"You Don't Know The Whole Story"

[RumplesGirl]

Tonight we saw the whole of Rapunzel’s story with her husband, Marcus, and her two daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. Also, props to everyone who called that Tremaine = Rapunzel. What did you think of Rapunzel’s story? Did it make you more inclined to like Tremaine?

[Gaultheria]

In the opening scene, Rapunzel has odd words for her husband:

“You’re a brilliant tailor, Marcus. Once I mend you, you’ll stitch together the life we’ve always dreamed of — our family.”

Other than as justification for the “stitch” line, Marcus’ profession seems irrelevant to the story. Sure, a tailor couldn’t expect the life of luxury that Gothel’s magic gave the family, but the contrast would have been even greater if Marcus had begun the episode as an unskilled but hardworking farmhand. (Maybe the tailor bit is from some other fairy tale?)

But with the rest of that scene for context…

Rapunzel tells Marcus that she stopped the cart “because I found our family something to eat.” The garden of small plants is on the other side of a stone fence. At night. Where it would be hard to see in the gloom. Rapunzel likely already knew about the garden.

One of the little girls seems to know that the garden is a dangerous place: “Are you sure it’s safe to go in there, Mama?”.

The garden includes what look like Gothel’s magic flowers from Tangled, and Gothel declares that “many people come here in an attempt to steal my magic.”

I’d like to interpret all this to mean that Rapunzel (mother of Anastasia, the favourite daughter) drugged Marcus and kidnapped him and his daughter Drizella with the intention of using stolen magic to make them all believe they were one happy family. (Maybe she’d already stolen enough for Marcus but not enough for Drizella.)

Gaultheria's fanvids: http://youtube.com/sagethrasher

[AKA]

Marcus was not likable.  I mean didn’t they play off that Marcus and Cecilia were “true love” and that is how Ella knew that her and Henry was supposed to be together was because they had the same glowing lockets as her parents.  If that is so, we can all truly start to route for someone else for Henry and Ella because Marcus was playing both women.  I still love you Rapunzel, see I kept your old coat and I look like I want more but I’ll just leave and be with my current wife.  Oh Wait her heart got magicked?  I will leave my three daughters and go find her. Wait she died, oh well back to Rapunzel.

I liked that Rapunzel saved herself and I actually liked the story of helplessness, to despair, to strength, to despair, to what she thought was finally her happiness, and finally to bitterness.  I think it would have been even better if they had taken the time to tell the story more slowly but I get what they were doing.  I also understand that instead of turning to Drizella after Anastasia’s death she pushed her away and focused on bringing back Anastasia instead.  I think it is horrible and selfish but Rapunzel never truly mourned Anastasia because she held on to the thought of bringing her back to life (think Regina and Daniel, Regina was not able to let go until she failed at bringing him back it consumed her life and left her bitter) In Rapunzel’s mind Anastasia was the only one who “wanted” her back.  Drizella gravitated towards Cecilia who basically raised her and her husband was remarried.  Now Rapunzel being an adult and a mother should have understood and had some empathy for what Drizella was going through, her psychological trauma of loosing a mom, gaining a new one, and then the old one coming back.  Who should she be loyal to? She probably felt caught in the middle of this very uncomfortable situation and so she picked a side.  Can’t blame the kid,  have to try and understand and work with them, instead Rapunzel throws up her arms and gives up (not good parenting)

[RumplesGirl]

Passing thoughts:

–Marcus was horrible! He had about as much development as a tree stump. I can 100% see a man moving on a marrying another woman after six years of believing his first wife was dead. But then he gets his first wife a job as a maid for his second wife, and then when second wife vanishes/dies (and is apparently heartbroken according to Ella’s telling of it??) he goes back to his first wife but then chooses his second wife’s daughter over his own. I mean, he’s just totally lacking in character understanding.

–Where was the family going in the opening scene? Marcus is sick but they need food so Rapunzel’s idea is to load the family into a carriage and ride rough shod over the Enchanted Forest until they happen to find something to eat–radishes in this case which will do nothing for a fever and do only slightly more for a hungry child. (also, why are they so poor? They have a horse and buggy, for heaven’s sake. I’m not trying to get super historical here but a horse and a buggy that did not belong to a larger landowner and was free to use at will was a bit of a luxury. Think of Rumple–he and Bae had to walk their product everywhere)

–This is the kind of story that needed to be told over a series of several episodes in order to let our characters really sit and live in their internal angst. We just jumped from plot point to plot point and I have zero sense of who Marcus, Anastasia, Rapunzel and even Drizella are as people. Did Rapunzel love Anastasia more just because Drizella had a hard time once Rapunzel came back? That makes her a pretty crappy mother, tbh. But we don’t know because of the rapid fire pace of story telling.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Matt]

We definitely don’t know the whole story.  I am interested to see how Drizella went from being completely detached from her mother to seeking her approval so much – that is a massive shift.

[Stahlop]

Did anyone else wonder if Drizella had somehow made Ella’s hat fly off and the ice break with her magic?  Maybe not necessarily on purpose, but by accident since she supposedly didn’t have any control of it.

We never saw any indication in this storyline that either Anastasia or Drizella had been born with magic. You’d think if you were that poor that you might ask your daughters to try and use their magic.

[hjbau]

I agree that Marcus was extremely unlikable. I don’t think they intended to do that either.

[onceaholic]

Tonight we saw the whole of Rapunzel’s story with her husband, Marcus, and her two daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. Also, props to everyone who called that Tremaine = Rapunzel. What did you think of Rapunzel’s story? Did it make you more inclined to like Tremaine?

Quote

Question 1: see my overall reaction to this episode

Question 2: Yes, I feel much more sympathy for her, but I still don’t condone making Lucy suffer for her daughter whose time it was to die. In addition, she has another daughter who needs her love and she is ignoring her.

Keeper of Regina's bravery

[hjbau]

I also think they tried to make Drizella sympathetic in this episode by showing her crying after Anastasia woke up. I think that just makes her seem crazy. That her reaction to her sister being awake was sadness because now she doesn’t have her mother’s complete attention. That is what i would call bad writing and complete lack of understanding of how complicated people are.

[ry4christ]

Did anyone else wonder if Drizella had somehow made Ella’s hat fly off and the ice break with her magic?  Maybe not necessarily on purpose, but by accident since she supposedly didn’t have any control of it.

I had thought maybe Drizella did it on purpose, but an accident might make more sense. Maybe Tremaine later discovers this, which increases/leads to her hatred of Drizella.

[Author]

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