| 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. |
| “ | 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 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" |
Beauty, originally known as Lamia, is a lamia Fable who is the wife of Beast and a resident of Fabletown. She debuts in Fables #1 — "Chapter One: Old Tales Revisited." Beauty is actually a lamia, once abused by a man. She took the form of another 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
Lamia killing the real Beauty
Sometime prior to meeting her husband, a creature known as a lamia was driven from her home after a "big 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.[8]
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,[8] they were forced to take low-paying jobs.[6] Beauty worked for minimum wages[2] as a clerk at Nod's Books; while her husband maintained the Fabletown buildings.[6] To bring in a bit of extra income, Beauty employed some elves to craft exclusive Fable superhero comic books, only available to Fable readers.[9]
Lamia resurfaces
Every few decades, Beauty reverted to her former self, Lamia. When this occurred, Beast would attempt to capture her in time and lock her away. Occasionally, she managed to escape and went on a killing spree, exclusively targeting rapists and men who abused women. To stop her before the mundane authorities could, Beast adopted the identities of various fictional detectives. Beauty never remembered these incidents afterward, and Beast never told her the truth.[1]
In the 20th century, Beauty once again transformed into Lamia and escaped Beast’s control, fleeing to Los Angeles. There, she resumed her killing spree. On November 14, 1946, both Beast and Saint-George—who had been hunting Lamia for centuries—discovered her latest victim, John Marais, her third kill in this spree. After searching for days without success, Beast finally found a lead that took him to the Hawk Lounge. Using persuasion, he tracked Lamia to a club called The Platinum on Sunset Boulevard. However, Saint-George had arrived first. Inside the club, Lamia set her sights on a patron named Joey. As Saint-George left to follow Joey, Beast pursued a gun-wielding Lamia through the club. She escaped and later met Joey at midnight in the penthouse of one of her victims at the Chateau Rochecorban. After killing Joey, she was confronted by Saint-George, who threatened her with the Sword of Ascalon. Before he could act, Beast arrived, subdued Saint-George, and rescued Lamia. After killing Saint-George, who had discovered Lamia’s true identity as Beauty, Beast took his recovering wife to the Art Buck Motor Lodge. To prevent her from remembering the murders, Beast lied to his amnesiac wife, claiming she had traveled to Los Angeles to audition for a Howard Hawks film and received a callback. While Beast briefly left their motel room to get ice, Bigby Wolf arrived and warned him to deal with Lamia permanently—even if it meant killing Beast as well.[1]
The Crooked Man incident
In the 1980s, Beauty worked as a receptionist at the Open Arms Hotel to pay off her debt to the Crooked Man,[7] allowing her to maintain a luxurious lifestyle with her husband at The Woodland Luxury Apartments,[10] however she did not indulge her husband in her work as he would've considered it beneath her.[7] One evening, Sheriff Bigby Wolf arrived during her shift,[11] unaware of her employment there. During their conversation, Bigby explained that he was there on Fabletown business and needed access to room 207 for an investigation.[7]
Rising up in Fabletown
Charming trying to seduce Beauty
At the start of the 21st century, their fortunes improve when Prince Charming becomes Mayor of Fabletown. With neither Snow nor Bigby willing to work alongside Charming, he offers their jobs to Beauty and Beast.[6] While initially overwhelmed by the responsibilities of her position,[12] Beauty grows into the role.[13] One evening, Prince Charming tries his luck in seducing her.[14] She admits being enticed by him, yet she refuses to give into his advances, expressing her love for her husband and vowing never to jeopardize their marriage, threatening to send her husband after him if he tries again. It is notable that Beauty realizes, as a result of remarks made by Prince Charming during this seduction attempt, that her actions and words toward her husband are not generally as kind as she herself perceived; she subsequently resolves to be nicer to Beast.[13]
At some point, Beast and his wife question Frau Totenkinder about what it is she is always knitting. Totenkinder responds that it is a garment for their firstborn child. Though Beauty laughs, saying she's not even expecting, Totenkinder answers, "All things in time" and shows them the progress of her knitting: A pair of footed pajamas with a lion head sewn on the front, and four arms, two legs, and a place for a tail. Beast and Beauty are left flabbergasted by the implications.[15]
The Farm
After having a brief argument with Beast about his behavior with Bigby as the Fables are hiding from Mister Dark at the Farm,[16] Beauty and her husband retire to a tent for make up sex. Afterwards, Beauty feels that there was something magical about this sex.[17]
Soon, Beauty reveals she is pregnant, following centuries of failure to have children.[18]
She later gives birth to a daughter. The child is born premature, but there are no apparent complications. The child seems normal, but as Totenkinder had predicted, there is a complication: When the girl becomes angry, she transforms into a six limbed, tailed beast.[19] Since the birth of the child, whom they name Bliss, Beast is unable to transform into his beastly form. When Beast is examined by Ozma, she is unable to detect any trace of his ancient curse. It is soon confirmed that Bliss has adopted his curse as her own.
Beast considers making a new home for himself, his wife and their daughter in Flycatcher's kingdom in the Homelands, because Beauty will 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] However, before she can become Lamia, Goldilocks slays both Lamia and Beauty with the Sword of Regret. Cinderella then kills Goldilocks and revives 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.[20]
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.[5]
Personality
The Beauty of Fabletown was in fact a Lamia, a demon-like woman who could transform into a serpent. When she was Lamia, she acted as 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
Lamia
| “ | 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 to Beast, Fairest #7 — "Lamia" |
Beauty's true appearance as Lamia has a fair complexion, with long hair. She is described as having big brown eyes, pouty lips and brown hair, and a dead ringer for Lauren Bacall, but with darker hair. She also possesses sharp claws and can transform into a large, human-sized snake.[1]
Beauty
| “ | Your scent, your witchcraft eyes. The curve of your lips. I can't not notice you any longer. Beauty isn't a good enough name for you. It's too small a word to describe everything that makes up-- | „ |
| ~ Prince Charming to Beauty, Fables #42 — "Arabian Nights (and Days), Chapter One: Broken English" |
Upon assuming the original Beauty's form, Lamia adopted the visage of a woman with an equally[1] fair skin tone, but with long blonde hair, and bright blue eyes.[2][8] In alignment with her name, she is strikingly beautiful, which is acknowledged by Prince Charming, who describes her as having a pleasant fragrance, enchanting eyes, and alluringly curved lips.[14] It appears that as Beauty gradually transforms back into Lamia, and following her restoration to Beauty's form, her hair shifts to the dark color that is emblematic of Lamia.[1]
Powers and abilities
Lamia's strength and claws
- 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 mundys. 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 shapeshifting: 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
"Beauty and the Beast"
The character is primarily based on Beauty from "Beauty and the Beast," a French fairy tale 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.
Greek mythology
Beauty 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.[21]
Bulgarian folklore
The concept of Saint George battling Lamia is based on Bulgarian folklore, in which the character slays a lamia rather than a classic dragon.[22] According to Bulgarian folklore, 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.[23]
Trivia
- Beauty used to work at a bookstore,[2][6][9] which is a reference to the fairy tale, 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 fairy tale 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 fairy tale); adding in English, "We are the same."[1] As Lamia rightly observes, she is both Beauty and the Beast.
References
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