#Cass had a more valid reason for her anger than Varian did

[cilasbestos]

My autistic rambling about Cassandra from Tangled.

I refuse to use Gothel as her last name…

Anyways,

Saying that Cassandra was “angry at Rapunzel for getting kidnapped” is such a grossly incorrect representation of what was actually going on and I am tired of people pushing that that was all that upset her, instead of the seasons long conflict that was building up that culminated in her taking her anger about something only partially related out on Rapunzel because she was ALREADY upset with her.

Cass’ issues with Raps did not start when she took the moonstone, hell it didn’t even start when she went into the room in the house of yesterday’s tomorrow. It started in season one when Rapunzel was constantly, even if unintentionally, finding ways to overshadow her. It was worsened when Raps stopped valuing her opinion, which was a problem for Cass because she felt she had outlasted her usefulness, even though Cass is shown as a character who feels like she always needs a purpose or a duty to follow (which is likely a trauma response from being abandoned tbh???). Everything builds through seasons one and two, and Cassandra consistently finds herself overshadowed and ignored by Rapunzel and the people around her.

And THEN, Cass is given earth shattering news. Everyone else already chooses Rapunzel over her, of course her own mother did too. This particular instance wasn’t Rapunzel’s fault, but it pushed the same idea and feeling that all these other instances did; Cass isn’t important, and will always be outshined by Rapunzel. Something she had felt and experienced over and over, but this time the information was just big enough to be what sent her over the edge.

Yes, Cassandra overreacts, but she also is CONSTANTLY shown to be seeing whats wrong with her actions and rethinking everything. The first time, during Crossing The Line, she only doesn’t back down because Rapunzel triggers her by telling her to “wait”, the one thing she had been doing her entire life.

After that, every single major conflict with Cass throughout season 3 involves her realizing her error or questioning her path in some way, but people love to forget that she was actively being manipulated by Zhan Tiri at this point, leading her to being convinced to stay on the path Zhan Tiri wants her to be on. Yeah Cass is acting terrible, because an actual warlock found her when she was at her lowest and used her negative emotions to manipulate things in their favor. Eventually, when she is freed from that relationship with Zhan Tiri, everything resolves rather quickly, her having noticed the errors of her ways for a while now, but being constantly assured she was right.

In a way, Zhan Tiri plays a very similar role for Cassandra to that of what Gothel was to Rapunzel in the original movie.

I can probably do a more coherent, not-written-at-almost-midnight analysis of Cassandra eventually, because I have a lot to say and this is all over the place, but to conclude: Cassandra’s anger is not directly at Rapunzel for being kidnapped by Gothel. That simply happened to be the straw that broke the camels back after other events causes Cass similar feelings. This reveal was just the biggest, held the most weight. Even though Cass calmed down and again and again realized her wrong doings, the wrong person had influence over her when she was extremely vulnerable, leading the conflict to continue when it could have easily been avoided without the warlock’s influence.

[ahsokalegend]

Ranking Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure Songs (Part 1)

Here it is, the definitive (read subjective) tier list of the top 15 Tangled The Series songs. I’ve been listening to these daily, and now you can too!

Let’s get to it:

[see Part 2 for #11-15]

10. With You By My Side

Harmonies for days, plagued by relentless forshadowing aka the best way to end season 2.

Pro: these 3 compliment each other so well vocally, chills every time

Con: heavy handed foreshadowing like we get it everyone will betray everyone but for now they’re happy

Rating: 8/10

9. Buddy Song

Let me reiterate THE! BUDDY! SONG! SLAPS!👏 Stream these legends and their beautiful friendship

Pro: Hilarious, stellar melody, broadway-esque extravagance

Con: a plant is trying to eat them during this song

Rating: 8.5/10

8. Next Stop, Anywhere

Ultimate peppy road trip music, especially the final chorus. You can’t get better than Cassandra singing while running with horses.

Pro: each chorus adds in another singer so by the end it’s all three of them and epic

Con: too much dialogue that shouldn’t be in the soundtrack version

Rating: 8.5/10

7. View From Up Here

This song is the embodiment of being free and flying. It’s hard to put into words how this song makes me feel. Classic Disney vibes.

Pro: beautiful vocals and visuals, nostalgic feelings galore

Con: Rapunzel and Cass as singing birds

Rating: 8.5/10

6. Let Me Make You Proud

Time for the best character, Varian, to make his solo debut. “Let Me Make You Proud” is when I first started taking this show seriously, and it was all due to Jeremy Jordan, Alan Menken, and Glenn Slater in this show-stopper.

Pro: that final high note, Varian’s singing voice

Con: I want more after the high note, song ends too quickly

Rating: 9/10

<Attention! You have reached the halfway point. Get ready for the S Tier.>

5. Let Me Make You Proud (Reprise)

If the original version made me stop and pay attention to Tangled The Series, the reprise broke me. THIS SONG is only 1 minute long. One minute spent watching my favorite character transform from a plucky kid to a tragic villain. THEY SET THE MOMENT HE BREAKS TO THE MOST HEART-WRENCHING MUSIC AND I’M NOT OVER IT.

Pro: Jeremy Jordan held back nothing as Varian in this scene. This is the most emotion-filled and shocking song of the show

Con: 1 minute long, I can’t put it higher because of that

Rating: 9.5/10

4. Crossing the Line

Did someone say epic orchestra? Nobody? Oh well, too late the horns are already here.

What’s great is this is technically Cassandra’s villain song, but it doesn’t play like any villain song before it. It’s building, unapologetic, and triumphant. This is Cassandra letting her walls fall and taking what she wants, consequences be damned. Is she right? No. Is she OOC for most of season 3? Possibly. Is it cathartic to watch her wreck two seasons worth of buildup and relationships? HECK YEAH!

Pro: bass boosted “If I’m burning a bridge let it burn!”🔥

Con: This is the one time I’d add back in dialogue from the show. Cassandra’s trigger word is wait. In the episode, Rapunzel asks her to wait three times: once at the beginning of the song, once in the middle, and once at the end. Each occurrence pushes Cassandra further away, but only one makes the soundtrack recording.

Rating: 9.5/10

3. Waiting In The Wings

Emmy winner, best ballad, moving work of art - all define “Waiting In The Wings”. There’s something gripping about a side character acknowledging her place and desire to be heard when the main characters continually overshadow her goals and actions. We all know the feeling, watching your life pass by feeling like you don’t get the chance to lead your own story. Wow, my kind of emo sad song. What can I say, Cassandra gets the best. This would be a classic Disney “I Want” song if the show had been a movie.

Pro: Eden Espinosa singing that key change at “I hear my cue.”

Con: Honestly can’t think of anything besides it not being my favorite, too perfect?

Rating: 10/10

2. Nothing Left To Lose

Stellar concept untouched by anything Disney has made. Here we have the redeemed villain kidnapped by someone he once called friend. He sees her in her brokenness, and instead of being condensing as she has accused others of being, he tells her the truth. Nothing good can come from giving into her anger as he once did. Varian pleads with her; not to choose good because it’s the right thing to do, but to save herself from spiraling self-destruction. By meeting Cassandra where she is emotionally, Varian is the last chance to pull her from the dark. The message is merciful, well-thought out, and completely in character for Varian and Cassandra’s situation.

This song is the epitome of “Your feelings are valid, your methods of coping are not.” Each second is breathtaking from the animation to the song itself. It’s the ultimate battle between the show’s best singers and side characters while demonstrating the power one true friend can have against your own pain and anger.

And you know what hits the hardest?! Varian doesn’t give up on Cassandra in this song (we’re not talking about later episodes here). Every time she thinks she has outmaneuvered, out-argued, or out-sang him he comes back all the more ready to reach the friend he knows is buried deep in her heart. It takes her physically removing him from her tower and caging him ON A CLIFF for the main section of the song to finish.

But that’s not where it ends. A now dejected Cassandra, reminiscent of her “Waiting In The Wings” motivations sings her true feelings now when nobody can hear. “Now, I have nothing... ... ... left... to lose...”. That long pause she takes after “I have nothing” allows the first half to stand on its own. This is Cassandra realizing Varian’s truth. By pushing her last chance at redemption away, by removing her last chance at a friend, she truly has nothing left to lose.

I could go on and on about this song: the 360° turn in 2D animation, the way Varian and Cassandra sing over each other at the song’s climax, the lyrics, Varian’s vulnerability, Cassandra at her most dramatic, and more. I’ll save you the time, it’s incredible.

Pro: THE BEST DUET why are you still here go listen to this song! Jeremy and Eden recorded it together in-person for a reason. It’s too good for anything less. Also, another Emmy nominated song

Con: It could lose its Emmy nomination which would be unjust yet poetic? Cause you know, “Nothing Left To Lose” loses would make a funny headline

Rating: 10/10

https://youtu.be/r-PYYaoq0fY

1. Ready As I’ll Ever Be

There’s a reason seemingly half the fandom joined due to this song. It encapsulates everything I love about this show flaws and all. Varian gets a solo! Cass gets a solo! Rapunzel gets a solo! Everyone gets a solo! Each time I listen it gets better. Nothing screams epic battle prep song like “Ready As I’ll Ever Be”. Plot and singing-wise this song has it all.

What makes this song a winner is my inability to analyze it. It’s not a song I think about, it’s one I enjoy and constantly replay. The impact this song has had on me and it’s ♥️❤️💕💜💛💖💞💚🧡💝💙-ness makes it the greatest song in Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.

Pro: ultimate hype song, villain Varian, mind-blowingly incredible

Con: the king sings (easy to ignore)

Rating: 10/10

Thanks for reading!

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Happiness Is

This is possibly my favorite episode of season two. Yet, it is also the point the where the series starts to fall off a cliff. Only that’s not something that you would realize upon a first watch; just in hindsight and only with some basic knowledge of the behind the scenes drama that led to this and the fall out with the fandom that followed afterwards. 

Summary:  Rapunzel begins to feel homesick for Corona when she finds an old letter written by her father in one of the many lanterns sent from her previous birthdays. In attempts to uplift her spirits, Rapunzel explores the island and comes across a magical idol that brings instant happiness to whomever possesses it. Rapunzel begins to hallucinate her family and friends back in Corona and soon shares the idol with the rest of the group. However, everyone starts to become obsessive over the idol, desperately wanting it for themselves. Rapunzel tricks everyone into giving her the idol, but when the Lorbs try to help Rapunzel, they fall under the idol's control and soon begin to terrorize the village.

Let’s Start with the First Elephant in the Room; Frederic 

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is struggling with being homesick. Which is fair enough, that’s an understable reaction to being on the road for months by now. However, to showcase this Rapunzel keeps seeing hallucinations of her father. There are some other characters too, but her dad is the first person she sees and the only one in Corona with speaking lines. He’s the one to tempt her with the idol. 

Did we just forget that Frederic is her abuser? 

Look, even if you accept his apology in Secret of the Sundrop and believe he has learned his lesson, that doesn’t just erase the pain he caused her. Her thoughts about her father should be more realistically complex then this. Now add in how she makes a such a clean break from her other abuser, Gothel, but still holds him on a pedestal shows a disturbing bias on the part of the writers. 

Also where’s this love for Arianna? You know the only real mother on the show? The show that’s aimed at little girls? The one parent who hasn’t flat out abused the main character yet? 

Seriously, Chris, what the fuck? 

This is a Missed Opportunity 

So part of the reason why I like this episode is that we get insights into each of the characters and their desires. As such this is one of the few episodes where the group actual feels like a group friends. However, Cass’s vision is wasted here. 

So at first glance this seems to aline with what we know of the character thus far. She loves her dad and wishes to impress him. That’s only if you take season one into account, though. Later episodes will contradict this goal. If you wanted to set up praise and validation in general as Cassandra’s motives, then here is where that should have happened. 

Show her getting a medal, have cheering crowds surround her, have her be a hero, or something. You can’t claim her relationship with her parents as the driving force of behind her later actions if you don’t actually involve one of those parents as part of the resolution to her arc. 

Either she lacking attention from her dad or she’s jealous of Rapunzel. You can’t have it be both because those two things don’t intersect. Rapunzel is not and never was a threat to her relationship with her father. 

So Umm...I Don’t Think This Plot Point Has the Impact That the Writers Think It Does 

So this hilarious, and it is intended to be funny, but it’s not for the reasons that the show gives. 

The idea is that this is some shocking revelation. That Rapunzel would never do this under normal circumstances and it’s a hint that the idol is corrupting her. 

Only the rest of the series doesn’t aline with that at all. This is just the real Rapunzel behaving as the she normally would but without the usual veneer of excuses. 

It’s funny because it’s the show calling out Rapunzel hypocrisy for what it is plainly, not because it’s out of character. 

But funny only gets you so far. The show is perfectly happy to play up Rapunzel’s awfulness for laughs, but then conventily ignore it when it comes time for the characters themselves to call her out on it so that she can grow and learn.       

The show runs under the sitcom idea that comedy excuses all sins; which then backfires horribly when it tries to be serious and mature. 

You can’t joke that the king threw a random person in a stockade for little reason and then expect us to still like him when he persecutes a child. Same applies here. 

The sitcom set up only works when there is minimal at stake and all parties involved are equally awful in their own ways. 

Then Why Not Just Go Home?

Once again, there’s nothing at stake in season two. Rapunzel has no real reason to be on this trip. Nothing is stopping her from just going home if that’s what she wants. The idol only makes her happy because it shows her want she wants, but she could actually have what she wants as soon as the next ship arrives. So what’s the issue here? 

This is why you need external conflict in order to make internal conflicts work. There’s has to be something preventing the main character from achieving her goal or otherwise she just comes across as a dumbass. 

And Now Here Comes the Second Elephant; Varian 

I have several things to talk about here, and none of them actually concern the scene itself but the creator’s treatment of the character and the show’s fan base.

For you see, Chris did a very, very stupid thing.  

He wrote the character driving the plot out of the show. The character who also happens to be the most popular person in the series. Only to then use said character’s VA and this one cameo as promotion for this whole season. 

Needless to say, fans were disappointed.   

However, the Tangled fandom is exceedingly polite; more so than most. The lack of Varian was met mostly with confusion, and maybe a few off handed jokes, rather than anger. When opportunity arose people naturally had questions concerning the character.     

And that’s when Chris put his foot in mouth. 

This Tumblr post details how Chris got kicked off the Tangled The Series Discord by bullying a bunch of Varian fans while on there. 

https://starxapple.tumblr.com/post/617852117763391488/zhantiri-uuugh-fine-since-people-are-getting

I shan’t get into it fully, but for those who discovered the show after season two had aired, this caused a massive backlash from the fandom. 

A good chunk of the fandom just walked away, and rightly so. The few that stuck around despite these remarks found themselves harassed by certain sections of the fandom who saw Chris’s bullying as permission to pursue the same behavior. However, most importantly, the ratings plummeted. 

Season one hovered around the the 1 million mark, give or take a five point difference. The first part of season two dropped to half of that, and after this episode and the hiatus it sunk even lower, down to the mid-thirties. That’s over 20,000 people who just jumped ship over this. That’s not a normal decline. 

No matter what your personal feelings are of the character of Varian or how he was handled in the show, that’s still a massive PR fassico that cost the series big time. 

To add to this mountain of bullshit, there was also a massive walk out of crew members after season one had finished production. Most of them women. They even desperately threw out ‘we’re hiring’ calls to cover this. Which given that’s it’s Disney and that nepotism is usually how one gains employment in the entertainment industry, something unusual must have happened behind the scenes. Especially if most of the people who left were women. 

We’ll probably never know what really happened. People don't usually talk about behind the scenes stuff like that due to contracts and the aforementioned nepotism. However, all clues point to Varian.   

Something changed at the last minute concerning his story. Chris himself had confirmed as much when discussing the note and the Brotherhood. We also gotten other hints that content was edited out at the last minute. Plus the writing becomes more shoddy as the series goes along, showing how slapped dashed everything is together.  

Then there’s the rumors. 

I must stress to you that this is only a rumor. As pointed out earlier, most animators aren’t in a position to talk freely about what goes on behind the scenes. Do NOT harass them over it or make things awkward by asking them to clarify this. However it’s been suggested that the female crew warned Chris that removing Varian from season two and re-writing his story, along with making Cass the villain, would be a bad idea before they left and Chris didn’t listen. Much to his folly. 

Chris is no longer a Disney employee and has yet to move on to any other projects. He says he left, but I more suspect that Disney just didn't renew his contract and no one has picked him up since. I take no joy in the idea that someone may have lost their job, but if true, then Chris has little to blame but himself. 

So What Did Change?

We don't know anything for sure. We know from discussions about the note that there was a proposed Brotherhood plot that involved Varian that was then cut. There was also talks about a Cass and Varian team up in season three. 

This was then changed to the Saporian take over, which is foreshadowed in this scene. However even that got edited down and under the flimsiest of excuses. 

One of the writers, Ricky, suggested that they thought cutting back to Corona would be too confusing for the audience; which is a load of bull. I mean how poorly do you think of your audience’s comprehension skills that they wouldn’t understand a change of scene or a flashback? Yet you fully expect them to pick up on your lazy foreshadowing involving the mirror? So much so that you sent them on a quest to find it between seasons two and three.

Then there’s this gem from Chris. 

Ok ignoring the fact that you so totally could have featured both Gothel and Varian, seeing as they serve two different functions in the story and mean different things to Rapunzel.... What guilt?!!! 

Rapunzel doesn’t ever act guilty over anything involving her treatment of Varian. 

That’s when you realize Chris isn’t talking about her feeling guilty about Varian’s predicament. He’s saying that Rapunzel feels guilty of leaving her father behind with this ‘dangerous’ criminal. Which is a big fuck you to everyone. 

That’s why Frederic is the center focus of Rapunzel’s hallucinations. Why she’s more concerned for his safety over Varian’s trauma. Chris really be out here trying to use the abused 14/15 year old orphan as a scapegoat for the grown ass dictator who ruined countless lives. Because he thinks a grown woman should feel guilty for leaving her abusive father behind and pursuing her life’s dream.

Dude, I try not to assume the worst of people just cause they write fictional characters that I dislike, but Chris really makes things hard not to when he treats his self insert this way. 

Oh but we’re not done yet. 

When Varian Fans Complain About the Lack of Varian; We’re Complaining About the Lack of a Coherent Plot. 

Certain sections of the fandom, bolstered by Chris’s BS, try to act like simply being a Varian fan is grounds for dismissal of any criticism of the show and it’s writing. As if having personal preference for something makes you automatically ‘entitled’ or some such bull. Yet doing so ignores the fundamental complaint that they are making. 

We’re not whining about our favorite character not getting enough screen time. No one would have complained about his lack of presence in season two if they had properly resolved his story in season three and had Chris not been a dick to the fans. But it becomes evidently clear as the series goes along that removing Varian left a major hole in the plot. One that makes the entire story and the rest of characters suffer as well. 

Think season two is boring? That’s cause they cut out their main villain at the last minute and failed to replace him with anything. 

Upset that Hookfoot was brought along for zero reason?  He’s the replacement character for Varian who no doubt was going to appear in season two originally. 

Wish there was more on the Brotherhood and the Dark Kingdom?  Their story impact was greatly reduced when Varian was written out.

Are you a Eugene fan and mad about how the Dark Prince plot went nowhere?  That’s cause the original Brotherhood/Dark Kingdom plot was dropped when Varian was.

Dislike how Cassandra’s character was ruined with her villain arc?  She was originally meant to be possessed but was changed last minute to be a Varian rip-off in the hopes that she would gain some of his popularity.   

Wish Zhan Tiri, Demantius, and the Disciples actually went somewhere and that ZT had coherent plan?   That plot were changed last minute to make Zhan Tiri a scapegoat for Cassandra now that her story was changed to replace Varian.

And of course let’s not ignore the character who suffers the most from lack of Varian.... Rapunzel. 

Chris’s defense for leaving Varian out of S2 is that it’s “Rapunzel’s Story” and that Varian was only ever a plot device meant to push her along on her quest.  Which means that Rapunzel no longer has anyone pushing her along on her quest!!!

All characters are plot devices. If they aren’t there to serve a story function then they need to be cut. Even Rapunzel herself serves a plot function. She’s meant to be the protagonist of a coming of age story. Which means she needs both an external conflict to face and an emotional arc where she grows as a person. Varian is the plot device that serves both of those functions but he’s now been removed and is no longer allowed to serve his original purpose. 

Chris reached into the machine while it was running and pulled out one of the main gears and acted like he always meant to do that. He legit sat there and pretended that everything was running smoothly even as smoke poured out and warring alarms blared. He then tried to shove bubble gum in its place hoping no one would notice as everything fell apart around him. 

Cause he’s the thing; no idea is without merit. It’s all about presentation. Removing Varian from season three still could have worked, but it required A.) replacing him with another foe and B.) making sure his arc still got a proper conclusion. 

I’ll talk more about Varian’s half-arsed redemption when we get to it; but for now let's focus on the more immediate problem. No one thought to give season two an actual overarching conflict in light of Varian’s absence. 

That’s a fundamental oversight that pretty much signals that season two was re-written at the last minute. You have an overarching plot in an action adventure show but no main adversary? I refuse to believe that everyone involved was too stupid to do that on purpose; but if they were rushed and lacked a crew because they walked out due to last minute story changes....yeah that’d I buy. 

Because there’s more than enough options to go around; Lady Caine, The Baron and Styalan, Hector and/or Adria, Zhan Tiri’s Disciples ect. were all options. So was keeping the rocks a threat, or have Cass start her villian arc earlier; with proper motivation this time. They could have even come up with someone entirely new. 

You had over four years to plan this shit out; why is it not more well put together?! 

How Come Rapunzel Can Easily Admit Fault to Pascal But Not Anyone Else? 

Pascal should have sat perched on Varian’s and Eugene’s shoulders giving Rapunzel ‘I’m done with this’ looks all throughout season three. It’s apparently the only thing that she responds to. 

Why is the untalkative camelanion the only one allowed to call out the main character’s BS without going villain? 

Conclusion

That’s all there really is to talk about in this story. The actual episode itself is good. It’s the behind the scenes crap that bubbles underneath its surface that needed to be discussed. That way when going forward with the marathon you’ll better see what I’m talking about when I explain how future episode suffered from the lack of planning and foresight. 

[bestworstcase]

Considering how much you love the saporian au, I have a I guess alternative pitch to ask about. In Rapunzel's Return, if it was revealed that Cass was Saporian instead and still goes through with crossing the line in canon. So when Rapunzel and the gang gets home, do you think the Saporian invasion fight would've gone differently with this new information brought to light for her, especially since Varian is working with them now? Do you have any input on this?

why yes i do

so to start. let’s skip back to like august/september of 2019, which is when the tts hyperfixation kicked in but before s3 started to air. at this point in time my thinking was:

the separatists are definitely coming back in some capacity because the series made a point of putting their symbol on the book in RDO, signaling that andrew was not a one time deal.

there’s a press release that says raps will encounter an old enemy when she returns to corona and while it might be varian, my money is on the separatists.

cassandra encountered zhan tiri behind the door in the shell house and learned or saw something that soured her pretty hard on corona

i have been theorizing that cass is saporian since the first time i watched under raps, like, a year ago

i have also been theorizing that zhan tiri is saporian since she was introduced, mainly because it’s fun and it ties two great antagonists together

if cass IS saporian, and the separatists ARE the threat awaiting rapunzel in corona, these two things are probably going to end up intertwining down the line in s3.

sigh. [puts on my clown shoes]

a big part of the appeal of saporian!cass to my mind is that it gives cassandra an excellent reason, completely unrelated to rapunzel, to return to corona after she takes the moonstone. right? in my head, before s3 aired, my theory was kinda: zhan tiri got into her head and drew a connection between cassandra’s individual feelings of being neglected/overlooked/treated unfairly, and the systemic problem of saporians being oppressed/cast aside/treated unfairly.

and cass wants so badly to be a hero. she wants to be admired. she wants to be a protagonist, basically, and if cass is saporian that positions her perfectly to become the hero of the saporian separatist movement after she takes the moonstone. it fits so well!

so if, beyond just cass being saporian, this were the direction the series had gone with cass being saporian—and taking into account that this is a disney princess show and it is going to be pro-monarchy at the end of the day, and trying to stay within those bounds—i kind of imagine it playing out like this: 

1) cass takes the moonstone and angrily lashes out at rapunzel, telling her about what zhan tiri told her in the HOYT (which boils down to ranting about how saporians in general and cass in particular are treated badly and she’s not going to take it anymore and this is my destiny, rapunzel). then she leaves, with CtL going exactly as it does in canon. 

2) reeling, rapunzel returns home—only to find that it has been taken over by saporian separatists. talk about a punch in the gut! and then to make matters worse, varian is working with them. i think “rapunzel’s return” can still end with victory over the separatists in this version, but the separatists aren’t imprisoned at the end—they escape, swearing that it isn’t over. [the conflict itself plays out similarly, except for preference the separatists aren’t trying to glass corona, they’re just trying to stay in charge / drive team corona out. this allows for escalation later with zhan tiri and also doesn’t paint. people fighting back against their oppressors as pure evil,]

2a) varian and rapunzel still have their emotional conversation and sort-of apologies, but! varian doesn’t turn against the separatists yet, and when they escape, he goes with them. however, fundamentally their cause isn’t personal to him, and he’s now all conflicted because rapunzel doesn’t hate his guts like he’s been telling himself she must. 

3) rapunzel frees quirin from the amber despite varian’s continuing betrayal, because it’s the right thing to do and also because she’s desperate for SOME sort of victory after all this. varian doesn’t find out about this until after his redemption.

4) the separatists continue to cause problems in B-plots throughout the first half of the season. someone (probably eugene?) tries to broach the subject of cass with rapunzel in the context of cass potentially joining the separatists and throwing the power of the moonstone behind their cause. rapunzel brushes this off on the grounds that no matter what cass is still her best friend. meanwhile we keep getting cass stingers, with cass struggling to control the rocks and zhan tiri helping her, except instead of driving her into rages at rapunzel, she’s focused on radicalizing cass to the separatist cause (although she does not spell this out at first).

5) BVA kicks off with zhan tiri dropping the bomb that she wants cass to join the separatists. cass is shocked (she knows how extreme and violent they are—and she’s not like that, is she? she hasn’t hurt anyone!), which triggers the burst of red rocks. 

5a) in corona, the red rocks cause varian to have horrific visions of his father/all of corona trapped in amber, confronting him with his own guilt. he’s been sticking with the separatists mostly out of fear of being rejected if he tries to return to corona now—after all, rapunzel gave him another chance, and he threw it back in her face. but the visions are too much for him, and after he sees that they’re capable of petrifying people, he rushes straight to corona, sneaking in through the tunnels to warn rapunzel. she decides to trust him again, and they set off to the demanitus chamber to stop the red rocks a la canon.

5b) as varian and rapunzel emerge and see that their efforts paid off, rapunzel assures him that she’ll make sure everyone hears how he put himself in danger to warn them, and how he saved the day... and as varian is thanking her, he hears a very quiet “...son?” from behind them. he turns around, unable to believe his ears. it’s his dad. his dad is free. for a second he’s terrified this is some sort of lingering effect of the rocks but rapunzel explains that she found an incantation that she used to free quirin, and there is a BIG EMOTIONAL MOMENT as he reunites with his dad. because varian realizes quirin must know everything he did after his dad was trapped in the amber, and he’s so afraid his dad will be ashamed of him, but quirin is just like. no, son, you may have gone to a very dark place but you found your way back all by yourself, and you did the right thing, and i’m so proud of you. tears, and so on. 

5c) BVA ends with cassandra and zhan tiri, rather than eugene and rapunzel, debriefing. cass reveals that she felt rapunzel’s fear of her during their moment of connection, and she is upset because even though cass hasn’t done anything, rapunzel seems to see cass as just as violent and dangerous as the separatists are, perhaps even moreso. and zhan tiri comes in with “they’ve already written you off as a monster” and “what do you think forced the separatists to such extremes? they tried to be reasonable, and they were persecuted just as you have been” and “really, what do you have to lose?”

6) and that is how cass gets on board with zhan tiri’s joining the separatists plan. [if cass doesn’t already know at this point, i think this would be the part where zhan tiri mentions that she’s saporian, too]

7) then we hit pascal’s dragon, and this is the episode where rapunzel starts really considering what cass being saporian means, basically using LBB as a proxy for working out her feelings about cass and ultimately coming to a sort of hopeful conclusion that maybe... cass being saporian is important to her and maybe—just like the enraged dragons that destroyed nigel’s village—the separatists have valid reasons for their anger... but also that a peaceful resolution can be reached if rapunzel doesn’t let fear consume her.

8) islands apart, then, becomes a little more focused on rapunzel trying to get the whole story out of the captain; how did he end up with a saporian kid, what do the separatists want beyond blowing corona up [he’s the captain of the guard, he must have dossiers on these people], and most importantly, what options are there for compromise? fresh off her own commitment to meet cass halfway, the conflict between rapunzel and the captain vis a vis fountain cass can also be nice and sharp. 

9) in cassandra’s revenge!!! we just scrap the entire eugene surprise birthday proposal subplot. the first half of the episode is cass cruising into the separatist camp in the woods with the moonstone and ghost!ziti. she and andrew are immediately at each others throats because both of them want to be in charge but cass ends up winning by dint of a) having a magical rock with enormous destructive power at her disposal, and b) having a clear plan. she steals the scroll to distract everyone while the separatists in to steal [insert magical saporian artifact macguffin here] from the palace vaults, with the intention of using it to free zhan tiri. 

10) cass’s part of CR goes very similarly to how it does in canon: team corona turns up to rescue varian, rapunzel tries to talk to cass about finding a viable compromise on the saporian issue, and cass, not wanting to hear it, goes berserk and attacks her. partly this is venting her very real personal anger at rapunzel (i like the idea of rapunzel reaching for her burnt hand being the thing that sets her off) and partly she’s just furious because rapunzel still doesn’t really get it. “nobody has to get hurt? saporians have already gotten hurt! i have already gotten hurt!” <- that kind of thing

10a) also!!! a “nothing left to lose” where varian is saying “i worked with the separatists and it wasn’t worth it!” and cass is saying “don’t you get it? i’m not like you, i don’t have other options, i’m saporian” would be sooooo goooood

11) in any case cass gets yeeted off the tower and injured, as in canon. team corona leaves. the separatists come back, find the tower in ruins and cassandra crawling back up from her ledge. they help her up, treat her injuries, and then reveal the bad news: the macguffin they were after, the one they need to free zhan tiri? it’s gone. corona sent it to the keeper of the spire for safe keeping. 

12) race to the spire! is about cass and the separatists trying to retrieve the macguffin from the spire. and it is also about an extremely shaken rapunzel talking to xavier about all of this, realizing what the separatists were probably after when they broke in, freaking out (cass joining the separatists is one thing, but bringing zhan tiri back?!) and reluctantly turning to edmund and adira for help... because she thinks she knows where cass is going to go next. 

12a) cue crazy cass + separatists + ghost ziti vs team corona + brotherhood battle at the spire. with all the canon insanity of the weird ass artifacts getting thrown into the mix. cass and the separatists win, possibly because ghost ziti advices cass to grab and threaten calliope to force rapunzel to cooperate and cass does it. 

13) TOTS is now the freeing zhan tiri episode. and the gothel disciple backstory episode. because turns out! none of them really know how to do the actual jailbreak with the macguffin, so... they need gothel’s old research, from when she and the other disciples used the same artifact to free zhan tiri last time. rapunzel is in the cottage with a similar idea: she’s trying to learn more about the sundrop and its connection to the moonstone. loredumps, idk. maybe all this takes place in the ruins of the tower instead; i like the idea of gothel having a creepy little laboratory in the cellar or something. 

14) rapunzel pleads with cass to think about what she’s doing. the separatists have a point—does zhan tiri? what is zhan tiri after, what’s her agenda, what is she, even? and it nearly works, she nearly gets through to cassandra, but then... cap shows up, and cass does not react well. cap is there to try to apologize for their last altercation, but she does NOT want to hear it and the whole situation escalates. team corona gets driven out of the valley, cass and the separatists do the ritual to release zhan tiri and wow things are really bad now aren’t they!!!

15) flynnposter... idk. cap recuses himself from the whole fighting cassandra thing because he cannot handle it and because everyone agrees he’ll be more effective at getting through to cass if he’s not showing up in the captain’s uniform, eugene gets put in charge... and zhan tiri is out to cause problems. i just think she should get an episode of zany hijinks all to herself. she deserves it. to keep the plot relevancy going let’s say she’s impersonating eugene-as-flynn because a) it’s funny and b) it masks her real agenda, which is, let’s say, wiping corona off the map, stealing the sundrop, and using it to plant/grow a new great tree on the ruins of the city. seems like a fitting vengeance against both demanitus (for banishing her) and rapunzel (for destroying the great tree), yes? 

16) once a handmaiden. with zhan tiri now fully out and about cass has been sort of demoted to second in command and she is struggling with that, because it’s making the inferiority complex bubble up and bringing with it doubts that this is really the right thing to do, or even really what she wants. she slips away to clear her head, perhaps even using the cloak to disguise herself so she can wander around corona... and finds the nasty little magical traps zhan tiri planted earlier. she realizes that whatever zhan tiri has planned for the eclipse, it’s a lot worse than she’s letting on. (maybe some of this is connected to gothel’s research: gothel wanted to retrieve the sundrop from rapunzel, and cass recognizes ritual prep for that from gothel’s notes and is like. oh no.)

17) so... at a loss for what to do, she impulsively goes to rapunzel to try to... warn her? apologize? take her up on that offer to negotiate? cass is really not sure, and seeing herself in wanted posters and of course demonized in feldspar’s play does not. help. this part of the episode can go pretty similarly to canon, except that when cass is confronted by zhan tiri it’s a lot more cutting, with zhan tiri focusing how even now she feels like she needs to serve rapunzel at cost to herself, needling her about her lack of conviction etc etc, in addition to goading her with the news about project obsidian. cass angrily rejects her and goes to talk to rapunzel, publicly reveals herself on purpose because a) sometimes she’s not smart and b) striding onto the stage in the second act of feldspar’s terrible play to tell everyone in the audience that corona is in grave danger really seems like a good idea at the time and ziti is lying about project obsidian so everything will be fine right!!!!

18) everything is not fine 

19) cass gets shot in the back with project obsidian courtesy of panicking guards and a teeny tiny bit of help from zhan tiri and, crushed by the realization that rapunzel must have authorized this, cass does the “no you know what? fuck you, i see all that talk about negotiation was just pretty words after all” thing and wrecks the place, while zhan tiri stands by watching like >:) 

20) PLUS EST EN VOUS. im sorry anon this has gotten way longer than i thought it would. but i am Passionate About Saporian Cass. the situation is now dire! everyone in corona is hunkered down in old corona, frantically trying to draw up battle plans or like, any plans at all. corona itself is in ruins. it really looks like cass/the separatists have won... but rapunzel keeps thinking about how cass tried to warn them of some greater danger. she can’t give up on cass just yet. 

21) so, desperate, rapunzel turns to the separatists. she takes... varian, because he knows them, and lance because he’s good at talking to people, and eugene, because she needs him with her. and she walks into the separatist camp and says look, i know that ultimately what you want is for saporia to be free to be its own country. that you only took over corona and tried to destroy it because you thought you had no other choice. and maybe under my dad’s rule, that was true. but i’m the queen now, and i can accept a declaration of saporian independence if i want to. so i’m going to do that right now, no strings attached. saporia is free. 

22) and the saporians are like holy fucking shit

23) what brought this on???

24) rapunzel is like cassandra is my best friend. and i didn’t treat her well, and i made her feel like she couldn’t talk to me about how she was hurting, so she did all this. she’s angry and she’s right to be angry, but more importantly, she’s hurting and scared. and i want to make it right. and also i’m terrified that zhan tiri is going to hurt her, because she said something about zhan tiri going after the drops?

25) and like the best she’s hoping for here is for the separatists to drop out of the conflict and go build their kingdom back up again, but they huddle up and decide that a) cassandra is their friend / one of theirs, and if she’s in danger they’re gonna side with her over zhan tiri, and b) if they team up with rapunzel now and it turns out rapunzel was lying and this was all some elaborate set up to attack cass while she’s without allies, then they will be there to help cass hold the line

26) there are ABSOLUTELY NO MONKEY SHENANIGANS 

27) cass sort of miserably is going along with zhan tiri’s plans but she’s also just kinda hoping rapunzel doesn’t show up for the eclipse. 

28) rapunzel shows up for the eclipse with a bunch of separatists and cass is like rapunzel what the fuck

29) there is...an attempt by rapunzel/cass/the separatists to get everyone’s story straight which is interrupted by zhan tiri doing the “traitors to saporia pay with their lives” thing and just. going ballistic on the separatists and cass. and also rapunzel, except she needs rapunzel to not be smushed like a bug until after she retrieves the sundrop so she’s a little gentler.

30) cass and rapunzel team up to protect the separatists: with both of them using the full power of the drops, they can hold their own against zhan tiri (she is VERY POWERFUL and she PROVES IT during this fight by going toe to toe with both of them without breaking a sweat)... but things go from bad to worse when the eclipse hits, because the sundrop goes dormant, and zhan tiri pounces. gets the sundrop, and now it’s just cass trying to solo this demonic sorceress lady before the eclipse ends and zhan tiri gains the power of the sundrop. It Is Not Looking Great For Our Heroes.

31) zhan tiri stomps cass into the curb and is about to land the killing blow when the rest of the coronans + the brotherhood charge in (they were waiting on the mainland on rapunzel’s orders, not wanting to escalate the situation if it could be solved via talking, but it is now very obvious that rapunzel needs back up). zhan tiri deals with them pretty handily too, but her distraction is enough for rapunzel to shake off her depowered exhaustion/pain and help cass back to her feet. 

32) raps, cass says, i’m so sorry. i never meant for any of this to happen, i just—

33) and rapunzel says, i know, it’s okay. i’m sorry too, for taking you for granted. i love you.

34) cass, tearing up, is like, i love you too. and i’m gonna stop this.

35) rapunzel is like ??? but there’s no more time because zhan tiri has finished smashing/immobilizing everyone else and cass is already charging at her, no longer trying to attack or defend, just get close enough. 

36) as the eclipse comes to an end and the sundrop wakes up again, cass latches onto ziti, grabs the sundrop. and slams it against the moonstone still embedded in her chest. there��s a huge explosion, and when the dust clears... cass is in the epicenter, very dead, and there’s really nothing left of zhan tiri but a bunch of spasming vines and shadowy magic, burning slowly away in the brilliant light of the unified power. everyone else is pretty damn battered too.

37) horrified, rapunzel crawls out of the wreckage, grabs the unified drop. revives/heals everybody (except zhan tiri, rip), ending pretty much goes as it does in canon. except i like the idea of the epilogue / ending sequence of life after happily ever after (reprise) also being a montage of both corona and saporia being rebuilt, the countries now equals and allies... and also cass, when she leaves, is explicitly going out in search of saporians whose ancestors were displaced by the conquest, both to invite them to return to their ancestral home if they so choose and also to reconnect with her own heritage. 

38) THE END!!!

[astrologista]

(@chiscribbles4smiles and @starxapple with this post compelled me to want to dig this mess up from my drafts........ i wasn’t gonna post it because as a Psychological Analysis I think some of this is definitely REACHING......... or iunno....... i wrote it a long time ago when i was In A Mood but i can prove that Varian needs a mom using psychological evidence so deal w/ it y’all)

(This is a very speculative analysis but if you like those, read on.)

So if you notice how Varian reacts when he sees his father frozen in the amber, his initial reaction is disbelief. He's saying "no, no, no" over and over, hoping it's just a nightmare, that if he voices his denial enough, he'll wake up and this won't be real. He's refusing to believe it's real, begging for it to be undone, that if he just doesn't acknowledge it in these first moments of shock, maybe it'll all just go away. But seconds tick by and his dad doesn't answer him, only silence does. It slowly starts to sink in for Varian that this is real and no one is coming to help him or clean up the mess, not this time. On the subtitles Varian actually says "Dad!" and then when that doesn't work, "Daddy..." His voice changes a bit, too, becoming higher and more childlike, and choked up with tears. Which, if that don't break your heart, I don't know what does. In moments of extreme stress and trauma, it's not uncommon for children or teens to regress a little so that they can feel a little safer by returning to an earlier frame of mind. Varian desperately doesn't want the weight and responsibility of this situation to be on his shoulders. His dad has usually tried to bear the brunt of the blame for his mistakes. But even though his dad's not able to do that right now (ironically tragic), Varian still goes into this mode of regressing and responding with uncontrolled tears instead of immediate anger at the Princess. He's tired, he's given everything he can give. He really does sound like the terrified child that he is at that moment. He doesn't know what to do and would very much like for someone to show up and hug him, tell him everything will be ok and help him fix the problem.

But let’s like, consider this. It can be said that children move on from their mother's guidance to their father's once they reach a certain age. Mothers are the first teachers, who provide the basis for sustaining and prolonging life. They teach you how to eat, provide the nutrients, and take care of your physical hurts and just calm some of your fears as well, and SO much more, giving you the basic primer on how to live your life. It's not that hard to make your Mom proud as long as you're good to her and learn how to use a spoon at the appropriate age. She loves you for nothing, as you are. But once you move on, it can be a long road from mother-love to father-acceptance. Not because fathers are inherently bad or highly demanding, they just tend to value different things in addition to those survival skills that your mom taught you. For true father-acceptance, you must do things worthy of recognition. Talk. Walk. Act like a human. Show moral character. Work in the field, perform feats of strength. That is how you show your worth as a good son. So many things a mother wouldn't require, but a father might really care about. 

Varian makes inventions because that's what he does, hoping his father will at last be impressed with him. Finally, he can gain that father-acceptance he so craves. He needs to see that "pride" in Quirin's eyes to feel that he's worthy of being loved. That get-for-free, endless outpouring of mother-love is no longer in Varian's life for whatever reason. And Varian is just a very sensitive little dude. He thrives on love. And nowhere better is that shown than in the picture hanging in Quirin's room, when both his parents were there with their attention entirely on him. Their love, entirely available. There was nothing he had to do to earn it. It simply was. And to Varian, that is his gold standard. Look at his cute smol face - bliss.

With the loss of mother-love, it's no surprise that Varian went just a little bonkers with the loss of his father. Research shows that when people go without physical / emotional affection for long enough, antisocial personality traits actually can manifest, whether temporarily or perhaps permanently. The onset of which can induce panic, irrational behavior and even temporary psychosis...

If you REALLY want to get theoretical, Raps and Cass provided a tiny bit of that mother-love and in Eugene's case, a little father-acceptance, enough to keep Varian wanting to hang around them. Like a drug, he soaked up the fact that they gave him even the time of day. That's how desperate he is for attention, because attention leads to love and acceptance, and those things make Varian feel safer and more secure in the absence of his mother. (And it’s so depressing to me that he feels he has to do so much just to earn a little scrap of love.) The loss of a mother in general is just very damaging, especially to someone who's sensitive to other peoples' rejection such as Varian. When developing, children sometimes are rejected by their peers or others, making the outside/external world seem unsafe. But they can use their mother as an anchor point to make that outside exploration less scary. That way, even if others reject or mock them (which in Varian's case is a lot, everyone in the village seems to exclude or just dislike him what with his inventions trying to kill them on a regular basis), at least they have someone who genuinely loves them to come home to. An anchor point, a person whose consistency and stability makes the world safe and encourages confidence. Varian needs that and only that, but it was taken from him, for whatever reason. (If we ever find out that there’s a character responsible for that loss... *takes out a bat* i just wanna talk.) Desperate for love, he'll attach to anyone who will listen or shows the slightest bit of interest or kindness to him. Raps, Cass and Eugene have all given him little mini-speeches on how compassionate and smart and unique he is, but it's barely enough. It's like getting a few bread crusts when you're starving for a three-course meal - it'll give you something to keep from going off the edge, but it's never going to fill that void. And he has to practically beg Cass to give her little speech, prompting her with "I was just trying to make you see something in me... something special... I was just being dumb." Most likely a subconscious fish-for-compliments move, but it gets the job done and he gets what he needs - a little validation.

Like others, I just find it kind of gross how far Varian has to go for love. If the people would just take a chance to get to know Varian, they would see that fundamentally, he is (well... was...) basically a harmless kid. Reckless, overconfident, excitable, yes, but he never wanted to hurt anyone. If anything, he only wanted to help them. 

No child should ever live in a society where they have to feel like everyone in their town rejects and/or hates them, and that their only parent is distant. The point is, there's not enough love left in Corona for someone like Varian, who craves and needs response and confirmation that his Dad is proud of him. That validation literally means the difference between his physical and mental health and not - it is enough to make or break him. It's basically the one and only thing he cares about, returning to that time when his family was whole. With adequate mother-love and father-acceptance, Varian could be his best self. He could be very well-adjusted and would probably not have as much maladaptive thinking as he does. He'd be less defensive, more genuinely confident and act more maturely, probably. He’d still be his excitable, lovable self, but with so much less toxic thoughts running through his mind. And he'd be more open to suggestions about how to improve his alchemy. In What the Hair he just came off as insecure and unwilling to change his experiment. But with genuine confidence instilled by his parents' support, he'd probably forgo his pride in the interest of making safer and smaller inventions. He wouldn't feel like he has to prove anything, because he'd know he has as much love as he needs waiting at home. With Varian, everything in his mind and body is out of balance (which is ironic for an alchemist), so it's not surprising that he is such a mess or causes so many disasters...

People might disagree with me on this one but I honestly think Arianna is / might be the key to Varian's redemption. He claims to still be seeking the father-acceptance, but to come back from where he is, he first needs to take a step back and get the purest and most unconditional mother-love - HUGS FOR DAYS YA FEEL ME? - to know that he is still worthy of being loved. He did kidnap Arianna because she was the weak link, but in a way, it may not be that much of an accident, and more of a reaching-out for that mother-love from Rapunzel's mother, on a subconscious level (or not. “i want a mommy so i’m stealing one. no one will stop me...”)

No wonder seeing Rapunzel and both of her parents embrace set him off. That pretty much symbolized everything Varian was trying to get to... but couldn't.  

tl;dr someone get me adoption papers NOW so I can adopt this child

[bestworstcase]

🎥 and i know you already answered this buuuut just in case u have something else big lying around 💥

ask game

🎥- Favorite Season (1/2/3)?

vbhgfhjdfshjd you know. i rag on it constantly but 3. like, flawed as it is– the essentials of it, the broad strokes of the plot arc and lore and cass breaking away from rapunzel and of course demon hours, that’s... what i wanted out of the show, ultimately. and the poor execution is just an opportunity for me to tear it apart and put it back together again the way i like, which is not... a downside, in my mind, because that’s pretty integral to how i enjoy things. 

that being said 2 gets points for having RATGT in it

💥- A big a opinion you have related to the Tangled movie/series?

i mean u know me i hoard opinions like a dragon hoards treasure but one i don’t think i’ve fully voiced on here before is that i actually like where rapunzel’s characterization goes in s3. the frustration for me is that it doesn’t feel like it was intentional, and that’s a problem of poor writing that creates an annoying tonal dissonance.

but like, if we look at rapunzel’s behavior in s3 and take that at face value... like you said here rapunzel kind of does this weird swerve where despite her refusal to give up on cass she also feels much quicker to anger, quicker to judgment, quicker to making snap decisions. she stops accepting blame for things that aren’t her fault and she also becomes more forceful about trying to get her way (e.g. in KAQOH). she verbalizes care and concern for cass without proactively doing...anything about the situation. she meets the mind trap theft with a shrug, meets zhan tiri’s gloating with a shrug, and appears to only care about varian’s kidnapping because it ruins eugene’s birthday and her planned proposal. 

and like, much as i get the impulse to read that as rapunzel repressing her true feelings and putting on a happy front so solid she even starts to believe it... i don’t think there’s a lot of textual evidence for that reading, in the end, just as there isn’t a lot of textual evidence for the reading that cass is using the gothel thing as an easy focal point for all her other issues with rapunzel; because in both cases, there’s never any narrative payoff for these supposed acts of repression. the deeper truth never comes out, is never mentioned or even hinted out. 

and that doesn’t make them bad readings per se but it does make them... not super interesting to me, because damn it if characters are hardcore repressing their feelings i want that to MATTER and i want to see the CONSEQUENCES for that. 

conversely

even though i know it wasn’t the intention, i like reading rapunzel as genuinely growing into a more selfish, more callous person in response to all the shit that happens in s2. i think that makes sense! and i think it is a really fascinating avenue for her character! and i think it opens up a lot of really interesting and complicated options for further growth–like

1) for eighteen years, rapunzel grows up sheltered and inculcated with terror regarding everything outside her tower. then she learns that her “mother” is actually her kidnapper, goes through a harrowing experience that ends in gothel dying pretty horribly right before her eyes, and then goes straight to her real parents in corona

2) where she is then immediately thrust into a position of enormous authority and responsibility and expected to get up to speed on how to be a competent princess in, like, six months

3) then at the six month mark she gets a whole bunch of magic destiny bullshit dumped in her lap on top of everything else

4) she tries so hard to break herself free of the psychological chains gothel left her with, to see the goodness in the world and trust people and embrace the world outside the tower... and then the QFAD stuff happens, and she’s traumatized, and the fallout of that traumatizes her more so she sort of snaps herself back into Repression Mode and pretending everything is fine, and that leads indirectly to varian, her friend, snapping and assaulting the kingdom and kidnapping her mom and trying to kill her mom and best friend.

5) so she Immediately Leaves corona to deal with the magic destiny bullshit but that’s scary so she treats it more like a vacation than a serious quest but that causes friction between her and her best friend and she’s just coping! not very well but she’s trying her best!

6) but her best isn’t good enough and things with cass keep getting more and more tense and the magic bullshit destiny keeps getting more and more real as they get closer to the DK and more information comes to light... and then the great tree happens, and rapunzel makes a choice that leads directly to cassandra getting horrifically injured

7) and this is not a situation that rapunzel is equipped to handle AT ALL so she dumps whatever guilt and shame she feels onto cass as anger and blame and gets extremely anxious and pushy about trying to make cass apologize/accept this narrative that the injury was cass’s fault and not rapunzel’s, and it even seems to work for a while because cass ends up being the one who apologizes at the end of RDO...

8) ...but at this point like, the whole friendship has broken down, right? cass is so shut down and alienated that after RDO imo it was only a matter of time before cass left altogether, and it’s just rapunzel’s bad luck that zhan tiri stepped in to be that final trigger to make that happen. but like from rapunzel’s perspective, everything was fine after RDO until cass just. suddenly. lashed out at her and stole the moonstone and ran away to do lord knows what. 

9) and to make matters worse the only explanation cass offers is that she’s mad at rapunzel because gothel was cass’s mom and abandoned her, something that obviously is not rapunzel’s fault. and rapunzel at this point has PLENTY of experience being blamed for shit that isn’t her fault, and very little experience dealing with guilt for things that are her fault in a healthy way (in fact RDO ended up rewarding rapunzel for refusing to deal with her guilt in a healthy way) so... she has very little incentive to take cassandra’s betrayal as a reason to introspect on her own behavior, right? she has no reason to stop and think well what did i do to make her feel like she had to do that instead of talking to me about it? 

10) and the rest of the friend group likes raps better than cass so they also don’t have any reason to be like hey, rapunzel, we didn’t treat her very well, did we? 

11) and then she returns to an environment where she is effectively the acting queen, and her friend group has this narrative that rapunzel is a kind and compassionate person almost to a fault (because she is) so she is constantly having this idea that she didn’t do anything wrong, this was all cass reinforced. [remember how in DC eugene implicitly agrees with rapunzel’s sentiment that cass, not rapunzel, is to blame for cass’s injury? “that’s how cass hurt her hand”] 

12) and frankly all this seems to me like a PERFECT storm for some of the behaviors rapunzel observed/inherited from gothel to float to the surface. she has always been a little pushy, a little prone to not accepting culpability, a little inclined toward black-and-white thinking. right? so for those things to, in the wake of this traumatic betrayal by her best friend, coagulate together into rapunzel being more forceful, more confident, more focused on her own happiness rather than trying to please other people, all while still giving lip service to being compassionate and refusing to ever give up on anyone and missing cassandra... like, that makes sense as a character development for her to undergo, i think. 

and i LIKE that. the only problem is that it goes unremarked upon and it’s clearly not intended for rapunzel to be this way, which means that the narrative ends up sort of presenting all this as ~positive~ character development when it’s... really... not. and that creates that tonal dissonance that i mentioned.

but like, character development does not always need to be positive and it does not always need to be linear. people can get better then worse then better again and that’s fine, and i think there’s just... so much mileage to be gotten, in fanworks, out of taking this negative character development in s3 at face value and then running with it to the logical consequences thereof: i want to see rapunzel’s friends slowly realizing that she has changed in the aftermath of s3, once they don’t literally have a demon waging war on the kingdom to deal with; i want to see rapunzel getting called out, i want to see her struggle as she learns how to deal with guilt and accept blame for her actual mistakes; i want to see rapunzel wrestle with the personality traits she learned from gothel and figuring out who she is and who she wants to be; i want to see her slowly-dawning horror as she realizes how she’s overcorrected from “people-pleaser” and become callous to other people’s feelings, and the work she does to pull herself back onto a healthy middle ground instead. 

like!! i get, i totally get, the impulse in fanworks to just kinda put all this down to poor writing (because that’s what it is) and take the obvious intentions of s3 (that rapunzel has come into her own and found a good, healthy place for herself and does truly care for cass and want to help her etc etc) and roll with that. that’s a totally valid way to read the text esp for the purpose of creating fanworks

but i just think it’s neat and fun to take it at face value and then try to like, work through the consequences of that. let rapunzel have serious flaws 2k20

[bestworstcase]

I mean Cassandra still went after Rapunzel and was manipulated onto trying to kill her,

and all of Cass actions and anger are directed towards Rapz somehow so they still had a bond and in a way Cass abandoned Rapz in a very important mission, all Rapunzel wanted to do was to help a friend that was being manipulated like you said akin to an abusive relationship and Cass started to hostigate and attack Rapz because of following new person she barely knew her anger although understandable doesn’t take into account that Rapz was for the majority of her life an abuse victim as well 1/2

You do have valid points, Rapunzel could have acted bette they may not have been friends anymore on Cassandra behalf, but they still held a bond a relationship, one in which Raps tried to help her and Cassandra did nothing but act more outwardly toxic towards her, Cass refuse to listen to Raps and decided to follow a person she barely knew making her act physical and emotional abusive towards Her friends and family, I understand where Cass is coming from but that doesn’t justify all the abuse she directed towards her community, friends and family who she tried to kill and harm in multiple occasions, The kingdom was still on ruins when she left the harm already done.

emotions are valid, but not the horrible acts that are made through them 2/2

#1: in and of itself, viewed separately from everything that came after, cassandra deciding to leave the group at the end of season two was absolutely the right thing for her to do. the situation, the group dynamic had become so toxic for cass by that point that i don’t think it could have been salvaged without cass leaving.

was rapunzel relying on cass to stick around? yeah. but tough. cass was within her rights to leave, cass was within her rights to prioritize her own well-being, and cass was within her rights to say “fuck off, you’re not my friend.”

#2: it was pointed out to me yesterday (hilariously) that zhan tiri’s introduction to cass mirrors adira’s introduction to rapunzel: both of them show up out of the blue, go “i’m a friend and i’m here to help you find your destiny,” and proceed to act like cryptic advisors for the remainder of their respective quests. should cass have maybe questioned this a bit more? sure, but like. no ones out here saying it was stupid for rapunzel to take adira at her word.

plus zhan tiri makes a big point of empathizing with cassandra’s pain and anger. she acts like she cares that cass is hurting, truly cares, which is something cass never gets from her real friends. (rapunzel does care, but her attempts to help inadvertently come off pretty strongly as “why are you upset? i didn’t do anything wrong. stop being upset it’s making me sad” in comparison to zhan tiri’s “i’m sorry that happened to you” and general focus on how cassandra feels.)

so… why is cass wrong for trusting the person who treats her with compassion? why is she wrong for taking zhan tiri’s side over rapunzel’s when zhan tiri, in the early game especially, treats her so much better? like…trusting the little girl who is nice to her and demonstrates concern for her feelings is the most rational thing cass does for most of her villain arc dbcbxhxvscxvsc

#3: cass focusing on blaming rapunzel for gothel’s abandonment instead of being mad about the many, many, many things that rapunzel is personally responsible for, like for example maiming cass in the great tree, is…clumsy writing. arguments can be made that cass is sublimating all her anger into one easy focal point + that zhan tiri is encouraging this to make tugging those emotional strings easier, but when the narrative never bothers to unpack that… that’s a deeply subtextual reading and i personally don’t consider it to be canonical. there just isn’t enough overt text to support it. anyway; regardless, this is where cass starts to go off the rails.

but at the same time it’s… pretty understandable for her to turn against rapunzel. she has a demon not just validating her hurt and anger but encouraging her to stew in it, and twisting the reality (rapunzel was a toxic friend) into a much more sinister narrative (rapunzel was a malevolent abuser who stole everything from cass and must be destroyed in order for cass to live her own life). and this shift happens over the course of months—months, alone with nobody but zhan tiri dropping poison in her ear. it’s realistic for cass to fall for it.

#4: it is disingenuous to describe any and all acts of violence or malfeasance as abuse. abuse is a pattern that occurs within the context of an inequal relationship; the abuser uses violence as a tool to exert control over the victim. if i go outside and punch a random passerby in the face, i’ve just assaulted them, but that’s not abuse. gothel abused rapunzel; zhan tiri abuses cass; cass does not abuse her friends.

would you day that varian abused rapunzel? would you say that he abused the citizens of corona? no. because he didn’t.

the reason i take issue with this is people like to describe any bad action a villain takes as “abuse” in order to paint them as unforgivable and irredeemable; this is because abusers are notoriously almost impossible to change, far more so than people who commit other types of wrongdoing. this trend turns “abuse” into a meaningless buzzword when it’s used in analysis of fiction and encourages very black and white thinking, neither of which are good.

so let’s say what we mean:

- cass screams at her dad for lying to her all her life, then lashes out and leaves him trapped when he yells back.

- cass crashes eugene’s birthday party to demand the scroll, threatening to attack corona if she’s refused.

- she kidnaps varian and uses a minimum amount of force (ie truth serum) to get him to tell her the moon incantation.

- she assaults varian, rapunzel, and eugene when the latter two come to rescue varian.

- she threatens calliope’s life, attacks rapunzel and eugene when they try to stop her, and steals the mind trap.

- she uses the mind trap on the brotherhood. (this i would qualify as abuse; i think literal mind control is one of those things that automatically counts.)

- she yells at rapunzel and storms away, leaving rapunzel trapped, after she sees what appears to be evidence of rapunzel trying to lie to her / manipulate her

- she impulsively takes over corona after her attempt to surrender/deescalate results in them shooting her in the back without warning. (i’d flip out and raze the city too, tbh)

- she fights rapunzel and tries to steal the sundrop during the eclipse

all of which is bad, of course. and while her reasons for doing it are understandable, none of it is justified by her anger or the hurt fueling that anger. but like. literally no one is arguing that what cass did in s3 wasn’t bad. just that it’s unfair to act like she was stupid or pathetic for falling for zhan tiri’s game, or like she had no reason to be angry, or like her trauma wasn’t a big deal and she should’ve gotten over it and it’s ridiculous for her to react the way she reacted to zhan tiri retraumatizing her, or like victims of abuse who are messy or imperfect or loud or who lash out or who don’t fit the preconceived mold of the tragic, innocent, sad victim are terrible irredeemable monsters… or like rapunzel did nothing wrong and cass was just some terrible friend who went off the deep end for no reason.