Queer and Non-Traditional Relationships in Beasts and Beauty

Thematic Claim: Beyond the Heteronormative “Ever After”

Soman Chainani’s Beasts and Beauty systematically dismantles the traditional fairy‑tale romance by centering relationships that defy heteronormative expectations. Instead of culminating in a prince‑saves‑princess marriage, the stories elevate queer love, platonic soul bonds, and found families as the true sources of meaning and survival. The book’s core claim is that the “happily ever after” of classic tales is a narrow, often oppressive ideal—and that liberation comes when characters forge connections on their own terms, whether that means a same‑sex romance, an intellectual partnership, or a friendship that outlasts any royal wedding.

The Sleeping Beauty Prince and the Red‑Haired Thief

Chapter 3 (“Sleeping Beauty”) offers the most overtly queer relationship in the collection. A sixteen‑year‑old prince is nightly drained of blood by an invisible presence. He sets a razor‑toothed trap and severs the hand of a red‑haired boy, who then vanishes. Later, in a subversion of the traditional rescue, the prince marries the cold Contessa of Tagheria but secretly searches for the thief. On his wedding night he returns the severed hand; the boy reattaches it. The prince accepts the thief’s nightly visits, and the jealous contessa dies trying to stop them. The prince eventually brings the thief to court, and when the king demands an heir, a baby with rose‑red hair appears on the sheets—the thief continues to visit. This ending is deliberately ambiguous: the prince loves a male partner, and the child may be magical rather than biological. The relationship is not condemned or hidden; it is simply the prince’s truth. Chainani replaces the “sleeping beauty” trope with a young man who awakens not to a princess but to a queer bond that defies court expectations.

Beauty and the Beast: A Partnership Beyond Romance

Chapter 7 (“Beauty and the Beast”) reframes the classic story as a non‑traditional intellectual partnership. Mei, a book‑loving merchant’s daughter, agrees to take her father’s place at the Beast’s castle—not out of self‑sacrifice, but because she plans to murder the Beast and claim the castle for herself. She straps a dagger to her leg. Yet when she meets the Beast, she finds he wants her company, not her death. Their relationship develops around books: he leaves a story for her each morning, and they discuss it at dinner. Mei rejects his marriage proposal, insisting she is “happier on my own” and asking, “What if I do not want to marry? What if I don’t want to find love at all?” The Beast eventually catches her when she falls from a high shelf, breaking his back. Mei kisses him and mourns, but the story ends with her alone in the castle, hearing the ghost‑like shuffle of the Beast (now a brown prince she stabbed in a tragic mistake) still leaving books for her. The relationship defies the fairy‑tale template: it is not a heterosexual romance centered on physical attraction, but a connection built on mutual intellectual curiosity, respect for independence, and an ending that is neither “happy” nor conventional.

Cinderella and Magdalena: A Friendship That Outlasts Princes

Chapter 9 (“Cinderella”) presents what is arguably the most profound bond in the book—not between Cinderella and the prince, but between Cinderella (here called Lourdes) and her mouse‑turned‑human friend Magdalena. After the stepfamily is defeated, Prince Dante finds both girls and brings them to his castle, imagining “two to choose from” and “twice the Ever After.” But Lourdes and Magdalena become inseparable: “each morning, it is Magdalena who Lourdes looks for and Magdalena who looks for Lourdes.” The prince grows bored woos a third, and the two women leave together, “unbound from the rules of happy endings.” They wander, Magdalena marries and divorces, Lourdes bears three sons—yet their friendship endures through sickness, distance, and old age. In their final days, “there is only love between them, as if there is nothing else in this world.” This is a non‑traditional relationship that is not explicitly sexual but is clearly the story’s central love story, far more enduring than any heterosexual marriage. It challenges the primacy of romantic love and reframes deepest commitment as a friendship that transcends convention.

Other Stories: Found Families and Rejection of the Prince

The theme extends beyond these three tales:

• Red Riding Hood (Chapter 1): The peasant girl, with a knife hidden in a basket, kills the wolf alongside her grandmother, who reveals she has been rescuing beauties for years. They form a pack of survivors who howl together—a found family of women bonded by shared resistance, not romantic ties.
• Snow White (Chapter 2): After the dwarfs and the glass coffin, Snow White kills her stepmother and rejects the prince, returning to claim her throne. She prioritizes power and self‑determination over a fairy‑tale wedding.
• Peter Pan (Chapter 12): Wendy’s letter reveals a love story with the pirate Scourie that endures across decades, even after she marries another man. Her son is taken to Neverland, and she closes with eternal love. This is a non‑traditional heterosexual relationship that exists outside marriage and societal norms.

Complexity and Contradiction

Chainani does not simply replace one happy ending with another. Many of these relationships end in tragedy, exile, or painful ambiguity. Mei kills her beloved Beast by mistake; Wendy loses her son forever; the Sleeping Beauty prince’s queer love is shadowed by the contessa’s death. The book refuses to offer easy resolutions, insisting that queer and non‑traditional bonds are not immune to suffering. Yet they are presented as more authentic than the hollow ceremonies of court. The contradiction lies in the fact that some characters still long for conventional love—the Beast asks Mei to marry him, and the prince marries a woman he does not love—but the stories ultimately privilege the bonds that characters choose for themselves, however fragile.

Symbolic Connections

Many symbols in the book reinforce the theme of breaking free from prescribed roles:

• The glass coffin in Snow White traps the stepmother’s body but also symbolizes the imprisonment of traditional beauty standards; Snow White smashes the coffin by baking the comb that killed her into bread, a metaphor for consuming and destroying the old order.
• The knife hidden in a basket in Red Riding Hood is a tool of agency, used to defend herself and her community against predatory men.
• The bloodstained key in Bluebeard (Chapter 8) represents the danger of obedience to a patriarchal monster; Pietro, a queer‑coded boy, survives by outsmarting Bluebeard, refusing to be owned.

These objects are not merely magical props; they are instruments by which characters challenge the constraints of the fairy‑tale genre and forge new kinds of relationships.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the Sleeping Beauty chapter queer the traditional “sleeping beauty” motif?
The prince is the one who is “asleep” (unconscious) and repeatedly victimized by a nightly attacker. The “awakening” occurs when he traps and later accepts the red‑haired thief, forming a same‑sex relationship that continues after his marriage to a woman. The story inverts the gender roles and replaces a heterosexual rescue with a queer bond.

2. In what ways does Mei’s relationship with the Beast defy fairy‑tale romance?
Mei initially plans to kill the Beast, not marry him. Their connection is built on a shared love of books and intellectual discussion, not physical attraction. She explicitly rejects marriage and happiness alone. When the Beast proposes, she challenges the idea that love requires a conventional union, and the story ends with her alone, still connected to him through the books he leaves.

3. Why is the friendship between Lourdes and Magdalena more central than Cinderella’s romance with the prince?
The prince brings both girls to his castle, but they prioritize each other, leaving together to seek adventure. The story follows their lifelong friendship through marriage, divorce, and old age, emphasizing that this bond is the true “happy ending.” The prince becomes a footnote, while their love remains “the only thing” in their last days.

4. How does the book use found families to challenge heteronormative structures?
Red Riding Hood’s grandmother has built a pack of rescued beauties who “howl together,” forming a family of survivors outside patriarchal households. Similarly, the Sleeping Beauty prince and his thief create a private family that includes a magical child, defying the royal demand for a biological heir. These groups offer solidarity and protection that traditional nuclear families cannot.

5. What contradictions appear in the book’s treatment of non‑traditional relationships?
Many queer or non‑traditional bonds end in tragedy (Mei kills the Beast, Wendy loses her son) or remain hidden (the prince’s nightly visits are not openly acknowledged by the court). Chainani does not romanticize these relationships; instead, he shows that they are often painful and ambiguous, yet still more authentic than the hollow, prescribed romance of traditional fairy tales.