere, but never give any away. It's like a strange sense of paranoia - as if by giving any of his cosmetics away, he would allow people to become more like him and thereby lose his 'on top of all' perfect status.