• Loracarol has no need for "Alternate Reality"- her reality is alternate enough, thank you very much. X3

• Azumanga Daioh
• Ghost Hunt
• Kimi ni Todoke... I also can't wait until I can get my hands on the live action movie. XD
• InuYasha
• Okay, I admit it: Naruto
• Princess Tutu
  • Princess Tutu Abridged
• The Slayers
• Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
• xXxHolic

• Like Poker? Or do you mean a children's card game?

• Are not just for kids, and in fact their pretty cool. Does Watchmen fit here? Because that is amazing.
• Global Frequency

• Are fun to read. Especially My Immortal. That's just freakin hilarious
• Loracarol also writes fanfiction under two names on fanfiction.net- Loracarol, and Himitsu_Dark_Half.
• Oh God Not Again

• Howl's Moving Castle
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Yeah, I liked it, okay? And I liked it more than the comics, so there.
• MirrorMask
• Muppet Treasure Island
• The Brothers Grimm
• Sherlock Holmes
• The Mummy Trilogy

• Artemis Fowl- I did not like the first one very much, but I really enjoyed the seventh one, so I'm rereading 2-6 now, to see if i'd like any of them. :)
• The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
• Harry Potter (even the epilouge)
• Howl's Moving Castle
• Books by Mercedes Lackey
• Books by Patricia C. Wrede
• Sherlock Holmes
• Books by Tamora Pierce
• The Princess Bride
• World War Z

• NOT Twilight, for the love of all that is Holy!

• Bones
• Castle
• Criminal Minds
• Eleventh Hour
• NCIS
• Supernatural

• Mental Floss

• Cascada
• Kamelot

• Get Fuzzy

• I don't like my it teacher. In fact, I wrote a poem about how I don't like her.
  For those who do but wish to hear
  Unless, not by your own choice you’re here
  Come along to listen well
  Kin and kind, do sit for a spell
  Yonder there, there lies a park
  Only at nighttime is the magic dark
  Under the world, and over the hill, the magic will be there yet still
  Listen now to the tolling bell
  Is this a call for the demons in Hell?
  Tis not for me to decide the truth or the lie

  Calm as a lake, or stormy as the sky

  Look upon the gates above!

  All we know, we loath and love

  So we go into the night,
  So we go far from sight

• 1776
• Into the Woods
• Les Misérables
• Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
• Wicked

• Ace Attorney, I will love you forever~
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
• The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

• Megatokyo FTW

• Atop the Fourth Wall
• deviantART
• Gaia Online
• That Guy With The Glasses
• Vision of Escaflowne Abridged

• Anastasia
• Avatarthe Last Airbender
• Disney
  • Atlantis: The Lost Empire
  • Beauty and the Beast
  • The Little Mermaid
• Justice League

Fridge Brilliance

• Eugene really did get both of his dreams, except for the alone part. His song lyric was that he wished 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.
• The chameleon, which Rapunzel apparently kept hidden from Gothel, hints at her real spirit.
• 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 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.
• 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.
• 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?
• 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.
• The first thing we hear from Flynn is how much he wants a palace. What does he get at the end?
• 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.
• 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".
  • In one of the original drafts for the story Flynn (then named "Bastion") was a prince hiding out with a party of bandits.
• 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.
• 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.
• ENDING SPOILERS PRESENT 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. Apparantly 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.
    • I put that down to half The Powerof Love and half that's basically what happened in the original.
  • Gothel's song specifically refers to turning back time. The longer she uses the magic, the longer ago was her original youth.
• 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.
• When Gothel stabs Flynn/Eugene, she wounds an area roughly where the solar plexus is. When Rapunzel's healing teardrop works, a flower forms on it. In Hindu theology, the Manipura is the yellow/golden chackra of the Sun/fire, located on the solar plexus, and like all chackras its supposed to resemble a flower.
• 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!
• 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.
• 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.
• 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).
• 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.
• She make a starchart on her wall with the phases of the Moon, her own constellations and what looks like a 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 seemed 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 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.
• 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.
• Rapunzel's usage of the frying pan as weaponry has upon the third rewatching, seemed to just smack of Girrrl 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
• 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! *
  Ironically I figured this out for myself on the second viewing.
• 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.*
  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.
• 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.
    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.
• 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 person she really is rather than the syrupy sweet mother who 'teases' 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.
• 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 SoCalization.
• Rapunzel is intelligent, extremely skilled and knowledgeable in many ways, but entirely lacking in worldly experience. In other words, an ivory tower intellectual.
• 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.
• 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.

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.
• 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.
• Rapunzel's tears can cure death. Rapunzel is constantly in internal contact with her own bodily fluids. Let's hope the "cure death" thing works a finite number of times, cos otherwise...
  • Eugene was dead for less than a minute, chances of Rapunzel's tear bringing him back to life were the highest and highly possible.
• 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.
• 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...
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • 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 Euguene is re-enacting the infamous Dominic Deegan Stonewater/Melna rape scene?
• 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 colour does match the royal family though.
• 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?
• 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 50-foot tower by herself EVERY DAY. Jeez, this girl must have developed some serious muscles.
• 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.
  • Lots and lots of hair.
    • Not to mention 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.
  • 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.
• " This is the story of how I died." How many viewers do you think took that seriously?

Fridge Logic