Mother Gothel

Mother Gothel is the overall main antagonist of Disney's Tangled franchise, serving as the main antagonist of Tangled, the posthumous overarching antagonist of Tangled: Before Ever After, a posthumous antagonist in Tangled: The Series and it's comic series.

In the film, she kidnapped Rapunzel as an infant because her hair came from a flower she uses to keep herself young and she told a lie to Rapunzel that the outside world is dangerous so she could keep her to herself and kept her in a hidden tower in the forest.

History

Tangled

Before the events in the film, an elderly Gothel finds, uses, and hides the sun flower, born from the sun's dew, that keeps reversing her age whenever she sings to it. But sometime later, the flower is found and given to the queen so that she would not die in childbirth. All the magical flower's power is now in the queen's daughter, so Gothel abducted her and kept her in a hidden tower for 18 years, teaching the little girl to sing for her. Although she tried to cut a lock of Rapunzel's hair to stay young, once cut, it goes from golden blonde to dark brown and loses its power. She spent the following years raising Rapunzel as her daughter and causing her to fear the outside world, which she describes as frightening, dull, selfish, cruel, and unforgiving.

Once Rapunzel turned 18, she begs to see the floating lanterns on her birthday; however, Gothel refuses both musically and angrily. To trick her, Rapunzel asks for special paint for her birthday, a gift that would take three days to get. While reluctant, Gothel believes Rapunzel and sets off.

However, when she sees Maximus, one of the guards' horses, she concerns that someone was searching for Rapunzel. When she arrives at the tower, she is horrified to find that Rapunzel was already gone. Believing that she was kidnapped, Gothel takes a sharp dagger from her drawer and sets out to find her. She passes by the Snuggly Duckling Inn and while paying attention to the thugs and Rapunzel sing, she realizes that no one kidnapped Rapunzel, but she left with a wanted criminal named Flynn Rider (Eugene) instead. Deeply outraged, when one of the men staggers outside and attempts to flirt with her, she threatens him with her dagger unless he tells her where they are.

When she finds their location, she runs into the Stabbington Brothers, Flynn's partners who he abandoned. She gives them the decision of receiving either the princess's tiara that he stole or revenge on Flynn. They unhesitatingly chose revenge. She encounters Rapunzel afterward, saying that Flynn's only with her for the tiara. Unfazed by Gothel's warning, Rapunzel agrees to put him to the test.

Soon, the Stabbington Brothers take the tiara and knock Flynn unconscious and tie him to a boat, making it look like he was abandoning Rapunzel. They try to kidnap her, but Gothel double-crosses them by knocking them unconscious (deliberately making it look like she was rescuing her). She comforts the heartbroken Rapunzel home and leads her home.

Back at the tower, Mother Gothel reminds Rapunzel that the world is intolerant of joy and happiness, and will destroy any ray of sunshine it finds as the finishing touch of destroying the princess' glimmers of optimism. As Gothel leaves Rapunzel's bedroom to fix dinner, Rapunzel has an epiphany and slowly realizes that she's the lost princess and Gothel is nothing but a kidnapping fraud.

Rapunzel confronts Gothel confidently announcing her realization that she's the lost princess and that Gothel kidnapped her from the start. Stunned, Gothel nervously tries to suppress these revelations, but Rapunzel denies her words. With her patience wearing thin, Gothel desperately claims her actions were out of love, but her manipulations no longer have any effect on Rapunzel. Angered Gothel has lied and imprisoned Rapunzel her whole life for her own gain, Rapunzel physically denies the abuse and proclaims Gothel will never again be allowed to use her hair's magic from that moment forward, just as Gothel breaks free only to shatter the mirror. With her mind made, Rapunzel starts to make her leave from the tower, but Gothel drops the charade and slowly and menacingly follows Rapunzel.

When Flynn enters the tower to try and save her, Gothel stabs him from behind and tries to take a shackled Rapunzel away by forcefully drag her out of the tower, with intent on finding a new hideaway where the latter will be forced into slavery, but Rapunzel begs to cure him and says that if she lets her cure him, she will agree to be her captive forever. While being hesitant, Mother Gothel agrees but chains Flynn to the wall.

Rapunzel intended to heal him, but Flynn cuts her hair with a shard of glass from the broken mirror, preferring to die saving Rapunzel than let her be enslaved by Gothel. As she screams in horror as her true age catches up with her, Pascal pulls the length of the cut hair, and Gothel trips over it, causing her to fall out of the tower window. As she falls from an enormous height, her body crumbles into dust and by the time she hits the ground while dying, all that remained of her was her cloak.

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure

Mother Gothel appeared in the series as a posthumous antagonist. She first appeared in the episode "What the Hair?!", where she appeared in a nightmare that Rapunzel was suffering after losing control of her newly grown hair. She reappeared again in the episode "Rapunzeltopia", where Tromus (a disciple of Zhan Tiri) takes on the form of Gothel to haunt Rapunzel in her dream, only for Rapunzel to thwart him by hitting him in the face with a pan.

It is later revealed in the third season that Gothel is the biological mother of Cassandra (the father's identity is never known, however). Despite their blood relation, Gothel cared more about maintaining her eternal youth, even going too far by deliberately abandoning Cassandra for Rapunzel just to avoid being caught by the Royal Guard, leading to Cassandra's adoption by the Captain of the Guards. This event is what drove an embittered Cassandra to develop a fit of certain jealousy towards Rapunzel, even betraying her by taking the Moon Stone for herself to become as powerful as Rapunzel.

She had a secret room with a copy of the Demantis scroll and magic mirrors playing what she recorded when someone touched them. One mirror showed Cassandra a scene where Gothel berated her for her loud sweeping, then another where she scolded Cassandra for not preparing dinner. The small mirror Zhan Tiri took showed Gothel and her daughter together when Gothel explained to Cassandra how to work a music box she had and to know she loved her, but the piece that Zhan Tiri removed revealed it was a distraction and Gothel never actually loved her daughter.

Cass eventually found out this and tried to make up for abandoning Rapunzel, but Zhan Tiri tricked her yet again. After Zhan Tiri absorbed the powers of both the Sundrop and Moonstone, she taunted Cass for suffering the same fate that her mother did: letting her ego be her downfall. However, Cass has had enough and aids Rapunzel in tricking Zhan Tiri infusing both stones, resulting in Zhan Tiri's death.

Trivia

Mother Gothel will become Simba's enemy in Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa's Adventures of Tangled.
Mother Gothel will become Bloom's enemy in Bloom Gets Tangled.
Mother Gothel will become Sunlight's enemy in Sunlight Gets Tangled.
Mother Gothel became Danny's enemy in Danny Gets Tangled with Rapunzel.
Mother Gothel will become Tino's enemy in Tino Tonitini Gets Tangled.
Mother Gothel become Sora's enemy in Sora Gets Tangled.
Mother Gothel became Yogi Bear's enemy in Yogi Bear Gets Tangled with Rapunzel.
Mother Gothel will become Thomas and Twilight Sparkle's enemy in Thomas the Tank Engine Gets Tangled.
Mother Gothel will become Aladar's enemy in Aladar Gets Tangled.
Mother Gothel will come across Barney the Dinosaur in Barney Gets Tangled with Rapunzel. At one point in the movie, when Rapunzel turns against her, she suggests on eating Barney, saying they "taste like chicken".
Mother Gothel returned in Winnie the Pooh vs The Mummy.
Mother Gothel will get revenge on Winnie the Pooh, Yogi Bear and friends Pooh's Adventures of The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.
Mother Gothel will get revenge on Pooh, Bloom, Mickey Mouse, Simba, Alex, SpongeBob, Brer Rabbit, Rapunzel, and their friends in Winnie the Pooh in Fantasmic! (Tokyo Disney Sea).
Mother Gothel is also the mother (for real) of Ralphie the Fire King.
In the Season 3 premiere of Tangled: The Series, she is revealed to be Cassandra's biological mother and abandoned her after taking Rapunzel.
In the series, it is implied that Gothel was the third follower of Zhan Tiri (alongside with Sugracha the Eternal and Tromus), who betrayed her original master, Lord Demanitus. In "Lost and Found", when Demanitus tells Rapunzel and Eugene about the betrayal of his pupils, there are three silhouettes seen, with two of them obviously being Sugracha and Tromus, while the third one bears quite a big resemblance to Gothel. In "A Tale of Two Sisters", when Cassandra and Rapunzel discover the secret room under Gothel's old cottage, they find her notes on the Sun Drop, the healing incantation and the Moonstone, that appears to be a copy of Demanitus Scroll, indicating Gothel's possible background as a former pupil of Demanitus. Also, in the same episode, when one of Gothel's chemicals accidentally catches fire, the flames (and chemical itself) have the same sickly green color, that is associated with Zhan Tiri and his followers. This idea never gets any confirmation from characters throughout the series, though director Chris Sonnenburg, confirms this in an interview.
She will appear in Jewel Sparkles' Adventure as a villain.
Mother Gothel will make her first guest star appearance in a Captain Underpants crossover in George, Harold and Mr. Krupp's Adventures of Sleeping Beauty. In the bonus ending, Professor Poopypants and Melvin Sneedly will convince her to join them, which will lead to the creation of The Association Of Evilness.
She will serve as one of the co-leaders of The Association Of Evilness(along with Merasmus, Zhan Tiri, King Boo, Bart Reynolds and Gabriel Agreste/Hawk Moth).

Mother Gothel

Contents

History

Tangled

Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure

Trivia

Gallery

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