History Fridge / Tangled

* 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. Compare these two songs and all of Rapunzel's hobbies are parallels to those of the thugs:\\
1. HookHand: Playing piano -- Rapunzel playing guitar (and she's a beautiful singer, too, thus musically gifted in general). Plus Rapunzel's playing darts, which would develop her manual dexterity, while Hook Hand would need to develop an extraordinary manual dexterity with his Hook Hand to play piano.\\
2. Big Nose: Love -- Rapunzel's yearning to go explore the world outside her tower and see the floating lanterns in contrast to Mother Gothel's objections, is a parallel to this.\\
3. Thor: Florist -- Rapunzel doing pottery and candle-making.\\
4. Gunther: Interior design -- Rapunzel beautifies her living space by painting her walls all over. Plus she takes good care of it by her daily "sweeping, dusting, polishing, mopping, laundry, shining..." routine\\
5. Ulf: Mime -- Rapunzel does papier-mache, ballet and aerial acrobatics with her hair.\\
6. Atilla: Baking cupcakes -- Rapunzel bakes and cooks well.\\
7. Bruiser: Knitting -- Rapunzel knits.\\
8. Killer: Sewing -- Rapunzel sews dresses (apparently to Pascal's chagrin, who, despite him being a male, [[http://s1.favim.com/610/201109/13/Favim.com-animation-disney-flynn-rider-pascal-rapunzel-143531.jpg she sews pink dresses for and dresses him up in, to his annoyance]]).\\
9. Fang: Puppet shows -- Rapunzel does ventriloquy.\\
10. Vladimir: Collects ceramic unicorns -- This one is less straightforward but Rapunzel's mentioning how she ''collects knowledge'' by reading books and increases her smarts by playing chess and solving puzzles, can count as a parallel.\\
Contrast how for Rapunzel these activities are a way to fill her boring life, while for the thugs they are ''literally'' their dreams, and their chance to escape the thug life.
* 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. Indeed, by all rights this girl should be built like Conan was after pushing that giant wheel all his life. 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.

** Also keep in mind when she's drowning in the cave. All that hair if anything should completely weigh her down after absorbing so much water. But it moves just as easily as before. Either she is that strong, or it's because the hair is magic, or the writers goofed.

* Gothel saying that Rapunzel is not able to survive on her own is ironic. Without Rapunzel, Gothel would pass away or wither of old age, as shown when Rapunzel's long hair was cut off by Flynn/Eugene

** Gothel uses her mirror to not only massage her vanity and pride, but also to put down Rapunzel and magnify 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 lady. The fact she has to hide it in a box also hints that she doesn't entirely trust Gothel to see her ''real'' self, or she'd 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. Whereas Rapunzel's is a small thing that reflects her humility.

** Towards the end, when Rapunzel finally realizes she's the lost princess, she confronts Gothel and tells her she's never letting her use her magical hair again. At that moment, Gothel's mirror breaks reflecting how [[VillainousBreakdown her mind is 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 break them if they don't get with the program. Ironically, Rapunzel hid the unconscious Flynn with the intention of showing Gothel she could go out on her own, 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. Unintentionally, her hiding Flynn foreshadows that she would come to love him. Not to mention that Gothel would once again [[InTheBack destroy]] the very thing Rapunzel loved once it was discovered.
* In the song "When Will My Life Begin", Rapunzel lists the activities she fills her lonely boring days in her tower with; later in "I've Got a Dream", 10 thugs list their hobbies/interests they would like to dedicate their lives to instead of being thugs. Compare these two songs and all of Rapunzel's hobbies are parallels to those of the thugs:\\

* When first seeing "I See the Light", it's easy to think it's just a song about Rapunzel finally fulfilling her dream of seeing the floating lights. But it becomes Fridge-Heartwarming once the meaning of it is brought to light: This is also a song about Rapunzel seeing what ''real'' love is. Each of those floating lanterns represents a subject of the kingdom who misses the lost princess, and wish for her safe return. She's feeling second-hand what it's like to feel that magnitude of unconditional love and caring. [[SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments Without even knowing she's the lost princess, Rapunzel finally understands and wishes for that love and warmth]].
** Not only that, Flynn has two lanterns, one of which he launches himself and the other of which he gives to Rapunzel for her to launch. The first one represents how he's come to love her, and the other 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 symbolizes she has some small form of "affection" for Rapunzel. But its [[SicklyGreenGlow green coloration]] represents (A) how warped her said-affection is, (B) that she only has love for herself and (C) she only "loves" Rapunzel on her own abusive terms. And the cherry on top? It's a SicklyGreenGlow, hence it represents 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 overall personality, Flynn's love for her, and the kingdom's national emblem, it's a [[GeniusBonus brilliant translation]].
* Mother Gothel citing [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi8kYcl2Y38&feature=youtu.be&t=55 "The plague!"]] as a danger to Rapunzel to bully her into staying in the tower is brilliant on so many levels:

** She is now talking to the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic "reincarnation" of that flower]], trying to avoid losing it/her; without it/her, Mother Gothel wouldn't survive the plague now.

** But even if Rapunzel ''would'' 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 Gothel puts Rapunzel in front of a mirror to pinpoint all her unpleasant traits, saying "On your own, you won't survive!" And then 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 is ''not'' the dark one Gothel described. Or, in her own words:

** An interesting point-the first time you're watching it you'd expect that Gothel frightening Rapunzel is just because she's the only one there and she's just reinforcing her point. Then you realize that SHE'S the one Rapunzel has the most reason to fear.
*** If you notice too, when it goes dark, Rapunzel is quickly able to light some candles, but Mother Gothel puts them out behind her! It is showing that Rapunzel is more than capable of looking after herself, but it's Mother Gothel, who is intentionally sabotaging Rapunzel's efforts!?
*** Gothel saying that Rapunzel is not able to survive on her own is ironic. Without Rapunzel, Gothel would pass away or wither of old age, as shown when Rapunzel's long hair was cut off by Flynn/Eugene

[[folder: Fridge Logic]]
* How did Rapunzel know her actual birthday, anyway? It makes sense that Mother Gothel probably celebrated her own birthday, leading Rapunzel to ask when ''hers'' was, but are we supposed to believe that Mother Gothel not only knew what it was, but would bother to present it accurately, as opposed to just being like "Oh, it's [insert first day she can think of]"?
** It's possible that she couldn't think of any other day, and simply decided that it was easier for her to claim it was on the same day of the lanterns.
* Did Gothel ever teach Rapunzel about the birds and the bees, or explain what puberty or menstruation were?
** The latter, at least, would've needed an explanation of ''some'' sort. Rapunzel is 18, after all.
** Rapunzel probably got the facts of life from a book. After all she loves to read (specifically to learn, as we see), and the three books we see in the movie can't be her first books; if she has one on "Botany" now, as shown, she probably had one on basic Biology before which at least covered the basics.
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