Cassandra’s background

I wouldn’t change her connection to Mother Gothel—in fact, I believe Cassandra being her biological daughter is a powerful addition to her role as Rapunzel’s foil.

Cassandra’s reasons

Cassandra’s conflicting relationship with Rapunzel makes sense … until it doesn’t.

Throughout seasons 1 and 2, we see Cassandra’s struggling with her role as lady-in-waiting because her dream is to be a member of the Royal Guard; the lingering threat of being sent to a convent only compounds her dissatisfaction. Being the Captain’s daughter, she clearly grew up in a position of privilege, but she’s close enough to royals to know that she doesn’t quite belong.

I would highlight this ambivalence by making Cassandra’s relationship with the monarchy more rocky and complicated.

Gothel’s background

Cassandra has no recollection of her mother, but one day, a memory resurfaces. Stubborn as she is, she hammers her father with questions, until finally he concedes and explains—if vaguely still—that she had been found frolicking with a lord. The relationship was frowned upon, and once discovered, Cassandra’s mother had eloped.

This is only part of the truth.

Queen Arianna didn’t merely happen to fall ill while giving birth; she’d been sick for a while, and her condition had been slowly deteriorating throughout the pregnancy. This led to the rumor that the king and his men were desperately looking for a cure. Gothel grew obsessed with the idea that they might steal the Sundrop Flower from her. Because she couldn’t displace it but only hide it, she infiltrated the castle to keep a watchful eye on the king’s men, but it wasn’t enough.

Once Rapunzel was born, Gothel stole her away, leaving Cassandra behind. 

Cassandra and Rapunzel’s friendship

Season 1 and 2 would play similarly to how they already are, with more focus on the disparity and power imbalance in Cassandra and Rapunzel’s friendship. 

Rapunzel starts off very naive, believing that her parents are perfect and incapable of any wrongdoing. She tries to form a friendship with Cassandra, but Cassandra is very hesitant at first. What happened to her mother has only deepened her wariness of the crown, and she fears that overstepping might bring about a similar fate. Growing up, she would also notice that the queen and king would sometimes watch her with a scornful eye, and she believes this was because of what her mother had done—which in a way is true. (Keep it in mind; we’ll get to it later.)

Eventually, Cassandra and Rapunzel become friends, and Cassandra tentatively starts challenging Rapunzel’s views of the world. Rapunzel sees it for herself during Varian’s villain arc, when the consequences of her father’s poor decisions come knocking at the door.

I wouldn’t make Friederic and Arianna unsympathetic. Losing a child scars you forever. They clearly care about Rapunzel’s well-being, but are so blinded by their own fears of losing her again that they can see past it.

The peak of Cassandra and Rapunzel’s friendship comes when they share their traumas with each other. Rapunzel opens up about her experiences with Mother Gothel, admitting that despite everything, she still thinks of Gothel as her mother and doesn’t know what her parents are thinking. If we’re still aiming for a children’s show, I would present Rapunzel’s trauma in a way that’s digestible for the audience, without sweeping it under the rug.

It’s Cassandra’s moment to share what happened with her mother instead. She still has nightmares about it, and the scariest part is that she can’t even remember her mother’s face. This would serve as foreshadowing to Cassandra’s eventual breaking point.

Cassandra’s breaking point

When I say breaking point, I mean it. Zhan Tiri absolutely destroys Cassandra. She shows her every instance of neglect by her mother, making her feel completely worthless and undeserving of love. She replays the moment Gothel abandons her, which feels so normal and devoid of emotion that Cassandra feels numb and empty. Her mother simply tells her to go to sleep and leaves to kidnap Rapunzel, not even bidding Cassandra goodbye.

Zhan Tiri forces Cassandra to watch her younger self weeping again and again. It lasts only a few hours, but to Cassandra, it feels like an eternity. This is straight-up psychological torture.

Then Zhan Tiri shifts focus to how gentle and motherly Gothel is with Rapunzel. Numbed by pain and consumed by hatred, Cassandra doesn’t initially recognize that it’s only gaslighting and emotional manipulation.

Another scene unfolds. Cassandra stands in her father’s office while the queen speaks to him. The queen isn’t stupid; she’s figured it out. She asks if Cassandra is the daughter of the woman who stole her child, and the Captain denies it. But the queen presses, and he eventually confesses. He begs her not to send Cassandra away.

I specifically chose Queen Arianna over King Friederic for this scene because she serves as a foil to Gothel. Gothel cared so little for Cassandra that she simply abandoned her without a second thought. Queen Arianna, however, is so torn by grief that she would do anything to have Rapunzel back. 

Queen Arianna forbids the Captain from taking Cassandra to the palace at first. Her contempt eventually fades, but deep down, she has a complicated relationship with Cassandra. On one hand, she resents her for what her mother did, believing Rapunzel should have been the one to thrive. On the other hand, she sees how much the Captain cares for Cassandra, and is touched by it.

Again, I don’t view the king and queen as either heroes or villains. Setting aside their titles, they’re just two parents forever haunted by the loss of their first and only child.

The moment Zhan Tiri shows Cassandra this exchange, everything falls into place. Cassandra feels betrayed by both Rapunzel and the monarchy, leaving the House of Yesterday’s Tomorrow with a renewed sense of hatred.

Cassandra’s Villain (And Consequential Redemption) Arc

As controversial as it may sound, I would still have Cassandra blame Rapunzel for what happened with Gothel. I know it’s not fair, but intense feelings of hatred often aren’t. I would emphasize Cassandra’s jealousy over how Gothel loved Rapunzel but not her, despite Cassandra being her biological daughter.

Rapunzel would counter by telling Cassandra that Gothel never loved anyone but herself, and it took Rapunzel eighteen years of emotional manipulation to understand that.

I imagine a scene where Rapunzel breaks down in tears and confesses that she still sees Gothel in her nightmares and fears she’ll never go away. 

Cassandra and Rapunzel’s making-out session would happen mid-season. I think the general consensus is that on top of Cassandra’s rushed arc, the pacing of season 3 was all over the place, alternating between fillers and emotional episodes in an almost anti-climactic way. I’m all for fillers—handled properly, they can add so much depth to a story—but season 3 isn’t the time for that. Though, they can still be included in moderation.

So. Cassandra and Rapunzel make peace. Cassandra still has to make amends for what she’s done. Possibly the major critique to Cassandra’s (rushed) redemption arc is that as opposed to Varian, who not only had to pay for his actions but also earn forgiveness, Cassandra gets off relatively easily.

In my version, she’d spend the second half of season 3 working to redeem herself. For this, I would focus on her reintegration into the palace of Corona. Because her father is well-respected and beloved, I would spend season 1 showing the audience how people—Captain’s men, servants, and so on—are fond of Cassandra because they’ve watched her grow up. She wasn’t anything extraordinary, but she was always around, and they grew accustomed to her presence.

Cassandra’s betrayal shakes them, and once she returns to the palace, she’s met with frowns and skeptical looks. Rapunzel argues with her parents over Cassandra, convincing them she deserves to stay, but they refuse to listen to reason and have her thrown in jail.

In the middle of the night, Rapunzel goes to Cassandra’s cell and offers to break her out. Tempted as she is, Cassandra refuses. She tells Rapunzel that, while she doesn’t know if she still has a place in Corona, she wants to atone for her mistakes first. She’s tired of running away.

Eventually, Cassandra is released. She slowly regains the trust of people around her as she helps Rapunzel craft a plan to defeat Zhan Tiri. (That part is still a bit blurry. I focused more on Cassandra than the plot concerning Zhan Tiri.)

As I mentioned before, over time, Rapunzel comes to view the monarchy more leniently. Mind you, I wouldn’t write anything anti-monarchy—this is still Disney, after all—but I would have Rapunzel acknowledge the flaws of her family and promise Cassandra that she will do right by the Coronan people. This subplot would also be used to flesh out Varian, who was also deeply affected by the monarchy’s wrongdoings. (I have many thoughts about Varian, too, but this was neither the time nor the place to discuss them.)

Cassandra’s ending

I’m fond of the idea of Cassandra temporarily leaving Corona, but this time, she does so having made amends for her past mistakes. She tells Rapunzel that while Corona will always be her home, she needs time away from it to figure out what kind of person she wants to be. 

This serves as a nice parallel to the Cassandra we meet at the beginning of the series. In season 1, she’s obsessed with joining the Guards and can’t picture herself doing anything else, even though she has mixed feelings about the monarchy. But by the end of season 3, she realizes that she was letting a title define her entire life. She still wants to serve in a capacity like a soldier, but she knows she must first figure out who she truly is.

... And that’s all! If you have any thoughts, let me know.

I've been working on a timeline and keep finding conflicting claims for when Raps' birthday is.

This makes Tangled the first movie from the CGI era to be referenced in the game.

The boy heading this event is Riddle, who's based on Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts but has a very similar character arc to Rapunzel about realizing that his mother did not know best.

Anyway, I can't wait for this! I'll probably come back with the art for the event after it drops.

My partner has wanted this mug ever since we saw it in a Disney store years ago. She’s regretted not buying this and it’s been out of stock everywhere since. Any help is appreciated

a birthday gift, they reminded me of Tangled

this guy, Smarty Pants, raises a lot of good questions about the tangled movie (only the movie). even with the show, a lot of things are still left unanswered. is tangled just one of those movies where you have to suspend your disbelief in order for it to work? the movie is still great, sure, but, i don't know. does anyone wanna try to fill in the blanks?

Tangled Doesn't Make ANY Sense!

So I had a dream where Flynn Rider was actually 40 at the time of the events in the movie and in this universe; other forms of magical Anti aging exist other than the sun flower. This is important to keep in mind.

So with this other form of anti aging, Flynn uses it to be 20 so he's a faster thief. He's comfortable with himself at 40 and uses his older self as a disguise. He ages much slower than Gothel and just looked like the guy who voiced him looks like now. Nothing ugly.

In my dream Rapunzel ends up finding out that he's actually forty and I remember her not being alarmed, just a bit surprised. In the dream they weren't a close couple yet.

Anyway I wanted the subreddits input.

Is it just me? I can't put my finger on why, but she bothers me! It's like she's too confident? In the movie I understand she was abused and gaslighted, but even when she was confident, she had a different air about her that I liked more in the movie. In the series she's just too much!

Anyone else agree?

i'm already asking why she would have one, but HOW could she bear a child? she's ancient. you could argue she had a child thanks to the sundrop giving her youth, but that's another question, she seems to constantly shift between old and young during her flashbacks. and cassandra was 4 years old in all of them. if she was always accessing the sundrop, how did she revert to old age so quickly? she only reverts to old age in the movie when she touches rapunzel's decayed hair. otherwise, wouldn't she age normally before and after regaining her youth?

Would you want a Tangled live action movie to be very different from the animated movie?

Some of the better Disney remake movies like Cinderella, Cruella, and The Jungle Book were pretty different from their animated counterparts. Do you want a Tangled remake to be very different from the animated movie?

Yes I would like a Tangled live action movie to be very different from the animated movie. The Rapunzel fairy tale is fairly simple, prince goes to tower and climbs Rapunzel's hair.

You can really make the story set in any time period or location. I'd like to see Disney make a very different setting for a Tangled remake movie. Maybe something like a wacky post apocalyptic scrap punk setting where the tower is this mysterious tower made of scraps from a previous civilization. And Rapunzel is rescued by a daring rogue just out to survive for another day of life.