Belle

Belle is one of the Princesses of Heart who appeared in Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days", and Kingdom Hearts II. She is originally from the Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991). For Kingdom Hearts, she spoke using dialogue boxes, but in Kingdom Hearts II her role was greatly expanded and she was voiced by her original voice actress, Paige O'Hara.

Kingdom Hearts
''A brave and intelligent young woman who understands the Beast's true nature. She's one of the seven princesses needed to open the final Keyhole. She and the Beast have lost their world to the darkness.''

She appeared at the Beast's castle for the first time in "Beauty and the Beast" (1991)

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
A young woman who saw kindness behind the Beast's gruff exterior.

Realizing Maleficent sought her heart, Belle acted coldly toward the Beast to keep her heart beyond the witch's reach."

Kingdom Hearts II
Beauty and the Best (1991)
 * First Entry

''A girl who was held captive in the Beast's castle. At first he frightened her, but little by little, she noticed the injured heart he was hiding from the world.''

''Belle is one of the Seven Princesses needed to open the final door to the realm of darkness. She's very grateful to the Beast and to Sora for saving her after she was kidnapped by the Heartless.''

Beauty and the Beast (1991)
 * Second Entry

Belle saw through the Beast's rough exterior and helped him find the heart he'd been hiding from the world for such a long time.

Belle loves to read books about exciting adventures in faraway places.

Kingdom Hearts
Belle's first appearance is a stained-glass likeness of her depicted on top of a yellow-colored pillar in the Awakening world. She was asleep in the artwork, suggesting that she has already been captured by Maleficent at that time.

Belle has been living somewhat happily at the Beast's Castle, becoming closer to the Beast everyday, despite his hideous form and uneven temperament. One day, however, Belle is kidnapped by Maleficent as part of the plot to obtain Kingdom Hearts. The Heartless consume her world, causing all of its enchanted inhabitants to disappear into darkness. But the Beast managed to survive the destruction of his world and pursued Belle, using Corridors of Darkness to reach her at Hollow Bastion.

Maleficent puts Belle into an enchanted sleep and places her in an upstanding glass case alongside the other Princesses of Heart. She then uses all of the Princesses' hearts to open the Final Keyhole. At the same time, the Beast witnesses a vision of Belle transforming into a Heartless (although this is not what actually occurred, as the princesses lack darkness in their hearts, and cannot become Heartless).

Belle's heart is later restored by the bravery of Sora, and she is released from her enchantment. She separates from her fellow princesses and, due to her passion for books, goes to Hollow Bastion's library in search of ways to stop the darkness. Happily reunited with the Beast at last, she explains as best she could to Sora what has occurred in Hollow Bastion during his brief departure, and then gives him the Divine Rose Keychain. When Sora finally sealed Kingdom Hearts, Belle and the Beast return home together.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
The following events are really a corruption of Sora's memories from Kingdom Hearts, and thus they do not actually occur in the Kingdom Hearts reality. Sora, Donald, and Goofy enter Sora's memories of Hollow Bastion through Castle Oblivion only to find Belle and the Beast in a heated argument near Hollow Bastion's entrance. The Beast attempts to explain to Belle that he has come from very far to rescue her from Maleficent, but Belle insists that the Beast leave as she has no interest in talking to him. She eventually retreats to Hollow Bastion's library, leaving the Beast in depressed confusion.

Sora and his friends later find Belle in the library, and attempt to understand her oddly cold attitude towards the Beast. However, before she could explain, Maleficent enters and demands that Belle call the Beast. When she refuses to do so, Maleficent transports herself and Belle to a different area of the castle.

Belle continues to refuse Maleficent's demands, even under the threat of torture. Sora arrives just in time, as does the Beast. Belle continues her increasingly rude attitude towards the Beast upon seeing him, prompting the Beast to pour out his true feelings for her. Maleficent then threatens to steal the Beast's heart, which he has shown to be rich and vulnerable when explaining his love for Belle. As Maleficent attempts to take the Beast's heart, Belle sacrifices herself to save him.

Maleficent later reveals to the Beast, Sora, Donald and Goofy that Belle had been purposefully shunning the Beast in an attempt to prevent herself from exposing his heart for Maleficent to use for dark magic. After Sora defeats Maleficent, Belle is returned to her physical state with her heart intact. She quickly apologizes for her actions, which the Beast easily forgives knowing that they were not her true feelings.

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Belle appears alongside Beast in Beast's Castle in Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. As the story takes place after the original Kingdom Hearts, Belle and the Beast have returned to Beast's Castle safe and sound and are trying to forget everything that happened; however, the Heartless keep appearing, to the Beast's annoyance and anger. When Xaldin from Organization XIII takes interest in the Beast's heart, their peaceful days are troubled.

Kingdom Hearts II
A year after the events of Kingdom Hearts, Belle and the Beast attempt to return back to their normal lives at the Beast's Castle. However, the peace is soon disrupted by Organization XIII member Xaldin. Xaldin begins playing on the Beast's anger, attempting to enrage him to the point that his heart would be drenched in darkness, thus spawning an extremely powerful Heartless and Nobody variation of the Beast for the Organization to use. In an attempt to keep them safe, the Beast forces the majority of his servants into the castle's dungeon. Belle, not knowing what to do and fearing the Beast's sudden surge of rage, hides in her room in fear. She is overjoyed when Sora, Donald and Goofy happened to drop by.

Once Sora freed the servants from the dungeon and utilized their aid to make the Beast calm down, the Beast realizes he had been rude to Belle in his blind rage. Hoping to apologize, he heads off with Sora to find her, only to hear her muffled voice in the castle's ballroom. Belle has taken it upon herself to confront Xaldin on her own, warning him to leave the Beast alone. Xaldin uses his influence of the darkness to set a Shadow Stalker on Belle. She manages to evade it, escaping to the ballroom's balcony. After the creature was defeated, the Beast apologizes to Belle, who accepts his kind words but reprimands him for not trusting her.

When Sora and the others visit Hollow Bastion for the third time, her name is found out to be part of a password to access the DTD's dataspace, along with the other princesses.

Sora later returns to Beast's Castle to find Belle and the Beast in the middle of a date. As the couple begin a romantic dance in the ballroom, Xaldin interrupts the celebration, much to Belle's displeasure. She is forced to briefly retreat as Xaldin sent a horde of Nobodies after Sora and the Beast. When the enemies are defeated, Belle returns only to find the Beast in great distress about his enchanted rose. Following him upstairs, she pleads with the Beast to explain what was wrong, but the Beast's frustration simply leads him to order Belle and Sora to leave the castle.

Belle retreats to her room in despair, eventually going out to the balcony to mull things over. When she later spots the Beast, along with Sora, Goofy and Donald, emerging into the castle courtyard she heads back inside, but on her way spots the rose sitting near the door. Happily showing off the rose to her companions below, she soon realizes the whole thing was a setup as Xaldin grabs her from behind and flies her to the bridge outside the Beast's Castle. As Xaldin offers the Beast a choice between Belle or the rose, Belle shows Xaldin she is not just a simple village girl. She elbows the Organization XIII member hard in the stomach and, smiling to herself, runs back to the castle clutching the rose in its bell jar.

Once the Beast and Sora defeat Xaldin, Belle gladly returns the rose to the Beast. He then nervously asks her to stay with him in his castle, to which she happily agrees.

At the conclusion of Sora's adventure in Kingdom Hearts II it is revealed that the Beast has transformed back into Prince Adam, apparently ending the Beauty and the Beast story arc in Kingdom Hearts, although Belle's status as one of the Princesses of Heart may still tie her in to future Kingdom Hearts adventures.

Personality
Belle manages to set herself apart from the members of the village which she lives in. The citizens of the village find Belle to be very strange, as she reads at an astonishing rate and rejects the advances of the town's muscle man, Gaston (the original film's villain, absent from the series). Belle also has plans to be in control of her own future, and hopes for an adventure outside of her provincial life. Belle has been known to be easily frightened, but she often overcomes her fears and usually manages to be quite brave, even in the most dangerous situations. She is also known for being somewhat outspoken and occasionally allowing her curiosity to get the best of her.

Appearance
In Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Belle only appears in her yellow ball gown, which is her famous attire that she wore during her dance with the Beast in the film. When in this dress, Belle styles her hair slightly differently, pulling it further up on her head. In her common clothes, which she wears for the majority of Kingdom Hearts II, Belle lets her hair down, but ties it back with a blue bow that matches her dress. She also wears a white shirt, a white apron and black shoes. She can often be spotted with a book in hand. Her everyday look was inspired by Julie Andrews' appearance in The Sound of Music.

Oddly, in her stained-glass likeness, her hair has much more red coloring than her normal hair color.

Powers as a Princess of Heart
Because Belle is a Princess of Heart, she has many special abilities that are heightened or activated when she is joined with the other princesses:
 * Her main power is to use her heart to open the Final Keyhole to Kingdom Hearts, which can only be opened when she is gathered with the other six princesses.


 * In this exclusive group, her heart can also be used to create the Keyblade of People's Hearts and enable the bearer to unlock anyone's heart.
 * Also, as her heart only contains pure light, she can fight back the darkness (she can perform this task alone, but it has stronger effects when she is with the other princesses).
 * When Jasmine, Alice, Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora upgraded Sora's Fire spell, she was absent; however, it is assumed that she has the power to upgrade people's powers as well, as Princesses of Heart possess the same powers.
 * She and her fellow princesses also have a sixth sense to locate darkness, as shown when Alice, Aurora, Jasmine, Snow White and Cinderella tell Sora of a great darkness approaching.

In Combat

 * Belle also has a great affinity for books, which allows her to soak up knowledge quickly. And, as she showed Xaldin in Kingdom Hearts II, she can administer a good punch in the stomach if she has reason to.

Origin
Belle's appearance in the Kingdom Hearts franchise is based directly upon her appearance in Walt Disney's Academy Award winning film, Beauty and the Beast (1991). Belle's character has appeared in various incarnations of the Beauty and the Beast story throughout history, but her Disney counterpart is mainly based on the character of Beauty in Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont's La Belle et la Bête, which was published in 1756. In the film, much like in the game, she gives up her freedom to the Beast in exchange for her father's release. Initially, things are bleak between Belle and the Beast, although the servants, particularly Lumiere, attempt to make her feel at home.

Belle and the Beast begin to develop a friendship after the Beast saves her from a pack of wolves in the woods outside the castle, and eventually they fall in love, but Belle briefly leaves to find her father, who was searching for her. When a rival suitor, Gaston (the movie's villain, absent from the games), orders an attack on the castle to kill the Beast (out of jealousy), Belle rushes to save her love and at the crucial moment, chooses to save the Beast rather than Gaston, who falls to his apparent death. Belle's love for the Beast transforms him back into Prince Adam and they hold a ball to celebrate.

Trivia

 * Paige O'Hara has voiced Belle ever since her first appearance in Beauty and the Beast. The only times she has not done so was when Belle made a cameo on Disney's House of Mouse (in this case, she was voiced by Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel) and Belle's singing voice on Disney's Princess Christmas album (where she was voiced by Susan Egan, the voice of Meg and the original Belle on Broadway).


 * It is interesting to note that Belle was kidnapped in the first Kingdom Hearts in her dance clothes meaning Belle and Beast might have been dancing when Maleficent or a lackey kidnapped her. That would be similar to when Xaldin takes the rose from Beast after he interrupts the dancing.


 * Belle and Kairi are the only two Princesses to give Sora a keychain instead of a new spell.


 * Belle is the last princess to be revealed on screen, but the fourth to be mentioned by name.

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