The King and Queen's newborn daughter Rapunzel is gifted with the flower's abilities, which manifest via her golden hair when a special song is sung. Gothel cuts the baby's hair in an attempt to use it for her own needs, but kidnaps Rapunzel when she discovers that the hair turns brown and powerless once cut.
The story by the Brothers Grimm begins with a mother's craving for rampion, a leafy green vegetable. This craving leads to her giving up her baby to Dame Gothel. Dame Gothel names the child Rapunzel, but as the child ages, Gothel realizes how beautiful Rapunzel is and hides her in a tall tower to protect her.
Mother Gothel uses a variety of subtle emotional and psychological abuses to manipulate Rapunzel into staying in the tower. Mother Gothel kept Rapunzel's desire to leave the tower she was living/prisoner in in check for most of her life by a combination of belittling her and telling terrifying tales of the outside.
Fearing that she may be losing control over her flower, Mother Gothel uses subtle jabs, over-the-top guilt trips, and refrains of "Mother Knows Best" to keep Rapunzel from leaving, before firmly, and darkly ordering Rapunzel to never ask to leave the tower, again. Heartbroken, Rapunzel accepts.
Since Gothel raised Rapunzel after kidnapping her and pretended to be her biological mom, it would be assumed that she grew feelings for her supposed daughter. She raised Rapunzel for almost 16 years and taught her everything she knew, it would be assumed that she'd love Rapunzel as her own.
Though this could be attributed to her wishing for Rapunzel never to leave her, Gothel seems to be a misanthrope and has true hatred for people because they took away the magic flower she wanted all to herself, even though it could help the sickness of others.
She stopped showing any affection to Rapunzel when she expressed her want for freedom because she could no longer manipulate her anymore into thinking everyone wanted her hair. Her love was conditional and she did not love her whatsoever.
Why did Mother Gothel keep Rapunzel her real birthday?
The villain took every precaution to ensure that her abducted daughter wouldn't be discovered by anyone, including keeping her entirely confined to a tower for 18 long years. It would have been the least of her deceptions to tell Rapunzel that she was born on a different day.
Rapunzel was eventually freed from Gothel by her lover Eugene Fitzherbert as Pascal and threw Gothel out of the tower and destroyed Rapunzels powers that kept Gothel alive. It is unknown of the fall from the tower killed her or that she turned to dust because of Rapunzels hair being cut off first.
Once Rapunzel disobeys her and begins to fight back, Mother Gothel becomes overtly violent, more abusive and dangerous. Mother Gothel consistently puts Rapunzel down in underhanded ways. In her brilliantly written villain song “Mother Knows Best”, she insults her “adopted daughter” incessantly.
Mother Gothel's song “Mother Knows Best” is a prime example of the emotional abuse and backhanded comments she throws at Rapunzel. The audience isn't shown much else about Rapunzel's younger years of adolescents or childhood. Though, it is easy to see that Mother Gothel's emotional abuse is long-running.
According to the Brothers Grimm, Princess Rapunzel is named after the cultivated vegetable of the same name, growing in a witch's garden. The wording of the story suggested to me that the Grimms' contemporaries would be familiar with the plant as a vegetable, that it wasn't a fantastical invented thing.
Why did Mother Gothel not lie about Rapunzel's birthday?
Simple answer: She never expected Rapunzel to ever leave the tower - and she already had a set birthday that Gothel could easily remember, why change it?
vain, manipulative, and selfish. Mother Gothel has some motherly, nurturing qualities, but they're always as part of a façade used to maintain control over Rapunzel. She lies about the dangers of the outside world, plays the victim for sympathy, and batters Rapunzel's self-esteem – all in order to keep her power.
When they are stuck in a dam, Flynn reveals his real name to Rapunzel as Eugene Fitzherbert and she tells him about the power her hair possesses. Over time, the two become closer and eventually realize they have fallen in love during I See the Light.
After Mother Gothel stabbed Flynn Rider (who was actually named Eugene Fitzherbert), Rapunzel made a deal with her mother to save his life. She promised that she would go with Gothel anywhere she wanted and wouldn't try to escape, so long as Rapunzel was allowed to heal his wounds.
What was Rapunzel's real name before she was taken?
Rapunzel's real story is said to have been loosely based on a true story about a woman, Saint Barbara, in Italy around the 3rd century. The story of Barbara was that she was so beautiful that her father felt he had to lock her in a tower to protect her.
Eugene Fitzherbert (born Horace), and known by the alias Flynn Rider, is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Animation Studios' animated film Tangled (2010), its short 2012 film Tangled Ever After, and the 2017 television series Tangled: The Series.
So while, yes, we already know that somewhere down the road Rapunzel and Flynn Rider Eugene Fitzherbert get married and live happily ever after, it was not smooth sailing for them.
Once upon a time, a drop of sunlight created a magical flower with the power to heal and restore youth. An old woman named Mother Gothel discovered this flower—apparently in unclaimed forestland—and recognized its magical properties. She decided to hoard the magic for herself.
In order to market the new film to both sexes and additional age groups, Disney changed the title from Rapunzel to Tangled while also emphasizing Flynn Rider, the film's prominent male character, showing that his story is just as important as that of Rapunzel.
