ABC’s Once Upon A Time is a melting pot of every fairytale under the sun. From the Brother’s Grimm fairytales to Disney princesses, every character in the series represents an aspect of classic children’s literature. As is to be expected, they’ve done quite a bit to change up the classic stories.
- The popularity of recent films like The Princess and the enthusiasm for upcoming projects like The School for Good and Evil prove that fairytale adaptations are needed now more than ever to investigate the true meaning of good and evil. Once Upon A Time was one of very few series-length explorations of the classic tales, and its twisting and repurposing of fairytale characters like Rapunzel and Cinderella’s evil stepmother remind viewers that everyone has the potential to be both a hero and a villain depending on how they respond to the challenges life throws at them.
Rapunzel Tremaine, a prominent character in the show’s final season, is based on the story of a princess who is trapped in a tower for many years and is known for her excessively long hair. However, she is shown to be much more three-dimensional than that, and she differs in many ways from her Brothers Grimm counterpart.
She Goes Into The Tower Willingly
In the original story, Rapunzel was taken to the tower as a child as payment for her parents’ theft. She didn’t know any other life, which led to the twisted maternal relationship she forms with Mother Gothel. In Once Upon A Time, she actually goes into the tower willingly, because Mother Gothel promises that her captivity will ensure her husband and children’s health.
This is a big change from the original because it means Rapunzel knew exactly what she was missing. She had a real family out there, and while she wanted to see them again, she also knew that being away from them was for their protection. She was the one in control, not Gothel.
Rapunzel Has Two Daughters Named Anastasia And Drizella
While Disney fans may not know it based on Tangled’s version of events, the fairytale version of Rapunzel does have children. In many versions, her pregnancy is how Mother Gothel finds out that she has been meeting up with her prince, and she gives birth to twins alone in the wilderness. Here, Once Upon A Time may actually be kinder.
Rapunzel Tremaine has two daughters before she goes into the tower, and she devotes all her energy to them. Tying in with the Cinderella side of her character, the two girls are known as Anastasia and Drizella, the names Disney chose for Cinderella’s stepsisters. Unlike the Disney version, however, Rapunzel Tremaine prefers Anastasia to Drizella, which makes it that much harder for her when Anastasia dies.
She Escapes From The Tower Herself
Rapunzel is locked in the tower with little more to do than wait in the classic fairytale. Her prince promises to rescue her, but they end up being caught by Mother Gothel, who casts Rapunzel into the woods. She doesn’t have any agency, and her escape ends up being more of a punishment than a relief.
However, Rapunzel Tremaine was able to be a bit more resourceful, proving that Rapunzel is a proper hero. After being imprisoned in the tower for six years, Rapunzel cuts off her extremely long hair and, attaching it to a hook, climbs down from the tower. She then follows a bunch of floating lanterns back home. No prince or punishment required.
She Works As A Servant For Her Husband
Rapunzel, in the original fairytale, is happily connected to her prince as his wife. Rapunzel Tremaine, unfortunately, returns home after six years to find her husband, Mark, married to a woman named Cecilia. To make matters worse, he has welcomed her daughter, Ella, into their family.
To reconnect with her daughters, Rapunzel has to work as a maid under her own roof. Though the family is kind to her, she is treated like an outsider. Her daughter Drizella’s continued distance and her jealousy at Mark’s devotion to Cecilia cause Rapunzel to grow dark and take what she wants by force.
She Is Much More Ruthless
The original Rapunzel is a sweet and demure character, but Rapunzel Tremaine is much more ruthless. After Anastasia is killed, Rapunzel fights back, attempting to poison her husband’s new wife and enslaving her daughter, who she refers to as Cinderella. She had been tested for her purity and goodness, and soundly failed.
During the Fifth Curse, she becomes the cold and cruel CEO of Belfrey Developments. Not only does she forcibly take custody of her granddaughter Lucy, but she also goes out of her way to make it impossible for Jacinda, the girl’s mother, to even see her daughter. Her backstory may be tragic, but she responded to it with cruelty.
Rapunzel Becomes Cinderella’s Evil Stepmother
The biggest change between the classic story and Once Upon A Time’s version is that Rapunzel’s character is mixed with another: Cinderella’s evil stepmother Lady Tremaine. This was her name before she was sent to the tower, but she becomes more similar to the movie character after she breaks out.
When Rapunzel returns to her family, she finds that they have moved on without her, with her husband marrying a woman whose daughter is named Ella. While technically Rapunzel was Marcus’s first wife, she ends up becoming Cinderella’s stepmother after her escape.
Rapunzel Blames Cinderella For Her Daughter’s Death
In the original version of Cinderella, the wicked stepmother hates Cinderella simply because she isn’t her biological daughter. Sometimes, this is worsened by her frustration with her husband’s continued devotion to his late wife. But in Rapunzel’s case, she has a real reason to hate her stepdaughter.
While the family was sharing a fun day out on a frozen lake, the ice cracked and Ella and Anastasia fell in. Marcus Tremaine jumped in to save them but could only grab one. Ella. This sealed Rapunzel’s hatred for her, because she believed that Marcus chose Ella over Anastasia, and that choice led to her favorite child’s death.
She Attempts To Get Gothel On Her Side
In the original fairytale, Rapunzel is promised to an unnamed sorceress before her birth, who plays a purely villainous role in the story. Tangled complicates this narrative by establishing an affectionate relationship between Mother Gothel and Rapunzel, even as she goes out of her way to keep Rapunzel subdued.
While Gothel is likewise villainous in Once Upon A Time, Rapunzel (AKA Victoria) tries to get Gothel to work with her in reviving her daughter. Gothel uses her magic to preserve Anastasia’s body, but her true motivations soon become clear. Rapunzel knows that Gothel is selfish and evil, but she still tries to get her to do what she wants, forming an alliance that her fairytale counterparts never would.
Rapunzel Punishes Cinderella With Her Own Fate
When Rapunzel returned home, she was forced to be a maid for her own family, and this is precisely the fate that she forces on Cinderella. In the original stories, there is no indication that Rapunzel ever punished anyone after she escaped, and Cinderella’s stepmother never seems to have suffered in her own right.
By making this a cyclical punishment, Once Upon A Time actually does a good job of showing the potential cycle of abuse that can happen when someone who has been hurt takes that out on others. It is one of Once Upon A Time’s strongest messages and ends up foreshadowing the importance of reformed villains breaking the pattern.
She Locks Gothel In The Tower
Rapunzel is famously known as the princess in the tower, but what she does after she escapes says a lot about her character. In the original fairytale, she wanted nothing more than to live happily with her prince and children. However, Rapunzel Tremaine managed to turn the tables on her captor.
When Gothel reveals that she intends to capture Anastasia for her pure heart, Rapunzel manages to use the witch’s magic against her and locks her in the tower. During the Hyperion Heights storyline, Gothel is a prisoner in Victoria’s building. While some versions of the fairytale do include Gothel winding up trapped in the tower herself, it’s never shown as a form of vengeance like it is in Once Upon A Time.
Rapunzel Succeeded In Ruining Cinderella At The Ball
Turning back to Rapunzel Tremaine’s role as Cinderella’s stepmother, she has similar motivations to her fairytale counterpart, but with far more impressive results. In the original stories, Cinderella’s stepmother tries to keep Cinderella from going to the ball altogether, a task she ultimately fails at. However, Rapunzel Tremaine makes some major changes to the Cinderella story.
Once Upon A Time’s version of Cinderella came to the ball to kill the prince, and Rapunzel knew it. She killed Cinderella’s fairy godmother to keep her from getting external help and then framed Cinderella for the prince’s death. While the traditional stepmother failed, Rapunzel Tremaine managed to take everything from her stepdaughter at the prince’s ball.
She Has Magical Abilities
In the original fairytale, Rapunzel is just an average woman who is saved by sheer luck. In Once Upon A Time, however, she has magical abilities, though they’re somewhat limited. She can use blood magic and fairy magic, which allow her to bend the world in her favor.
There are some variants where Rapunzel learns magic, like the Neopolitan Petrosinella, but it’s never shown as an offensive power. That element has to come from Rapunzel’s other fairytale counterpart. In Cinderella III, Lady Tremaine gets control of the fairy godmother’s wand and uses it to undo Cinderella’s happy ending—exactly what she tries to do in the show.
She Is A CEO
In the original fairytale, Rapunzel is very two-dimensional, existing only to be saved by the prince. Tangled gives her a bit more depth, but she also seems content with living with her parents and prince in that world. Rapunzel Tremaine, however, has higher ambitions, being re-incarnated as Victoria Belfrey in Hyperion Heights.
There, Rapunzel is the CEO of Belfrey Developments and works purposefully to displace the cursed residents of the city to keep them from remembering each other. Her daughter, Ivy, is her personal assistant and the pair go out of their way to make everyone around them miserable.
She Doesn’t Live Happily Ever After
Like many fairytale heroines, Rapunzel is reunited with her prince after some time apart, and she lives happily ever after in his kingdom. Rapunzel Tremaine, however, was not that lucky. When she finally returned from the tower, her husband had remarried, and she was forced to live as a maid in her own home.
By the time of her untimely death, she is broken and cold. She even tells her step-granddaughter, Lucy, that she “sacrificed everything for [her] family, and the only thing [she] ever got in return was pain.” Neither playing the hero nor the villain gave her the happiness that so many others were able to receive.
She Sacrifices Herself For Her Daughter
While Victoria is presented as a heartless and calculating woman throughout her story arc, she eventually gets a spark of redemption that even her fairytale counterparts don’t have. After Victoria succeeds in reviving her daughter, Anastasia, Gothel kidnaps the girl to force her into her coven.
Gothel then plans to drain Ivy’s life force to awaken Lucy. In a desperate attempt to save her daughter, Victoria sacrifices herself in place of her daughter, apologizing to her with her dying breaths. The character was a villain for most of her life, but she had a better hero’s death than most princesses can claim.
