

I’ve held the belief that (for his time) Gaston was a good guy.
He liked Belle, when the rest of the town said she was weird for reading.
He’s clearly respected throughout the region.
The beast (after being cursed for being a dick to strangers in need) did kidnap an old man and then did a prisoner swap for a girl he intended to groom into a sexual partner.
When the kidnapped man returns to the village and everyone refuses to believe him, Gaston does and leads the charge to rescue his daughter.
The fact that Belle was successfully love bombed and groomed doesn’t make Gaston wrong for coming to rescue her from this rich noble that was kidnapping people.









The live action movie made that more obvious, but the animated film he’s less awful. And everything else is standard for the time.
If you are gonna confront a noble, its gotta be a mob or nothing.
An asylum for “crazy old maurice” vs declaring him possessed by the devil and killed is pretty forward thinking for French peasants.