u/Educational-Golf89

Edit: To be more specific, what was the earliest known date when Stockholm syndrome became associated with the story, not what Stockholm syndrome is or how it doesn‘t apply to Belle. It appears to have been made popular in the 2010s but the association already existed before then.

Before anyone assumes, this is not a question asking if Belle has it.

From what I’ve seen the vast majority of fans conclude that the 1991 version doesn’t fit the main descriptions of Stockholm syndrome. (Although I do not know about what others think of other versions.) I’ve read a few mentions that Stockholm syndrome isn’t apart of real psychology anyways.

I never even heard of “Stockholm syndrome” until seeing it mentioned in relation to Beauty and The Beast. I’m sure people have described Stockholm syndrome for other pairings and media but I don’t see much of it outside of this particular story.

So, what I am asking is, how did Stockholm syndrome become associated with 1991 Belle and Beauty and The Beast in general?

I’m tired of having to re-explain my depression and SH (in the past). I get it, I really do. I understand that my mental illness and mental conditions aren’t excuses for wallowing in sadness and shit but it’s not so easy to quit depression. I’ve got mental disorders that do in fact disorder my life in a way that make it worse. Even then, I do not believe that they inherently stop me from being able to work like others but I have to get this depression out of the way first because it’s making my brain worse at everything.

For the times I’ve SH I have been told “well, you shouldn’t do it”. No shit, I literally know and understand that SH is bad but they do not understand why I did it. I do still relapse once in a while but thankfully the time in between gets longer each time and the urges I do get are less strong. I know I should tell them about my mental health but they’ve proven to not understand how it works. It just makes it worse when I end up arguing with them about how my brain is. I’m not a good debater under stress. I still have sympathy for them. It’s not like they would’ve predicted having a neurodivergent person. Or the depression that would form later. But it still sucks for all of us. I wish they would actually get my point of view more.

(If anything doesn’t make sense I’m willing to edit my post to make it make more sense).

Started draft on April 28 2026:

(Will have spoilers for pretty much the whole show besides Wonderland and Season 7).

When watching the show and reading opinions on her, I find myself wondering what it is about Belle that makes her act immature with RumGold. I have two ideas. One idea my in story speculation. The other idea is speculation about what the writers were thinking.

In the story I believe Belle has an issue with “black and white thinking.” This term is often related to rigid thinking. Rigid thinking to summarize is how inflexible your mind is. Some people’s brains/minds tend to be more rigid or more open. Rigid thinking from what I have observed does not inherently indicate what kind of specific habits, morals, mental processes, and other behaviors you have. Bad, neutral or good. It mostly just describes how parts of your brain tend to stay in a specific way for varied reasons.

When applying this idea to the show, Belle, to me, comes across as a person who has this black and white thinking affecting her relationship with RumGold. The idea I have come up with, is that she believes morally that you should be a good person and that people are capable of becoming good people, but her main problem is the way she tries to go about it is impatient or is just straight up wrong. In the story, she keeps doing the same things to get RumGold to change. Basically bickering with him about his reliance on dark magic. She also assumes Gaston isn’t so bad until a magic mirror has to literally show her that Gaston is evil by giving him the rage virus. Okay, it’s not the rage virus, but the red eyes are really funny to me. Moments like that happen throughout the whole show, but I feel like Season 5 makes this flaw of her the most obvious.

Now what I find confusing is trying to figure out how intentional any of this is. In one of the behind the scenes (Secrets of Storybrooke), I remember Kitis or Horowitz saying that Belle is an “intelligent woman." I understand what they probably meant, but in the show, Belle as a character doesn’t actually come across as very intelligent. Specifically emotional intelligence. I am not saying that the character is stupid, just that she doesn’t seem uniquely smart next to other characters. One thing that makes 1991 Belle unique is that she is supposed to be emotionally intelligent in addition to other types of intelligence. 1991 Belle is able to understand Beast’s situation without supporting any of his immaturity and destructive behavior. The story shows how Beast’s relationship with Belle and the servants slowly becomes more peaceful with each other. With Beast learning to be a better person.

I have a feeling that Belle was supposed to be emotionally smarter at some point based on how Kitis and Horowitz talked about her in Secrets of Storybrooke but was changed. In earlier seasons, it’s somewhat shown that Belle did had a better understanding of Rumplestiltskin, even if it wasn’t a perfect understanding.

“Belle: If there's anyone who can defeat that witch and get you back to your family, it's the Dark One. The way to resurrect him has to be here.

Neal: You really believe in him, don't you? Belle: I love him. All of him. Even… Even the parts that belong to the darkness.

Neal: Yeah, it took me a while to see past all that… to the good man trying to get out.

Belle: He did get out.”

(Season 3, Episode 15, Quiet Minds)

But at some point, it changed. I read about how Belle wasn’t supposed to live past Skin Deep and that the writers didn’t actually make any plans for her. I also read from several other people that Kitis and Horowitz wanted to write revenge on Carlyle. Consider that Carlyle started having issues after Neal’s death, a bit after the dialogue I quoted no less.

So my idea is that Belle’s black and white thinking is a combination of her being unintentionally less dimensional from not being given as much care in the first place to being intentionally written to be selfish as part of Rumplestiltskin’s convoluted character assassination. It’s disappointing to me. I feel that even if Carlyle and Kitis/Horowitz didn’t fight for Rumplestiltskin’s writing, Belle’s character might have alway been going to have somewhat shallow writing compared to other characters.

Black and white thinking can be pretty funny on screen but I find it can be a problem in real life. I partly bring this up because I see plenty of this type of thinking in real life. I have it in some parts of my mind too. I’m not saying it’s bad by default. Mental rigidity and flexibility is different for everyone I imagine. I find it mainly causes problems in terms of social justice and morals. Like when learning the nuances of a situation or understanding real life discrimination. A rigid mind can mean issues when being given new ideas and the will to better oneself. I’m not trying to get super deep, it’s just something I find really interesting to learn about. Psychology and sociology. How they affect each other and the art we make. But it is something that sorta irks me.

Edit: I’m going to sound corny but honestly thank you to anyone reading this. I have a general phascination for psychology and sociology so that and many other subjects I expressed my interest in. I find most people in real life don’t really like it. Nothing wrong with that, most people prefer other conversations but it can be lonely sometimes to not have anyone around. I do similar things on other socials but people usually don’t start conversations. This website is set up much better for conversation than other socials I’ll say that.

I find in most fan subsections of the internet, specific topics, ideas, and jokes tend to be brought up multiple times. I don’t know if that’s something that often happens on this subreddit, or if it’s even discouraged if it does. I’m asking because I have some ideas for discussion, but I don’t want to ask the subreddit already common topics.

On the side, I have two general questions that aren’t really related to the first, more just asking about the subreddit in general.

1. Why is this subreddit called “box5” and not "phantom of the opera" or similar? (I know Box 5 is Erik's seat area.)

2. How serious or unserious is this subreddit? Since I find most of the internet has different levels of “goofiness” allowed and such.