YMMV / Rapunzel

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The witch:
    • She's sometimes portrayed as not so much being maliciously evil, but instead incredibly over protective of Rapunzel. Her motivation varies with each version, in some versions, she wants the girl as a servant or an apprentice, in others it is implied that she believes the girl to be equal payment to her stolen herbs (the fact that she names the girl after said herbs helps this notion.) In others, the witch simply wants a daughter. Heck, there are versions where she intentionally creates the garden hoping it will give her the bargain. This would paint the choice to imprison Rapunzel in the tower as the witch being Love Hungry, and motivated by fear that Rapunzel would eventually leave her to get married if allowed to roam free. In Into the Woods the Witch's song "Stay With Me" laments that she couldn't shield Rapunzel from the world.
    • Did she really wash her hands of Rapunzel? The fact that she's still alive and, to all appearances, healthy during her wilderness exile despite no indication that she had any survival skills (and in some versions, had to give birth to and raise two children) suggests she may have had some help. Is it possible that the witch, despite her anger, didn't want to see her die and was secretly helping her stay alive? Alternately, was it Cruel Mercy, wanting her to live so she could suffer the consequences of her actions?
  • Rapunzel's Idiot Ball moment in the Grimm's version. Maybe it's a moment of Stockholm Syndrome, not sure if she wants to leave the only home she's ever known.
    • On that note, her "bring me some silk every day so I can make a ladder" escape plan is needlessly slow and risky, and raises the question of why Rapunzel didn't just have the Prince bring a rope long enough for her to climb down. Could it have been a sign of her having an inner conflict about leaving the tower?
  • Just to round everything out, the prince can land here in some versions—it's very interesting that he's having sex with Rapunzel without apparently caring very much that she might get pregnant...or checking to make sure that she's okay with this, which makes the romantic reunion later on not feel very much like a happy ending. When this turns up in a version where the witch is also rather protective of Rapunzel, it also makes it feel like she really does have a point.
    • Actually in the original stories, Rapunzel is the one calling the shots with their relationship, all the Prince does is ask her to marry him and Rapunzel’s thoughts are "He would rather have me than would old Frau Gothel", implying that Gothel is not a nice person to Rapunzel. Not to mention that if Rapunzel had been in any way harmed by the Prince, she would have tatted him out to Gothel (which yes, is something that does appear in fairytales). Also, there really was no way to prevent pregnancy, and women generally didn’t know that they were pregnant until they “quickened” (when they first feel internal movement).
    • While we're on the subject, did he know (or at least suspect) that Rapunzel was pregnant? If he did, it could add a new dimension to his despair at her being sent away, since he's being faced with the prospect of losing not only the woman he loves, but also his unborn child(ren).
• Ass Pull: Rapunzel's Swiss-Army Tears magically cure the prince's blindness. Not once is it said in the tale that Rapunzel has any magic of her own. Naturally adaptations that leave this in often run into a problem with explaining it, though at least Tangled manages to make it give sense since Rapunzel did have magically-infused hair that still had some bits of magic in it despite having been cut. A few versions state that the cause of the prince's blindness is because there are still thorns stuck in his eyes and Rapunzel's tears wash them out. In versions where the blindness is due to a curse, the tears represent the purity of Rapunzel's love, which is strong enough to undo the witch's magic.
• Fridge Brilliance: The witch cutting off Rapunzel's hair makes more sense in the original - where she finds out Rapunzel is pregnant. Cutting off the hair was a common punishment for women deemed corrupt in medieval society. It obviously also served as a way to prevent Rapunzel and her prince meeting ever again.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: According to pollings, the story is very popular with American children, even if it is rarely adapted into movies or shows. The Disney version is up and at 'em and grossed millions of dollars.
• Memetic Molester: The prince is sometimes imagined as a womaniser based on how the original version had Rapunzel not realising she was pregnant with his twins, interpreting him as just using her for sex, which would ignore that he searches for her while blinded and clearly did love her enough to do so.
• Narm Charm: The Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics rendition is pretty cheesy, especially regarding the Star-Crossed Lovers' reunion and ultimately Happy Ever After deal, and yet it still has enough charm to tug at the heartstrings.
• Nightmare Fuel: "The pretty bird is not sitting in the nest anymore, and it isn't singing either. The cat fetched it. And now it (the cat) will scratch your eyes out!!" *throws prince into thorn bushes*.
• Padding: The Faerie Tale Theatre adaptation of it gives some pretty blatant padding. Half the episode deals with Rapunzel's parents and their craving for the lettuce.
• Values Dissonance: Some people don't understand why Rapunzel's parents would be willing to rob their neighbor and later sell their own child for some vegetables, but in the context of preindustrial times, this would have been an extremely Sadistic Choice. It was considered bad luck to deny a pregnant woman any food she was craving, and modern society now knows that pregnancy cravings often mean the mother has vitamin deficiencies. In some versions, the wife is so obsessed with the rampion that she claims she'll die if she can't have it, and her husband would every reason to believe her.
• Values Resonance: The original version has Rapunzel being banished to the desert by the witch after she discovers that she's pregnant with the prince's babies out of wedlock. The prince however does not care that Rapunzel is considered ruined by society, and keeps searching for her until he finds her, taking her back to his kingdom to be his wife.

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