Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)
Gaston is a fictional character, the main villain of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. He is voiced by Reverend/Actor Richard White.
Beauty and the Beast
Gaston starts off as a local hero in a French town where the movie takes place. A big, muscular man with his long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, Gaston is a self-centered, rude, crass, and conceited man loved and admired (especially by three dimwitted and fangirlish blonde bimbettes) by almost everyone in the village, except for the one woman he is obsessed with and determined to wed: Belle. He also thinks that reading books isn't for women, though Gaston isn't very intelligent himself - "Positively primeval," as Belle states him to be.
Gaston tries many attempts to win Belle's heart, but his big head and self-centeredness always manage to mess it up. One day, Gaston organizes a wedding in Belle's garden, and enters Belle's house to try and woo her. "Woo her" is, in fact, too generous a term for it; he decides on his own that she will marry him and only later informs her of this (he states that she will be his "little wife" and that they will have six or seven sons that are "strapping" like himself) but she plays a dirty trick on him and (literally) sends him flying into a muddy pond in her garden, where he is laughed at by the villagers. Taking his anger out on the laughing LeFou (French for "the fool"), his closest companion, Gaston declares that he has not given up and will make Belle his wife no matter what.
But Gaston doesn't stop fuming there, cursing out loud and shouting in the local bar in a drunken haze. LeFou tries to persuade Gaston to believe that there are other things to life besides women, and manages to cheer the downhearted hunter up by singing a song about him. Then Maurice enters the bar, claiming that a Beast has locked Belle in a dungeon and desperately needs help, especially Gaston's. But Gaston, along with most of the village, believes Maurice to be a crazy old fool and orders his cohorts to throw Maurice out of the bar. But when he hears the villagers mutter "crazy old Maurice", a plan comes to Gaston's dirty mind: one that will ensure Belle's proposal to him.
Gaston makes a deal with his old friend Monsieur D'Arque, the owner of the local madhouse (Asylum for Loons), to blackmail Belle into marrying him by threatening to have Maurice thrown into the madhouse should she reject him one more time. Gaston pays D'Arque a bagfull of gold and seals the deal. He then goes with LeFou to Belle's house to put his plan into action, only to discover that Belle and Maurice are not in. Gaston orders LeFou to stay by the house and inform him of Belle and Maurice's eventual return.
Upon being informed by LeFou, Gaston (secretly) brings a lynch mob to take Maurice to the madhouse. Maurice tries to tell the crowd that the Beast was real, but they just laugh at him and D'Arque has his guards carry Maurice to the madhouse carriage, despite Belle begging him not to. Gaston then intervenes by expressing his "pity" for Maurice, and tells Belle that he knows Maurice is not crazy and may be able to "clear up the misunderstanding" if she agrees to marry him. Disgusted beyond explanation at Gaston, Belle pushes Gaston away, and the hunter angrily walks off to laugh at Maurice.
But Belle uses the magic mirror that the now-kind Beast had given her earlier on to prove once and for all that her father is not crazy, much to Gaston's fury. Hearing Belle describe the Beast as a kind and gentle friend, Gaston immediately assumes that Belle has fallen for Beast and not him, and completely loses control of himself when Belle defends the Beast against him by calling him the true monster.
Feeling betrayed and angry, Gaston takes the mirror and convinces the lynch mob that the Beast is a threat to the society and must be brought down as quickly as possible. The rioters throw Belle and Maurice into the house's cellar to stop them from warning Beast, and led by Gaston, attack Beast's castle using a log they cut earlier to break the door down. But this all results in a battle between the rioters and Beast's servants, small, humanoid household ornaments. The ornaments fight the rioters off, but Gaston runs deeper into the castle to kill the Beast himself.
Gaston eventually finds the Beast, who has lost interest in living since Belle's departure, in the West Wing and starts his merciless torture by shooting him in the back with an arrow and smashing him straight through the window to the West Wing's balcony. Hitting the Beast to a lower level of the roof, Gaston demands that Beast retaliate, but he doesn't, so Gaston prepares to end the fight with a stone club ripped off the roof. However, Belle and Maurice return at the last minute, and upon seeing Belle, Beast's interest in living rekindles and he fights Gaston back.
Beast eventually gains the upper hand, holding Gaston above a chasm on the roofs of the castle, but Gaston begs for his life, and Beast, knowing that he can't find it in his heart to kill anyone, spares him, telling him to leave. But when Beast turns his back to go back to Belle, Gaston follows him and, hanging dangerously from a balcony, stabs Beast in the back. Beast, in pain, waves his arm behind and Gaston loses his balance, falling to his death from the castle roofs and taking the magic mirror with him.
Trivia
- Though the world of Beauty and the Beast is featured on the video game Kingdom Hearts II, Gaston is absent, his role of villain passed onto the mysterious Xaldin of Organization XIII.
- During his fight against Beast, Gaston was originally supposed to say "It's over, Beast! Time to die!". But it was changed to "Belle is mine!" in order to edit violence and to fit Belle back into the scene.
- An in-joke often refers to Gaston as the one responsible for the death of Bambi's mother.
- Gaston has three songs in the musical: "Me," "Maison des Lunes" and "Gaston". The first two only appeared in the musical and were never sung by Richard White himself.
In other media
- Gaston appears in the TV Series House of Mouse as a regular guest at the club. A recurring joke in the series is that Gaston is liable to boast that "nobody can (specific action inserted) like Gaston" whenever he overhears someone mention it. Those appearances are not in the same continuity as Beauty and the Beast and are not to be considered canon. Richard White reprised his role as Gaston for the series.
- In the The Lion King 1 1/2 Special Edition DVD game "Find the Face", Gaston is listed as one of the choices.