#demanitus

gothel kept rapunzel locked up in a tower for eighteen years, and lied to her about the world in order to keep her from leaving.

sugracha used the trauma rapunzel went through in "queen for a day" to manipulate her into forfeiting her autonomy.

tromus trapped rapunzel in her own mind and created a world free of conflict, inspired by her fear of the future.

what's most interesting to me is how zhan tiri is outlier in this trend. for one thing, rapunzel is not the one being directly manipulated. instead it's cassandra. she also does not attempt to keep cass compliant-- at least, not in the same way.

the disciples are focused on keeping rapunzel content. they discourage her questioning things or making decisions for herself. they want her to stay exactly the same as she already is.

zhan tiri, meanwhile, wants cass to change. she feeds into the feelings of inferiority that she's always had, encourages her ambition, and manipulates her into turning against her friends. but cass still isn't truly in control. she plays into zhan tiri's hands at every opportunity. every choice she thinks is her own is just another part of zhan tiri's plan.

this is not to say cass can't be held accountable. because while yes, she is being manipulated, those decisions were still hers to make. the show makes this very clear. but it was also her decision to do the right thing in the finale, and help rapunzel save corona.

cass and rapunzel's dynamic actually mirrors a couple others in the show-- that being catalina and kiera, and zhan tiri and demanitus. the theme of "complacency vs ambition" is present there, too.

in season three, we see that catalina feels stifled by her sister. kiera made all the decisions, and assumed catalina was fine with it when she wasn't.

then for zhan tiri, her ambition clouded her mind and endangered the people around her. demanitus recognized she has lost her way and had to put a stop to her. interestingly, in their final conversation, we see demanitus reach out to her one last time. just like how rapunzel never stopped reaching out to cassandra, even while trying to stop her.

(Quirin looks more soft than him ofc but to be fair I’m talking about, like, a guy who lived a thousand years before Quirin)

Soooo… any chance that Varian is actually Lord Demanitus’ descendant? Eclipse Varian anyone??/ref

I mean, it is a comedy though. Just like the movie is a comedy. Neither are exclusively a comedy, but they're deliberately funny a lot of the time.

As for things that made me laugh a lot, nothing has ever made me laugh more than the conversation between Eugene and Demanitus:

[Demanitus]: Get it? A mon-key! [Eugene]: No. Denied. *turns his back* [Demanitus]: Here. *tosses the key to Eugene* [Eugene]: *fails to catch the key and it plummets into the green-acidy-type-thing-filled cauldera* [Eugene]: What did you do that for?! [Demanitus]: You were supposed to catch it! [Eugene]: I wasn't ready! You should have warned me! [Demanitus]: I SAID, "HEEEEEERE!"

All the Wile E. Coyote shenanigans that Ruddiger gets up to in "The Lost Treasure of Herz der Sonne". (Hell, that whole episode is comedy gold.)

The entire scene in "Return to the Spire" after, "We're in a room full of magical artifacts and I don't know what ANY of them DO!!"

Everything little Lance gets up to in "You're Kidding Me!"

imagine if he’d programmed an automaton to mimic his thought patterns and displays of emotion, partially living on through it. or imagine if the robot was displayed at some oddities museum, and it picked up rapunzel’s traces of magic and recited demanitus’ recorded messages.

they’ve already faced robots in this show. it could make rapunzel remember varian, and show that she feels guilty for what happened. it would keep demanitus as a figure of old, which helps the setting feel richer and more defined. it takes madame canardist and that racist caricature out of the picture.