Tangled: 6 Reasons Mother Gothel Is The Most Underrated Disney Villain

Disney’s Tangled was released in 2010, and still, audiences love watching the love story unfold between Princess Rapunzel and thief Flynn Rider. Their journey to see the lanterns for Rapunzel’s birthday contains quite a few adventures, and naturally, an antagonist. Audiences surely remember the brutal and unforgiving Gothel, who guilt-tripped her adoptive daughter the entire way, memorably with the catchy but manipulative song, “Mother Knows Best.”

Gothel wasn’t a good parent and was capable of awful things. She was selfish, cunning, and smart, which made her a great Disney villain. Audiences know that Gothel is bad news, but in certain ways, she’s still an underrated Disney villain.

Updated on July 28th, 2022, by Lynn Gibbs: Did Mother Gothel really know what was best for Rapunzel on Tangled? To manipulate Rapunzel into doing whatever she wanted for her selfish gain, Gothel struck fear in Rapunzel so that she wouldn’t leave the walls of their tower. Gothel knew if Rapunzel left their tower, she would realize that she was a princess, kidnapped, and used for the magical properties in her hair. These are rather dark messages in Tangled but that’s what made Gothel one of the darkest, underrated villains in any Disney movie.

She’s Unpredictable

Gothel will utilize whatever she has at the time to achieve her goals. Making the deal with the Stabbington brothers is one of those instances. Some of her decisions are ones that she makes in the heat of the moment, like when she kidnaps Rapunzel when she broke into the castle intending to cut off her hair for its healing power.

At first, Gothel was only planning on cutting off a strand of Rapunzel’s magical hair. It wasn’t until she realized the hair died of its powers once it was cut that she changed plans and kidnapped Rapunzel to keep her to herself. That kind of unpredictable mentality makes her dangerous. This could be why she’s one of the few Disney villains without friends.

She Was Never Capable Of Loving Rapunzel

Since Gothel raised Rapunzel after kidnapping her and pretended to be her biological mom, it would be assumed that she grew feelings for her supposed daughter. She raised Rapunzel for almost 16 years and taught her everything she knew, it would be assumed that she’d love Rapunzel as her own.

Shockingly, there were no terms of endearment for Rapunzel and Gothel used her as a means of living forever — that was it. In the end, it would have been expected to see Gothel upset that her “daughter” was missing from their home, but she was more worried about the magic than the love she had for Rapunzel.

She’s Manipulative

Gothel is dangerously good at playing mind games to get what she wants. Just look at how she treated Rapunzel throughout Tangled. She’s good at nitpicking a person’s mind, preying on their vulnerabilities and desires, and using them to her advantage so Gothel herself can get what she wants from them.

It wasn’t until Rapunzel left the tower that she could see past the manipulation; Gothel is that good at what she does, and she’s been doing it for a long, long time. If Disney viewers were scared of villains like Ursula from The Little Mermaid, they’d be horrified by Mother Gothel.

She Has No Remorse For Her Cold Actions

Not once does Gothel feel even a twinge of guilt for all the things she’s done. For one, she hoarded the magical healing powers of a flower, just so she could stay young and beautiful forevermore. When the flower is found by the kingdom and given to the sick queen as a cure, its power transfers to Rapunzel and Gothel, not about to let the power of it go, kidnaps Rapunzel as a baby and hides her away in complete isolation to keep that magic to herself.

Not once does she feel bad for what she’s done not just to Rapunzel, but also to the entire kingdom by hoarding the flower as long as she did. She never second-guesses herself, and it’s concerning that she never feels remorseful. Instead, she feels like everyone owes her something. This is proven in the villainous songs she sings throughout Tangled. As long as she’s taken care of, she’s fine.

She’s Realistic And Didn’t Need Superhuman Powers To Defeat Those Around Her

One of the things that makes Mother Gothel so scary is the fact that she’s realistic. Unlike Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty or Jafar in Aladdin, Gothel is human and has no magical powers. She’s sneaky, intelligent, and unbelievably cunning. She’ll do anything to retain her youth.

Villains that can exist in real life, beyond the film, are scarier than villains like Freddy Krueger, who audiences know isn’t real. Gothel is dangerous in more ways than one, and audiences would never want to meet her.

She Continued To Get More Evil

Near the film’s conclusion, Gothel declares that she’s now the “bad guy” and decides to imprison Rapunzel forever after she refuses to allow Gothel to use her hair’s healing powers ever again.

Flynn shows up to save Rapunzel, and Gothel stabs him, making things worse with potential murder. Gothel had no way of knowing that, even after Flynn had cut off Rapunzel’s hair, that Rapunzel would still be able to save his life. Gothel had no qualms about imprisonment or cold-blooded murder and probably would have only become eviler over time. That makes her more than vicious.