idk

The reason i’ve never liked The Beauty and The Beast story (and why i’ve never liked Rosabella Beauty) is that almost every retelling falls into the trap of The Beauty’s kindness and patience and endless well of congeniality, is warped into her needing to ‘teach’ The Beast how to be a good person. She holds his hand through his every mistake and smiles blandly at his every tantrum or insult, and her inherent warmth is translated into a bottomless pit of tolerance for the man to put all of his bullshit.

Firstly that completely misses the point of the story. The Beast wasn’t evil, or scream at her, or throw his furniture around, or in general be a little bitch. The skeleton of the story relies on him being a good person beneath his appearance. That The Beauty is good enough to not have any prejudices, and judge him for his character.

Instead, each telephone-gamed version of this mess that gets warped with every iteration, has ended with it being that it’s her job to see beyond his abusive, intolerant, childish behaviour and bring out the good person inside of him. For her to essentially become his mother, live-in nanny, therapist and girlfriend rolled into one.

This story has become Patient Zero for the narrative that it’s a woman’s job to stay with her man-child boyfriend. That if she tidies up after his messes, and stays through his tantrums, and waves away any outside concern with ‘Oh, aren’t all men like that?’, then she is a ‘good woman’.

The worst part is I know that I know it isn’t intentional. There isn’t a worldwide conspiracy among YA authors and scriptwriters to trick young girls into becoming Stepford Wives. These stories are written in earnest, because we have spent years as a society watching women laugh about how she had to prepare a months-worth of meals when she went out of town because she thinks her husband is too incompetent to take care of himself. That she sent her children to stay with their grandparents and she find it hilarious that they’ll probably die under the hands of her husband.

This is why I hate Rosabella’s place in this show. Her whole role in her story is to be the soundboard for Daring’s arc. To be patient, and emotionally-mature, and roll her eyes fondly at his every mistake. And then fall in love with him as his reward at the end.

She arrived so late in the series, and had so little screen time that Rosabella was never given any significant personality or character flaws. We don’t know her unique look on the Royal/Rebel argument, or how her life impacts her decision. She is introduced in the series already decided that everyone should write their own stories, because to give any more perspective than that might bump into an interesting character flaw, she exists to be perfect. To be kind, and patient, and always right but not a nag about it, and perfect and boring.

(I made a post talking more about how EAH poorly handles the True Love concept)

I kind of wish Rosabella was used to explore the Destined Love idea. That she’s placed under the awful burden of knowing her love will automatically save Daring from his curse, and the immediate pressure that’s put on her because of it. That it’s her job to ‘fix’ him, to fall in love with a boy she’s literally just met, that her role in life is to make his easier.

I wish Daring’s arc was working through the concept of being a ‘Prince Charming’. That the adults in his life weren’t preparing him to be a great hero who saves the day, but a plot point in someone else’s narrative. A nameless husband who nobody remembers who is there as a ‘reward’ for his princess. Daring going back-and-forth between being furious that this curse means that life was taken away from him, and him realising that he might actually, secretly, be glad that he no longer has that burden put on him.

And then Daring realising he’s expecting Rosabella to do exactly what he’s just realised should never have been asked of him. That he naturally expects her to do the work, to break his curse through her own love.

So, the answer is yes to both.

For the generic Witch/Royals ecc:

In "The Unfairest of Them All", the second book in the franchise, it is said that the Big Bad Wolf should have died (he was saved thanks to Red, but he is an exception). However, this does not create problems for them because Hood Hollow (the village where Cerise lives and Little Red Riding Hood takes place) has a community of wolves within it So the death of a Wolf is not the end of the world because they have a full village to refuel

So it goes without saying that this mechanism will also apply to witches, mermaids, minor nobles and other gene roles.

The cyclical nature of roles:

We are given the answer to this question practically at the beginning of the series when Cedar is introduced: Yes, the old protagonists when their heirs are born take on the role of the parents of the story.

Cedar is the most obvious case because she is the future Pinocchio, and so Pinocchio, by building her, became the new Geppetto.

Another example is Cinderella: She is getting sick at the beginning of the story, because as the mother of the future Cinderella (Ashlynn), she has to die.