Rapunzel vs. Tangled

“Rapunzel! Let down your hair!” That’s about one of the only things similar between Rapunzel by the Grimms Brothers and Tangled.

In the original Rapunzel, the parents give her up because they stole the magic flower and when a prince stumbles upon her tower, they plan to run away together. Rapunzel accidentally tells of her pregnancy to her “mother” and she gets her hair cut off and sent into the woods. The prince is tricked into the tower and blinded by the “mother” but eventually stumbles upon Rapunzel and their children in the woods where her tears save his vision

The similarities between the two are the magic flower turned into a child with magic hair and that this child is not with her actual family but a mother who wants her powers. And of course, the tower Rapunzel is locked in and that she eventually loses her magic hair and her tears turn magical.

But that’s about it, the differences are very much more astounding. Of course in the original, Rapunzel falls in love with a prince, but in the movie she falls in love with a theft that helps her on a journey.

And in Tangled, Rapunzel is taken from her parents and wants nothing more than to leave the tower to see the magic lights. Rapunzel gets her happy ending in both but in Tangled, she ends up back with her parents while in the original she is reunited with the Prince.

The question is, why did Disney create such a loose interpretation? Disney’s main point in Tangled was to get across that feministic power. In the Grimms Brothers tale, Rapunzel doesn’t do for herself while Rapunzel in Tangled is very much assertive and does her own thing.