The reading
The bead. A prince cursed for his cruelty is made worthy of love and loved in his monstrous form, and the bookish girl no one understood is the one who sees past it.
Engines
- redemption · content · spine · ~ — the Beast's arc is atonement made literal: cursed for being unkind, he can only be freed by becoming someone who loves and is loved in return — the costly remaking of a cruel self into a worthy one, the rose's last petal the deadline.
- being-desired · content · also-runs · ~ — loved beneath the monstrous form (and Belle wanted for her mind, not the village's idea of a catch) — wanted as each truly is.
- repricing · content · also-runs · ~ — Belle, the bookish odd one out in a town that prizes Gaston's idea of a woman, revalued as the heroine.
The bundle. A redemption spine (the cruel prince remade) braided with being-desired (loved in the monstrous form) and Belle's repricing (the odd one out as the heroine).
Dual-use read. Redemption's counterfeit is cheap grace — absolution without the costly change; Beauty and the Beast is the enabling case, the curse lifting only on a demonstrated transformation, not a declared one. (And it inverts the makeover counterfeit: the Beast is loved before, not after, he becomes handsome.)
Verdict. A redemption spine with a being-desired payoff — the cruel made worthy, the monstrous loved as it is.
Evidence. ~ reviewed — from the film (in-copyright). The selfish-prince-cursed-for-cruelty premise, Belle's father-bargain, the enchanted rose's last petal, and the resolution-before-handsome-form verified against the Wikipedia article (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast_(1991_film)).