#as with anything the TLDR is gothel fucked rapunzel up a LOT

[bestworstcase]

In what way is Rapunzel’s mindset when it comes to criminals more black and white and morally stunted?

than cassandra’s?

cass splits the difference between understanding that past behavior is a good predictor of present behavior whilst also 1. not caring about The Law for its own sake and 2. not treating people with criminal backgrounds like they’re somehow a different or lesser category of human from everyone else. e.g., she’s initially suspicious of lance for the same reasons eugene is—because he acts exactly like an unrepentant thief casing the palace would act (including trying to pocket valuables right in front of her!)—but the instant lance decides hey i’m not gonna steal anymore cass just. accepts that and never has a single problem with lance ever again. likewise she gets along fine with the pub thugs and fits right in with the vardarans. the criminals she has problems with are exclusively the ones Actively Causing Problems for her or people she cares about.

(cassandra is also. you know. a criminal herself gkgjfjdhkg she commits treason in before ever after!)

rapunzel on the other hand has. a very egocentric model of morality—which is natural and understandable given the isolation in which she was raised and the egotistical abuser who raised her. it’s “things that i don’t like: Bad; things i do like: Good,” with a side helping of the only type of interpersonal conflict rapunzel has ANY exposure to before she turns 18 is gothel’s adversarial and narcissistic zero sum approach where someone is always 100% right and the other person has to be 100% wrong and the person who is right is always the one who cries the loudest about their feelings being hurt.

i think this is most obvious with how rapunzel reacts to varian in TAR—she’s shocked and horrified when he says he only cares about saving his dad, she treats the victimless crime of stealing a dead flower of solely sentimental value as a Morally Heinous Act and is more concerned about the fact that varian “tricked her” into stealing it (when what actually happened is more or less he went “hey i need the flower to save my dad” and she went “NO STEALING IS WRONG?!” so he tried to mollify her by hedging about how much of it he needed—the fact that his dad was encased in a block of magical amber at the time didn’t even register to her as a justifiable reason to steal something no one was using anyway).

but at the same time when a year later he demonstrates an inkling of regret and desire to be friends again she welcomes him back into the fold with zero hesitation, bc she has an underlying mindset of “nice to me = good” that makes it very easy for her to forgive people who treat her, well, nicely. which is a double-edged sword because it can make her very compassionate and willing to give second chances—valuable traits for a leader!—but it also makes her easy to take advantage of—think sugracha, tromus, or even the much less dire situation of lance taking advantage of her hospitality and willingness to turn a blind eye to obvious red flags on the grounds of lance being Charming and Eugene’s Friend.

(in a similar vein: rapunzel won’t hear a word against the pub thugs, who are *bandits,* because they have nice hobbies that she appreciates and they have a soft spot for her, in contrast to cassandra who can both acknowledge that the pub thugs are…bandits whilst still treating them the same as she treats any other person.)

all this gets muddied further by tts’ inability/refusal to deal with things like…the separatists or caine, whose crimes mostly amount to Rebelling Against The Monarchy That Fucked Us Over, which because raps ends up *in charge* of corona at the end of the series but makes zero effort to even open a conversation with caine or andrew regarding how she can alleviate their problems or make reparations for the shit her kingdom did to them, ends up creating the implication that rapunzel is only invested in reforming criminals who are willing to be buddy-buddy with her. i don’t think that implication is *intended* but it’s a valid reading of the text nonetheless.

(the very plot driven writing is also a factor here—rapunzel jumps to the conclusion that varian is evil in part because the narrative *needs* her to think he’s evil, and that’s also why neither eugene nor cass challenges her on that conclusion despite the whole… they know his dad is trapped and he’s being hunted by frederic’s secret police thing. to an extent we’ve got to rely on some of the lower stakes examples like one angry princess or the vardaros arc or how cass despite wanting to be a guard isn’t particularly interested in catching the strikers in BBOC whereas rapunzel is thinking up traps and lance and eugene have a whole elaborate investigation, etc, to get a sense of like, the baseline of their characters when not being smushed around like play-doh to fit the needs of the overarching plot.)

and for fanworks at least it’s an implication i like to take seriously as, like, a starting point for rapunzel’s basic mindset, bc it’s something she can *grow out of* through time and experience and being challenged on it by characters who are allowed to challenge her because i don’t have disney executives breathing down my neck about Not Criticizing The Monarchy In A Disney Princess Show.

ETA: this isn’t to say that cass is More Moral than rapunzel—rapunzel has a very strong (and black and white) moral code whereas i think cass is pretty amoral in general—just that *because* cass is amoral and indifferent about lawbreaking unless it’s personally relevant to herself she ends up being both more realistic and more reasonable towards people with criminal pasts (or presents) than rapunzel is

[bloojayoolie]

Alive, Ariel, and Bad: waltdisneyconfessions It bothers me how male characters like Triton, the Sultan, and Chief Tui can all act very overprotective and try to stop their daughters from leaving home, but it's only Mother Gothel whose a villain because of it. It feels like a sexist double standard. takashi0: rainbowloliofjustice: lethal-cuddles: a-salty-scythe-meister: kayrowhitesyrup: someoneintheshadow456: valarie-lynn: waltdisneyconfessions: It bothers me how male characters like Triton, the Sultan, and Chief Tui can all act overprotective and try to stop their daughters from leaving home, but it’s only Mother Gothel whose a villain because of it. It feels like a sexist double standard. Triton was afraid of humans because his wife was killed, Ariel also had pretty much free range of the ocean if she had time to amass that massive collection. Sultan was…a sultan? Also probably kept Jasmine inside for her own protection. Chief Tui was terrified of the ocean because of past experience. Gothel kidnapped Rapunzel and only cared about the magic that kept her young. Yeah, totally the same situation and the only difference is sexual bias. Also…Frollo? Also Sultan said “I’m not going to be alive forever, I want to make sure you are provided for and taken care of” as the reason for why he wants to get Jasmine married. And he even says to Jafar “Jasmine hated those guys, she can’t marry someone she hates.” That shows he didn’t want her to be unhappy in her marriage.  Triton and Chief Tui know that life is dangerous. As someone who is an older sibling and helped raising her younger siblings I know that very powerful overprotective feeling. You know the dangers of the world. You know the world is uncaring and unkind. You know people aren’t afraid to play dirty and to hurt innocent people to get what they want. So you try to shield your children/siblings from such a scary world because you don’t want them to get hurt. You don’t want your child/sibling dying because someone was so uncaring of another life. Could triton and Chief tui be more understanding of their children’s dreams and passions? Yes! But again these are parents who faces the harshness of the world and wanted to protect their children from that. Jasmin is a princess, royalty are always going to have someone try to kill them, invade their lands, etc. at least sultan was allowing his daughter to choose the man she loved. He was aware of the dangers she faced but still wanted to make her happy. A lot of Disney parents are loving and caring and they want the best for their children, though sometimes like all parents they mess up along the way. Raising and caring for another human is tough. Frollo and mother Gothal are seen as villains because they aren’t trying to protect their “children” from the harshness of the world. Oh yes they say they are but it’s a way to control them. It’s a way to keep their “children “ under their thumbs. It wasn’t done out of love and care and a protectiveness. But control. Gothal only want repunzal for her magic hair to stay young forever. And Frollo didn’t think twice about killing a BABY! ^^ Disney dads truely only wanted what they felt was best for their daughters (sans Frollo). Mother Gothal kidnapped a baby and emotionally and mentally abused her for 18 years. ALL TO STAY YOUNG FOREVER BY USING HER HAIR! fucks sake The reason that mother Gothel is treated like a villain is that she has no actual care towards Rapunzel other than her magic hair.  Literally none.  Every other time, she’s emotionally and mentally abusive towards Rapunzel, lies to her, and gaslights her. She’s manipulative and everything she did was for her own benefit, not out of genuine love and care for Rapunzel.  That’s why she is treated like a villain. It isn’t a sexist double standard when she is genuinely abusive.  Meanwhile, Chief Tui, Sultan, and Triton have made mistakes dealing with their children but what parent doesn’t make mistakes? It shows them being people. People who wanted the best for their children even if they were overbearing or overprotective. One thing that has been relatively consistent among Disney is that they show parents as people who are not as understanding as they should be towards their kids but ultimately still good people who just want to do the best thing for their kids rather than showing them as ungodly saints who never make mistakes and never do anything wrong.  Hell, even though she isn’t Disney per se, you could easily include Merida’s mother as a counterpoint in all of this. Elinor behaves in similar ways that Chief Tui, Sultan, and Triton do regarding their daughters. Elinor is overprotective and overbearing, she destroyed Merida’s bow out of frustration and immediately regretted it, etc.  Yet she is never shown to actually be a bad person. She’s shown to have made mistakes, just like they did, but not an awful person or villain.  #tldr; the reason mother gothel is a villain is because she’s emotionally abusive#me thinks the person who submitted this didn’t really watch the movie#because you can see every moment of abusive that she puts rapunzel through…#STARTIGN WITH KIDNAPPING HER