Line #40 ComicBook/RapunzelsRevenge


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rapunzels_revenge.jpg]]
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3	''Rapunzel's Revenge'' is a graphic novel by award-winning author Creator/ShannonHale and husband Dean, illustrated by Nathan Hale. The story follows a strong and independent Literature/{{Rapunzel}}, perfectly willing and able to save herself. Initially following the original fairy tale, Rapunzel is kidnapped, but in this tale she escapes herself via her long hair. The rest of the story chronicles her dealing with her pursuers and attempting to escape to freedom.
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5	Followed by ''Calamity Jack'', which focuses on Jack having to face his past as he and Rapunzel travel back east to his hometown of Shyport to help his poor in-debt mother only to find the city ravaged by a race of Ant Men and under the supposed protection of a gang of giants, led by a crime lord named Blunderboar. With the help of one of Jack's old partners, a pixie named Prudence, and inventor/newspaper owner Freddie Sparksmith, they seek to uncover the truth behind the Ant Men attacks and free Jack's mother from Blunderboar's enslavement.
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7	----
8	!!Tropes:
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10	* AbusiveParents:
11	** Besides kidnapping her from her real parents, Mother Gothel isolates Rapunzel from the world, then leaves her up a tree for years when she becomes defiant, then finally just tries getting rid of her.
12	** In between, while Gothel does give Rapunzel "everything", she neglects to ease the girl's general loneliness.
13	* ActionDressRip: In the climactic scene, Rapunzel cuts away the skirt of her ballgown with scissors (she's wearing bloomers underneath), along with the vines entangling her legs.
14	%%* Action Girl: Rapunzel.
15	* AMinorKidroduction:
16	** We are introduced to Rapunzel's life with Gothel from the moment she was a little girl.
17	** Jack gets one in the second book recollecting all his schemes, from the time he was a little baby to the later years of his childhood.
18	* BaitAndSwitch: In the climax of the sequel, [[spoiler: it looks like the pixies are going to fight the brownies. Instead, it turns out they mean to flirt with the brownies. (It works).]]
19	* BookEnds:
20	** The story begins with little Rapunzel in a dress. One would never suspect a story about an independent Rapunzel dressed as a cowboy to also end with her in a dress ([[spoiler: as part of a disguise]]).
21	** Also, the story begins and ends with Rapunzel climbing the clock tower in Gothel's villa.
22	* BoundAndGagged: Rapunzel does this to [[spoiler: Gothel]] in the climax of the first book.
23	* BraidsOfAction: Rapunzel's twenty-feet long braids are literally this, being her primary weapon as a lasso.
24	* ChekhovsGun: Mother Gothel is shown [[spoiler: trimming a small, pink tree early in the story. This turns out to be her [[AmplifierArtifact totem]]]].
25	%%** Inga is Chekhov's ''pickaxe''.
26	* CurseCutShort: During Mother Gothel's final visit to Rapunzel's tower, the former offers the latter one last chance to be her obedient daughter on her terms. Fed up with her overall selfishness, Rapunzel tells her off, though her curse is drowned out by the thunder. Her narration says she told Gothel to go to... someplace less pleasant.
27	* DisguisedInDrag: Jack's first appearance involves him doing, well, this.
28	* DistractedByTheSexy: For one plan, Jack suggests Rapunzel put on a dress and invoke this. [[NoJustNoReaction She says no.]]
29	%%* DoesntLikeGuns:
30	%%-->'''Rapunzel:''' ''I was noticing how without guns in their hands, most folk around here turned pale. Made me realize I'd never seen Jack touch a gun except to throw it away.''
31	* TheDragon: Brute is Gothel’s largest henchman, and he chases Punzie and Jack throughout Gothel's Reach.
32	* DramaticNecklaceRemoval: Blunderboar is able to rip off Jack's grandfather's war band, giving Jack the final motivation/energy needed to [[spoiler:make the final blow to plunge him into the sea]].
33	* EngineeredPublicConfession: In the sequel, [[spoiler:Jack secretly flips the on switch of Blunderboar's "omniphone" before getting him to talk about his nefarious plan and insult the townspeople he's hoodwinked.]]
34	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: In-Universe, the sequel gives us AMinorKidroduction of young Jack using one of his schemes to trip up another child in order to steal his lunch. At first, he savors that his scheme actually worked. ...But then he notices said-child is injured and upset, and Jack [[HeelRealization feels bad about it]].
35	* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Reminding him of his mother leads to [[spoiler: Brute's HeelFaceTurn]].
36	%%* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Of the Old West.
37	* FracturedFairyTale: The stories of Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk in a Wild West Setting!
38	* FreudianExcuse: Gothel tries to justify that because her parents abandoned her, she's entitled to take this world by storm.
39	* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Gothel's backstory hardly outweighs that fact she's become a power-hungry tyrant who rules the land with an iron fist, enslaves those who defy her, and stole Rapunzel from her real parents. Rapunzel certainly won't hear any excuses for such barbaric behavior.
40	* GreenThumb: Mother Gothel was born with a proficiency to magically grow plants. [[spoiler: After gaining a totem, she could quickly and easily grow or wilt plants at will and her influence expands all the time. This power is how she rules with an iron fist]].
41	* HatedByAll: Mother Gothel has no one who's loyal to her out of something other than fear. ''No one''.
42	* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: Brute pulls one after he's deeply moved by seeing Rapunzel cry.]]
43	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Mother Gothel ends up being absorbed by her own totem]].
44	* ICallItVera: The pickax that could break anything deemed unbreakable was named Inga by the village that owned it.
45	%%* Literature/JackAndTheBeanstalk
46	* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Blunderboar, in the sequel. He's a giant with a taste for human bones; he also speaks eloquently, wears a three-piece suit with a frilly shirtfront, and lives in a lavishly-decorated penthouse suite.
47	* MeaningfulName: Brute is strong, but not particularly smart, and works for [[BigBad Mother Gothel]].
48	* MemoryTrigger: For the better part of her formative years, Rapunzel has gleaned bits and pieces of memories from her life before Mother Gothel, but not enough to remember Gothel isn't her mother. But once she meets her actual mother on her twelfth birthday, her earliest memories of her family come flooding back, right up until Mother Gothel had her abducted from her parents.
49	* MinionWithAnFInEvil: Gothel's lieutenant, who taught Rapunzel how to lasso ropes. He spots her during an encounter and lets her go.
50	* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Gothel in the climax claims that she locked up Rapunzel in the tower to make her stronger, and she says [[SoProudOfYou so proud]] when [[spoiler: a captured Rapunzel refuses to break]].
51	%%* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: ''[[SarcasmMode Now, with a name like the Devil's Armpit, you'd think it'd be a right jolly place.]]''
52	%%** Also, Brute.
53	%%-->'''Jack:''' His name is ''Brute''? Yeegh, that doesn't sound promising.
54	* NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: Blunderboar does this to [[spoiler: Jack, Rapunzel and Jack's mother]], casually explaining his plan while eating.
55	* NoodleIncident:
56	** One guest at Mother Gothel's party mentions that the year before involved a lot of goat cheese.
57	** Averted with Jack's incident with the beanstalk. Not only is it [[DramaticIrony easy to predict]], but it's explored upon in the second book.
58	* NotThisOneThatOne: The dwarves say they're going to give Jack "Inga," and at first a pretty girl appears. Rapunzel teases Jack that they're giving him a wife. Instead, Inga is the pickaxe the girl is holding.
59	* ParentalAbandonment: Mother Gothel was abandoned by her parents because they disapproved of her growing magic.
60	* PetGetsTheKeys: Subverted. When Jack and Rapunzel are detained by TheSheriff awaiting their hanging, Jack tries to get Goldie to bring him the ring of keys left conveniently on the wall. But in leaning against the cell door to do so, he discovers it was never locked in the first place.
61	* PrinceCharmless: A wealthy plantation heir arrives at the tower in order to tell Rapunzel he'll rescue her, but is fully planning on stringing her along instead of upsetting Mother Gothel, as he admits... [[DramaticIrony to Rapunzel]], who has already escaped the tower.
62	* PuppyDogEyes: During one of Mother Gothel's visit to Rapunzel's tree to see if the girl has grown obedient, Rapunzel gives one of these to make her submissive daughter act convincing. Unfortunately for her, it doesn't work.
63	* SettingUpdate: Rapunzel's Revenge is the Rapunzel story [[RecycledInSpace IN A SCHIZOTECH OLD WEST!]]
64	* ShadowArchetype: [[spoiler: Blunderboar points out that he and Jack are both devious and scheming, and this [[HeroicBSOD breaks]] Jack at first. But Rapunzel points out that there's a glaring difference between the two. Blunderboar is a cruel monster who doesn't care who he hurts to get what he wants, whereas Jack cares about his friends and his mother, and has a conscience to boot.]]
65	* SheCleansUpNicely: Rapunzel when she infiltrates [[spoiler: Gothi's ball so as to rescue her mother and end her adopted mother's magic]].
66	* ShooTheDog: Jack's mother tries to do this when he attempts to rescue her, saying that [[spoiler: the Giant wants his head]].
67	* SpoiledBrat: Rapunzel and Jack try to rescue a girl who was one of these. [[spoiler: We see where she gets it from when, after returning her to her father, he promptly tries to hang them]].
68	* TraumaticHaircut: [[spoiler: Mother Gothel cuts Rapunzel's braids when she gets caught during the final battle. Rapunzel ends up keeping them, continuing to use them as whips in the sequel]].
69	%%* {{Tsundere}}: Rapunzel to Jack
70	* WantedPoster: Rapunzel and Jack each get one. Rapunzel wonders why she was drawn that way while Jack's poster was from when he was [[DisguisedInDrag disguised in drag]], much to his embarrassment.
71	* WeNeedADistraction: Jack provides one at Mother Gothel's party. [[spoiler: He uses a bean]].
72	%%* WeirdWest
73	* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Rapunzel in the second book tells Jack this [[spoiler: as the giant holds them and his mother hostage]] and he confesses that he is a bad guy. Rapunzel assures him, "You're one of the good guys, Jack."

Context ComicBook / RapunzelsRevenge