Belle: My Favorite Disney Princess

I've mentioned in multiple Disney posts that my favorite Disney princess is Belle.  I think it's time that she finally has a post dedicated completely to her.

I've loved Beauty and the Beast since I was a little kid, and I think one of the reasons was that I found Belle more relatable than any of the other Disney princesses.  Why?  She loves to read.  I'm sure that wasn't the only reason I liked her, but I'm positive that it was a big factor.  I've basically been a bookworm since I was born, so I always love characters that enjoy reading.

In addition to that, I love that Belle isn't the typical damsel-in-distress.  She stands her ground with the Beast and Gaston.  Of course, I didn't think much about this when I was younger, but I do think I realized it in the back of my mind.

I've always loved romance books and movies as well, and the Beast and Belle are my favorite Disney couple.  I don't really have a definite reason for this.  I do know that I typically like couples that start out arguing and then fall in love with each other (I have no idea why), so the fact that they don't really like each other at first may have something to do with it.

As a side note, I've often wandered if my love for Beauty and the Beast had something to do with my obsession with werewolves later on.  The Beast himself isn't a werewolf, but he's kind of similar.  I just can't help but wonder.

Anyway, my two main reasons for loving Belle so much is that she loves reading and she stands up for herself.  There are several Disney princesses that could fit the second one, but I can't think of any that have shown a love for reading.  I've realized over the years that if there's a character that loves to read, they'll probably become my favorite character of the book, movie, TV show, etc.  I guess it provides something that allows me to relate to them.

Disney Icons

Yep, it's yet another Disney post.  I'm really starting to enjoy these.  I feel like I don't get to talk about Disney enough.  This post is about different Disney icons.  (I don't know if icon's the right word, but I can't think of another one).  There are certain images that you see that always remind you of Disney.  In this post, I'm talking about two of them.

The first is the Mickey head and ears.  It's essentially only three black circles, but I bet it would be hard to find someone who doesn't immediatley think of Disney when they see it.  One of my favorite things about it is that it's hidden in different locations around the Disney parks.  I haven't been to Disney World since I was twelve (at which time I wasn't looking for hidden Mickeys), but when I go back (hopefully kind of soon), I plan to keep an eye out for them.  Also, this isn't the exact same thing, but has anyone else got one of those hats with the Mickey ears from one of the parks?  I think mine from when I was about six or seven is still laying around somewhere.

The other icon I want to talk about is the castle.  You know which one I'm talking about.  Every Disney movie you watch shows a castle before the actual movie.  It's one of the things I think about first when I think of Disney movies.  I decided to look up more about it, mainly to find out which princess' castle it's supposed to be.  From what I read, it's a combination of Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland (and the Hong Kong Disneyland) and Belle's castle at Disney World (and the Tokyo Disneyland).  I like the idea that they combined the two instead of just choosing one of them since everyone's going to have a favorite castle.  (Mine's Belle's since she's my favorite Disney princess, and I've only ever been to Disney World.)

I also love the new castle shown before movies. Even though I'll always be found of how it used to look when I was younger, the new one does look so much cooler. I remember being impressed with it when I saw it the first time.

This whole thing about the castles has made me wonder about something.  Why were Belle and Aurora's castles choosen for all of the parks instead of having a different princess' castle at each park?  I'm going to try and find some stuff about that.