Fridge / Tangled

"And at last, I see the light..."

Who knew that the 50th movie in the Disney Animated Canon would be so full of revelations?

Fridge Brilliance

• "I See the Light" is a song about Rapunzel finally fulfilling her dream of seeing the floating lights, but it can also be seen as a song about Rapunzel seeing what real love is for the first time. Each of those floating lanterns represents a subject of the kingdom who misses the lost princess and wishes for her safe return. She's feeling second-hand what it's like to inspire that magnitude of unconditional love and caring. Without even knowing that the lanterns are for her, Rapunzel finally understands true love and wants to find it for herself.
  • Not only that, Flynn has two lanterns, one of which he launches himself and the other he gives to Rapunzel for her to launch. The first lantern represents how he's come to love her, while the second lantern represents how he helped her learn to love herself.
  • The King and Queen release a very distinctive lantern with the emblem of Corona on it. During the song, this lantern comes close to sinking into the lake, but Rapunzel rescues it and sets it aloft again. The lantern they sent out to find their lost daughter actually found her.
  • In a way, even Gothel's own lantern represents her relationship with Rapunzel: Gothel does indeed have some small form of "affection" for Rapunzel, but its green light represents (A) how warped her supposed affection is, (B) that she only has love for herself and (C) she only "loves" Rapunzel on her own abusive terms. Gothel's lantern represents the twisted, sickly love of a toxic relationship.
• In the Polish dub, Flynn/Eugene calls Rapunzel "a sun like no other". Keeping in mind the sun magic in her, her warm personality, Flynn's love for her, and the kingdom's national emblem, it's a brilliant translation.
• Mother Gothel citing "The plague!" as something dangerous to scare Rapunzel into staying in the tower is brilliant on so many levels:
  • Mother Gothel is old enough to have lived during the plague herself.
  • She probably survived the plague because of the healing flower.
  • She is now talking to the "reincarnation" of that flower, trying to avoid losing her; without her, Mother Gothel wouldn't survive the plague now.
  • Of course the plague doesn't exist now, she's just making that up!
  • But even if Rapunzel did encounter the plague, she also has the healing powers to survive it.
• During Mother Knows Best Gothel tells Rapunzel that the world is "dark and selfish and cruel", then puts Rapunzel in front of a mirror to pinpoint all her unpleasant traits, saying "On your own, you won't survive!" Later, when Rapunzel confronts Gothel after realizing she is the lost princess, she pushes Gothel onto the mirror, causing it to break. This could be a metaphor for Rapunzel realizing that she can survive on her own and that the world isn't the dark cesspool of dangers that Gothel described. Or, in her own words:
  Rapunzel: (clenching Gothel by the wrist) You were wrong about the world, and you were wrong about me!
  • Additionally, Gothel frightens Rapunzel by pretending to be different types of evil people. Naturally it's because she's the only one there and she's just reinforcing her point, but it also leads to poignant symbolism—in the end, Gothel herself is the one Rapunzel has the most reason to fear.
  • When Gothel plunges the tower into darkness, Rapunzel is quickly able to light some candles, only for Gothel to snuff them out behind her. This shows that Rapunzel is more than capable of looking after herself, and it's Gothel who's intentionally sabotaging Rapunzel's efforts.
• Gothel's insistence that Rapunzel is not able to survive on her own is painfully ironic, considering how without Rapunzel, Gothel would pass away or wither of old age. In the end, it was always Gothel who couldn't survive without Rapunzel.
• There's a considerable amount of symbolism involving mirrors:
  • Gothel uses her mirror to not only massage her own vanity and pride, but also to put down Rapunzel by magnifying her flaws.
  • During "When will my Life begin", we see that Rapunzel has her own little mirror in her box of paints, implying that painting allows Rapunzel to see herself as she is: a fun, happy, creative young woman. The fact that she has to hide it in a box also hints that she doesn't entirely trust Gothel to see her real self, lest Gothel break that too.
  • There's also the size ratio of the two mirrors. Gothel's mirror is a big vanity mirror that matches her ego. Meanwhile Rapunzel's is a small thing that reflects her humility.
  • After capturing Flynn, Rapunzel looks in Gothel's mirror and admires her achievement at capturing "a person". She realizes she is more accomplished than Gothel gives her credit for.
  • Towards the end, when Rapunzel finally realizes she's the lost princess, she confronts Gothel and vows to never let Gothel use her magical hair again. At that moment, Gothel's mirror breaks, reflecting not only Rapunzel's refusal to let Gothel's opinions affect her anymore, but also how Gothel's facade has officially been shattered by Rapunzel's unforeseen rebellion.
• Speaking of hiding her little mirror in a box, ever notice Rapunzel has to hide most of the things she loves from Gothel? It's a well-known strategy for abusers to use their victims' belongings as leverage, threatening to confiscate or even break them if the victim doesn't get with the program. Ironically, Rapunzel hid the unconscious Flynn with the intention of showing Gothel how capable she is, but decided to keep hiding him when Gothel yelled at her. Almost as though she suspected her "mother" would do something really bad to her captive. Not to mention how Gothel later did take away something Rapunzel loved (Flynn), specifically to destroy any chance Rapunzel had at going back to her newfound freedom.
• In the song "When Will My Life Begin", Rapunzel lists all the indoor activities she does to fill up her boring days in her tower. Later in "I've Got a Dream", several thugs list which hobbies/interests they would like to dedicate their lives to instead of being thugs. All of Rapunzel's hobbies are parallels to those of the thugs:
  • Hook Hand: Playing piano—Rapunzel plays guitar (and has a beautiful singing voice to boot). Also Rapunzel throws darts, which would train her manual dexterity, something Hook Hand would have to develop an extraordinary amount of in order to play piano with a hook.
  • Big Nose: Love—Rapunzel yearns to go explore the world outside her tower and see the floating lanterns, which (as mentioned above) could be seen as a symbol for love.
  • Thor: Florist—Rapunzel does pottery and candle-making.
  • Gunther: Interior design—Rapunzel decorates her tower by filling every spare inch of the walls with paintings. Plus, she keeps it nice and tidy with her daily routine of "sweeping, dusting, polishing, mopping, laundry, shining," etc.
  • Ulf: Mime—Rapunzel does papier-mache, ballet and aerial acrobatics with her hair.
  • Atilla: Baking cupcakes—Rapunzel bakes and cooks.
  • Bruiser: Knitting—Rapunzel knits.
  • Killer: Sewing—Rapunzel sews dresses (to Pascal's chagrin).
  • Fang: Puppet shows—Rapunzel does ventriloquy.
  • Vladimir: Collects ceramic unicorns—Though admittedly a stretch, Rapunzel and Vladimir both share a hobby of collecting. While Vladimir collects ceramic unicorns, Rapunzel collects knowledge (reading books, solving puzzles, trying to find out as much as she can about the floating lights, etc.).
    • Additionally, contrast how for Rapunzel these activities are a way to fill her boring life, while for the thugs they are literally all they want to do with their lives.
• Rapunzel must be incredibly strong. Think about it: in addition to all the housework she's doing, she's also hauling a full-grown woman up and down a 50-foot tower on a regular - if not, daily - basis. Not to mention how strong her neck muscles would have to be simply to be able to walk upright with that much hair. This would explain her expertise with the frying pan: anyone who's ever used cast-iron cookware will tell you how heavy those things are. She's definitely not fragile. No wonder she's able to toss Gothel around so easily toward the end of the movie. And of course it sets up the Aesop that Rapunzel always had the strength to stand up to Gothel—she just had to realize she had it.
  • Being magical hair, and giving how lightly it moves and bounces, it's probably incredibly light on her head.
    • The hair in the segments which bounce might very well be comparatively light; it is just hair, after all. However, when she moves she is pulling the entire length of hair, the span of two tall towers (her way down the tower had her hair on the top of her head, connected to the pulley at the top of the tower's window, and the end segment to control her descent). This means that she is moving a lot of overall weight, not unlike someone pulling a twenty-foot solid-link metal chain, while maintaining good vertical posture.
    • Not to mention when she has her styled into that thick braid, she still has no problem moving about normally. Even if it is magic, that much weight should've caused her some discomfort, at the very least. At most, the weight of all that hair compressed would've broken her neck!
  • Also keep in mind when she's drowning in the cave. All that hair should completely weigh her down after absorbing so much water. But it moves just as easily as before. Either she's just that strong, or it's because the hair is magic, or because the story needed her to move around easily so the plot could get going.
    • Actually, her hair would weigh the same when under the water, soaked or not. You would only notice the added weight when you try to get OUT of the water.
  • No wonder Eugene asks if the healing that Rapunzel performs could grant him Super-Strength. He's got plenty of reason to suspect that the only other person that he knows has been exposed to the magic has it.
• During the "When Will My Life Begin" there is a sequence where Rapunzel, with Pascal on her shoulder carries a freshly baked pie. They both take an appreciative sniff simultaneously. Then, Rapunzel and Pascal use their thumb/opposable digit to examine a possible new portion of the wall for her art. So why is Pascal so in sync with Rapunzel, beyond the normal manner of a Disney animal companion? He is a chameleon a type of animal known for mimicry.
• At the start of the movie, Mother Gothel keeps asserting dominance and control over Rapunzel. It's an expression of strength - to compensate for the fact that she isn't strong physically (without the help of the flower she's just a pile of dust.) Rapunzel, on the other hand, is strong physically but weak mentally, getting steamrollered by Gothel all the time. In the last confrontation, the roles have switched - Rapunzel realizes the extent of her physical strength (evidence: her pushing Gothel into a mirror) and mental strength (fighting back in order to save Flynn), while Gothel loses both her mental strength (she can't get Rapunzel to obey her anymore) and physical strength (turning into dust).
• Eugene really did get both of his dreams, except for the alone part. During "I've Got a Dream," he sings that he wants to be "on an island that I own, tanned and rested and alone, surrounded by enormous piles of money." Rapunzel's parents' castle is on an island, and their kingdom certainly doesn't seem that poor.
  • Also, in regards to the part about living somewhere sunny, the entire kingdom has a sun motif. Also, he marries Rapunzel, who is constantly compared to and represented by the sun.
  • He even got to keep the crown he stole at the beginning of the movie! Admittedly, it comes with the stipulation that there's a girl and a kingdom attached, but he can live with that.
• The chameleon, Pascal, which Rapunzel apparently kept hidden from Gothel, hints at her real spirit.
  • Though it is unlikely that Gothel wouldn't allow her a pet. Unless it's a parrot that could fly to civilization and say "Awwwkk stay in the tower, do as I say!" there really is no threat to her at all. Especially the fact that Gothel encourages Rapunzel to stay happy, she wouldn't want her to be bored (Or else she'd be too depressed to sing, which is why she constantly brings her stuff to do) so if anything she probably would encourage a pet.
    • It's possible that at some point Gothel took away a previous pet for some minor or imagined misbehavior or simply told her she couldn't take care of one; it's not an uncommon tactic for abusive parents to use to make the child feel even more worthless and dependent upon the adult for interaction/affection.
    • It could also be symbolic of Gothel's selfishness: she doesn't want to risk sharing Rapunzel's affection with anyone else, not even a pet, in order to keep Rapunzel completely dependent on her for everything (thus making it easier to manipulate her by threatening to withhold love)
  • It could be Gothel's stressed their need to keep hidden and secret to the point that even an animal from the outside breaks the rules. Gothel wants to paint any living thing outside the Tower as dangerous; such a Ridiculously Cute Critter as Pascal(not to mention that he becomes Rapunzel's best friend) doesn't help that agenda.
    • It seems unlikely that Gothel wouldn't notice the pet. It's not uncommon for abusers to allow their victim to think they're in control when they really aren't, if it enables the victim to continue giving them what they want or if it allows them to more easily control the victim. It's possible Gothel knew about the pet but didn't say anything because it was of no concern to her, it kept Rapunzel happy and singing, and she didn't have a reason at that time to punish her.
• Why is Maximus so easily charmed by Rapunzel? He recognizes her as the princess. His expression when he first sees her up close is shocked recognition, followed immediately by Pascal signing at him not to say anything about it (or signing that Rapunzel doesn't know). Which means that Pascal knows too. Maximus obeys Rapunzel because she's royalty, and escorts her to town as her bodyguard. His time off-camera in town is probably spent trying to find someone who will recognize Rapunzel for who she is.
  • On the same note, it's why he busts Flynn out of jail before going to ride toward the tower. Flynn Rider accidentally found the princess that the king and queen were seeking, which is worth a pardon for theft. What's more, Maximus wanted the palace guards to follow, which is why he made such a dramatic exit. The guards would need a couple of hours to catch up, but by then Rapunzel would be found.
• With the emotional abuse that Mother Gothel casually heaps on Rapunzel on an everyday basis, and her building up and building on Rapunzel's terrors of the outside world (let alone being locked in one small building all your life), shouldn't Rapunzel be a raging bundle of neuroses and absolutely unable to venture outside? Wait a minute - Rapunzel herself contains the essence of the Sun. Her natural state is delight, liveliness, and joy. Everything Mother Gothel did every day could only barely keep her down.
  • The sunlight's also why almost everyone who encounters Rapunzel is charmed by her. The magic literally gives her a "glowing" personality that naturally attracts people... Explains how she made such a big impression on the kingdom in the few short days/weeks before she was kidnapped, and how she turned around the Snuggly Duckling patrons, and even managed to make someone as vain and selfish as Gothel (somewhat) love her.
  • This is visually represented by the way the tower is grey and lifeless when Gothel comes back and Rapunzel is gone.
• Rapunzel's bare feet might not be a personal preference. Gothel's so determined that Rapunzel never leave that she's never given her any shoes, because shoes would imply she might someday walk outside.
• Pay attention to the mobile that baby Rapunzel has. You can clearly see a chameleon, a duck, a horse, and a little Cupid. Each of these appear in the story in some way.
  • What does the fifth item on the mobile that looks like a blue duck with a yellow belly suppose to reference? Maybe it doesn't mean anything.
    • It represents the Snuggly Duckling, the bar where Rapunzel and Flynn meet all of those Lovable Rogues.
    • This says that it's the birds she sees after leaving the tower for the first time.
• Gothel is dressed several centuries behind the people of the kingdom, just to show how very old she really is. Also, the line in "Mother Knows Best" about the plague. More than likely she could have very well lived through the thing.
  • Maybe her dress isn't centuries behind. When we first see Gothel, she's wearing a red cloak and green dress, and when see her again centuries later, this time she's wearing a black cloak and red dress of same style and design, and they look brand new and not out of place, implying that the fashion of Gothel's clothing may still be in.
    • Maybe she sews her own clothing?
    • Or has Rapunzel sew it for her. Sewing is one of Rapunzel's many talents listed in "When Will My Life Begin?", after all.
• Why does Gothel agree to go on a three day journey to get Rapunzel paint? That's another method emotional abusers use: doing big extravagant tasks so that they can hold it over their victim's head and have another reason to guilt trip them.
  • It's a three day trip as far as Rapunzel knows. If the shells are closer, Gothel could have just gone a few steps away from the tower, grabbed the shells, and partied for three days without Rapunzel knowing anything.
    • If it were so easy, she would not have been so hesitant and needed convincing. Thinking of it an a method of emotional abuse works better.
    • Unless Gothel played up how hard it was to get the paint so Rapunzel would feel guilty about it anyway.
  • Gothel was obviously uneasy about leaving Rapunzel along for three days; it would mean that she has to wait that much longer to get the daily youthening, and after expressing such a desire to go outside, it would be unwise to leave her alone for so long if avoidable. I think that it really was three days away, and she agreed because she really did care about Rapunzel, at least a bit.
    • Gothel doesn't agree to do it until Rapunzel mentions that she thought it would be better than the 'stars'. She doesn't want to do it but it seems to be a way to get Rapunzel to drop the subject of leaving the tower.
• The first thing we hear from Flynn is how much he wants a palace. What does he get at the end?
  • Better yet, the very first thing we hear from him is that he could "get used to a view like this". Come the end of the movie, he gets exactly a view like that.
• Mother Gothel frequently calling Rapunzel "flower". In a way, she literally is her flower. And her name derives from rampion, the magical flower of the Prologue.
  • Alternatively, her hair is the second coming of the magical blossom. Notice that cut locks do not appear to grow after being cut, similar to how flower petals won't grow back out if you take a chunk out of them. Presumably, if you'd plucked a petal or torn it in any way on the original sun flower, the entire petal would have ceased to be magical.
    • This appears to be the case. Mother Gothel doesn't attempt to take the flower; she conceals it and comes back whenever she needs to. And when the royal guards do take the flower, they dig it up roots and all. This may be just to keep it alive for the long journey back, but it might also imply the flower must be kept whole.
  • Except as she retained the power to heal, her hair isn't the only petal on her.
• Flynn's real name being Eugene. It's a little thing, but the name does mean "Born to Royalty" or "Royal". Who's to say that he wasn't intentionally named so by the filmmakers? It's possible he was named thus to suggest that he is Rapunzel's "prince in disguise".
  • It just means "of good birth" or "well born". Still ironic, though.
  • Well Flynn did grow up in an orphanage- his family very well could have been royals. Would be an interesting dynamic if both Rapunzel and Flynn were born into royalty and went their whole lives never knowing it.
  • Flynn's real last name, Fitzherbert, indicates that he's a bastard son. Bastard children are often given the last name of Fitz[last name of father], but if Flynn's father was royalty he may not have even had a last name as many royals either don't have last names or don't use them in which case Herbert may have been the first name of his royal father. The name Eugene indicating good birth could mean that he was descended from royals, just not raised as one.
  • As of Tangled: The Series, it's revealed that Eugene was born Horace, the long-lost Prince of the Dark Kingdom. He was hidden away in an orphanage, unaware of his heritage. The people who renamed him Eugene might have known his real identity.
• Reading this site's Does This Remind You of Anything? entry regarding the Villain Song reprise made me realize that, although Disney had to change the actual plot so as not to include pregnancy and such, they still kept the (commonly accepted) sexual awakening theme of the original tale. They were true to the essence of the original story, which is far more important than adhering letter-by-letter to the literal plot.
• There's this line in "Mother Knows Best".
  Plus, I believe, gettin' kinda chubby
  I'm just sayin' 'cuz I wuv ya!
  • At face value, it just looks like Gothel being a Jerkass to keep Rapunzel down just like the rest of the song, but it's actually a very clever Shout-Out to the original story, where the witch finds out about Rapunzel's prince because she gets pregnant and her clothes don't fit anymore.
• Brad Garrett being able to sing as Hook Hand Thug in "I've Got a Dream". For those who know of his previous work, this comes off as a stroke of Fridge Brilliance: in The Pacifier he plays another thug-like fellow who ends up singing the part of Mother Abbess in The Sound Of Music production in-story at the end!
• I noticed on my second viewing that Mother Gothel was clutching a piece of hair as it was withering both times the rejuvenation was revoked. It occurred to me that it may not have been a case of simple No Immortal Inertia.
  • Also, when it happens the first time, Rapunzel's hair is nowhere near as long as it is later...Mother Gothel doesn't de-age/degenerate to dust and bones until the second time, when the hair is a lot longer.
    • That and the fact that all of Rapunzel's hair was cut off the second time as opposed to just one lock. Although its a bit of a headscratcher as to why Flynn's hand wound didn't reappear as he was clutching Rapunzel's hair when he cut it.
    • The time between Rapunzel healing Flynn's hand and his cutting of her hair is long enough that the hand would at least be partly healed. Gothel died because outside of magic the natural progression of time and aging isn't something that can be 'healed' naturally.
• At first, the Snuggly Duckling is funny simply because it's a Bad Guy Bar with a totally harmless-sounding name. Then we learn about the patrons' Hidden Depths, and realize it's a pun on the original Ugly Duckling tale; like said duckling, the thugs are rough and ugly on the outside, but good on the inside.
• So in the end after Flynn cuts Rapunzel's hair, Gothel shrivels away- but the Queen doesn't become ill/near-death again in the kingdom. Apparently the healings are permanent while youth restorings, while temporary, can be revoked.
  • Also, the cut on Flynn's left palm does not re-open, which, after only a single day, it should have, if all the flower's magical restorations are revoked. But it's also possible that if the events of the story had happened within Gothel's natural lifespan, and she had only used the flower to restore her youth once or twice, it would not have been revoked, but Gothel's been abusing the flower's power for simply too long, piling up a debt of youth, as it were, that all get's forcibly recalled at the end. (Note how it appears that as time goes on, the intervals during which Gothel gets her youth restored seem to get shorter and shorter, and she ages faster and faster between sessions with the flower. At the beginning of the story, it seems like at least several weeks had to have passed between the time the flower is taken from her (time to get the flower back to the kingdom, prepare it for the queen, for the queen to recover, to give birth, for the celebration of the Rapunzel's birth, and for Rapunzel to grow a little - she's clearly no longer a neonate when she's kidnapped) and the time she gets it back, while 18 years later, she's already showing visible signs of aging after only a couple days.)
  • My guess would be that since healing is a natural process, de-aging is... obviously not. So when the flower's magic just speeds up a natural process, you only need it once, whereas if it does something unnatural, it'll need repeating again and again. This doesn't really explain why Flynn's resurrection works, though.
    • Agreed, for the above point. During Flynn's narration at the beginning of the story, he specifically says that the flower has the ability to "heal the sick and injured" (recovering from sickness and injury are both things the body can do on its own depending on the severity). He makes no mention of its ability to make people younger until later, and only to explain how and why Gothel was using it. It's entirely possible that de-aging was not at all the flower's original purpose, hence why the incantation seems to be less and less effective the more Gothel uses it.
    • I put that down to half The Power of Love and half that's basically what happened in the original.
    • I assumed that her tears contain (or possibly contained) the same power as her hair, and since Flynn had just died it was able to resuscitate him and heal the wound, much like our doctors can technically bring somebody back from the dead, if they've only been dead for a very short time.
      • Agreed; Flynn only stopped breathing, and I doubt that he was like that for more than thirty seconds before the tear healed him. There was no evidence that he was brain dead.
  • Gothel's song specifically refers to turning back time. The longer she uses the magic, the longer ago was her original youth.
  • If you buy into the theory touching her hair as it loses power is what causes the rapid aging, then it explains why nothing else reverted. Also, in pure brilliance. Pascal tripping Gothel initially seemed unnecessary but applying the aforementioned, she touched the hair again, thus it accelerated her aging even more, to the point of death.
    • Except Flynn touches her hair as he is cutting it, which according to the above theory should have caused his hand wound to re-open.
    • Maybe it did and got rehealed when she revived him.
  • As for Rapunzel's mother, it's not clear what's wrong with her but if it's linked with her pregnancy she would probably have recovered anyway after she gave birth, but as it was she just wasn't going to survive long enough to deliver her baby. Or- as is true of many diseases- the hard part wasn't the recovery but her surviving the acute stage in order to do so.
• When you see the Stabbington Brothers spy on Flynn/Eugene and Rapunzel, they are carrying a green lantern. It's not theirs - it's Mother Gothel's, and because they're working for her now that they have it...
• This is the first Disney Princess film that tells you magic is not the key to happiness, since Flynn ultimately decided that the power from the sun was what was causing all the problems. The Princess and the Frog also told this, but did not exclude magic completely.
  • And the first where someone reacts with shock to the idea of magic being real. Even modern Tiana accepted as a given that Facilier had real magic powers, and that a kiss could actually restore Naveen.
• The tear at the end. The flower's magic was said to be contained in her hair, and then that happened. One shot in the opening shows how the flower was given to the Queen- in a tea!
  • The series eventually reveals that Rapunzel's magic exists throughout her body, with her hair simply being the outlet it chose. She probably could have used her tears or even her fingertips to heal if she chose, but Gothel only discovered that her hair had magic.
• Rapunzel has a pretty heavy attack with that frying pan, not to mention the fact that she swings both herself and Flynn around on her hair with little trouble. Doesn't that seem rather strong for a girl who's spent her whole life locked away in three rooms? Oh that's right, she hauls Mother Gothel up a fifty-foot tower by herself EVERY DAY. Jeez, this girl must have developed some serious muscles.
• If Rapunzel has never left the tower before, that means she's seen very little sunlight. So shouldn't she be pale and sickly? Wait a minute, she has the sun inside her.
  • She also has a wide open balcony she sits on and a sun roof that fills the room with light.
• The Opening Narration has Flynn saying "This is the story of how I died" and indeed this does happen in a way. "Flynn Rider" dies, but the man he actually is, Eugene Fitzherbert, lives instead.
  • That, and the fact that Eugene actually, physically died before Rapunzel's magic tears came into effect. He wasn't almost dead or passed out when she sang the incantation. He really was dead.
• In "Mother Knows Best", Gothel calls Rapunzel "pet". Which is exactly what she is to Gothel, a pet in a gilded cage. And all those things she amuses herself with in "When Will My Life Begin" which Gothel presumably has given her and which make it appear that Gothel loves her, are like the "enrichment" we give caged animals - like a pet gerbil's running wheel.
• In "I Have a Dream", the thug playing the piano at one points plays a "trill". A "trill" usually requires two fingers to play, and he does it with his hook. Playing a trill with only a single "appendage" to press down the keys might not be completely impossible, but at the least would require near superhuman wrist dexterity. So that hook-handed thug who dreamed of being a concert pianist is quite justified in his dream. Because. he. is. damn. good.
  • And he's also an early adopter. If the movie takes place around 1780 as Word of God says, then the piano in its modern form would only have been developed a few years previously (and even it's predecessor, the pianoforte, would only have been around for barely 50 years or so).
• Note how shocked Rapunzel looks when Gothel finally gets sick of her requesting to go outside and coldly informs her that she will never leave the tower. It's not just because she's being told she'll never leave; it's the first time Gothel has ever let her true nature slip completely in front of Rapunzel (that is, the coldly avaricious reason to guilt trip her vs. the syrupy sweet mother who 'teases' her).
• Eugene's joking words at the end "and after years and years of asking, I finally said yes" does in fact seem largely irrelevant to the royalty portrayed in the movie, but it does make sense: as Princess, Rapunzel would probably propose to Eugene instead of it being the other way around, since she is the one with real power and Eugene is lower in rank to her. Sure, they do turn it on its head in the head with Eugene saying that he asked her, but despite that, his earlier comment holds true to the principles that govern royal families, especially in the matter of marriage.
  • Right after he says that Rapunzel can be heard saying "Eugene..." in an exasperated manner and Eugene admits he was the one who asked her. It was just a joke.
  • I saw it as more Disney trying to have their cake and eat it too with regard to gender stereotyping. Not in a bad way, however—with that specific wording, they manage to entertain the idea of the woman being the one to propose without making Rapunzel look marriage-crazy, which would have Unfortunate Implications given her youth and sheltered upbringing. They've come to realize how bad some of their earlier movies look by having the heroine only 16 and getting married at the end, and in more recent ones have gone out of their way to demonstrate that they aren't doing that anymore. Rapunzel turns 18 over the course of the movie and the ending tells us that she and Flynn are together for several years before they tie the knot.
    • I think you are reading a little too much into it, especially them waiting several years to tie the knot. Eugene was merely sporting the lovable rogue persona he is known for with a joke.
• Remember the single lantern that floats down to the water next to Eugene and Rapunzel's boat after they have launched their own lanterns, which Rapunzel gently lifts and tosses back into the sky? Unlike the pair of lanterns they just launched, this lantern is decorated with the royal sun insignia - suggesting that it might be the initial lantern that the king and queen launched from their balcony, the lantern that was supposed to find the lost princess, and it did!
• At the end of the movie, there is quite the contrast between the Queen and King's appearances. He is much more careworn and wrinkled, with much gray in his hair, while she still looks as youthful and beautiful as she did when Rapunzel was a baby. Aside from the fact that he was likely ravaged with grief while she still held out hope her daughter would be found, remember that she ingested the flower. If the flower's magic does/did indeed make Rapunzel immortal, or at least long-lived and youthful (she really doesn't look 18), it stands to reason that it would do the same to her mother. So, she's retained her youthful beauty while the king still got older.
  • Not to say that the one above is wrong, but this is based on the 18th century. Back then, queens tended to marry in their teen years, sometimes even earlier to men much older than they. The king and queen might have had an Arranged Marriage that became a good one, and the queen had Rapunzel between 16-18 years old while he was closer to 30. Hence, after 18 years, the Queen still looks quite young because she may be in just her mid 30s, while he might be approaching his fifties. Many women may look the same, especially if they have Hairstyle Inertia like the Queen does, from their late teens to their thirties.
• Having Rapunzel and Gothel singing to invoke the magic from the flower is a pretty good way to kick off a musical. However, it brings to mind the old wives' tale that if you speak or sing to your plants, they grow better. Likely unintentional but still a sudden moment where the light bulb went on over my head while rewatching this movie.
  • Studies suggest that's a truism, not an old wives' tale.
  • It's also a reference to the original fairy tale: in that, the prince was initially drawn to the tower and found Rapunzel because he heard her beautiful voice singing. This is also the way they find each other at the end, when she is put far away in a forest by the witch and has to find her blinded love and heal him.
• How did Flynn and Rapunzel get to see the King and Queen when he's the most wanted man in the kingdom? Simple, Maximus vouched for his character. While he can't talk, he can certainly impress on the guards "He's with me." Once he and Rapunzel are with the king and queen, the rest is golden.
  • Taking it a step further, his complete "pardon" for the crime and being able to become the Prince Consort is because he had paid for his crimes in full by "dying".
  • There's also the fact that he goes by Eugene rather than Flynn now, so maybe he introduced himself as such to the King and Queen.
    • If he introduced himself as Eugene wouldn't everyone recognize his face? No, because every. Single. Wanted poster. Got his nose wrong. Surely Eugene would have looked very similar to Flynn Rider, but Flynn Rider has a totally different nose.
• If you pay close attention during the introduction of the thugs at the Snuggly Duckling, you'll notice a number of subtle hints at their gentler nature, like how one thug (Killer) is wearing spools of thread on his spiky helmet and has sewing needles stuck into his shoulder pads.
• Rapunzel makes a star chart on her wall with the phases of the Moon, her own constellations, and what looks like an analemma. She spent serious time looking out the window at night and at how the Sun moved along the wall.
• Eugene cuts Rapunzel's hair before she can heal him, killing Mother Gothel in the process. Now, it may seem stupid he didn't just wait until after he was healed but think about it. He didn't know WHY Gothel needed the hair, he just knew she did. For all he knew, cutting the hair would've not affected her at all and Rapunzel would be bound to her promise. So with the information Eugene had, the only logical move was to cut the hair before he was healed.
  • Also take into account that Flynn/Eugene was a very selfish human being when Rapunzel first met him (his greatest dream was to be completely alone). Over the course of their journey together, Eugene learns to care for her more than he cares for himself, and that kind of love throws all logic out the window where your own well-being is concerned. So when Rapunzel was facing a future of slavery to Gothel's vanity, his life was the last thing on his mind and her survival was all that mattered.
    • Also he was kind of going by the Exact Words of Rapunzel's promise- the bargain was that when she'd saved him, Gothel could take her away. So if he destroyed her means of saving him, the bargain would be void, right? (Not a great bit of reasoning by any standards, given what he'd already seen of Gothel, but at least it would give Rapunzel the chance to fight her, and anyway, he wasn't exactly in a condition to think that straight at the time.)
  • Actually, he was thinking logically. Rapunzel had promised that after she had healed Eugene, she would go with Mother Gothel with no resistance. Rapunzel was very clear that she never beaks her promises (which is the only reason Gothel agreed to allow the healing). This means that as soon as Eugene was healed, Rapunzel was to be taken away somewhere "no one would find her ever again". As Eugene was chained up, he probably knew that he may not have been able to reach her hair as soon as he was healed, and that this was his best (and most likely only) chance to cut her hair. True that he did not know how this would affect Gothel, but he did know that her hair was the reason Gothel kept her captive, and thus would lose interest in keeping Rapunzel locked away should her hair be removed. Either way, he knew this was probably his last chance to gain Rapunzel her freedom, by Gothel's choice or by her death.
• Rapunzel losing her magic is nicely foreshadowed, and not just by the cut lock either. Mother Gothel tells Rapunzel how the world is dark, selfish, and cruel, and "if it finds even the slightest ray of sunshine, it destroys it." She's talking about Rapunzel's disappointment in Flynn and the loss of her sunny demeanor, but think about it: while Rapunzel is metaphorically referred to as "flower," she's also metaphorically "the sun," or more specifically, her powers are, since that's where they came from. The outside world really does find a piece of the sun, and destroys it... part of it anyway. But not because it's dark, selfish, and cruel.
  • I realized this upon hearing the destroying sunshine line, but thought of it a different way as well; maybe Gothel wasn't only talking about the loss of Rapunzel's sunny demeanor, but also feeling as though it was unfair for anyone to search for and then take her healing flower for any reason, and was bitter about the plant being destroyed in order to save two unimportant people (in Gothel's own opinion).
    • If Gothel herself weren't so selfish, the flower might still be alive. How? When she saw the guards taking the flower away, she could have run up to them and told them she could use it to heal the queen (and princess) without killing the rare and unique flower. She can even claim that she deserves the flower as the reward for her deed.
• Rapunzel's usage of the frying pan as weaponry has upon the third rewatching, seemed to just smack of Girl Power. It makes sense thusly: the frying pan is a tool used in the kitchen, and Rapunzel remarks in her "I Want" Song that she is fond of cooking, and using frying pans throughout history by women of the past to defend themselves doesn't sound so unlikely either. In short, the "tool of the kitchen" in Rapunzel's hands becomes a symbol of "Girl Power."
  • Of course the frying pan is the most useful weapon in the movie. If the swords were effective the movie wouldn't be suitable for kids
    • Then again, a kid who wants to emulate her favorite movie is likely to do much more real damage with a frying pan than with whatever she substitutes for a sword.
  • Just a hunch, but I'm guessing that Rapunzel didn't have access to swords and such in her tower/prison. Now, cue the arrival of an unknown male of unknown intentions (Flynn). How can she defend herself? By grabbing the first heavy thing at hand: a frying pan. It's more about practicality than girl power. Also, Rule of Funny.
    • In a meta-sense, it could easily be about girl power. Weaponized femininity is a fairly well known concept, after all. Of course, it's entirely possible that what Rapunzel has is an iron frying pan - those things are heavy and would probably be the most practical of improvised weapons at her disposal. So it could be both.
  • This (feminist) troper has a marble rolling pin that could literally crack open someone's skull. If someone broke in and it was available, she wouldn't be thinking about it as anti-feminist because it can be used to bake pies. When your life's being threatened, politics are usually the last thing on your mind.
    • In defense of the OP, neither you nor your rolling pin are elements of a fictional story either. A frying pan in an animated movie might have symbolic reference and value that an actual real rolling pin does not have, because the former is a visual signifier that produces varied connotations in the mind of the viewer and the latter is an actual object with practical real-world uses.
• There are some people who complain that, in reality, the King and Queen are selfish for destroying the flower whereas MG is so much better because she just has to sing to it, but, what if that was why Rapunzel was born with the golden hair in the first place. Not literally, because literally this is the truth, but in a sense, the movie is all about second chances. MG is selfish and hides the flower away, so she loses her chance to have the flower. The Queen destroyed the flower out of ignorance rather than malice, so she and the king were given a second chance with raising it, and using it for good by way of Rapunzel. MG took the child as a second chance for keeping the flower, and she abused her second chance too. In the end, Flynn/Eugene is given a second chance at life, the King and Queen are given a second chance at raising a daughter, the thugs are given a second chance with their lives... It's all about the second chance, and not wasting it!
  • To add, while Mother Gothel's motives for hiding the flower were to hoard its special powers, the King's motives for finding and using the flower were selfless — he wanted to save his wife and unborn child from death. Thanks to his selflessness, he gets a second chance at a life with his wife.
• Came across a comment about fairy tales on the Literature page: the reason most fairy tales have pain or near-death is because love is about facing your biggest fears. Eugene takes on the persona of Flynn Rider to escape his past and to actually live a life more exciting than being nothing. He's not afraid to stand out, in fact he wants people to notice him; the only reason he's upset by the Wanted posters is because they keep getting his nose wrong. As he spends more time with Rapunzel, though, he's okay with melting into the background and allowing her to shine.^note  Although this might also be because of her actually containing the sun. Cutting off Rapunzel's hair and allowing himself to die - in fact becoming nothing - is how he faces this fear, giving himself over to love.
  • He had to let go of "Flynn", because "Eugene" finally had something worthwhile.
• It was either unintentional or a very subtle Shout-Out, but the ceramic unicorn reminds this troper of The Glass Menagerie. Everybody in Tangled needs to break some kind of illusion to have a better life - except the Stabbington twins, who need a good lawyer.
• When Mother Gothel is defenestrated and turns to dust a la Infinity War, why did her dress disappear with her body? Simple; she's had it throughout her long life. She wore it whenever Rapunzel sang for her and (since most clothes are made from organic materials) the hair's magic restored it to how it was when it was new. The dress was likely as old as she was. The cloak didn't disappear because it was newer; while the dress Gothel wears is very out of date for the movie's time, plain black cloaks were still commonly worn and easy to find/make. The cloak was probably only a decade or so old.
• Some people discussing the climactic scene in another forum agreed that it corresponds very, very closely to their experiences escaping from certain types of toxic upbringing, in which the parent plunges further and further into a world in which children are used to prop up their parents' fantasies of power, significance, and righteousness, cutting off as much contact with the outside as possible.
  • Gothel = the child's actual mother, father, or both.
  • Rapunzel's parents = her real-world relatives/kind neighbors/that one teacher, who can't do anything to get her out because Gothel is legally her parent(s), but they keep connected as best they can.
  • The crown = memories of unconditional love and trust, unrecognized at first.
  • Rapunzel's hair = the list of rules, taboos, etc., that weigh her down. She can use them, but she can't get away from them—they drag along behind her wherever she goes.
  • Gothel using Rapunzel's power to keep herself young = the parent(s) using the child as a fantasy prop or proof that they are doing everything right. The child is less important than what the parent(s) can get out of having her/him. Note that Gothel wouldn't even have Rapunzel if she could have just cut her hair and run away.
  • Rapunzel's healing power = her unquenchable conscience, soul, etc.—the parts of her spirit that Gothel wants to control.
  • The sun: Seeing clearly, seeing beyond the deceptions.
  • Flynn: that one friend who barges into Rapunzel's life more than even the neighbors and teachers, pushing her to challenge herself and be more than she is.
    So the movie can be read like this: Naive, sheltered adult child of a domineering parent steps out of her carefully constructed and constricted world and sees the real world. The parent sees her happiness and becomes enraged because the parent's self-worth depends on having an obedient, pliant child. The parent tricks the child into cutting the connections she is forming with the outside world and gets her to return home, but the child cannot unsee what has been seen. Now the power games are no longer even thinly concealed. The adult child asserts her adulthood—note how tall and fierce Rapunzel looks as she turns to walk out of the tower—and the parent pounces. However, the friends the adult child has made outside aren't fooled by the parent's lies and refuse to give up on her. The parent summons up all of the mental conditioning that has been imposed on the child. The friends from outside will be destroyed utterly if the child does not give in! However, the threats the parent utters only make sense to people who have been raised in that system of belief and the friend from outside who comes to the house denies the system utterly. The child then discovers that the power that she thought came from the system she is tangled up in really comes from inside her. The parent loses all power over the child and also loses whatever he/she was getting out of dominating the child. When we next see the adult child, she is really adult, confident, wise, and capable, and surrounded by people who really love her.
• On the main page, it's noted that, surprisingly, Rapunzel is an only child despite the fact that her parents are hereditary monarchs, and thus need an heir to continue their family line. Considering that the first pregnancy nearly killed both mother and child, and it was only the intervention of a now-long gone healing potion that saved her, they've probably become wary of trying for more children (or perhaps cannot conceive another for some reason connected to this). This adds the knowledge that their family line and kingdom is probably doomed to the already-painful loss of a much loved daughter.
• A fair amount of attention is paid to Rapunzel's bare feet in the first 2/3 of the film. Just Fanservice, right? Well, look closely at those scenes and compare them to each other, starting with the opening "I Want" Song, in the tower where Rapunzel is at home and comfortable, then when she first leaves the tower, then over the course of the journey, and finally the Kingdom Dance scene, after which although Rapunzel's feet are shown again, they are not the focus of a scene ever again, not a single frame. Yes, the Fanservice has thematic significance!
• Rapunzel makes candles, some of the pots are lumpy or misshapen with bad paint jobs, she knits, there's a dress mannequin and a spinning wheel. She has made practically everything in the tower.
• Freeze frame just when Eugene cuts Rapunzel's hair. Directly above and behind his head is a heart—and Rapunzel probably painted it.
  • That's actually an apple...
    • Even better: the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in Christianity is usually portrayed as an apple; it also represents desire and forbidden knowledge. Eugene brings Rapunzel out of the tower and gives her insight into the real world, completely under the nose of the Beloved Smother Gothel.
    • Or it's just an apple.
• The film makes it clear that Rapunzel is 18 years old, which is the technical age of a consenting adult... Disney probably didn't want any underage things going on.
  • Not everywhere has 18 for the age of consent, a case of Hollywood Provincialism.
    • Not really. Most of the US States have 18 for the age of consent. More importantly, 18 is typically considered when you become an adult and when you leave the nest (head to college) so it's the perfect age for Rapunzel to start challenging Mother Gothel.
    • Half of US states have 16 as the age, the others split between 17 and 18.
    • I think you've forgotten that the world is not made of the United States. Tangled is set in 18th century Europe.
    • In 18th Century Europe girls were often married off before 18.
    • Yes, but Tangled is also very American in many ways, not just the fact that it was made by Americans and voices by them too. There is no hint at what European country it takes place in, if even our world at all. For all the viewers know it IS just America or an America-like country. Either way, people (mostly Americans) will view it as such.
• Rapunzel is intelligent, extremely skilled and knowledgeable in many ways, but entirely lacking in worldly experience. In other words, an ivory tower intellectual.
• When Rapunzel's hair is cut, the Queen doesn't spontaneously die and Eugene's hand stays healed. But all the anti-aging of Mother Gothel is reversed. I noticed something about this: both times, the hair/flower is wet/in water. The Queen drinks a tea, Eugene is healed while Rapunzel's hair is still wet. And when he is healed at the end, it’s from her tears
  • This combos with the recurring sun motif when you consider that plants, like the original flower, need both sunlight and water to live.
• The healing power of the flower, and then Rapunzel's hair, comes from a single drop of the Sun that fell to Earth. Once Rapunzel's hair is destroyed, a single drop falls from her eye onto Flynn's face. That's not a tear, that's the original drop, performing one last act of healing!
  • This feels very true, since when Rapunzel was born of the drop of sun, she also, sort of, became the sun, and what fell from her eye was just like what fell from the real sun. See examples above.
• Right before Rapunzel steps out to confront her "mother", you see a brief scene of her panting in her room, which I didn't understand the importance of. Then after the 3rd rewatch I finally got it. Rapunzel is working up the courage to ask her "Mother" if she is the lost princess, because she had just admitted how Mother Gothel was right about Eugene. Sure, Rapunzel had disobeyed Gothel before in the forest, but this time, Rapunzel realizes that depending on how Mother Gothel answers, everything in their relationship is going to change. The one scene before she steps out is important in building atmosphere before the great confrontation between "mother" and "daughter" as Rapunzel prepares to see if she'll have to sever all ties with the only parental figure she knew.
• Tangled incorporates elements of all the classic Disney Princess films that came before it. Princess taken from her parents in infancy and raised in secret. The villain is a Vain Sorceress who appears both as a beautiful young woman and an old crone. The villain also has a abusive, quasi-parental relationship with the heroine. Meanwhile, the love interest is a lovable rogue of low origin on the run from the law, who shares an Almost Kiss with the heroine during a starry evening while on a rowboat.
  • What about the villain's greedy, self-righteous nature and the heroine's decision to go with unconventional love and follow her heart? And, very obviously, the female lead getting a dramatic haircut and fighting to prove she is more than what her family (in her case Gothel) thinks of her?
  • Lots and lots of hair.
    • The whole bringing dying lover back from from fatal stab wound with a single tear and The Power of Love, complete with dramatic music and swirls of light effects.
    • From a magical flower, no less!
  • Not quite a Disney Princess movie, but the movie also contains a rather cynical hero who watches in bemusement as unlikely people enthusiastically participate in an optimistic musical number all around him.
    • Also not a Princess movie, but it also has the villain raising the hero as their own child, forbidding them to go outside under the claim that the world is a cruel, dangerous place.
    • What about a baby who is associated with the color gold being kidnapped in the night, learning of their true heritage 18 years later, teaming up with a white horse, and eventually having their supernatural abilities drained, but still finding a way to bring their loved one back from the dead? You know, at this point, we could do a whole Surprisingly-Similar Stories page on this movie alone.
• Originally, I was a little put out that Disney wouldn't market Rapunzel as a brunette - until I realized, that's actually a spoiler!
• Throughout the movie Rapunzel refers to Gothel as Mother, what the viewers and Rapunzel herself fail to notice is that that's Gothel's first name. Gothel isn't taking it as an affectionate nickname, they're really on a first name basis.
  • Is it really her first name, though? It seems more of a title or descriptor than a name. I mean, in some versions of the original story, she's called Dame Gothel, which is basically "Lady Gothel" so I don't think "Mother" is actually meant to be taken as a first name.
    • Possibly, in the era the film takes place in, Mother is a respectful term of addressing an elderly women. In the opening narration Flynn states that Mother Gothel was old when she found the flower (or am I wrong?).
  • Depending on how many centuries she's been around, and assuming she was born a commoner, Gothel may not have a surname. Family names weren't always a thing for serfs and peasants in the Middle Ages, who would distinguish themselves from others with the same personal name by a nickname or the name of their village.
• At the end of the movie, Rapunzel still has short hair, leading to several questions and theories about why this is. However, there's one non-magical explanation that might explain it; for the first eighteen years of her life Rapunzel has been forced to drag what must have eventually been a hugely heavy and inconvenient collection of hair behind her. While it might have come in useful from time to time, now that it's gone and she's free from the tower, a weight has been (both literally and metaphorically) lifted from her shoulders and she is free of a life-long burden (again both literally and metaphorically); is it any wonder that she might prefer keeping her hair short from now on?
  • However, note that when she's talking to Flynn about how her hair doesn't regrow when it's cut, she shows him the lock of her hair that was cut when she was baby, when Mother Gothel thought she could just cut the hair and take it with her. She's showing him this when she's 17, meaning that hair didn't grow a single inch during 17 years of her life. It's not a matter of her wanting to keep it short or not, she has no choice. When she cuts her hair, it just does NOT grow back.
    • Or it doesn't simply grow back with magic powers. It's never directly confirmed that her hair doesn't grow back at all (and IIRC nowhere is it said that her hair doesn't grow, just that it loses it's power when cut, but I can't remember for certain); for all we know, her hair otherwise grows normally and she simply chose to keep that strand short rather than have a single long brown strand of hair out of place amongst all the blonde.
    • IIRC, even in the Ending Celebration scene which takes place days after her return, her hair already looks like it's filling out somewhat; when it's initially cut, it looks very ragged and uneven. The celebration and Tangled Ever After wedding, not so much.
• Whenever Gothel shows Rapunzel any physical signs of affection she's actually touching her hair.
• Why does the kingdom let off lanterns for their lost princess? "Because you can only see the stars when the Sun is gone"
  • Alternatively, it's because, technically, the sun is a star. The kingdom is using "stars" to represent someone with the powers of an actual star.
• At first, Rapunzel and Flynn use their Frying Pan of Doom while those who oppose them, including the palace guards, use bladed weapons. In the end, the palace guards switch to frying pans.
• Even the title of the film has a triple-meaning. Tangled's first meaning is about hair, and its obvious second meaning is about the way its two leads become 'tangled' together. However, the underlying theme of child abuse gives it a third meaning: Rapunzel's central mission of the film is to become disentangled physically and emotionally from her abusive mother.
  • And Flynn needs to get out of the criminal environment he's entangled in.
• It constantly bugged on how Mother Gothel was able knock out the much bigger Stabbington Brothers and overpower Rapunzel, who has shown incredible strength. Then, I remember something: Gothel would always climb the tower when she returned home and was regularly de-aged with Rapunzel's powers. Combine the climbing she did and getting healed everyday gets an added strength boost.
  • That still doesn't explain how she overpowered Rapunzel, who hauled a middle-aged woman up and down the tower frequently, got exercise from the housework she did, has the healing power within her, and is in contact with her hair when she uses it and is presumably healed then.
    • Presumably by surprise. We never see how she overpowers Rapunzel; for all we know Gothel struck her in the back of the head and tied her up while she was down.
• The Queen drank tea made from the flower, and it's been mentioned that the Queen doesn't look like she aged much since that time 18 years ago while the King aged quite a lot. This would mean the power remains with the Queen. But at the time the Queen consumed the tea she was carrying Rapunzel. And it's been commented above that Rapunzel doesn't look as old as she is. Both of these would indicate that the true power of the flower was never in the hair itself, but the person who had the hair: namely Rapunzel, with some trace left within the Queen who bore Rapunzel. Why, then, was it the hair which glowed and healed for most of the movie? Because, as anyone who has long hair would understand, hair dies quite easily, and this is more true the longer hair gets. The magic of the flower is naturally healing the hair where it is most fragile, allowing it to grow as long as it does until the end containing the active magic is separated from the rest of the hair. Even more in support: when the spell is recited her hair goes glowing blonde instead of the mere shiny blonde it usually is, and when the hair is cut it goes from shiny blonde to somewhat-dull brunette. The magic was most active in the hair, but still resided within Rapunzel. Ergo she still can use the power of the flower if not as well as she could before; and then the scene makes a lot more sense than it being a simple Deus ex Machina revival scene.
  • But hair is not alive, well at least not beyond your scalp. Once a hair strand reaches beyond the surface of your scalp, it is physiologically dead. The length after that is irrelevant.
• The fact that Hook Hand Thug wants to play Mozart is fitting given this movie has many similar themes and shoutouts to Mozart's own opera "The Magic Flute". In that opera the villainess is the Queen of Night, where here it's Rapunzel who is associated with the Sun, and therefore the Queen of Day. The whole setup of "I've Got A Dream" is in fact rather similar to "Das Klinget so Herrlich", where Monostatos' Slaves (the Snuggly Duckling Thugs) who have originally cornered the hero and heroine are suddenly overjoyed and start to sing and dance.
• "I'm not getting any younger down here!" Yeah, but up there you are.
• When Mother Gothel goes on her "3 day journey" we get a quite long interaction scene with Rapunzel and Flynn, then a scene of them escaping and more interacting and then a scene of them traveling. Yet when it cuts back to Mother Gothel she's still in sight distance of the tower. She was obviously lingering. So was she really going to get the paints? Or was she actually spying on the tower to see if Rapunzel would escape? (And conveniently was distracted for whatever reason when the two did actually escape)
• The first time that Gothel says 'Okay, I'm the bad guy.' Rapunzel makes a quick glance to the locked cupboard, clearly deciding that actually she's not going to reveal that there's an unconscious man in there. It's as if at that moment she thinks: "Oh, ok, well if Mother is the bad guy, perhaps the intruder will be the good guy and do what I need..."
• During the "Mother Knows Best" number, Gothel puts on an elaborate show to demonstrate the horrors of the outside world, and is clearly bullying Rapunzel around the room to undermine her confidence from just inside the cover of darkness. But check out Gothel when she's actually visible: she's always doing or holding something that shows she's the one doing the creepy things, but Rapunzel is never in place to see her do it, or is too distracted. Gothel has been manufacturing all the things worth fearing in Rapunzel's world from the beginning even the Stabbington Brothers in order to keep her afraid.
• And speaking of "Mother Knows Best": Gothel starts the song by shutting out all the light from the tower, and constantly snuffs out the candles Rapunzel lights for herself in the complete darkness, only to end up in a staircase of candles and the only circle of light in the room. She's literally stealing Rapunzel's spotlight for herself. And of course we know why she wants to keep the Princess of the Sun Kingdom in the dark.
• It's well-known (at least on this site) that Eugene's design was established in a focus group referred to as 'The Hot Man Meeting' to make him the sexiest Mr. Fanservice character possible. Now consider his name: the assemblage of 'eu-gene' meaning 'well-bred' has the same components as 'eugenics', meaning 'optimal (human) breeding'. Despite the fact that it's now considered by most people to be a dangerous and inhumane mindset, the fact that Eugene is practically named 'excellent choice of mate' makes it a lot less of an Embarrassing First Name than he thinks it is.
• The Nostalgia Critic said that Zachary Levi sounds less like an actual thief and more like a guy trying to play a thief. Which, in-canon, he is.
• Every time Mother Gothel gives Rapunzel affection, she touches her hair, which hints at the only thing that Mother Gothel really cares about.
  • And in contrast, Flynn keeps smoothing Rapunzel's hair out of her face, symbolizing the fact that he actually cares about her as a person.
• In a Freeze-Frame Bonus shot, one of the thugs is shown to have a tattoo of a cupcake (and two swords) on his arm. Later we find out he dreams to become a baker, and especially his cupcakes are "divine".
• Sort of meta: In promotional posters released before the movie came out, Atilla wears oven gloves and Thor yields garden shears as a weapon (in the second poster it's on his waist). Easy to overlook or write off as random - until you've seen the "I've Got a Dream" sequence in the movie...
• Mother Gothel's main gesture when interacting with Rapunzel is to pat her on the head, acknowledging only her hair and putting her down. The first time she's seen doing it, she lifts Rapunzel's chin up, forcing eye contact, then kissing the hair - emblematic of her communication style (backhanded compliments, plus Bait-and-Switch). Her real mother, the Queen, strokes her face, showing her value for Rapunzel as a person and lifting her up.
• Most people born with blonde hair end up as brunettes in adulthood as the blonde hair grows out. Rapunzel's hair turns brown when it is cut. She's finally, properly reached adulthood.
• Gothel has a lot of overtly abusive/demeaning habits, but there's one that surprisingly subtle; several times that Rapunzel starts talking of her own volition, Gothel tells her to "stop mumbling." She's set up a standard of behavior that requires constant attention and self-awareness on Rapunzel's part to keep Gothel satisfied, another way of ensuring that the child stays completely dependent on the parent.
• When the piano-playing thug rips all the keys off the piano, he is able to keep playing. This seems like Rule of Funny at first, until you remember that on early pianos, the actual keys were made of wood, and the covers of the keys were made of ivory. The thug only ripped off the ivory covers, not the actual keys.
• Whenever Gothel and Rapunzel exchange words of affection:
  Gothel: I love you very much, dear.
  Rapunzel: I love you more.
  Gothel (stroking and speaking directly to Rapunzel's hair): I love you most.
  • Likewise, during the song "Mother Knows Best," Gothel cuddles Rapunzel's hair and addresses it when she sings that the purpose of staying in the tower is to "keep you safe and sound."
• Eugene telling Rapunzel he has a thing for brunettes is the culmination of his opposition to Gothel. For Rapunzel's whole life, Gothel deliberately put her down and only cared for her because it was tangential to her blonde Magic Hair. Then comes Eugene, who openly freaks out in front of magic and likes brunettes — firmly establishing he couldn't care less about The Power of the Sun, actually falling in love with the magic's bearer in spite of it. From the beginning, he was interested in Rapunzel for herself, this quirky, enthusiastic, lovely young woman, and as such, her losing the thing that made her so valued by Gothel has no impact on his feelings for her.
• Much has been written about how Mother Gothel is a walking, singing, gaslighting Greatest Hits collection of tactics by emotional abusers, particularly parent(al figure)s. While it's justified (at least in Gothel's mind) in-universe because Rapunzel's hair keeps her alive and young, hairstyle (and general appearance) is a factor that real-world abusers use, asserting control over their victims by dictating the way they look.
• Another real-world tactic: Gothel's room has a door. Rapunzel's room has a curtain. Gothel can always shut the door and lock herself away from Rapunzel, while Rapunzel has no such recourse to privacy - can't storm to her room and slam the door if there's no door, and Gothel can always barge in on Rapunzel at any time. It could have always been that way, or she could have had her door taken away as a result of an infraction, a common experience with victims when their abusers don't believe in privacy. "You don't have to be private unless you have something to hide."

Fridge Horror

• If you listen carefully to the first reprise (sadly not in the actual film, but available on the Tangled OST) of Gothel's Villain Song, "Mother Knows Best", it includes this delicious bit of Foreshadowing about her eventual fate:
  Go ahead and leave me, I deserve it
  Let me die alone here, be my guest.
  • This is an eerie Foreshadowing of her eventual death, because that is exactly she has feared from the very beginning of the movie, and if Rapunzel truly does leave her, she will die - alone, deprived of her "magical flower" of an adopted daughter.
  • Remember...
  I'm not getting any younger down here!
• Rapunzel's tears seem to retain some healing/rejuvenating power if they're cried for the pain/loss of someone she truly loves. Thank God that Mother Gothel was already dead by the time that little tidbit of information came to light. Imagine the swiftness and brutality with which things would have descended into crapsack horror if she'd survived to see it.
  • Of course, she would also have to be singing the song at the same time to activate the powers. Note that her hair didn't just radiate healing powers, it needed to be activated.
• All throughout the entirety of "Mother Knows Best" is Gothel doing various things to Rapunzel to convince her that the outside world is dangerous, but it is Gothel who trips Rapunzel and accuses her of being "clumsy". And despite all this, Rapunzel flees into her "mother's" arms for comfort at the end of it, and because of those incidents, the song carries a very high volume of Does This Remind You of Anything?.
  • Rapunzel has lived in that tower for 18 years. This was not the first time she asked Mom to go see the lanterns. Mother Gothel has been terrorizing her with similar musical numbers for the last 18 years. Just to cow her into obedience.
  • That song can actually be very triggering for survivors of child abuse. Especially mental and emotional abuse.
• It's a good thing Rapunzel was desperate enough to try and sing the song even after Eugene cut her hair. She had no idea her tears contained the same healing power, and if she hadn't used the song to express something that had finally been hers to lose, Eugene would have stayed dead. It was nothing more than an accident, really. That would have put quite a damper on her family reunion, not to mention the rest of her life, because she would have felt responsible.
  • On the other hand, the song is basically her only form of loving interaction she remembers in her life, when Gothel would sing it for her, so it makes sense that it would be the first thing that came to mind.
  • Rapunzel singing the song in desperation does make sense. Even if she believed/knew it probably wouldn't work, at least she would have exhausted the only option she had.
  • Also, maybe she believed that Gothel lied about the hair losing its magic when it turns brown. Considering that she knew how much Gothel had lied to her, why should that information be true?
• If Rapunzel had never been in the outside world before, having been locked in a tower for 18 years, imagine what would have happened if she had never met Flynn and tried to go to the "lights" alone.
  • And she sure was lucky that Flynn was a Gentleman Thief, and not a more realistic portrayal of a desperate criminal. Considering what he could have been...
    • You mean, like a charming prince who's actually a manipulative bastard?
    • Nah, I wouldn't sweat it. Rapunzel's real strength is as a spirit of enlightenment. This is a girl gifted with the power of the sun who inspires optimism as much as Elsa inspires awe and fear. If Rapunzel can turn even hardened killers like the Snuggly Ducking Thugs into merry optimists...who's to say she won't have a more positive effect on most other strangers?
• At the climax when Flynn climbs up the tower, you can see that her hair's not going through the hook she uses when lifting people. That means there's nothing to take the strain from the pulling away from her head, and he's yanking violently on her scalp with every move he makes. Owww.
  • Thankfully Gothel was standing on the hair as there is visible slack in it in the scene where Flynn enters the tower. Had Gothel not done that however Rapunzel probably would have been scalped alive.
    • Actually, no Rapunzel wouldn’t be scalped. Mattpatt from Film Theory did a video on the possibility that if a person had the length of Rapunzel’s hair, would they be able to do the stuff that she is shown to be able to do. ^note  The answer is yes btw, but I do have to mention that after confirming that it’s entirely possible to do what Rapunzel does, he does go off topic and theorizes that Rapunzel doesn’t wash her hair because of its length and would therefore be a giant dreadlock and that she has traction alopecia due to the weight and length of her hair, because he has to find a way to “ruin” the movie- how Rapunzel washes her 70 feet of hair is actually shown in a deleted sequence, and there’s real life Rapunzels, all of whom don’t have Traction alopecia, not to mention that her hair heals, so both the traction alopecia and dreadlock theories are jossed. The main thing is that Rapunzel can do what she does in the film. His initial assumption upon first seeing the movie was that Rapunzel would actually end up with a broken neck until he did the research and discovered that it takes 675 pounds of hair pulling to break someone’s neck, he calculated that to rip all of Rapunzel’s hair out you would need to have three-and-a-half tons of force, and the force needed to tear apart all the hairs on a persons head (which is actually half the strength of steel) is twelve tons, so in other words, it is blatantly obvious that a scalp can support the weight of an adult human (after all that’s why it’s common to see circus performers suspend themselves with their hair to do aerial tricks). Mattpatt states that having the full weight of an adult human, without any support (including the windowsill as he notes), isn’t going to feel comfortable, but it isn’t going to harm her either.
• Also note that Gothel's affectionate looks and caresses are all directed at Rapunzel's magic hair. Rapunzel herself gets the syrupy-sweet putdowns and brushoffs.
  • Adding onto that, Gothel is always the one to initiate physical contact between her and Rapunzel. Even when Rapunzel has just been "abandoned" by Flynn and chased by two strange men, she waits for Gothel to open her arms before running to hug her. In the beginning, after Rapunzel does the singing ritual, she invades Gothel's space by leaning on her chair, you can see Gothel push her away. This is a very subtle sign that Gothel is always the one calling the shots.
• At the film's climax, Rapunzel promises to always stay with Mother Gothel if she lets her heal Flynn. It sounds like a typical heroic promise, but remember what Rapunzel said earlier. She always keeps her promises. So even if Flynn did somehow find Rapunzel again, even if Mother Gothel did drop her guard another time, Rapunzel would make no effort to escape. Despite knowing how wonderful the world is and what her "mother" did to her, despite knowing that the man she loves is somewhere in the world, she would spend the rest of her life locked up somewhere. And given how Rapunzel seemed to stay in a pretty good state of health throughout most of the events of her life, it wouldn't be a stretch to guess that she would live for a good number of years. And because Mother Gothel is getting eternal youth from her, she'll never die and release Rapunzel from the promise.
  • But Fridge Brilliance: She also told Gothel she'd never let her use the hair ever again. She only said she'd stay with Gothel, not heal her. She might well have been envisioning dealing with imprisonment for a few more months as she watched Gothel wither away. When Gothel died, Rapunzel would cremate her (if necessary), put the ashes in a piece of jewelry and wear it for the rest of her life, fulfilling the "forever" part of the promise.
  • Honestly, I don't think Rapunzel is capable of doing that.
  • But maybe Flynn could kill Gothel (he'll watch his back this time), if nothing else by "accidentally" making her fall to her doom.
  • If we assume that Maximus gets the guards to rescue Flynn (he makes them believe Flynn by attacking anyone that threatens him), they could look for Gothel. Considering that they're willing to kill someone over a stolen tiara, assuming that they're willing to kill the lost princess's kidnapper is not unreasonable. When Gothel is dead anyway, Rapunzel might as well take advantage of it (see the cremation thing above). Alternatively, the guards let Gothel live and Rapunzel agrees to return to the kingdom under the condition that Gothel gets to join, and the guards can always force Gothel to join if she refuses.
• Chameleons live a maximum of five years normally. Assuming she's not like other Disney Princesses and Rapunzel only has Pascal as a friend... well, imagine your only friend dying every five years at best. This is how Rapunzel has lived, having to hide her only friends her entire life.
  • I dunno, that chameleon seems to spend a lot of time on Rapunzel's shoulder, wrapped up in her magic hair... he's probably getting extra time, just like Mother Gothel. Since Rapunzel is fully aware of the healing powers (as shown by the healing-Flynn's-hand scene), she might sing Pascal back to health whenever he's looking kinda peaky.
    • But, wait. If Pascal was receiving the same age-treatment as Mother Gothel, and Mother Gothel turned to dust when Rapunzel's hair was cut... Oh god, Pascal! Luckily that didn't happen to him, but that also josses the above theory.
  • Not to mention that, as this is the only Disney movie where magic isn't taken for granted, Rapunzel's talking to an animal is most likely a sign of mental illness. Not surprising she's going a little stir crazy after all that time.
• It's unlikely that Gothel could live with Rapunzel for 18 years, raise her as her own, and STILL not love her. Despite this she continues to abuse Rapunzel, and moreover, PASCAL MURDERS RAPUNZEL'S MOTHER-FIGURE.
  • On a different Fridge Horrory note... What if Gothel lived with Rapunzel, cared for her, and still was willing to chain her up, kill the man she had started to love and take her far away to never see the light of day again...
  • It's entirely possible for Gothel to have lived with Rapunzel for so long and not love her.
  • It is also entirely possible for the feeling that Gothel has to be a twisted thing only she would call "love", barely resembling the real emotion and looking much more like obsession with her youth-granting hair. Which she already sort of had with the flower.
• Rapunzel would in all likelihood live forever. The flower's magic would keep her young just as it keeps Gothel young, and if it wasn't automatic, Gothel would make her use it on herself so she will still be around for Gothel to use it, too.
  • I'm not sure if its automatic- but it could be, because you have to touch the hair for it to be used. and Rapunzel does because its attached to her head. If its not automatic, Rapunzel would just be using the flower when Mother Gothel makes her sing.
  • And just to add to it, remember: Gothel chained up Flynn "just in case he got any ideas". She never said she'd unchain him...
    • Maximus brought him there, is likely still there or at least running off to get help. Were Flynn healed, someone would be there later to get him. And then hang him anyway, since Maximus can't tell them otherwise.
    • If nothing else, Maximus would kick their ass if they tried to hang him.
  • All things considered, Rapunzel would almost certainly outlive Mother Gothel. Gothel was needing the treatments more and more frequently, or such was the impression I got, so sooner or later, the hair's life-extending power wouldn't be enough, and Rapunzel, potentially immortal, would at last be free.
• Combining two things here: Rapunzel's hair symbolizing her virginity and complaints I've seen that Flynn's cutting of her hair at the end robs her of agency. Putting the two together... does that mean the ending could be read as a rape scene?
  • More like a literal liberation combined with a metaphorical sexual liberation.
  • Another even more overt virginity symbol is Rapunzel's crown. Which puts an alternate spin on Gothel's "Mother Knows Best" Reprise, as well as the scene where Rapunzel thinks Flynn has taken the crown and dumped her (sold her to the Stabbington brothers, in fact).
    • Well the new medical term for the woman's hymen is "corona" which literally translates as "crown".
  • Wait, so basically Eugene is re-enacting the infamous Dominic Deegan Stonewater/Melna rape scene?
  • Cannot watch the movie without thinking of this, although I'd always seen it as crown = sex, hair = virginity.
  • Hmmm... Are you guys saying that keeping your pretty, magical, "virginal" hair but watching the guy who sacrificed his life for you die and then being imprisoned for the rest of your life by your abusive mother... is somehow better than losing your pretty, magical, "virginal" hair by the hand of someone who loves you enough to die for you, but being ultimately free to pursue your own destiny and get away from the person who mentally abused you for years? Reducing one of the most poignant Heroic Sacrifices in the last years of Animated Films to rape and "loss of agency" is not just out of place, but offensive.
    • Rapunzel was free anyway, she proves that throughout the whole movie, and choosing to resign herself to her old life in exchange for healing him was still her decision, made willingly and in full knowledge of what she'd be giving up to do it, and then taking away all at once the person she was trying to save, the means by which she meant to save him, and the fate she chose in exchange. Reducing the concept of agency to being badass is equally offensive, I think, if not more so: agency is about having a hand in determining one's own fate, something that many female characters are deprived of in order to facilitate the progress of a male-centered story or character arc. And yes, actually, it does happen here; that scene is the culmination of Eugene's development, not Rapunzel's, and it does so at the cost of a decision she willingly and knowingly made. It may have been wrong-headed, but that's part of what agency means: being both able to act, and in a position to take responsibility for those actions.
    • She was "free"? When she's about to enter a life of imprisonment, forced to keep Gothel young forever, while still abused by her? That sure sounds like freedom to me. The rest of your points are very valid, but they are completely rendered null and void by the fact the decision Rapunzel made under her own agency (but note, under duress thanks to Gothel's threats and stabbing of Flynn) would have left her in the end without agency at all. Sure, Flynn's decision took her agency from her—once, after which she was free to do whatever she wished with her life (like, say, go back to Corona to seek her real family now that she knows she's the lost princess), get married if she wants, rule the kingdom and make decisions all the time about the welfare of it and its people. If her original decision had been allowed to stand, she'd lose her agency for the rest of her (possibly immortal) life. And it is perfectly fine for a person, acting in someone else's best interest, to undo their bad decision or otherwise work to spare them from its negative consequences, if it allows them to live and learn from their mistake so they can choose better in the future.
    • Don't forget, Eugene deserves some agency in this situation too. He's the one whose life is at stake, and he's the one whose terminal condition is, in effect, being exploited by Gothel to cheat Rapunzel of her lifelong capacity for choice. The only way he can restore Rapunzel's agency is to demonstrate equal free will and self-sacrifice, by releasing her from a "choice" that was really no choice at all.
• OK if Eugene means born of royalty and Fitz-blank means bastard son of blank then let's really hope that Rapunzel's father is not called King Herbert. The hair color does match the royal family though.
  • Brown hair is pretty freaking common, though.
  • It wouldn't be the first Disney movie that had a(n implied) brother and sister hook up.
  • He could be the son of a noble. Actually, by the end of the 18th century it wasn't uncommon for boys (legitimate or not) to be named Fitz-whatever, even as a first name. Pride and Prejudice has Fitzwilliam Darcy in the very late 18th/very early 19th century, and he's just from a rich family.
    • Darcy's first name is his mother's original last name (he has a cousin called Fitzwilliam as his last name), and she was probably the descendant of an illegitimate son of one of the several King Williams who ruled his country since 1066. (After all such names go down the male line so most people who bear them aren't illegitimate children of men of that first name.) It's just that it's an intriguingly 'fancy' name for someone like Eugene to have, given the background he comes from.
  • If Eugene does turn out to be the illegitimate son of a royal or noble father (though not Rapunzel's own father) it would explain why he's considered a suitable match for the heir apparent to the throne. In Tangled: The Series, he is revealed to be the long-lost Prince of the Dark Kingdom.]]
• To go with my edit under "Fridge Brilliance" above, the same people were struck by Gothel's Villain Song. It's like a Greatest Hits of Messing With Your Child's Mind.
  • She shuts out all the light from outside, then puts out every candle Rapunzel tries to light.
  • She promises comfort and protection, only to pull a vanishing act when Rapunzel takes her up on it, heightening her fear.
  • She attacks Rapunzel's appearance, behavior, and character, but in a sweet tone of voice. ("I'm just sayin' 'cause I wuv ya!")
  • She acts melodramatic, but accuses Rapunzel of dramatizing and upsetting her.
  • She disguises aggressive dominance as affection—squishing Rapunzel's face, yanking her arm, rolling her up in her own hair.
  • She strings together exaggerated facts and outright lies to terrify Rapunzel out of ever leaving the tower.
  • She presents herself as the only safety in Rapunzel's dark, terrifying world—but of course there are conditions. ("I have only one request... Never ask to leave this tower again.")
  • And she does it all with a horrible, smug smile...
• Gothel considered the flower and its healing powers exclusively hers. When she first found baby Rapunzel, she cut off a piece of the golden hair only to find that it didn't work, so she took Rapunzel. What if the hair did work even when it was cut? She'd probably have killed Rapunzel right afterward to make sure that no one else could use the powers.
  • That's even more creepy if you read the novelization, which implies that the original reason Mother Gothel entered baby Rapunzel's room with a knife was to get revenge for "stealing" the flower. It wasn't until she saw how Rapunzel's hair was a similar shade of gold that she hit upon the idea that it could perform the same magic.
• The original story had the evil witch take the baby after her father took the witch's plants. This happened in the movie, too. When Mother Gothel had her flower taken from her by the Kingdom, she stole Rapunzel as revenge.
• Mother Gothel's irrational emphasis on (non)-aging, because she fears it will ruin her looks. Well, haven't all women, through all the ages of time, longed to be eternally young and beautiful, because they fear that age will wash their beauty away?
  • Personally, I prefer to focus on my internal beauty. That is to say, please don't make sweeping generalizations based on gender.
    • Seconded. Not all of us women are as shallow as the OP is presenting us.
    • Its hardly "shallow" to worry about losing your beauty to age. Its human nature, especially since physical attractiveness is an evolutionary trait for the propagation of the species. While not limited to gender its certainly not shallow.
  • And also, you make it sound like men never worry about aging at all...
    • We (men) do worry about aging, yes, but for different reasons. most men don't care about their hair turning white or their face getting wrinkled. men fear the decay of time and having to admit that we are slowly getting weaker.
    • No, we men are more obsessed with losing our hair than how it actually looks.
    • Don't make sweeping generalizations about your own gender either.
  • Plus it isn't all about gender, I'm pretty sure that even if I were the opposite sex, I'd still be more afraid of dying without leaving my mark more then I would about losing my hair to baldness
  • Also, keep in mind the institutionalized misogyny for the past 200 years. Under that system, where women could not get any sort of high-paying job, societal respect and privilege, or basic rights like owning your own wages, the only power women were allowed to have, much less encouraged to aspire to was physical attractiveness. That's the basis of the modern 'women focused on looking pretty'- which, actually, is still highly influential. It is much, much harder for a woman to get and keep a job if she isn't pretty, even discounting the social preference towards beauty.
    • That's...not entirely accurate. Suffice it to say, the idea that women's only value was largely in being pretty and popping out babies isn't exactly true.
  • It's not just the appearance of ageing- consider the glimpses we get of Mother Gothel before she uses the flower- we get some vague impression that just shows that her back is bent, and we see a lot her hands- which are crabbed, the joints are swollen. She clearly seems to have arthritis- it would be limiting and painful, and a bitter reminder that her days are numbered. A cure for the fear of death and her ruined joints? Yes, it would be tempting, even without the prospect of being beautiful enough to get attention again.
• " This is the story of how I died." How many viewers do you think took that seriously?
• Considering it's shown that Rapunzel's hair, when cut, never grows back... well, I hope she likes that haircut.
  • Unless she kept cutting that one strand of brown hair throughout the years to keep it hidden. Who wants a 70 ft brown lock to clash with all that blonde hair?
    • Rapunzel herself stated that once cut, her hair will never grow again, but it's still possible that Gothel kept cutting it while Rapunzel was sleeping or something.
    • Where does she say that? All she says is once cut her hair turns brown and loses its power. She never says anything about it stopping growing.
    • The campfire scene before "Mother Knows Best" reprise. She shows the same small bit of brown hair, received when Gothel used the scissors on her when she was a baby, and from her words that bit did not grow with the rest of her hair:
    Rapunzel: Uh... forever, I guess. Mother says when I was a baby, people tried to cut it. They wanted to take it for themselves. [shows Flynn her only brown lock] But once it's cut it turns brown and loses its power. A gift like that, it has to be protected. That's why Mother never let me... [sighs] That's why I never left and...
    • Uh, no, that quote doesn't prove anything. All she says is that when cut it loses its power, nothing about it never growing again. It's quite plausible Rapunzel trims the brown lock so she won't have one long brown streak in her blonde hair, or that Gothel did so so she wouldn't have to keep seeing it and be reminded of what will happen to her "flower" and herself if she isn't careful.
  • If the hair doesn't grow back but does become loose like normal hair, wont she become bald?
  • Worst Case scenario, there are always wigs.
  • Real hair typically doesn't grow to incredible lengths like the rest of her hair did. It's possible that that's the "length" it naturally stops growing at. Or it could have been cut over the years so it wouldn't show through the rest of her long, golden hair. It's not like Gothel would have liked seeing a daily reminder of how she screwed up and nearly lost the magical hair.
• Every song in the movie is catchy. But most especially "Mother Knows Best". If you've been raised in a similar fashion to Rapunzel, and knowing what Gothel's true intentions were, it is awfully disturbing to have this song playing in your head over and over and over again...On the bright side, the children watching it can realize that they are being emotionally abused, and that what the parents are doing is wrong, and break the cycle.
• Flynn had an awfully close call while he was stuffed into Rapunzel's wardrobe. If Gothel hadn't flipped out at Rapunzel and shocked her into changing her mind about her course of action, Rapunzel would have managed to reveal Flynn's presence - and while Rapunzel assumed it would serve as proof that she was strong enough to risk going out to see the lanterns, imagine how Gothel would really have reacted? It's probably safe to assume that Flynn wouldn't have made it out of the tower alive.
• What kind of kingdom do Rapunzel’s parents run? Why a kingdom where people can be executed for thievery mere hours after apprehension without a trial.
  • One, he stole the crown of the lost Princess, which may be akin to a man defiling a national shrine (there's something almost religious about the treatment of Rapunzel- and no wonder really, considering how the public can respond to wrongs done against infants. As she's also a royal infant, the 'Lost Princess' is practically deified). So it is a serious offense. Two: It is also not his first offense as he is wanted for other crimes in the kingdom. Third he has the item on him, so there was no question of guilt. Fourth, the kingdom is not the United States (or modern Europe, for that matter), there are no rights a person is typically granted. They likely operate on the premise of Guilty until proven Innocent, as was the common ideal in the middle ages. So as a result, justice is a swift action in the kingdom for repeat offenders.
  • Even though Flynn was obviously guilty, being executed for thievery is still Disproportionate Retribution by today's standards.
  • By today's standards, yes... But in the Middle ages, not so much. This can be considered Values Dissonance and an aversion of Politically Correct History.
    • Agreed. It may also count as Shown Their Work. In the Europe of the Middle Ages, repeated theft (which Flynn is probably guilty of) could be punished with death. That was because, in the mentalities of the time, someone who regularly steal was deemed "unfit" to live in society. And therefore, had to be removed. (They didn't believe in the prison system at the time.)
    • Prison was for political prisoners and hostages. Most places didn't have the resources to keep incarcerated criminals alive, so killing them was the most practical solution.
  • Also the head of the guard has a clear hatred for Flynn. It's possible (and given how quickly Rapunzel's parents embrace Flynn into their lives) that they were unaware that the execution would take place (it's done privately and not publicly, unlike most at the time) and the Guards just planned to execute him without the King's consent.
  • Flynn was wanted dead or alive and he seemed to be infamous, so it's not too unlikely that the King at least wouldn't mind his execution. The fact that Flynn was the reason they got to see their daughter again probably played a major role in why Rapunzel's parents accepted him so quickly.
• When Flynn says 'This is the story of how I died', it doesn't mean right at the very end (why would they reveal such a big plot point?) it means Flynn dies, but Eugene Fitzherbert lives on!
• The "I love you more" "I love you most" seemed out of character, even with Mother Gothel raising Rapunzel... until I realized right after she says it, she kisses Rapunzel's hair.
• When Gothel was singing "Mother Knows Best" to convince Rapunzel that the outside world was dangerous, notice how she was the one tripping Rapunzel and calling her clumsy (and that's not mentioning the rest of the other Jerkass things she says to Rapunzel). And right after, Rapunzel immediately runs into Gothel's arms for comfort. The Fridge Horror enters the picture when you realize that Gothel has been doing this to Rapunzel for the past eighteen years to keep her in the tower.
  • Also, there's the scene where Mother Gothel tries to take Rapunzel back but Rapunzel refuses. Just look at what Mother Gothel does - she sneers at Rapunzel, calls her silly and naive, says that she just imagined up a romance, and then tries to break Rapunzel's faith in Flynn (pretty much the only healthy emotional connection she's had in the entire movie) by saying "He's using you and when he leaves you, don't come crying to me." In other words, she belittles Rapunzel, tries to turn her against one of the few people in the movies who does care about her, and then sends Rapunzel on a guilt-trip by pretending to abandon her. And it works. After the Stabbington brothers try to kidnap her, Rapunzel dives right back into her "mother's" arms for protection.
    • Add the disturbing element that most of these things are often said by parents genuinely trying to protect their children from suspected users and abusers. The difference is that loving parents don't go out of their way to set up the accused as guilty. Gothel is the supreme manipulator.
  • Not to mention the scene where the Stabbington brothers encounter Rapunzel and try to capture her. The ominous atmosphere made it seem more like they were trying to rape her.
    • Or sell her as a sex slave, considering that they were talking so much about how valuable she is to them...
  • Rapunzel's promise to Mother Gothel that she would never run away becomes a lot creepier when you realize that even if Flynn managed to find her again or if Gothel did let her guard down, she would make no effort to leave. Despite knowing how wonderful the outside world is and the man she loves is somewhere in the world, she would remain locked up for the rest of her life, never attempting to leave again. And considering how Rapunzel would live for a considerably long time and Gothel would essentially become immortal, Rapunzel would never be free from her promise.
  • And now that Rapunzel knows Gothel's true intentions, Gothel no longer has any reason to pretend to love her. In other words, she's free to keep Rapunzel bound and gagged for the rest of her immortal life, forever unable to move or communicate.
  • And Gothel chained Flynn up before letting Rapunzel try to heal him. If things had gone as expected, he would have died anyway... but much slower.
  • Also, Rapunzel's magic hair makes Mother Gothel effectively immortal. That means that if Rapunzel had gone through with the deal, there wouldn't even have been the chance that Rapunzel would have been freed by Gothel dying. No, Rapunzel would have had nothing to look forward to in life but being locked in a room, growing up and letting life pass her by, and knowing all the while that it's all because her "mother" is using her.
• Evil or not, Gothel was still Rapunzel's mother figure. Rapunzel sees the only mother she has ever known fall out a window and disintegrate into dust. That's going to come back and haunt her.
• From Mother Knows Best, the final line: "Don't forget it! You'll regret it ... " On first watching, it just sounds like more warning and scare-tactics. After seeing the rest of the movie ("You want me to be the bad guy? Fine. Now I'm the bad guy.") it sounds a lot more like a threat.
• From 'Mother Knows Best' again, look at Rapunzel's reaction when Gothel warns her about the plague. Why would Rapunzel be scared of this? She has healing magic, she could get rid of the plague in seconds. She's not scared of the illness, she's scared of the reactions if people found out. Gothel likes to terrorize Rapunzel with stories of how awful the outside world is, it's not hard to picture her telling a young Rapunzel in great detail, of this terrible sickness that swept the world and left people covered in sores and boils and choking, how if people found out she could cure it she'd be forced into a room, tied to these dying bodies by her hair and held captive until she healed every last one. What a cruel fate, it's better to stay safe in this tower than imprisoned in a small room surrounded by death. What's worse, on some level Gothel is right.
• In the end, Eugene cuts Rapunzel's hair. If No Immortal Inertia weren't in effect (or were just a little bit slower), Gothel wouldn't have died pretty much instantly. Now remember that her hair was only reason Gothel cared about Rapunzel at all. With the hair gone, Gothel would probably have killed Rapunzel as revenge for escaping the tower.
• Gothel's aging, if you think about Rapunzel's hair is capable of healing, not de-aging. More explicitly its healing the physical symptoms of aging, due to the cells becoming damaged overtime after reaching physical maturity. Which is why Gothel never gets accidentally de-aged into a baby. In short it works kinda like how Wolverine's healing factor keeps him young by constantly healing bodily cell damages. However as she gets older she is gonna need more and more "healing sessions" as her body is still physically and chronologically aging. Which is why she aged significantly from just getting paint in a mere 3 days. Because her body is aging, the problem is catching up with her healing sessions with Rapunzel (which is probably why she brushes her hair everyday). It would also explain why she so desperately wants to keep Rapunzel at the end of the movie—because she knows her time is almost up before she needs to be healed again. It is also why she let Rapunzel heal Flynn since Rapunzel's hair heals anything it touches, so she could heal herself as well as Flynn in the process. She crumbled to dust not because Rapunzel's hair was cut, but because her body fell apart without healing.
• It's fairly subtle, but when Gothel removes Rapunzel's braid and the decorating flowers: her tone is as if she's making it as if Rapunzel's misguided love affair never was and her heart was never broken (which is how she's trying to get Rapunzel to think of it) but she's also trying to obliterate Rapunzel's only source of happy memories. Especially as the best two days of Rapunzel's life were without her 'mother.'
• Remember Rapunzel's one-woman Contrast Montage after she finally escapes the tower? Remember the previous Boredom Montage? Remember that in the short time since she's left (hours, tops), she's had more new experiences than she's had in her living memory. The hilarious Mood-Swinger trope picture is a brief and disturbing Madness Montage from a teenage girl who literally has no handle on reality anymore. She doesn't really adjust that we see, either: she just latches on to Flynn and her family. It's probable she's never going to want to be alone without them (or her kids) ever in her life.
• Rapunzel is shorter than almost every other character in the film, barring children and characters short for comedic purposes, despite being almost 18. It's easy to pass this off as a classic case of Short Teens, Tall Adults, or even, perhaps, that Rapunzel's a late bloomer. However, considering that she's spent her entire childhood and adolescence in a single tower, considerably far away from any settlement, and her supplies of food, drink and suchlike being entirely dependent on one emotionally abusive woman, it's not that outrageous to say that Rapunzel has suffered from stunted growth.
• Just how long has Gothel had those chains, that she could just whip them out when Rapunzel stood up to her? Even worse, it means that Gothel must have been expecting (or at least, knowing of the possibility of) Rapunzel one day rebelling / standing up to her.
  • Better yet, there's the question of whether or not Gothel had already used them on Rapunzel in the past.
  • They could've also been for dealing with intruders to the tower like... say, a certain swashbuckling thief.

---