According to Woolverton, the story team challenged nearly every line of dialogue Woolverton suggested for the character. On one occasion, the story artists re-wrote what Woolverton had originally scripted as Belle using a map to indicate places to where she would like to travel to the character baking a cake. Arguing that the liberated Belle would not even know how to bake, Woolverton decided to compromise by having the character read a book instead, which was similarly debated because some filmmakers considered reading to be too passive an activity. To resolve this, Woolverton scripted Belle walk while reading, an activity in which Woolverton herself partook as a child. In Beaumont's fairy tale, Belle is essentially forced to replace her father as the Beast's prisoner. To make the character more independent, Woolverton re-wrote her so that she willingly ventures into the woods in search of her father, bravely confronts the Beast and ultimately trades her own freedom in return for Maurice's instead. During Gaston's climactic fight with the Beast, the character's line "Time to die!" was changed to "Belle is mine!" in order to return the focus of the story to Belle.