big disgrace

Rapunzel in a coronation dress - coloured ;)

What I mean by that is that, in the movie, it's clear that Rapunzel is ecstatic to be outside for the first time, but that it's constantly tainted by her thoughts circling back to Gothel and the Tower. She rolls on the ground and immediately feels so guilty that she stops, hugs herself and nearly cries thinking about how bad of a daughter she is. She's not completely free because she's literally too traumatised to allow herself to be, no matter how happy she is to explore the forest - and actually, she's so focused on getting to the lanterns that she doesn't spend that long looking at the scenery before she and Eugene get moving

But you know when Rapunzel feels the most free? When, in the movie, she's finally able to let go of the tower and Gothel to fully enjoy her freedom, when it's clear that she'll be able to heal from that trauma? When she's in the middle of other people. First with the pub thugs, where she's able to sing "I'm so glad I left my tower", and even more clearly during the kingdom dance when it's obvious she's completely happy and at peace when dancing with all these new people. That's what her liberty looks like, because Gothel didn't only deprive her of the outside world, she more importantly deprived her of the people and the relationships that were waiting for Rapunzel in it.

I have trouble reading Rapunzel as anything but someone so entirely social that she feels most at home and free when she's surrounded by all these different persons who all have a life experience and which whom she's able to actually connect and interact

And so, TTS only allowing her two (2) meaningful and thoroughly developed relationships with other people is just... urgh, I don't know, I think that they went so far with the "free as a bird" metaphor as in "rapunzel wants to have wings and see the entire world more than she needs anything else" that they forgot that birds are social animals themselves asghdjdj Rapunzel definitely needed and deserved to get out of Corona and experience the real world for herself, but that's not all there is to freedom, and it shouldn't have come at the cost of letting her makes more friendships with people her own age, and especially women since the show doesn't even let her have more than one friend who's also a woman...

s2 could have and should have been a time for her to make new friends and develop relationships across the kingdoms as part of a contained episode, but it's just... the only characters that we see again from this season are the leaf people who don't see humans as equals, and in the end Rapunzel doesn't actually meet that many new people who don't, well, hate her

Imagine how in the second season she tries to navigate by the stars and star maps. If they get lost somewhere, Raps almost happy, thinking that now she will demonstrate her skills and prove her friends wrong to doubt her. She thinks she'll do well because she's read a lot and knows how and when to look at the sky properly. But since she's spent her whole life in a tower, she just has to have a topographical cretinism. It infuriates her, she really wants to overcome it, Eugene treats it with affection, and Cass is annoyed because they are wasting time.

Towards the end of the second season, or in the middle of the third, she won't overcome this problem, I don't think it's possible (I'm projecting, lol), but still her skills will save the team's asses one day.

The show could have a light educational component, when she would talk a little about the stars, tiring friends and fellow travelers. But Varian would be interested. He always sits in his basement, forgets that the sky even exists)