9 Disturbing Origin Stories Behind Famous Disney Characters

9. Quasimodo Accidentally Kills His Love

The Hunchback of Notre Dame proves that love conquers all, except unsightly spinal curvatures. It's a classic love triangle: Quasimodo loves Esmeralda, but Esmeralda loves Phoebus. The hunchback doesn't get the girl, but ultimately learns to accept the fact that she's "just not that into him" and agrees to back off and let her make her own decisions...you know, like a normal human being. But in Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, Quasimodo isn't the one after Esmeralda's love. It's his adoptive father, Archdeacon Frollo. Similar to the Disney film, Esmeralda engages with Phoebus, much to Frollo's chagrin, who immediately tries to murder Phoebus and then frame Esmeralda for it. And then he has her hanged in the town square. ...Which is a bit much, even for a jealous fit of rage, isn't it? Frollo also makes Quasimodo implicit in her death, although the deformed guardian of the bell-tower doesn't realize that he'd had a hand in the whole thing until after Esmeralda is hanged and Frollo manically laughs while her neck snaps. Quasimodo then kills his sort-of dad by shoving him off a tall tower. And he stays with Esmeralda's dead, decaying body in a mass graveyard until he dies of starvation. It's...sweet?