As well as throwing some super sneaky easter eggs in our direction, the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast has answered a question Disney fans have been pining over since the original film: how did Belle's mum die?
*SPOILERS*
In the 1991 classic, we're introduced to Belle and her single-parent father Maurice, but there's never actually any explanation about how her mum died or what happened when Belle was younger.
Which might be why scriptwriters were so keen to introduce a bit about Belle's backstory in the live-action version — because although the remake sticks closely to the original storyline, a whole scene is added to explain what happened to her mother.
Y'all ready for the truth?
OK, so in the new film, the Enchantress leaves an atlasin the Beast's castle which can transport the reader's mind (not body) to anywhere they want to go, at any time.
The Beast uses it to transport himself and Belle to her childhood home in Paris, where the pair find a beaked doctor's mask, used in the 17th century to treat patients suffering from bubonic plague.
It's at this point that viewers learn that Belle's mother died from the infection and begged husband Maurice to flee with their daughter so they could avoid the Black Death.
Which makes sense, because it's how they ended up leading a "provincial life" together in the countryside.
BRB, sobbing into our keyboards for the rest of the day.
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