Mother Gothel is the main antagonist of the CGI animated film, Tangled.
Gothel had a magical plant, grown when a drop of sunlight hit the earth. Gothel used this flower as her personal fountain of youth to keep herself young for centuries. The pregnant Queen of a nearby kingdom was near death and had her guards search for this magical plant to heal her. They find it and the Queen heals, soon giving birth to Rapunzel. The flower's magical abilities transferred to Rapunzel's glowing hair.
Gothel acquired Rapunzel as a child, stealing her from the royal nursery and hiding her in an inaccessible tower deep in the forest. Gothel lies to Rapunzel about the outside world and everyone in it being mean and selfish, making Rapunzel wary of ever leaving her protection. Later , when Rapunzel is 18 years old, she asks her to shows her the stars to find out what they mean. Mother Gothel denies it because they world is "cruel".
Rapunzel asks Mother Gother to buy her some paint so she can get her way from the tower for three days. It works. Then She forces a thief named Flynn to show her the stars, however they end up in a pub of thugs. Mother Gothel returns to the tower and is horrified to find Rapunzel missing. She steals a dagger then she sees maxs the horse on her way she find that Flynn could be the culprit.
She goes to the pub and flirts with the tiny pub thug then threatens him.She later hires two thugs, the Stabbington brothers to find flynnn and Rapunzel, taking advantage of the fact that they want revenge on Flynn for betraying them. She finds Rapunzel and then decides to teach her a lesson. She takes her to give Flynn the crown. She secretly has the Stabbington brothers kidnap Rapunzel. Mother Gothel fakes the rescue attempt by knocking out the brothers.
Back at the tower, Rapunzel sees the stars and sees her family. She realizes she is the lost princess. She tells Mother Gothel that she will never use her hair again. Mother Gothel tells Rapunzel that Flynn is going to be hanged for his crimes. Flynn gets away really easily. goes to the tower then inside, he finds her chained and gagged and Mothel Gothel literally backstabs Flynn. then she tries to take Rapunzel away. But Rapunzel fights back. She breaks the gag and promises if Mother Gothel lets her heal Flynn, she will stay in the tower forever. Mother Gothel lets her do so. But Flynn, believing Rapunzel deserves her freedom, cuts her hair and Mother Gothel ages. Pascal the chameleon, angry with Mother Gothel for her evil intentions, deliberately trips Mother Gothel by pulling Rapunzel's cut hair and she falls from the tower to her death, turning into dust when she hits the ground.
The character is voiced by television actress and singer Donna Murphy.
Like many Disney villains, she has her own song in the movie, called "Mother Knows Best".
Mother Gothel in German means 'godmother' which she is to Rapunzel. However, Rapunzel believes her to be her real mother.
Mother Gothel is similar to Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame insofaras she wanted her abducted child to stay in the tower and she lies that the outside world is wicked for her own goals. Frollo wanted his adopted child Quasimodo to stay in the bell tower and he lied about the outside world being wicked by singing Out There for his own goals. Their children disobey their masters though. Both villains fall to their death from the high towers.
Personality
While Gothel looks, pretends and acts like a affectionate, warm and good-hearted mother to Rapunzel However she is actually a ruthless, brooding, sociopathic, vicious, unscrupulous, heartless, amoral, brutal, dishonest, bitter, unfeeling, wicked, vindictive, unloving, hardened, malevolent, devilish, Stoney, nasty, Fiendish,sinful, impure, good for nothing, no good, dark, unkind, homicidal, rotten to the core, despicable and remorseless manipulator who is supremely cold and posses and maintains no compassion, love, understanding, benevolence, generosity, affection, charity, goodness, kindness, forgiveness, hospitality, consideration, feelings, tenderness, support, gentleness, humanity, sensitivity,loyalty,help, fellow-feelings, clemency, tolorence, warmth, amiability, remorse, indulgence, sympathy, magnanimity, fondness, goodwill, beneficence, decency, endearment, altruism, emotions, sorrow, protection, guidance, aid, charitableness, mercy, empathy, pity, worry, philanthropy, regard, care, soft-heartedness, motherliness, guilt, condolence, mercifulness, self sacrifice, heart, commiseration, humanitarianism, feeling, neighborliness, comfort, maternalness, shelter, thoughfulness, devotion, passion and/or Concern for anyone and anything but herself . to keep her real nature in check she covers it up with a friendly and kind natured attitude. however she does not keep some of her traits in check. for a demonstration in mother knows best it is revealed that gothel is a unpleasant and extremely shallow bully who is highly disprectful to rapuzel proven when she frequntly abuses, mistreats and harasses her in the song by pulling on her hair, knocking her down, tripping her, rolling her like a rug, spinning her and meanly drops her on the floor two times both in the movie and DVD version twice and constantly insults her with very hurtful things such as sloppy and clumsy. she is surpemely blunt with her words to. gothel is also immnesly fridgid and greatly hostile showning this with her super dark voice. she also posses a extremely deadly and very rotten temper displayed by saying that Rapunzel is not that the tower ever and is also cranky and irittated. a malicious and spiteful person she will unkindly treat others such as flyyn rider like dirt or rapunzel like trash. her gruesome and wicked nature is not seen until the climax of the film where she mercilessly and pitilessly murders flynn in cold blood and without remorse giving the audience and the heroes a complete view of her Murderous and unsympathetic personality. gothel is also remarkably concieted person who is eniterly and totally obessed with her beauty, apperance, looks, youth and attractiveness and completely obessed with keeping and maintaning it. gothel is also shown to be highly Impulsive in various scenes of the moive including the climax. having a outstandingly manipulative and highly deceitful personality gother views everyone and anyone as pawns and sees rapunzel as expandable and disposable and is willing to betray anyone including family for immortality. She also lacks bravery and courage and is a complete and utter coward she displayed this multiple times such as hiding from the royal guards, running away and hiding from the king and queen with Rapunzel , looked in the snugly duckling's window instead of going in, did not go in the secret passage way and went to one of the exit's instead, had the stabbing brothers render Flynn Rider unconscious and tie him up instead, made a fake rescue to hide her faint-heartedness and jabs him with her knife rather than physically attacking and killing him.being a stingy, mean-spirited and emotionless women gothel does not care about the well-being or safety of others including family and doesn't care about family relations, romance and love including true love as well. intense envy is one of the traits of hers as well. Gothel is indicated and proven to be very stuck up and snooty believing that she has immense and limitless knowledge about everything, is an outstanding judge of character, always knows what is right and has the greatest superiority in history. Displayed in mother knows best. she also shown to think, believe and view rapunzel as useless, insignificent, pathetic, unimportant and brainless by saying words that she describes this to rapunzel and covers it up by telling her that she loves her. gothel does not care, love and is not concern about rapunzel, her well being , her history, her birthday , her feelings, everything about her, well fare and her safety but only her hair and it's powers which gothel is completely and truly obessed and adictive with. gothel's downfall was caused by her impulsiveness, obsessions and vanity thus making her deranged and pyscotic and causing her to discintergrate into dust leaving nothing but her cape by triping on Rapunzel's cur hair. she is also surpemely rude and very obonoxius to a the point that she is a pig. the last trait is that gothel is relentless willing to track and hunt down anything and anyone down such as rapunzel. mother knows best also shows that she is judemental, misantropic and disciminetive believing that every human except herself are horrible and good-for-nothing giving an example why she lives isloated in a tower and hates all humans as well and calls rapunzel wothless in her song. although gothel says that she loves rapunzel she only loves her hair and it's powers and not rapunzel . Gothel is also sadistic viewed in Mother knows best she enjoyed abusing rapunzel and scared rapunzel with a smile. She is also a lazy slacker shown when Gothel was not there to help rapunzel with chores, climbed on rapunzel's hair instead of climbing the tower, leaved a Painted picture on a clean floor and did not bother to clean it up, left her black cloak on the floor and leaved it there, let the stabbington brothers knock Flynn out and tie him up and always took advantage of rapunzel and her talents and will not exercise because sweat will ruin her gorgeous Apperance. She also does not care about the tower and has no concern for it as well.Her extremely unforgiving and treacherous nature makes her someone you do not want to trust or be with which is hidden from rapunzel until the climax of the film. she is also immensely insensitive being completely and utterly unable to cry, show emotions and feelings, lend a shoulder to weeep and cry on, display and feel passion , affection, empathy, sadness, pity and sorrow, be sad, show tears, respond to others feelings and emotions, feel sorry and bad for others , care for people, understand, feel, show, have, display and posses love and understand others and feelings. she is also cold-hearted,mean, compassionless, harsh and unfeeling to all animals as well shown when she cruely and meanly kicks pascal and felt no regard, pity, concern and empathy for him. She is also very Belittling a demonstration is in mother knows best she tells rapunzel that her dream to see the floating laterns are a waste of time and that she is a helpless, sickly, unprepared, moronic and bumbling failure with zero chances of making it out alive and she also tells rapunzel that Flynn Riders life and well-being is useless and insignificant. Although Despite Saying that she knows best and is trying to help Rapunzel in mother knows best as well as Stating that Rapunzel's relationship with Flyyn is wrong and all those things she has done were to keep Rapunzel safe she has no common sense being fully unaware, oblivious and greatly ignorant on what she is doing is good or bad anyway and her impulsivity helps and makes it visible to the viewers. Her sadism is seen in the climax of the film where she is very glad of his penalty and happy that he will be terminated for good after she tells Rapunzel about what is going to happen to him showing no concern or sympathy for his life. Although despite raising Rapunzel and acting as her mother she has no empathy, warmth and affection for her seeing viewing her only as a gateway to immortality and a way to avoid dying that should not be shared by or given to anybody and all hers this is the reason why gothel will do anything to keep her isolated and locked away in the tower. While Rapunzel believes that Gothel is a understanding and empathic mother Gothel secretly deep down inside neglects Rapunzel and only Raised her so she can have eternal youth and stay alive and lovely for eternity. She also hates and has no respect for Royalty including rapunzel. She has a abosolute and totall lack of social skills frequently interrupting Rapunzel without letting her finish talking and critizing and Judging Rapunzel on how she looks. She also abuses and has no respect for her tower shown when she makes Rapunzel clean it, drops her black cloak on it's floor, in mother knows best painted a picture and was not concerned about washing it and took advantage of it by using Rapunzel's hair to climb back in and out of it and also went in the secret passage way instead of climbing on top of it. She also abuses and mistreats Rapunzel's love, kindness, obedience, gullibility and loyalty. She is also exceedingly impatient demonstrated when she tells Rapunzel to hurry up by saying that she is not getting any younger, impatiently says to Rapunzel that they are going back to the tower immediately when Rapunzel was about to say something and after she tolled Rapunzel how proud she was she said come Rapunzel and when she had Rapunzel tied up she tempermantely and impatiently tried to isolate Rapunzel further also showing that she is horribly I'll-tempered although despite this she tolled her henchmen to wait. She has no concern of being a parent only protecting and raising Rapunzel to remain youthful, healthy and pretty forever and has a complete disregard for Rapunzel possessing no loyalty, feelings, compassion, attachment, fondness and/or tenderness for her whatsoever andcares nothing about or for her prescience, life, well-being, safety, existence and any conditions Rapunzel lives in only her hairs healing powers which she wants to keep all to herself. Go on a adventure with Jesse and Her crew of thieves from Corona: Gothel reappears as the main atagonist in the series. instead of trying to follow Flynn and Rapunzel she stays in Corona as a Treasure hunter and tries to steal stuff from jesse and her. the tv show got her new minions and new foes making however her rivals.