This article focuses on the comic series character Beauty, also known as Lamia. For the video game version, see Beauty (video game). For the Fairest comic story "Lamia," see Fairest #7. For the lamia species, see lamia. |
“ | I need that real, fungible love along with my emotional adventures. And I happen to still love my husband. Truly, madly and deeply, as the writer said. I know it looks to the outside world like we do nothing but bicker and snipe at each other—and truth is we do plenty of that. Anyone's who's been married for a week gripes and complains to each other and we've been at it for centuries. But there's an unshakeable bedrock of trust and loyalty underneath all that—and who knows. Maybe that's why we can safely crab at each other the way we do. But, if you learn nothing else, know this: Even after all this time, he's every adventure I ever want to be on. | „ |
~ Beauty to Prince Charming in Fables #43 — "Arabian Nights (and Days), Chapter Two: D'jinn & Tonic with a Twist" |
Lady Beauty is the wife of Beast and a resident of Fabletown. Beauty is actually a lamia, once abused by a man, who took the form of a woman to live a peaceful life, but every few decades becomes the lamia again and goes on a killing spree. Beauty does not remember this afterwards. Beauty and the Beast replace Bigby and Snow White as the sheriff and the mayor's deputy assistant of Fabletown, and have a child, Bliss.
History
Early life
Sometime prior to meeting her husband, a creature known as a lamia was driven from her home after a man got her in the family way. The man's wife had some friends run Lamia out of town. They followed her to another world, where Lamia met a beautiful woman,[1] a peasant girl[2] who was the original Beauty. Lamia, having so recently been abused for beauty's sake, hated the woman on sight and killed her, because "everything beautiful leads to ruin in the end." Lamia then took the woman's form in order to adopt her peaceful and simple way of life. She kept the form so long that she eventually came to believe she was the real Beauty.[1]
She eventually met Beast, and they fell deeply in love.[1] Her love was enough to weaken his curse, so instead of always being a beastly creature, he would only become a beast when Beauty was upset with him; the more upset she was, the more Beast's curse reasserted itself.[7]
Escape from the Homelands
When the Adversary's forces reached their lands,[2] Beauty and Beast joined the flood of refugees. They eventually ended up in the mundane world. Having lost or used most of their fortune in the journey,[7] they were forced to take low-paying jobs.[5] Beauty worked for minimum wages[2] as a clerk at Nod's Books; while her husband maintained the Fabletown buildings.[5] To bring in a bit of extra income, Beauty employed some elves to craft exclusive Fable superhero comic books, only available to Fable readers.[8]
Lamia resurfaces
Every few decades, Beauty became her old self, Lamia, again. When this happened, Beast would try to catch her in time and lock her away. Sometimes she escaped, and embarked on a killing rampage, targeting rapists and men who abused women (going after innocents was "not her style"). Beast then assumed the identities of famous heroes of detective fiction (such as Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe) and had to stop her before the mundy authorities could catch her. Beauty never remembered the incidents afterward and Beast never told her the truth.[1]
In the 20th century, Beauty degenerated into Lamia and escaped Beast's clutches, going to Los Angeles. On November 14, 1946, Beast and Saint-George, who had been hunting Lamia for centuries, both discovered Lamia's latest victim and third kill out this time around: John Marais. After searching in vain for days, Beast finally for a lead which led him to the Hawk Lounge. Through the power of persuasion, he tracked Lamia down to a club called The Platinum, on Sunset Boulevard. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Saint-George had beaten Beast there. Lamia set her sights on one of the club patrons named Joey. Saint-George departed to trail Joey, while Beast chased a gun-wielding Lamia throughout the club. Lamia escaped and met with Joey at midnight at the Chateau Rochecorban in the penthouse apartment of one of her victims. After killing Joey, Saint-George arrived and threatened Lamia with the Sword of Ascalon. However, Beast arrived and subdued Saint-George, rescuing Lamia. After killing Saint-George, who discovered Lamia's identity As Beauty, Beast took his recovering wife to the Art Buck Motor Lodge. Beast lied to an amnesiac Beauty, telling she that she had gone to Los Angeles, and only auditioned for a Howard Hawks film and gotten a callback. When Beast briefly left their motel room to get ice, Bigby Wolf arrived and threatened Beast to deal with the matter of Lamia permanently — even if it means killing Beast as well.[1]
Rising up in Fabletown
Their fortunes improved centuries later when Prince Charming became Mayor. With neither Snow nor Bigby willing to work alongside Charming, he offered their jobs to Beauty and Beast.[5] While initially overwhelmed by the responsibilities of her position,[9] Beauty grew into the role.[10] One evening, Prince Charming tried his luck in seducing her.[11] She admitted being enticed by him, yet she refused to give into his advances, expressing her love for her husband and vowing never to jeopardize their marriage.[10]
Motherhood
She gave birth to a daughter[12] following centuries of failure to have children.[13] Her daughter, Bliss, was shown to have inherited her father's beastly curse.
Beast reconsidered making a new home for himself, his wife and their daughter in Flycatcher's kingdom in the Homelands, because Beauty would be safer there, as the "mundy" police keeps getting better and better at investigating and collecting evidence, and will catch Beauty sooner or later. Beauty then begins to show forgetfulness, hinting that she may be turning into Lamia again sometime in the near future.[1] Howeve, before she could become Lamia, Goldilocks slayed both Lamia and Beauty with the Sword of Regret. Cinderella then killed Goldilocks and revived several of her victims, and even though Beauty is brought back to life, Lamia is not.[3] Some time later, Beast is ultimately killed by a feral, mind-controlled resurrected Bigby Wolf.[14]
The last Beauty and Bliss story
In the final story, it reveals that years later, a grown up Bliss and Beauty have a business where they solve the problems of people (such as murders and kidnappings) using Bliss' beastly abilities.[4]
Personality
The Beauty of Fabletown was in fact a lamia, a serpent-like demon originating from Greece. The Lamia acts as dark seductress, who chose to hunt rapists and men who abused women (according to Beast, going after innocents was usually "not her style").[1] When masquerading as Beauty, she maintains a strong, independent persona, and deeply loves her husband and daughter. Lamia has since been killed by Goldilocks and "Beauty" seems to no longer have any connection to her original self.
Physical appearance
“ | She's a dead ringer for Lauren Bacall. Big eyes, brown hair, pouty lips. The whole nine. Darker hair, though. | „ |
~ The bartender of the Hawk Lounge describing Lamia in Fairest #7 — "Lamia" |
Beauty is, as her names implies, very beautiful. She is a Caucasian woman with big brown eyes and long hair. It seems that as Beauty, her hair color is light brown that goes mid-blonde in the sun, but when she becomes Lamia, her hair color seems to darken somewhat.[1]
Powers and abilities
- Immortality: Like most other Fables, she is immortal, eternally young and very hard to kill; her level of immortality is seemingly dependent on how well known she is by the mundies. Due to being a legendary Greek monster, Lamia may have already had some innate degree of longevity.
- Superhuman strength: As Lamia, she had superior strength and was strong enough to overpower a large adult male.[1]
- Claws: Lamia possessed sharp claws that were strong enough to tear through human flesh.[1]
- Limited shapeshifitng: Lamia could alter her form to some degree. She took over the original Beauty's form, and could fully or partially transform into a large, human-sized snake.[1]
Weaknesses
- Personality disorder: Lamia seems to suffer from a personality disorder, and thus after she took on the real Beauty's form she became immersed in her human lifestyle. It was not until she assumed her original persona that her powers as Lamia would resurface.[1]
- Maerorgladi: It seems with Lamia's death at the hands of Goldilocks,[3] "Beauty" has no inhuman attributes aside from her Fable immortality.
- Sword Ascalon: According to Saint George, the Sword Ascalon could kill Lamia, as he used it to slay several dragons, the Chimera and the serpent Vritra.[1]
Original source
- The character is primarily based on Beauty from "Beauty and the Beast," a French fairytale originally written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740. The tale was later abridged and rewritten by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756, to produce the version that is most commonly known today.
- She is also based on Lamia from Greek mythology. Lamia was a beautiful queen of Ancient Libya who had an affair with Zeus. Upon learning this, Zeus' wife Hera robbed Lamia of her children, the offspring of her affair with Zeus, either by kidnapping or by killing them. Hera also cursed her with insomnia, leaving her to constantly obsess about her missing children. This drove Lamia insane, and in vengeance and despair, she snatched up any children she could find and devoured them. Because of her cruel acts, her beautiful physical appearance changed to become ugly and monstrous. In an effort to right the wrong that had been done, Zeus gave Lamia the power to remove and replace her own eyes at will. She is often depicted as having the upper body of a gorgeous woman but the lower part of a serpent or lizard. In later tellings, she has been described as an apparition that lures young men, makes love to them, and then devours them.[15]
- The concept of Saint George battling Lamia is based on Bulgarian folklore, in which the character slays a lamia rather than a classic dragon.[16] According to Bulgarian mythology, the lamia (also known as lamya) is a female dragon with nine canine heads, sharp fangs, and scaly yellow skin. It may also have razor-sharp talons and webbed wings. While it rarely attacks humans directly, it uses its powers to manipulate nature and extort food from people. By stopping the flow of rivers and lakes, the lamia causes droughts and forces people to give in to its demands. Once satisfied, it allows nature to resume its course. Brave warriors and champions have battled the formidable lamias, but it is a difficult task to defeat them as every one of their heads must be severed in order to kill them.[17]
Trivia
- Beauty used to work at a bookstore,[2][5][8] which is a reference to the fairytale, in which Beauty loves reading, and enjoys spending time in Beast's library.
- When Lamia is reunited with Beast after maiming a rapist in 1940s Los Angeles, she speaks French to him, a reference to the fairytale of "Beauty and the Beast," which is of French origin. She says, "Bon soir, la Bête. Mon amour.", which translates to "Good evening, Beast. My love."; and "La Belle et la Bête," meaning "Beauty and the Beast" (also the French title of the fairytale); adding in English, "We are the same."[1]
References
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See also
Fabletown | |
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Governing body | King Cole • Snow White (formerly) • Prince Charming (formerly) • Beauty • Ichabod Crane (formerly) |
Inhabitants | Beast • Bigby Wolf (formerly) • Flycatcher (formerly) • Trusty John • Grimble • Bufkin • Cinderella • Mowgli • Hobbes • Pinocchio • Briar Rose • Doctor Swineheart • Rapunzel • Kay • Edmond Dantès • Crispin Cordwainer • Thrushbeard • Fairy Witch • Frau Totenkinder • Ozma • Fairy Witch • Morgan le Fay |
Places | Grand Green Florist Shop • Chateau d'If Fencing Academy • Edward Bear's Candies • Ford Laundry • Nod's Books • Lewis Antiques • I Am the Eggman Diner • Yellowbrick Roadhouse • Web 'n' Muffet Market • The Woodland Luxury Apartments • The Glass Slipper Shoes • Branstock Tavern |
Unique items | Magic Mirror |