Love Is Never Ugly

Inspiration Third Half

Part 4 - The Villains

Every good story needs a villain or antagonist to make the story interesting. But when I first started this I wasn't sure who I wanted to make the villain of my story. In most Beauty and the Beast stories the main antagonist boils down to one of these three: A bad fairy who turned the prince into the beast, Beauty's jealous sisters, or a handsome rival who wishes to marry Beauty. I couldn't decide which one I wanted to put in because I could do something interesting with all three. So then I decided to use all three. Katie as the bad fairy, Helsa as the jealous sister, and Seviathan as the handsome rival. And I set to work writing them as threatening villains who would impact the story and who readers could really hate. And all these villains have one thing in common, envy.

Katie is based on the wicked fairy from the original Beauty and the Beast fairy tale who believe it or not was way more twisted than how I wrote Katie was. The bad fairy from that story was the prince's nanny who raised him and when he grew up she tried to seduce and marry him, and then cursed when he rejected her. Gross! But somehow I didn't think that route would suit Katie, she didn't really come off as the pedophilic type, more like a bigoted type with a superiority complex.

Katie is a villain driven by pure pride and bigotry. She thinks that her kind is basically the equivalent of Gods and that the world should just bow down and say how great she is because has magic and all these incredible powers. Yet even she has her limits, one of which is the ability to create. Art, inventions, construction, music, writing stories, even science, are concepts that her kind is ignorant of but humans are naturally gifted at it. And that really pisses her off. What also makes her so mad is that even though fairies have magic, the population of that species outranks humanity's and even animals, 10 to 100. She's envious that humans don't need magic or immortality to accomplish greatness or find happiness, while she can't due to her own wretched nature.

It's a sense pride and bigotry so strong, she refuses to allow a human to be considered equal to her kind in anyway. When her sister Marie married a human, that made him and his half human child  equals to one of her kind and her bigotry just couldn't let that be. Her desire to destroy Alastor is because he serves as a constant reminder to her that humans and fairies could be equals, something she never wants anyone to discover. So not only does she curse him to become a beast physically, but mentally torments him to act as one so the world will continue to fear him and someday kill him, thus in her mind ensuring that fairies and humans will never be equals again.

Helsa is based on Beauty's sisters from the original story. In the original story the sisters were vain, spoiled, and jealous of their sister because she was not only more beautiful than them but also more happy. But something always bugged me about their characterization, why were the first two daughters rotten and the youngest wasn't? After all they been brought up the same way and by the same father, so it would be more likely that all three of them would either be cruel or kind. That's why I decided to make Charlotte and Helsa half sisters, and that Helsa was brought up by a wicked mother. 

 Helsa is driven by vanity and greed. Influenced by a mother who was just as vain and greedy, she lives in her own mirror, viewing the world as nothing more but a reflection of herself. She was blessed with beauty and people who would love her, but she used both gifts as a way to manipulate others. And no matter how much anyone would give her, it was never enough. She continues to take and take, and use and use. All to feed the empty, greedy, black hole that exists in place of her heart and to glorify the hideous, vile, disgraceful face hidden behind a mask of beauty.

Like the sisters from the original story, Helsa is jealous of her own sister. Jealous because she's more beautiful, because she's sweet and kind, because she's easily loved by others. Basically because she's everything Helsa is not. Appearance wise, I based it on a theory I had when I was a little girl, I believed that God made everyone beautiful at birth but as you grow older, he gradually either increases or decreases your beauty based on your actions. So in my story, Helsa is beautiful but because of her selfish, vain, and greedy personality, her looks start to fade. On the other hand, Charlotte's beauty flourishes due to her personality being selfless, compassionate, and generous. However Helsa's vanity keeps her from seeing the real reason why Charlotte is loved and has a much happier life with Alastor. She thinks, "I am beautiful too, so why is she so fortunate while I am not?"

She also believes that kindness is a form of weakness and that Charlotte is stupid for being a kind person, so she doesn't really deserve happiness. Helsa was "smart enough" to know how to use people like her mother did, so she should have everything and her "dumb, goody-goody" sister should have nothing. That in this world there is no good or evil, just the users and the used.

That being said, she doesn't always use her head. Her desire to have whatever she wants often blinds her to obvious and important factors. Such as her mother getting executed for her rotten ways, the fact that her husband whom she abuses has more money than her, that she lives in a world where magic exists, and that the reason for her misfortunes is her own wicked behavior.

Unlike the first two, the basis for Seviathan does not come from the original story of Beauty and the Beast, but rather two adaptions of it. Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete and Disney's Beauty and the Beast, these adaptions feature an antagonist in the form of a handsome but jealous rival for the beauty character. When putting together Seviathan's character, I took elements from both unwanted suitors. 

Seviathan driven is by lust and hatred. His mother abandoned him so he grew up viciously sexist toward women and desperate to gratify himself by any means. He treats other women like whores as a way to take out his feelings rejection by his mother but wants a "perfect bride" to give him to fit his "perfect image" of himself.  That if he has the most beautiful woman in the world all to himself, then he will achieve "pure perfection." This is why he becomes obsessed with Charlotte. He feels entitled to have her. She's "perfect" therefore he will have her and nothing will change that. In his mind, he has every right to not only marry Charlotte by force but to have his way with her even if it's against her will. It doesn't matter if she doesn't love him, she'll belong to him one way or another. Yet despite his insane obsession, he can be calculating and manipulative. He's smart enough to know that Lucifer won't marry off his daughter to someone who appears cruel and abusive, so he puts on an act to make his stepfather believe that he is just a decent and charming nobleman looking for a good woman to marry.

He and Alastor serve as an interesting compare and contrast to each other. In matters of similarities: Both are wealthy men of title, both are extremely flawed, both are mentally disturbed and guilty of serious crimes. But in the differences: Alastor adored his mother whereas Seviathan hated her, Seviathan is very egotistical whereas Alastor hates himself, Seviathan lies while Alastor is honest, Seviathan hunts for sport while Alastor hunts for survival, Alastor is polite and Seviathan is rude, Alastor recognizes and accepts that he has flaws but Seviathan views himself as perfect, Alastor takes time to learn what would make Charlotte happy but Seviathan could careless about her happiness, and most of all...Alastor is in love with Charlotte whereas Seviathan only lusts for her.

Seviathan becomes jealous of Alastor because Charlotte prefers the latter over the former, and he can't comprehend why a beauty like her would choose a beast and reject Seviathan when (in his mind) he's the better option. Unable to understand what real love is, he views Alastor and Charlotte's relationship as a hideous creature trying to take what's rightfully his. So he decides to just kill Alastor and take Charlotte by force, not all caring for the consequences or who gets hurt. Just as long as he gets what he wants. But in the end he is ultimately destroyed by his obsession when it leads him to threatening Charlotte, thus pushing Alastor to make one last kill.