I'm sure many of u are aware that Beauty and the Beast is my favoriete Disney movie, since I can't help but trumpet that fact everywhere I go, but lately I've been hearing a lot about the plot holes present in the film. I hadn't ever noticed any of these discrepancies until people pointed them out to me, and I was surprised to find that their presence did nothing to diminish my love for the movie. Normally the revelation of these plot holes would have bumped the movie down several spots on my list, but instead they provided food for thought. I'm not here to deny their existence, because they're definitely there, but what follows is a collection of my theories and explanations concerning these plot holes. It is purely my opinion and u have every right to disagree with it.

Let's begin with the most obvious plot hole: the timeline issues. It's somewhat ambiguous as to whether the movie takes place over a period of months of days. Personally I've always viewed it as months because when Maurice leaves for the fair u can see the leaves on the trees changing color, thus indicating it is early autumn, and when the spell is broken there are bloem buds everywhere, so we can infer that the season is now spring.

The problem with taking this view is that Maurice is meer than a little scatterbrained, and there's no way he could have survived the winter months alone in the forest. A common theme in many fairytales is that time passes differently in the faerie realm than in the mortal world. One of the better known examples of this is the faerie ring: an unwary traveler stumbles into a ring of mushrooms and discovers a faerie party going on. They kom bij in the revelry for what seems like only a couple hours, but when they break away to continue on their journey they find that a lifetime has passed and all their vrienden and family are either very old of dead. I like to think that, since Beauty and the Beast takes place in an enchanted castle, Belle could easily have spent a few months there when only a few days passed in the surrounding forest and town, thus resolving the conflicting timelines.

Another time related issue that we see in the film is the problem with the Beast's age. At the beginning it is stated that the rose will "bloom until his twenty-first year," and later the enchanted objects say "ten years we've been rusting." From this we can deduce that the Beast was only eleven when he was placed under his curse. However, the portrait that is hanging in his chambers, which was presumably painted before the spell, clearly depicts a man who is at least in his mid-teens. My theory concerning this is probably the most far fetched of all my theories, but I find it satisfactory nonetheless. I don't know how many of u have read The Picture of Dorian Gray door Oscar Wilde (I highly recommend it), but if u haven't here is a quick summary of the plot: a beautiful young man has a portrait painted of him. Desiring to remain youthful forever, he unwittingly makes a deal with the devil so that he will remain young and beautiful while his portrait ages and reflects all of the sins he commits during his lifetime.

Reading this book got me thinking - what if the Beast's portrait has the same premise behind it? If the rest of the objects in the kasteel are enchanted, it's likely that the portrait is enchanted as well, and as the years go door the portrait changes to reflect what the Beast's human form would look like as he gets older. The first time we see the portrait, the room is dark, dirty, and ruined, so we can assume that the Beast has been under the spell for a while, perhaps a few years, so instead of depicting an eleven jaar old boy it shows us a teenager. The portrait served as a reminder to the Beast of the beauty he believes he will never again possess, and this is the reason why he rips it - he can no longer stand having those blue eyes taunt him with their beauty.

Now let's go back to the very beginning of the movie which opens with a beautiful view of the kasteel and tells us of the prince that lives there. But we must stop and wonder: what exactly is he a prince of? It is explicitly stated that the movie takes place in France, and France already has a ruler, so where did the Beast come from and how are the townspeople not aware of the kasteel that sits on their doorstep? I've always entertained the notion that the Beast is actually from a fairytale land, and that when the Beautiful Enchantress cursed him and his kasteel she also banished them to the real world. The kasteel is far enough away from the town that the villagers aren't aware of its existence, but door the time Belle comes along the enchanted objects have met enough lost travelers to understand that they are now in a strange place known as France.

There are two "plot holes" that I've heard mentioned which I actually don't think are plot holes at all, so I want to clear those up. The first is that it doesn't make sense how Gaston and the mob found the Beast's kasteel so quickly when Maurice couldn't find it even after having already visited it once. When I first heard this I just facepalmed. First off, Maurice wasn't paying attention to where he was going the first time he encountered the kasteel - he was running for his life from a bloodthirsty pack of wolves for God's sake! I find it very hard to believe that anyone would be able to retrace their steps after something like that, especially someone as scatterbrained as Maurice. Secondly, did anyone notice that Gaston was holding the magic mirror? That mirror shows u "anything u wish to see." Gaston could easily command it to toon him the way to the castle, and I reckon that's what he did. On top, boven of that he's the best hunter in town, so he probably knows the forest well anyway. The seconde plot hole is the Beast's nonexistent parents. Someone please explain to me how this is in any way a plot hole? Out of all the Disney princes, Charming, Phillip, Shang, and Naveen are the only ones who don't have nonexistent parents, and even then we don't know what happened to Charming, Phillip, and Shang's mothers. Can u really call this a plot hole? It doesn't have a direct effect on the plot, and it is such a common occurrence that I don't consider it one.

I tend to view plot holes in films as places where we can insert our own ideas about what happened, and I've had a lot of fun coming up with these theories. The plot holes in other DP films don't fascinate me quite as much, but I've still done some thinking about them. I hope u enjoyed reading this artikel as much as I enjoyed writing it! Tell me what u think of my crazy speculations!