Gaston

Gaston
Aliases	Unknown
Relatives	Unnamed son and daughter
Affiliation	Bad
Biographical information
Marital status	Unknown
Date of birth	Unknown
Place of birth	France
Date of death	Unknown
Date of death	Unknown
Physical description
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Height	Unknown
Weight	Unknown
Eye color	Blue

Gaston is the main antagonist of Disney's 1991 animated feature film, Beauty and the Beast. He was a conceited, chauvinistic hunter who was determined to have Belle's hand in marriage, even by force if necessary. This addiction turned him into a relentless, treacherous villain, especially when he found out that Belle's love was not for him but for a Beast.

Background

Official Description

An egotistical hunter who vies for Belle's hand in marriage and is determined not to let anyone else win her heart, even if it means killing her true love.

Development

In the 1988 screenplay, although Gaston himself did not exist, there did exist three suitors for Belle who competed for her hand in marriage who were ultimately similar to him, and shared the role of antagonist with Belle's wicked sisters. They ultimately were transformed into animals, alongside Belle's sisters, by the Enchantress as punishment for their misdeeds, including nearly murdering the Beast.

In the 1989 screenplay, the three suitors were condensed into a single character, Gaston. In this version, Gaston was depicted very differently. Instead of a hunter who was the town hero, he was a marquess, or French nobleman. He would have shared the role of antagonist with Belle's aunt, Marguerite who would have chosen him as Belle's suitor, specifically as revenge towards Maurice (who in this version was a failed merchant who lost his wealth at sea, just like in the original tale). In the climax, he was to have traveled to the Beast's Castle, also stealing the Sedan Chair to ensure he tracked down the castle, and upon arrival fight off several of the Enchanted Objects with a rapier before personally dueling the Beast in battle. He also met his fate differently (see Death section below).

As such, his design was also completely different. He was tall and lank with a mole on the left side of his face and a crooked nose. His attire consisted of a sky-blue jacket and a powdered wig tied with a red ribbon. All of these features gave him a somewhat similar appearance to French noblemen, such as Jean Rousseau or Napoleon.

After Jeffrey Katzenberg demanded a rewrite to the film, Gaston's characterization was altered significantly, being made into the town hero as well as the village's local hunter. According to Linda Woolverton, she had based this version on Gaston on previous unsuccessful relationships, and she had also wanted Belle's decrying of Gaston being her suitor (whom Woolverton referred to as a blockhead) to be the focal point of the film, necessitating that Belle's wicked sisters and their respective love interests be left out, as well as cutting her snobbish Aunt Marguerite.

Story reels for the original screenplay (included in the Platinum and Diamond Editions of the final film) indicate that his surname was intended to be LeGume, as he is referred to with said name by Marguerite. This acted as a pun on his small-minded views. This was presumably dropped in the final release, as in both "Belle" and its reprise, the Bimbettes and Belle referred to him and herself as "Monsieur Gaston" and (albeit sarcastically) "Madame Gaston" respectively, implying that "Gaston" was his surname.

Demise

Story threads show that in the original screenplay, Gaston would have tried to use his sword to stab the Beast, only to be punched over the garden wall, apparently to his demise.

In one of the earliest scripts, Gaston's demise would have been different, as the battle against Beast would have taken place in the forest. In this early version of the script, Gaston would wound the Beast and nearly slaughter him with his gun, when Belle strikes him from behind with a rock. This would have prompted him to fall off a cliff. Upon trying to stand up, he notices that the wolves who attacked Maurice and Belle earlier are looking at him, and destroy him. This idea was scrapped because the writers thought that it was too gruesome and worse. Although this idea was later used in The Lion King, more specifically in the sequence of Scar's demise at the hands (or rather, jaws) of the hyenas.

Ironically, the above mentioned scene of Scar's demise (as the final version of the ending) was chosen for the exact same reason why Gaston's original demise was cut: The original ending was deemed to be too graphic and frightening for a Disney film.

In addition, the final version of Gaston's demise also had some alterations: moments prior to his plunge from the castle to his unseen demise, Gaston was supposed to stab the Beast in the back, and later in the leg, but the second injury was cut from the final script to edit violence; it was also intended for Gaston to commit suicide after stabbing the Beast in the back and laugh madly as he fell from the tower in the first place, believing that if he could not win Belle, nobody else would (which might explain why Gaston was choosing such a dangerous position to stab the Beast from behind, despite knowing that he would never win Belle's heart). However, this was edited out due to the dark nature of the scene.

Personality

Gaston is sturdy and handsome, and exploited thode traits to the fullest. He’s very popular in his village, who seem unmindful of his true nature (Gaston reprise in the original film notwithstanding), and this serves to fuel his already massive ego. A narcissist who sees himself as superior to everybody around him, Gaston is boorish, uncultured and sexist. He was conceited as well, as evidenced by his setting up a wedding before he even proposed to Belle under the expectation that she'd approve of becoming his wife. He was convinced that he is powerful enough to defeat the Beast by himself in addition. He even torments the Beast, wanting him to fight back as he wants to prove that he can kill him in a fair fight. However, his conceitedness makes him underestimate his opponent and once he realizes his life is on the line, his apparent façade disappears and will beg for his life when he got overwhelmed. Despite this, he wasn’t conceited enough to believe there was no risk to being murdered by the Beast, as he freely confesses that fighting the Beast has the likelihood that he or the other villagers may die during the "Mob Song".

Despite his belief that thinking is "a dangerous pastime" (suggesting that he is anti-intellectual) however, Gaston is not unintelligent; in fact, he is quite shrewd, which is emphasized twice in the story; he comes up with a plan to get Belle to propose to him by threatening to have her father, Maurice, thrown into an asylum should she decline. When that plan is foiled by Belle showing the Beast with a magic mirror, Gaston simply improvises and quickly turns the tables by manipulating the villagers into forming a mob to kill the Beast, thus eliminating his competition. Gaston is not above using underhanded tactics, which would have implied with LeFou's claim about Gaston being "slick" as well as Gaston's admission about being good at "taking cheap shots", and confirmed when he shows himself to literally be a backstabber in his final moments, showing that he also cheats at things and breaks his promises.

However, in the film, his vocabulary skills are slightly inconsistent; When Belle refers to Gaston as being "positively primeval" early in the film, the latter apparently takes it as a compliment, clearly not knowing what the term actually means. However, in the "Gaston" song, Gaston at one point accurately used the word "expectorating" in reference to his skills at spitting ("expectorating" being a more fancy way of saying the term "spit").

Gaston's view of women is extremely sexist, and while he appears charming to all of the other women of the village, such as the Bimbettes (who, being products of an upbringing in the village, grew-up to see nothing wrong with Gaston's behavior, completely mesmerized by his good-looking face), Belle is the only woman in the entire town to be able to see him for what he really is from the start of the film on. He believes that women shouldn’t be able to think for themselves or even get ideas, and even stamps Belle's book into the mud in an attempt to get her to pay very close attention on "more important things" (namely, himself). Because of this, Gaston's attempts to charm Belle constantly fall flat because of his chauvinistic and boorish behavior. His sexism is shown by the fact that he does not seem to even consider the possibility of fathering any daughters, as he states he wants "six or seven strapping boys" like himself as well.

Gaston suffers from Template:WikipediaLink which is shown by his intense infatuation with Belle. Indeed, he is so obsessed with her that he pays no mind to all the other pretty ladies in the village who would be very happy to be his "little wife", even ironically, those who technically matched Gaston's standards of how women should behave. When Gaston sings about wanting to marry her in the opening song, he says "When I met her saw her I said she's gorgeous and I fell", implying that he fell in love for Belle at first sight. The Marvel Comics serial likewise strongly implied that he had feelings for Belle since they were children. These facts imply that another reason for his relentless pursuit of Belle is to satisfy his pride which may have have hurt by her resistance to him. Gaston is also adulterous (at least in the musical), as he states to Claudia and her sisters that his "rendezvouses" with the girls will continue after he marries Belle, which makes it clear that he does not know or care that marriage is a one-woman commitment or that is it supposed to be based on love and affection rather than ownership of property.

Notably, at the start of the film and musical play, Gaston did not seem truly evil. Rather, he was simply conceited, male-chauvinistic, boorish and rude than a true villain, but as time goes on his pride and obsession with Belle becomes so intense that it turns him into a twisted, sadistic and murderous monster. His speech to get the mob to kill the Beast in order to protect the village is nothing more than a plot to get them to assist him infiltrate the castle. Gaston doesn’t care about the village very much, even if he genuinely does believe the Beast is a threat. Everything he wants is to slaughter his rival so he can have Belle as his property. By the time of his demise, Gaston feels that if he cannot have Belle, nobody can. In an earlier version of the story, he was even going to commit suicide after he slaughtered the Beast as he knew that no matter what he did, Belle would never adore him.

Physical Appearance

As noted throughout the film, he possessed an extremely athletic build, a cleft chin, and possessed a handsome appearance. His hair was long and tied into a ponytail. He possessed icy blue eyes. He typically wore yellow hunting gloves, although he discarded them by the midpoint. He also wore a red tunic and black tights, alongside boots. He wore a cape during cold evenings and his final battle with the Beast as well. He had a lot of hair on his chest in addition.

During the failed wedding attempt, Gaston wore a red tailcoat trimmed with gold fabric, a waistcoat, black ribbon tie, breeches and even black boots, and also had white tights.

As a child, his hair was slightly disheveled with its ends standing on top, although he retained the ponytail. In addition, he possessed freckles, and his outfit consisted of a shirt, pants, and elf-shoes.

Abilities

Gaston is shown to possess a tremendous amount of physical strength, evidenced by his effortlessly lifting up a bench with three adult females (the Bimbettes) on it, as well as holding it up with only one hand. He later effortlessly rips off a stone ornament from the castle to use as a makeshift club during his battle with the Beast. He is also able to fire his blunderbuss with pinpoint accuracy, noted by LeFou proclaiming, "Wow! You didn't miss a shot, Gaston!" This, however, was briefly contradicted in the Marvel Comics, where he managed to miss a Rabbit despite it being fairly close by. In addition, he has proved that he is a skilled archer during the climax at the castle. He is also shown to be skilled at stealth attacks, as implied in the song "Gaston" with the lyrics: "No one's slick as Gaston," and confirmed when he manages to stab the Beast in the back while the latter was distracted with joy that Belle returned even though he had to climb up several areas to reach him.

As noted above, despite his otherwise revulsion to the idea of reading, ideas, and overall intelligence (specifically for wives), he is shown to be a somewhat skilled plotter, having come up with the blackmail idea. In addition, he also had decent enough observation skills to pick up the hint that Belle may have had feelings for the Beast just from a few subtle clues late into the film. He is also very good at manipulation; after discovering that Belle was in love with the Beast, he used the villagers' ignorance and prejudices (as well as his own popularity) to rally them into killing the Beast. Despite this, however, he has ultimately shown himself to be very reckless regarding his planning. This is especially evident in Gaston's reprise where he loudly divulged in a crowded tavern enough key details about his blackmail plan to have all but ensured that everyone knew his true nature.

Appearances

Beauty and the Beast

Lifestyle

Gaston is the local hero of a small French village at an unknown point in French history. He owns a large tavern where he and the villagers drink and talk. Inside, there is a large portrait of himself along with "trophies" from his hunt consisting mostly of animal antlers. He also says he eats five dozen eggs every morning to help make him "roughly the size of a barge" (even though he earlier mentions to Belle that he would have his latest kills roast over the fire).

Chasing Belle

He starts off in the film shooting down a waterfowl headed south with perfect accuracy (implying that he had just returned from a hunting trip) and declaring his intent to marry Belle after acknowledging from LeFou his popularity with the females in the village. He then started pursuing Belle throughout the village as she returns home after buying a book from the local bookstore. Their meeting starts off well, but Gaston's remarks about women reading and thinking drive Belle away from him, and she goes home, leaving him disappointed. In addition, Gaston, after LeFou, learning Belle was going to aid her father, mocked her father, scolded LeFou for mocking Maurice (although it was implied that he mostly did that in an attempt to impress Belle rather than out of any genuine concern for Maurice).

The next day, however, Gaston organizes a wedding outside Belle's cottage in an attempt to "surprise" her, complete with various decorations, a priest, and a wedding cake. He forces his way into the cottage and attempts to strong-arm her into marrying him, again making sexist remarks about women and housewifery (he even envisions the home they would live in as a "rustic" hunting lodge, with his latest kill roasting over the fire and Belle massaging his feet while their children—six or seven boys—play on the floor with their dogs). While he attempts to corner Belle, her using her wiles to keep him at bay, she manages to open the door that he has pinned her against. This causes him to lose his balance and fly headfirst into a large mud puddle (complete with cat-tail plants) in front of Belle's cottage, where we find out that a pig (Pierre) is there too. Furious and humiliated, Gaston storms off but not before vowing to make Belle his wife regardless of her refusals and throwing LeFou into the mud to boot.

Deal With Monsieur D'Arque

Later, during a snowstorm, the villagers in the tavern, along with LeFou, sing a song about Gaston's greatness to cheer him up after being rejected by Belle. Maurice suddenly interrupts and warns the villagers about a monstrous beast who has locked up Belle as a prisoner in the tower of his castle. Thinking he is talking nonsense, the villagers throw him out of the tavern. Gaston then realizes that he can use Maurice's outrageous claim to his advantage. In a surprising display of animalistic cunning, he bribes the owner of the local asylum, Monsieur D'Arque, to threaten to throw Maurice into the asylum in order to pressure Belle into marrying him. While D'Arque realizes that even Maurice's nonsense about a beast and his odd inventions do not make him dangerous, he is willing to accept the bribe, mostly because he liked the despicability of the plot. Considering the management of asylums of the 18th century (the time that the film takes place), this is an extremely harsh threat. However, just before Gaston and LeFou barge into Belle and Maurice's cottage, Maurice left for the castle on his own. Gaston orders LeFou to stay outside the cottage and wait for their return.

When Belle and Maurice eventually return to the cottage, LeFou immediately informs Gaston, and he sets his plan into motion. With the villagers gathered outside the house, D'Arque has his men drag Maurice towards their carriage, while Gaston makes Belle his offer - he will clear up the "misunderstanding" if she marries him. Horrified and disgusted, Belle refuses, and Gaston allows Maurice to be dragged away. Belle, however, manages to prove her father's apparently insane claims about a beast inhabiting a huge castle in the woods to be true by using a Magic mirror that the Beast had given her. Gaston grows even more frustrated after his plan fails and shocked that Maurice was indeed telling the truth but becomes increasingly jealous when Belle begins referring to the Beast as "kind and gentle," realizing that she prefers a "monster" over himself. When he refers to the Beast with this insult, Belle angrily retorts back that he is the real monster, which makes him even more furious and he finally snaps.

Final Battle and Death

In his jealousy and pride, Gaston snatches the mirror from Belle and successfully convinces the villagers that the Beast is a threat to the village and therefore must be brought down immediately. Belle tries to stop Gaston, but Gaston, perceiving that Belle is against him, has Belle and Maurice locked in the basement to keep them from warning the Beast. He then leads a lynch mob to attack the Beast's castle and leave no one alive while declaring that he himself is to take down the Beast. Gaston bypasses the ensuing battle between the rioters and castle servants and confronts the Beast alone in the West Wing. He fires an arrow into him, tosses him out of the window onto a lower section of the roof and taunts him. When the Beast doesn't respond, having lost his will to live since Belle's departure (to rescue her lost father, who was searching for her), Gaston uses a castle statue as a makeshift club to try to kill the Beast. The Beast, however, regains his strength when he sees Belle return (she had escaped from the basement with help from Chip, who stowed away with her) and viciously fights back with strength and animal ferocity. He grabs for the club and the two struggle.

Though roughly even with his adversary, Gaston soon learns that he cannot rely on brute strength alone to kill the Beast, and instead begins taunting him in order to infuriate him enough to let his guard down, pushing the final button by claiming that Belle can never love a monster. The plan works but immediately backfires: the Beast lunges forth, overcome by animalistic urges and emotion, headbutting him in the chest, and then holds the terrified hunter at his mercy by holding him above the castle moat by the throat. With his life at stake, Gaston abandons his pride and pathetically begs for mercy; the Beast, seeing his former self in the hunter and knowing Belle would never allow him to take his life, grudgingly accepts, ordering Gaston to leave immediately and never return. In spite of this, when Gaston sees the Beast embracing Belle, his great hatred and jealousy arises again. This leads to his ultimate downfall. Determined to kill his rival once and for all, Gaston stabs the Beast in the back with a knife while dangling somewhat precariously from the balcony. The Beast swings his arm backwards at him in pain, which makes Gaston lose his balance as he tries to avoid it and plunge into the deep moat below, to his death.

Despite laying a deep stab on the Beast, Gaston would die alone that night; just as the Beast nearly succumbed to his own wounds, Belle confessed her love for him just before the last petal of the enchanted rose that kept him bound to his beast form fell, breaking the spell and healing the Beast's injuries.

Other appearances

An emoticon version Gaston appears in the Beauty and the Beast entry of the As Told by Emoji short series.

Live-action appearances

Sing Me a Story with Belle

Gaston made sporadic appearances in Sing Me a Story with Belle, mostly acting as a comedic foil to Belle. Once again, he is trying to convince Belle to marry him.

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Gaston appeared in the 2017 remake, portrayed by Luke Evans. However, in this film, Gaston is portrayed as a former army captain prior to his career as a hunter due to a portrait of him standing over fallen soldiers in the tavern. It is also implied that this incarnation of Gaston is a much darker portrayal than in the original, as he is far more psychopathic and violent in nature.

Just like his animated counterpart, Gaston is well-liked and respected in the village for his previous war heroics against the Portuguese, and aims to have Belle as his wife. At first, he attempts to woo her to get her approval for marriage many times, but she respectfully turns him down due to his rude behavior. Gaston then warns Belle that she will end up being in the streets as a beggar if she doesn't marry him, but she still refuses by saying that she's not that simple to hang out with, much to his dismay.

Eventually, in the tavern, Gaston gets cheered up by LeFou and the villagers following his failed attempts to woo Belle, right before Belle's father Maurice arrives and exclaims that Belle has been taken prisoner by the Beast (the son of a wicked king) in his castle. The villagers instantly laugh at this as they find Maurice to be insane (due to a spell cast by an enchantress that erases all the townsfolk's memories of the castle), but Gaston decides to tag along, in hopes of getting Maurice's approval for Belle's hand in marriage. However, as they stroke into the woods with LeFou, Gaston tires himself of Maurice's story and reveals his true intentions, which incited a furious Maurice to refuse Gaston's proposal. In revenge, Gaston ties Maurice up in a tree and leaves him to die of winter exposure and be fed by hungry wolves (despite LeFou's objections), though Maurice ends up being saved and nursed back to health by a hermit, Agathe.

As Gaston returns to his tavern, he is shocked to see that Maurice has returned alive and is now accusing him for his attempted murder. However, Gaston uses his charisma to convince the villagers that Maurice is insane and must be locked up in the local asylum (even secretly silencing an uneasy LeFou from testifying against him and convincing everyone that Agathe is untrustworthy). To that end, Gaston gets the villagers to torment Maurice before having the local asylum owner Monsieur D'Arque to take Maurice away. However, Belle arrives back to the village and foils this by revealing the Beast's existence with the magic mirror that he given to her, making the townsfolk realize that Maurice was telling the truth. Realizing now that he would be exposed of his true colors and that Belle has feelings for the Beast (as the latter gave her the magic mirror and let her go to help Maurice), an angry Gaston snaps out by stealing the magic mirror and playing off the villagers' fear of monsters and sorcery to goad them into helping him kill the Beast, much to Belle and Maurice's horror.

After having Monsieur D'Arque to lock up Belle and Maurice in the asylum carriage and keep them on watch, Gaston leads the villagers to attack the Beast's castle, which forced the castle servants to fight back against the villagers. During the battle, Maurice frees himself and Belle before allowing the latter to head to the castle while Gaston betrays the villagers by leaving them to their fates, even using LeFou as a human shield before leaving him for dead, which incited an outraged LeFou to side up with the servants. As the villagers flee away in humiliation and defeat, Gaston heads over to the West Wing, where he finds the Beast sulking (as the latter lost his will to live after letting Belle go). Taking the opportunity, Gaston shoots the Beast, arrogantly claiming that Belle sent him over to kill him. However, Belle arrives to the rescue by breaking Gaston's arrows, throwing away his gun and briefly pushing him off the balcony into the roof, demanding him to stop. Undeterred by Belle's intervention, Gaston angrily vows that he will mount the Beast's head in his tavern wall and marry Belle by force before climbing through the roof to kill the Beast. However, the Beast regains his will after witnessing Belle's return and realizing what Gaston said is a lie, so he fights back against Gaston for good.

After a brief fight, the Beast finally overpowers Gaston and grabs him by the neck, preparing to drop him into the castle floor for the trouble he caused. With his life at stake, Gaston pathetically begs for mercy, to which the Beast reluctantly obliges by coldly telling Gaston that he is not a monster. Shoving Gaston away from his sight, the Beast furiously orders him to leave the castle before climbing back on the castle balcony to reunite with Belle. Eventually, Gaston finds his gun and ungratefully shoots the Beast fatally twice from a footbridge, much to Belle's distraught. However, Gaston's victory is short-lived when the footbridge breaks apart (due to the curse slowly crumbling the castle as the Beast succumbs to his wounds), leaving Gaston to fall screaming to his death in the castle floor below.

Despite putting fatal shots on the Beast, Gaston's death proved to be in vain as Belle's expression of her love for the deceased Beast inspired an arriving Agathe (who is revealed to be the enchantress responsible for placing the curse) to revive the Beast before transforming him and his servants back to normal, much to their delight. This also allows the castle and the townsfolk's memories to be restored as several villagers recognize some of the servants as their loved ones before reuniting with them.

Printed material

Comics

Gaston appeared in the official comic adaptation for the film. His role is largely the same as in the film, although because of the songs (including the Gaston reprise) being cut from the comic, it is implied that only he, LeFou and Monsieur D'Arque knew about the blackmail plan unlike the film where the other villagers were strongly implied to be in the know about the plan.

Aside from the comic adaptation above, Gaston also appeared in various side panels of the comics produced by Marvel Comics in 1994 to 1995, three to four years after the release of the film. In the first issue, Gaston apparently noticed Belle's disappearance, and was looking for her. The Bimbettes were nearby and decided to sway him away from Belle by spraying a "love potion" (strongly implied to actually a strong perfume) in their direction. However, Gaston alongside LeFou were forced to flee after a skunk ended up emitting an odor in anger of potential competition. Later, during a hunting trip with LeFou, Gaston attempted to shoot a rabbit, although he accidentally caused it to flee, shoving LeFou in irritation, also unknowingly placing LeFou into a net trap set by the Bimbettes that was meant for Gaston.

In Issue 2, Gaston decided to announce a wife auction in the hopes that Belle would be lured over. During this time, he also shows himself off, causing the Bimbettes to faint. Later on, the maidens proceeded to rush to Gaston. In Issue 3 "Has Gaston Finally Won Belle's Hand at Last?", he is holding an auction for his perfect wife. Naturally, he is looking for Belle, and she seemingly comes to him having forgone reading and intelligence for being Gaston's "little wife". It is actually Laurette, one of the Bimbettes in a clever disguise. He eventually ranted about being publicly humiliated, although he eventually decided that Belle may not have gotten the message and forgave the insult, although not without determining how to get Belle to marry him.

In issue 4, Gaston, after doing 783 liftups (ironically with a stack of books) as the Bimbettes watched, ended up deciding to take a mountain hike in the hopes this would actually impress Belle (which might have impressed her had she been there as the Bimbettes were extra determined to stop him because they feared that actually would impress Belle), and even managed to restrain a hibernating bear so he could demonstrate to Belle that he killed it (he initially planned to kill it then and there until LeFou reminded Gaston that bears hibernate during the winter). However, this plan ended up foiled by the Bimbettes, who tricked the Bear into thinking it was springtime. Gaston tried to fight the bear (mostly to show off), although he ended up thrown out of the cave by the Bear, and decided with LeFou that it was probably easier to just give Belle a smaller bear.

Although he does not appear in Issue 5 of the main serial (despite being mentioned in the solicitation for the issue to still be plotting to make Belle his), he does appear in Belle's flashback to her time in the village, although his reason for Belle not wanting to read books was tweaked a bit to imply that he was attempting to flirt with her in a poorly-done manner. In Issue 7, Gaston became irritated that Belle hasn't even appeared at all, and eventually decided to simply stake her out at the bookstore via the bookshop owner, even having LeFou keep watch at the bookstore in case Belle shows up. However, the Bimbettes thwarted this plan by interacting with LeFou, hoping to make Gaston jealous. Gaston eventually attacked LeFou after a heaping of eggs at the tavern, although only because LeFou was distracted from his duty, to the Bimbettes' chagrin. Besides the main story, he also briefly appeared in Beautiful and Beastly mail, where he was the subject of a trivia question, and was shown lifting books like in Issue 4.

Gaston only appears at the end of Belle's flashback in Issue 8, where Gaston welcomes Belle and Maurice back (Mainly Belle), who had gotten lost and barely avoided missing the fair and won first prize due to the Bimbettes sending them on the wrong direction in an attempt to ensure they don't return to the village. He is also mentioned beforehand, as the reason the Bimbettes did that was specifically so they won't have any competition regarding getting Gaston to marry them. Although he never appears in any of the remaining stories themselves after Issue 8, he did briefly appear as a trivia question for the Beautiful and beastly mail section of Issue 9, where he is shown fuming while LeFou is timidly trying to cheer him up. He also appears as a child in Issue 5 of Disney Comic Hits!, also made by Marvel Comics, alongside Belle and the Bimbettes, where he is standing on his sled during a snowy day in an obvious attempt at impressing her (with the Bimbettes trying to get his attention) before he and the Bimbettes ended up crashing into a tree. The narration also had Maurice telling Belle, when giving her a sled, that she can use it to "go sledding with your friends" when it cuts to this scene, which implies that Gaston and Belle may have been friends during childhood.

Kingdom Keepers

Gaston makes a small cameo in the fourth book of the saga. He is seen along with Prince John and the Horned King when Finn and Amanda see all the Overtakers together at Tom Sawyer Island.

Villain Files

Gaston also appears in the tongue-and-cheek book about Disney Villains called The Villain Files. According to the book, he had been vicious since he was a baby (and implied that the bearskin rug was actually created by someone other than Gaston, perhaps his father or grandfather) and met Belle while practicing archery. In addition, in the page depicting him as a baby, he was lying buck-naked on the bearskin rug, which acted as a pun on the phrase "bare on a bearskin rug," which is slang for a nude centerfold.

Video game appearances

Beauty and the Beast: Roar of the Beast

In Roar of the Beast, Gaston has led an invasion on the Beast's castle, endangering the entire castle as well as Belle with the help of his angry mob and LeFou.

Belle's Quest

In Belle's Quest, Gaston plays out his role in the film to some degree, though at the start, he appears to be much more tame, even using his strength to assist Belle in a task. Nevertheless, he continues to pursue her in hopes of marrying her, as well as invade the Beast's castle at the conclusion of the game.

Disney Princess

Gaston appears as the villain of Belle's stage. Here, he plots to manipulate the villagers into believing the Beast's castle is evil and should be destroyed. To do so, he breaks into the dark castle and tries to capture Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts, hoping to use them as proof of the castle's dark magic. However, Belle is able to defeat him using her quick wits.

Kingdom Hearts

Gaston makes his debut appearance in the Kingdom Hearts franchise in Kingdom Hearts χ. His role in the game is identical to the film, only he leads an army of Heartless to the castle instead of villagers, and sets the Malicious Reindeer Heartless to fight the player as he confronts the Beast. He is not directly fought as a boss within the game, although it should be noted that the Malicious Reindeer Heartless has several notable similarities to Gaston, in overall appearance, hairstyle and attire, with the primary differences being skin color and bearing an overall more demonic look.

Other games

Gaston does not appear in Kinect Disneyland Adventures, although he is mentioned by Belle explaining that he hasn't been to Disneyland yet, probably due to the fact that there were no antlers.

In Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Gaston was one of the Disney villains the evil witch Mizrabel had the ability to morph into. However, her Gaston disguise only appeared briefly and never again throughout the rest of the game.

Musical

Gaston's role and personality in the musical based on the film is pretty much the same—a pompous, sexist, egotistical, boorish, brutish, brainless and chauvinistic caveman who loves only himself. His ultimate goal is the same too—marry the prettiest girl in town and make her his "little wife" and his "property". Instead of ignoring the Bimbettes like in the film, he pays more attention to them (saying that their 'rendezvouses' will continue after his marriage to Belle, implying Template:WikipediaLink) but still wants Belle as his wife, making them very upset (to the point of wailing and crying like infants). During the proposal scene (where there's no wedding party outside unlike the movie), Gaston gives Belle a Template:WikipediaLink of himself as a present.

In addition to the song "Gaston", the song "Me" is performed by him (in which he conceitedly proposes to Belle). The song is of interest because one verse implies that his feelings for Belle are more than for her looks (he even calls her 'pumpkin' as an endearing appellative), but he never says it outright to her. In addition, presumably to avoid any implications that the villagers were in the know regarding Gaston's plan to blackmail Maurice, he has all the patrons and staff, except LeFou, leave the tavern before conducting his reprise. The reprise itself was expanded to have Gaston and LeFou brag about Gaston's resourcefulness as well as Gaston fully admitting he doesn't have any remorse to resorting to something as dirty as blackmail to ensure Belle married him, as well as breaking the fourth wall somewhat by having them brag about Gaston being "entertaining" and capable of "keep[ing] up with these endless reprises." Like in the movie, he dies after falling off the roof of the Beast's castle, but not before fatally stabbing him multiple times (as opposed to just once in the movie) after arrogantly lying that Belle sent him to the castle to kill him.

Notable actors who have played the role on Broadway include Burke Moses (who originated the role on Broadway and in the original London production), Marc Kudisch, Christopher Sieber, Cody Carlton, and Donny Osmond (singing voice of Li Shang in Mulan). Other actors include Steve Condie. In the Australian production the role was first played by Hugh Jackman.

Disney Parks

Walt Disney World

Since 2012, Gaston has become a common, and very popular, character within the Walt Disney World Resort. He appears in the live stage show Beauty and the Beast: Live! at Disney's Hollywood Studios. During Halloween, he is a part of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom.

He is also seen walking around in the parks, such as walking down the International Gateway. Depending on which Cast Member is portraying him in the parks, his sexism towards women and his opinion on reading and thinking varies depending on who plays him, but he is very popular with female guests and is much nicer to young girls, as he even gives them hugs.

Gaston has his own restaurant, Gaston's Tavern, in the Beauty and the Beast area of the Magic Kingdom's Fantasyland. He can now be found there for meet-and-greets daily, but before 2015 he was the only character present there (though LeFou is mentioned). The Bimbettes can now be met along with him. Before then, Gaston's park appearances were mostly confined to parades, shows and special events.

Tokyo Disneyland

Gaston plays a notable part in the nighttime castle show Once Upon a Time, where he engages in a battle against the Beast during the show's climax; eventually falling to his death.

Disneyland Paris

At Disneyland Paris, Gaston can be found for meet-and-greets in Fantasyland. He also appears in several shows, specifically during Halloween time.

Trivia

• While Gaston has no noble status in the final version, it is implied in one scene that he is still wealthy, at least in regards to the other villagers.
• The 2017 version of Gaston is probably one of the most (if not THE most) evil, and dangerous Disney Villains.
  • In addition, one of the earlier drafts of the post-rewrite film also made his wealth a bit more explicit, where he was apparently a lavish spender, often being extremely careless/reckless in his extravagant endeavors. This resulted in LeFou (here named "LaFou" and acting as his long-suffering family accountant) getting high-strung and neurotic as a result of this as well as Gaston's bullying.
• On an interesting note, most of Gaston's actions were edited out of the final cut of the film: during his battle with the Beast, Gaston was originally intended to shout "Time to die!", but it was changed to "Belle is MINE!" (but his lips still mouth "Time to die!") in order to edit violence and get the main point of his rage straight. Also, Gaston's death scene originally had him stabbing the Beast in the back and willingly falling to his death while laughing maniacally, as if satisfied that if he could not have Belle, then neither would the Beast. Though this was changed to Gaston accidentally losing his footing, it appears to explain why Gaston chose such a dangerous and risky position to wound the Beast despite knowing that it would not help him win Belle's heart.
• Gaston became a lot more popular with his quote "No one (insert name of activity) like Gaston", which also became a somewhat popular internet meme. This even becomes a running gag in House of Mouse.
• Gaston has some similarities to Avenant, the character from the 1946 French film Beauty and the Beast, played by Jean Marais. Specifically, both characters were madly in love with the "beauty" character in the film, and also eventually conspired to put an end to the Beast. A character named Avenant was originally intended to serve as the villain of a proposed sequel to the Disney film, as Gaston's younger brother, but the idea was scrapped. Unlike Avenant from the 1946 film, Gaston doesn't outright confess to Belle that he loves her, which leads to his demise.
  • Contrary to popular belief, Gaston himself was not actually based on Avenant, as Linda Woolverton, the screenwriter for the Disney film, refused to watch the Jean Cocteau version specifically because she didn't want to use it as the source material for the Disney movie. Woolverton had instead based Gaston on several of her own unsuccessful relationships.
• Richard White stated in an interview that while he himself doesn't know whether Gaston survived, he does mention that the viewers never saw the body, implying that he might have survived. However, the 2002 DVD commentary confirmed his death, and mentioned that the skull and crossbones seen in his pupils as he falls, which were either he had seen death himself, were intended to confirm his death.
  • Interestingly enough, Disney made absolutely certain to remove the skull and cross bones from Gaston's pupils as he fell to his death in the theatrical and VHS version, yet made no attempt to do so in the later releases on DVD and Blu-ray.
• The amount of arrows in Gaston's pouch often changes from three to two and sometimes even four.
• In the comic adaptation of the film, he never wears his cape and his ponytail stays intact like Belle's even though it is raining.
• On the 2011 Cartoon Voices Comic Con, Bill Farmer said that he had done Gaston, during Gaston's song in the bar. Bill did the sound of Gaston eating the eggs.
• In the book Disney Villains: The Essential Guide, Gaston didn't even appear until the very last page, where's he actually shown complaining about why he didn't even appear in that book.
• It is implied in the trailer that Gaston may have been aware of the Beast's curse, and had ulterior motives besides wanting Belle as his wife for attempting to kill the Beast, as the trailer described him as being "one man who wants to keep the spell alive," although it is unconfirmed whether this was the case in the film itself outside of Gaston being suspiciously subdued about Belle's exposure of the Beast's existence compared to the fearful gasps of the other villagers.
• Gaston's proposal outfit, consisted of a red tailcoat trimmed with gold fabric, a waistcoat, breeches and even black boots, which implies that the events of the film occurred sometime in the late-17th to mid-18th century. However, Belle's cameo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (which took place in the mid-to-late-15th century) renders this date questionable. Glen Keane confirmed in the commentary for Beauty and the Beast that the film's setting was indeed intended to be the late 18th century.
• At the tavern, besides the aforementioned antler and deer-related trophies, Gaston also had among his hunting trophies a bald eagle's head and a bighorn sheep's head, implying that he may have hunted abroad (as they were not native to his village, France, or even Europe, being instead native to North America). This was further supported by his first appearance in the film, where some of the kills carried by LeFou included a raccoon (although raccoons technically were present in France via the French-German border, they weren't part of France's ecosystem at the time until two pet raccoons were released into the wild at Germany in the 1930's).
• Gaston is the opposite of the Beast. While the Beast is an ugly monster based on his appearance, he is actually innocent and truly cared for Belle, and became a protagonist of his film; Gaston, on the other hand, while being superficially handsome on the outside and praised by the populace, is actually egotistical and male-chauvinistic, and only wanted to marry Belle based purely on her beauty, and eventually allowed his lust to make him a villain in the film. One of the filmmakers even described Gaston as having "the heart of a pig" due to his sloven behavior during his proposal to Belle.
  • In addition, after he fell into the mudpool during the failed proposal, a pig's head rose up before Gaston's head emerged, acting as a slight pun on "pig-headedness", alluding to arrogance.
• Gaston has blue eyes, the same eye color as his rival. So far in Disney history this is the only time the villain has had any physical features (i.e. eye color, hair color, etc.) as a protagonist.
• Before "Me" in the Broadway version begins, Gaston mentions to the Silly Girls that their "rendezvouses" will continue after he marries Belle, suggesting that he would be unfaithful and that he is an adulterer. He is the first Disney villain to conspire to commit adultery, at least in a Disney musical.
• Despite various concept materials, as listed above, give Gaston the surname of LeGume, the Bimbettes during the song of "Belle" refer to Gaston as "Monsieur Gaston" and Belle in the reprise twice sarcastically refers to herself as "Madame Gaston" suggesting that Gaston is his surname in the final version.
• Despite the praise for Gaston in the eponymous song (specifically the lyrics "No one hits like Gaston, matches wits like Gaston"), the visuals show Gaston either having lost a game of Chess or otherwise about to lose (due to him angrily swiping the board away).
• Although no character like Gaston originated in the original tale, the name itself was originally used in the first known tale written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the original author of the fairy tale, and was a reference to "Gaston Phoebus", full name "Gaston III de Foix-Béarn" and also known as "Comte de Foix". Similar to Gaston in the Disney version, Gaston Phoebus was also a renowned and expert hunter, and was even used as a book-reference to the book "The Art of Hunting".
• Rupert Everett was a considered choice for the voice of Gaston, but was turned down because he didn't sound "arrogant enough." Everett eventually made sure to sound as arrogant as possible when voicing Prince Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third, whose narcissism was coincidentally very similar to Gaston (although his motives are closer to Jafar).
• According to the creators, Gaston's primary colors were red to symbolize evil to contrast with Belle and Beast's blue. Despite this, however, there were various characters who wore red in the movie without actually being evil, including Sultan, Claudette, and even Belle herself (during "Something There" as well as the Christmas Party in The Enchanted Christmas) and Beast (who in the original film wore a wine-red cape).
  • Ironically, in the film's original screenplay, Gaston actually was shown wearing blue.
• In the Disney cruise line show Villains Tonight, Hades mentions Gaston and compares him to actor Charlie Sheen.
• His original last name LeGume is a pun on his "pea-brained" insight and views of women.
• In the original story, Belle simply managed to find him dying from wounds. But this was changed in the Disney film which lead Gaston to stab the Beast and dying from wounds.
• Had The Enchanted Christmas not been rewritten to its current form, Gaston would have been the first Disney villain to have a sibling who was also a villain, as well as the third Disney villain to have a sibling overall (being preceded by Scar and Hades, who acted as siblings to Mufasa and Zeus, respectively), preceding Ursula and Morgana.
• When the objects attack the mob in the castle, Gaston's cape disappears.