Adrian Says: It's Tangled not Rapunzel

     

     In the 2010 film, Tangled, we meet up with a princess (Rapunzel) who has lived their whole life in a tower because their parental figure (Gothel) tells them that the world outside the tower is very dangerous and it is only safe for Rapunzel to stay in the tower. Following Victoria Lynn Schmidtt's diagram of a heroine's journey, this is Rapunzel's illusion of the perfect world. While Rapunzel wants to explore the outside world, she is influenced by Gothel to stay in the tower because she believes it is a "safe place."

    After a song and dance number, we meet another character named Flynn Rider (real name is Eugene, so I'll be using that name to reference him) who happens to steal a crown from a royal family and runs away with it. He finds Rapunzel's tower and climbs up it, hoping to have some safe shelter from the guards chasing after him. Instead he gets beat with a frying pan by Rapunzel and uses Eugene to prove to Gothel that she can defend herself against the outside world. But of course, Gothel doesn't let Rapunzel go. Realizing that Gothel will never let her leave, she proposes to Gothel to get some new paint for her as a gift. This journey would take Gothel three days to come back, and not being suspicious at all, she goes to get some paint. This is typically the Betrayal/Realization of Schmidtt's step with Rapunzel realizing that she would never be able to leave the tower no matter how much convincing she does, having to take matters into their own hands.

     Rapunzel uses Eugene's stolen crown as leverage to make him take Rapunzel to see the outside world, more specifically, some lanterns that appear at night and are visible through the tower's only entrance. So in a desperate call to get the crown back, Eugene accepts to take Rapunzel to see the night lanterns in person. When they go out, they run into some thugs, do another big musical number and then manages to trap themselves in a cave that slowly starts to fill with water. While all this is happening, Gothel happens to see a horse belonging to the kingdom that had their crown stolen, so she goes back to the tower and notices that only the crown is left in the tower. To keep the movie going, Rapunzel and Eugene manage to escape the cave, thanks to Rapunzel's glowing hair revealing the exit. After that deadly situation, they spend the night in the woods, where Eugene leaves for a bit and Gothel finds Rapunzel. Looking back at Schmidtt's diagram, the Awakening step in Rapunzel is definitely the scene where Rapunzel leaves the tower with Eugene to pursue her goal. And I say this because the Awakening step describes how the whole direction of the heroine's life has changed and in this case, Rapunzel changes the direction of her life by exploring outside of her comfort zone. The next step of "Passing the Gates of Judgement" describes the heroine being scared of the life outside of her regular life, making them give up or surrender. the part where Rapunzel and Eugene almost drown to death if it wasn't for Rapunzel's hair. This is where Rapunzel starts to get that sense of adventure but also starts to understand the dangers of it all too. 

    During the night, Gothel gives the crown to Rapunzel to test Eugene's loyalty. As the following day comes, Rapunzel and Eugene go to see the lanterns. While they have this romantic moment where nothing is chasing them, Rapunzel gives Eugene his crown. At the same time, Eugene notices the guards from when he stole the crown and as Eugene tries to give the crown back to them, he gets tied up so he is away from Rapunzel. As the guards come for Rapunzel, Gothel comes and knocks them out, saving Rapunzel. However, all of this was staged from the beginning, just so Rapunzel would go back to the tower life with Gothel, with the idea that Eugene has also abandoned her. This bit of plot is a little shorter than last time but there isn't much else to say for this scene, other than the fact that Rapunzel got what she wanted for a short time, then immediately her situation became worse than she could have ever imagined. The next step in Schmidtt's diagram is "Eye of the Storm" which describes the heroine having this short period of time to relish in her success before something bad happens. In Tangled, this step occurs with Rapunzel finally getting what she set out for, seeing the lanterns. Of course, she doesn't get a happily ever after just yet, because Gothel still exists. The "Death" step is self-explanatory, the heroine goes through this idea that she failed and that there is no hope for her anymore. In this case, it's Rapunzel going back to the tower with Gothel after Eugene is gone.

    Eugene gets arrested but gets some help breaking out from the thugs who sang in that musical number from before. While that is happening, Rapunzel realizes that she was the missing princess based off of the resemblance of her artwork in the tower and the kingdom's "golden sun." After realizing that Gothel was never her actual mother, Rapunzel doesn't allow her to use her hair ever again, and Gothel being Gothel, ties Rapunzel up and gags her. Eugene comes back to the tower and asks Rapunzel to let down her hair (classic Rapunzel), but when Eugene comes up, he finds Rapunzel tied up before getting stabbed in the back by Gothel. Rapunzel doesn't want to let Eugene die, so she asks Gothel for permission to heal him and in return, she will stay with Gothel forever. Gothel accepts, but Eugene (knowing that Rapunzel would have to live in a life of solitude again) cuts Rapunzel's hair before he can get healed, thus leading Gothel rapidly aging until she turns into dust. This is a Disney movie however, so Eugene gets healed thanks to some voodoo magic still in Rapunzel and Rapunzel lives her life in the kingdom while being married to Eugene, the end. 

    To summarize the last bit of Schmidt's diagram, Eugene coming back to the tower is Rapunzel's "support" but unfortunately that support doesn't last too long. Eugene comes back to life thanks to Rapunzel and she finally finds her strength again. In the end, Rapunzel returns back to the kingdom to officially become reunited with her original family and marries Eugene, giving her a whole new life than what she had before in the start of the movie.