Tear Jerker / Tangled

"Save what has been lost... bring back what once was mine... What once was mine..."

See also the page for Tangled: The Series.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• Just little Rapunzel calling her kidnapper Gothel her "mommy" can be soul-crushing.
• The scene of the king, right before he and the queen release the lantern on Rapunzel's 18th birthday, is enough to make even the most heartless scrooge shed a tear. The fact that there's no dialogue just makes it even more powerful.
  • It's even worse with the look of sheer pain on King Frederic's face as he breaks down and cries, shedding a Single Tear. That scene didn't need dialogue.
• Flynn's heroic Disney Death at the end! Good lord, it is easily one of the saddest death scenes in the Disney Animated Canon. The expression of pure anguish on Rapunzel's face seals this particular scene.
  • Not to mention the absolute brokenness of her words when she sings the Healing Incantation.
    • The last, whispered/sobbed 'What once was mine' clinches it.
    • Just the audio is a solid tearjerker. On the soundtrack, the song at this part is "The Tear Heals". They leave in the singing. It is absolutely heartbreaking. You can hear the pain.
    • The visuals themselves, or rather the details put into Rapunzel, are heart wrenching. Just take a close look at her face and you'll see that her eyes are bloodshot. Just a small detail but... argh!
    • The wide shots, too. Unlike the rest of the film (which is bathed in bright golden colors) it's bleached out, grey and dull. Rapunzel is alone with Flynn's body and a great rope of what's now her dark, ordinary severed hair. All the color has gone out of her life.
    • Shortly before, when a desperate Rapunzel starts rattling off the incantation before she realizes it isn't working on Flynn. Her panicky tone of voice was almost palpable.
  • Eugene has tears in his eyes while Rapunzel sings the incantation, which only makes the whole scene all the more heartbreaking.
  • Or when Rapunzel tells Mother Gothel that she will never stop fighting her... unless she lets her heal Eugene.
    • And then they show Pascal's face while Rapunzel offer Mother Gothel to exchange her freedom for Eugene's life, and Pascal realizes Rapunzel will never be free, it seems the face of the Despair Event Horizon.
• Also, the heartbreaking look on Rapunzel's face when she is led to believe Flynn betrayed her. She took a chance and now it seems like he just betrayed her for a quick payment.
• Flynn's face when he realizes where Rapunzel is. And worse once he's at the tower and thinks she's gone.
• "You were my new dream." "You were mine."
• The queen getting sick while she's pregnant with Rapunzel. Also counts as Nightmare Fuel.
• After Flynn has been stabbed by Mother Gothel, Rapunzel tries to heal him using the Healing Incantation, and she starts to cry when realizing it won't work. Her tears fall on Flynn's wound, healing him.
  • What happens right before it as well: Flynn/Eugene has a chance to survive, but sacrifices his life by cutting off her healing hair so Rapunzel could be free from Mother Gothel and live the life she always dreamed of having.
• When Rapunzel sees her birth parents again since she was a baby. Doubles as a Heartwarming moment.
  • The fact that Rapunzel lets out that tiny little gasp before their big embrace seals the deal.
• When taken out of context as a spell incantation, "Healing Incantation" is a very sad song; it's basically the pleas of someone who desperately wants to escape fate with "change the Fates' design" to "heal what has been hurt," "save what has been lost," and "bring back what once was mine."
  • And then eventually, it's not so out-of-context.
• The scene where Rapunzel and Flynn are trapped in the sealed cave with rapidly-rising water, thinking they're about to die. Partly because of Rapunzel's tearful apologizing and "Mother was right; I never should have left..." and partly because of Flynn trying to tell her it's hopeless a few seconds earlier.
  Flynn: "It's no use! I can't see anything!"
  *Rapunzel panics for a second, then dives underwater*
  Flynn: "Hey! Hey!" *pulls her out, holding her shoulders* "There's no point!'' It's pitch-black down there."
• The Fridge Horror of Rapunzel reaching after Mother Gothel falling to her dusty death. Despite being a chronic child-abuser, she was still the only mother figure Rapunzel has ever known up to this point and even knowing what she knows, she will always have some unrequited love for her. Sadly Truth in Television.
• The Dark Reprise of 'When Will My Life Begin', even though it's a Cut Song, is pretty heartbreaking, considering you can practically hear the sadness in Rapunzel's voice.
• Mother Gothel's lines at the beginning of "Mother Knows Best (reprise), "Why would he like you? Come on now, really. Look at you, you think that he's impressed?" Ouch.
  • Before the song even begins, Mother Gothel says "This is why you never should've left!" Rapunzel just slumps her shoulders and sighs in an exasperated way as if to say "Not again." Honestly, it's a good thing that she started having her perspectives challenged by meeting Eugene and the patrons of the Snuggly Duckling or she might've gone right back with Mother Gothel.
  • Right before Mother Gothel can even finish singing "Mother Knows Best" Rapunzel shouts "No!" What does Mother Gothel do? She accepts it a challenge and promptly doubles down, telling Rapunzel about how Eugene is just using her to get the tiara and once he's done with her, he'll abandon her. In a lot of ways? It's even worse than her passive-aggressive comments to Rapunzel at the beginning of the film.
• From the beginning of the movie, young Rapunzel.
  "Why can't I go outside?"
• Mother Gothel's completely realistic abuse of Rapunzel is both sad and horrifying.
• "You'd be the first."
  • Specifically, Flynn doesn't go by his real name, Eugene FitzHerbert, because it reminds him of his past as an orphan nobody wanted. He even Lampshades it by calling it his "sob story."
• Mother Gothel's genuine and (at times) unfortunately somewhat truthful advice to Rapunzel.
  I really did try Rapunzel, I tried to warn you what was out there. The world is dark and selfish and cruel. If it finds even the slightest ray of sunshine, it destroys it!
• The reprise of "When Will My Life Begin?" (sung as Rapunzel climbs out of the tower) is a joyful and excited anthem. But it doesn't begin so joyfully. She's afraid and unsure if she really wants to escape. She plucks up the courage and throws out her hair, sliding down it with an excited look on her face. That's until she nearly reaches the last few feet. She looks so nervous before touching her foot against the grass. Her joyfully singing about how the grass and the dirt is just like she dreamed it was hammers home that this poor woman has never been outside her tower prison since she was (maybe) a few weeks old. That is how powerful Mother Gothel's hold is on her.

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