Gaston LeGume

"I'll have Belle for my wife! Make no mistake about that!"

- Gaston vowing to marry Belle even by force.

"The Beast will make off with your children! He'll come after them in the night! We're not safe 'till his head is mounted on my wall! I say we KILL THE BEAST!"

- Gaston convincing the town to help him murder the Beast.

Gaston Legume (simply known as Gaston) is the main antagonist of Disney's 30th full-length animated feature film, Beauty and the Beast and its 2017 live-action adaptation. He is also one of the tertiary antagonists in Mickey's House of Villains. He is an egomaniacal, chauvinistic, traitorous, and arrogant hunter from Belle's village who was after Belle's hand in marriage by any means necessary and refused to let anyone else be with her, which made him the Beast's arch-nemesis.

He was voiced by Richard White in the original 1991 film, and will be portrayed by actor Luke Evans (who previously portrayed Owen Shaw) in the 2017 live-action adaptation.

In the Story
At the beginning of the story, Gaston is known to be as the village's town hero and is well-respected by much of the villagers (including his right-hand LeFou) and the object of affection of every woman in the village, except for Belle. He arranged an unwanted marriage proposal to Belle, who respectfully refuses. Depressed and upset, Gaston plans to do whatever it takes to marry Belle after being cheered up by LeFou and the villagers.

Gaston knows that this act will rouse little suspicion because Maurice already seemed to be insane to the rest of the town, raving about a monstrous Beast holding Belle as his prisoner (thanks to a deal she made with the Beast). With that in mind, Gaston forms up a plan: he bribes Monsieur D'Arque (the head of the local asylum) to lock up Maurice unless Belle agrees to marry him. Even when D'Arque and his men come to take her father, Belle still refuses to marry Gaston, and proves that the Beast does exist by causing him to appear on the magic mirror that he gave to her. It was then the whole town (including Gaston) realized that Maurice was right about his claims of the Beast's existence, resulting Maurice's release.

Upon seeing this, Gaston suspects that Belle has feelings for the Beast (since he had let her go to help her father) and confronts her for being in love with a 'monster'. This results an angry Belle to defend the Beast by saying that Gaston himself is the monster.

Out of pure jealousy, Gaston snaps out by taking the magic mirror and playing on the villagers' fear of monsters to incite them to form a mob to lay siege to the Beast's castle. He then had the mob to lock up Belle and Maurice in their cellar to prevent them from warning the Beast, though a talking teacup named Chip manages to free them.

Though the mob end up being warded off by the castle's enchanted servants for good, Gaston himself finds the Beast in the West Wing, and brutally attacks him. The Beast doesn't fight back, as he feels disheartened that Belle won't come back for him. Eventually, Belle does return with Maurice, and upon witnessing Belle's return, the Beast regains his will to defend himself as he engages into an intense fight with Gaston.

With Gaston using a makeshift club - a piece off one of the sculptures in the castle - as a weapon, the fight turns infinitely more brutal. Though Gaston initially appeared to have an advantage over the Beast, his arrogance proved to be his undoing; once he taunted the Beast for his monstrous appearance, the Beast finally snapped and overpowered him, holding him by the throat over the edge of the castle and threatening to drop him in the castle moat.

With his life at stake, Gaston finally abandons his pride and cowardly begs for his life. The Beast almost tried to kill Gaston, but decides not to because he had become more human through his love for Belle. As such, the Beast spares Gaston by shoving him away from his sight, furiously telling him to leave the castle and never return. As the Beast comforts Belle in the balcony, Gaston (who is still jealous) jumps onto the Beast and stabs him in the back with a knife. The Beast swings his arm backwards roaring in pain, causing Gaston to lose his balance and fall screaming from the roof to his death in the castle moat.

Despite laying a fatal stab on the Beast, Gaston would die alone that night in vain; the Beast had been bonded to an enchanted rose that kept him in his beast form and would bloom until his twenty-first birthday, and he would only turn back into a human if he could learn to love another and earn her love in return before the rose's last petal fell. Just as the Beast succumbed to his wounds, Belle tearfully admitted that she loves him, mere seconds before the last petal fell. The spell then became broken, bringing the Beast back to life and returning him and his servants back to their human forms, much to their delight.

Personality
As stated earlier, Gaston is a rude, impatient, destructive, vain, egomaniacal, manipulative, narcissistic, and psychopathic hunter who will go to any length to get what he wants, even if it involves bribing or blackmailing others. He is very conservative, narrow-minded, and misogynistic to the extent that he disapproves of women reading because he regards ideas as dangerous to them, and believes that women's only purpose in life is to serve men. Because he is very handsome and muscular, he is also well-respected in the village as he was able to rouse a mob to help him kill the Beast. This shows that he is also vengeful, since he suspected that Belle (whom he wanted to marry) had feelings for the Beast.

Despite Belle calling him "brainless", he is not stupid, as he can come up with clever plans to get what he wants. In spite of his intelligence, Gaston can be quite impulsive as shown when he tried to grope Belle by menacingly cornering her and announcing "Say you'll marry me." before attempting to kiss her, which forced a disgusted Belle to reject him in return. In addition, he was extremely cunning, reckless and egotistical, as shown when he openly bragged many key details about his plan to blackmail Belle into marrying him during the Gaston reprise, as well as during the climax when he stabbed the Beast in the back without assessing any risks, which ultimately led to his own demise.

Reception
Gaston is considered one of Disney's most popular villains. He ranked 11th in an official poll, and the Nostalgia Critic placed him as the 5th best Disney villain, citing him as being different from most other Disney villains in that he is not pure evil from the start. Fans on the internet often jokingly idolize him similar to how the townspeople do in the movie, giving birth to the "No one (X) like Gaston" meme, and the "Gaston" song in particular is a very popular source for YouTube Poop.

Once Upon a Time
Gaston is featured in the ABC series in a very minor role played by Sage Brocklebank. Here, he was engaged to Belle through an arranged marriage, but just like the film, she did not love him because she found him "shallow." Unlike his Disney counterpart he appears to be more noble and focused, as shown when he expressed concern for Belle's agreement to go with Rumpelstiltskin and when she refused his marriage proposal. He attempted to reclaim her from Rumpelstiltskin regardless, but was transformed into a rose and given as a gift to Belle.

Descendants
Gaston was revived, and it was also revealed that he had two twin sons, who he named after himself (which is not surprising); their names are Gaston Jr. and Gaston the Third, but his two sons have not inherited his obsession with girls.

Quotes
"How can you read this? There's no pictures!"

- Gaston, indicating that he likes reading picture books.

"Belle, it's about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things, like me!"

- Gaston making a terrible attempt to woo Belle.

"The whole town's talking about it. It's not right for a woman to read, first she starts getting ideas and thinking..."

- Gaston giving his chauvinistic opinion on Belle's interest in books.

"She's as crazy as the old man. The Beast will make off with your children! He'll come after them in the night! We're not safe until his head is mounted on my wall! I say we KILL THE BEAST!!"

- Gaston snapping, encouraging the town to kill the Beast.

"Get up! Get up! What's the matter, Beast? Too kind and gentle to fight back?"

- Gaston taunting the Beast.

"Were you in love with her Beast? Did you honestly think she'd want you, when she had someone like me?"

- Gaston mocking the Beast.

"It's over, Beast! BELLE IS MINE!"

- Gaston fighting the Beast.

"Let me go! Let me go! Please, don't hurt me. I'll do anything! Anything!"

- Gaston's last words moments before falling off the Beast's castle.

Trivia

 * Gaston was supposed to be voiced by Rupert Everett, the same man who played Doctor Claw in the live action film adaptation Inspector Gadget and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third.
 * The animators researched high school and college jock stereotypes to create Gaston's menacing and arrogant mannerisms.
 * Gaston was not present in Kingdom Hearts II, despite being the main villain of Beauty and the Beast. Xaldin, a member of Organization XIII, serves as this world's main villain and reprises the role of Forte. In many Kingdom Hearts fanfiction, Gaston is one of the most popular Disney Villains added to the series.
 * Gaston was created for the film and does not appear in the original fairy tale Disney based the film on. Beauty's sisters (who were cut from the film) are the antagonists of the original fairy tale.
 * Originally, Gaston was going to say to The Beast: "It's over Beast! Time to die!". This was changed, because it was slightly out of character, as Gaston is attempting to kill the Beast out of love, not malice. If you look carefully when Gaston says: "Belle is mine!" his lips are slightly off.
 * In two mockbusters of the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, namely the Golden Films version and The Secret of The Hunchback, the respective main villains are clearly based off Gaston, specially the Golden Films version.
 * During his fall off the castle, you can quickly see that some skulls appear in his eyes. This is likely to symbolize that Gaston did not survive the fall.
 * There were several alternative versions to Gaston's death:
 * After wounding the Beast, Gaston fell from the castle into the woods, where he has survived with a broken leg. However, he is confronted by several wolves who previously pursued Maurice and Belle. Without hesitation, the wolves close in on Gaston and mauled him to death. This scene was removed, but was later reused for the death of Scar in The Lion King (the wolves were replaced by Shenzi, Banzai & Ed, and the Hyena Clan).
 * An alternative version of his death was for Gaston to lay a fatal stabbing on the Beast and commit suicide by willingly falling to his death laughing maniacally, as he feels that if he wouldn't have Belle for himself, then neither would the Beast. However, this was edited out since it was too dark, rewritten to have Gaston lose his footing after stabbing the Beast.
 * He is set to return in the 2017 live-action adaptation of the film, where he will be portrayed by Luke Evans, who previously portrayed Owen Shaw in Fast and Furious 6.
 * An image of Gaston that was revealed to the public depicts Gaston standing over a man while the tavern cheers and having a sword raised high, as well as a painting in the background with Gaston in a similar pose over fallen soldiers, implying that in the live action film, he may end up being a soldier instead of or in addition to a hunter. Luke Evans eventually confirmed that, in addition to retaining his hunter background, Gaston in the live action film will also be a former soldier, and imply that this incarnation of Gaston will be darker than the original.
 * Before Prince Hans from Frozen who is confirmed to be 23 years old, Gaston was the youngest major Disney villain to date most believing him to be around 25.
 * In a youtube series called The Frollo Show, Gaston is the main protagonist and is Frollo's best friend.