The Brothers Grimm knew that people don’t usually go blind from a fall, so they added some convenient thorns that get into the prince’s eyes. He ends up falling from the tower and going blind. Once Gothel finds out about their relationship, she cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and sends her and the children away, then uses the hair to trap the prince. But they didn’t remove the part where she gives birth to his children, because babies come from storks. To make the story child-friendly, the Brothers Grimm edited their version so that Rapunzel reveals his visits with a brainless slip of the tongue instead. Originally, Gothel discovers he is visiting Rapunzel because she gets pregnant. But he charms her, and they make with the smoochies. Rapunzel lets him up after hearing him call to her, only to be completely surprised when there’s a guy in her tower. In Persinette, it’s suggested she locks her in the tower because she’s a loving, but seriously controlling, mother.ĭisney’s Flynn is a big deviation from the male lead in the original – a generic, unnamed prince who hears Rapunzel singing when he’s wandering through the woods and falls in love. The enchantress doesn’t need the girl for any magical purpose. Gothel takes the girl when she is born, names her after the plant, and the parents exit the story. Rapunzel’s parents were just commoners, so when Gothel catches Rapunzel’s father stealing the plant for his wife, he only gets her to spare him by promising their child to her. * This was a problem because it was growing in the forbidden garden of an enchantress named Gothel. In both versions, before Rapunzel was born, her mother desired the plant so badly that without it she would die. The original name of the story and maiden is a reference to parsley, while the Grimm version is a reference to rampion. They took it from a German translation of the French Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de la Force, which was probably inspired by the folktale Petrosinella. Tangled is based on Rapunzel, a fairy tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm. Let’s look under the hood and see where their stories came from. Disney purchased Pixar in 2006, and these three movies, one from Pixar and two from Disney, clearly show the influence of both studios. I’ve now covered three quarters of the Disney Princesses, and now we’ve finally entered the era of computer animation.

This is part 4 in the series: The Origins of the Disney Princesses

Princess brave movie