Beauty and the Beast: Gaston (Richard White (voice))

Gaston isn't so much a villain as he is an antagonist. A jerk, to be sure, and one who goes way too far at the end, but I'm unsure if he was an out-and-out villain.

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In all honesty the villain is the guy opposing the hero. After all Biff in Back to the Future is, by pretty much everyone, a villain and he didn't do anything remotely bad as Gaston. So I'm pretty sure Gaston is a villain although he never becomes an out-and-out one until the film's climax.

A villain is a type of antagonist; an antagonist being whoever opposes the protagonist. But one can be an antagonist without being a villain just as one can be a protagonist without being a hero.

By contrast, the Beast himself isn't exactly what you'd call heroic for most of the movie, but he's still a protagonist. Just as Gaston doesn't reach the true definition of villain until the end, so, too, does the protagonist Beast not become a hero until the end (or close to it).

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 02:21AM by Kooshmeister.

But that raises the question: when we say Baddy are we referring to the synonym for antagonist or villain or some disinterested third-party?

When it's unclear, that's when we use Ambivalent.

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...Ambivalent? Really?

First off, Gaston is essentially planning to force Belle to marry him against her will, which, given his mention of planning on having six or seven kids, plus the medieval Europe setting, translates to "rape her repeatedly." In order to do this, he bribes the head of an asylum to commit Belle's father unless Belle agrees to marry him (said asylum head's response: "Oh, that is despicable... hahaha, I LOVE IT!" Once Belle proves Maurice is not in fact crazy, Gaston immediately attempts to murder the man Belle does love out of jealousy and spite.

Straight-up baddy. No question.