anthurak:

There’s been a lot of debate back and forth recently about the literary allusions of Adam’s character, and I thought I’d weigh in with a few thoughts.

First off, I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Adam is not the ‘Beast’ of Beauty and the Beast, or at least not the ‘primary’ Beast, who is most definitely Blake. Arryn Zech stated outright that Blake is meant to embody both the ‘Beauty’ and the ‘Beast’, while Adam is Gaston, and I have no reason to dispute that. Adam certainly ticks all the boxes for being Gaston: Brash, abrasive, misogynist, abusive, obsessive and stalkerish towards the ‘Beauty’ of the story, tries to kill both the Beast and the Beauty and is killed/thrown from a great height.

That having been said, I do feel like there’s move going on with Adam’s character here. Rather than just Gaston, I think Adam’s literary allusions go a bit broader:

That Rose motif Adam’s got that so many point to as representing the Beast? The Rose doesn’t represent the Beast, it represents the CURSE afflicting the Beast. Likewise, reading Adam as a ‘Curse’ rather neatly describes his relationship with Blake through the series. His presence constantly haunts Blake, a thing she desperately wants to escape, and only by finding and accepting true love (here represented by Yang) can Blake break the curse. Similarly, Adam can be read as a Curse to Yang in the same way; a thing that haunts her and an enemy that she must conquer to be free from it, and a curse which Yang ultimately breaks by uniting with the woman she loves (Blake).

Then there’s the name. A lot of people have pointed out that ‘Adam’ was also the name of the Beast’s previous human self, and personally I agree with that. A character described as nothing but a cruel, selfish boy who could never love another? Someone whom represents a past that the Beast in the current time desperately wants to escape? Sounds like a pretty accurate description of Adam to me.



There’s also some nice dramatic irony here: Gaston, the curse, and the cruel prince are all representatives of human cruelty and spite, showing how Adam is in truth just as cruel and malicious as the humans he claims to fight against.

In conclusion: Adam is not just Gaston. He is all of the antagonistic forces that the Beauty and the Beast mush overcome. He is Gaston, the cruel and obsessive man that wants to kill them. He is the Curse that has plagued the Beast for years and that which the Beast is so desperate to be free from. And he is the Past that got the Beast cursed in the first place. He is all the things that Beauty and Beast (Blake and Yang) must overcome, defeat and conquer to truly be happy.

Now, that just leaves the issue of Adam being a Bull faunus. However, that actually has a pretty straightforward answer:

Adam being a bull faunus, or rather, a bovine faunus, ISN’T a Beauty and the Beast reference. It’s a Jungle Book reference.

Remember how Sienna Kahn is a reference to the character Shere Khan? Well, guess how Shere Khan died in the original novel? He was trampled to death by, wait for it… Buffalo. Not to mention, our allusion to Shere Khan, who in the book hated and feared man, being killed by someone named ‘Adam’ has some good symbolism all on its own, as well as nicely illustrating the idea of Adam having become no different than those he claims to fight against.

All in all, CRWBY has done a lot of really interesting things with their literary allusions over the course of the series and I don’t think people give them enough credit as they should be.