Gothunzel

Gothunzel is the familyship between Rapunzel and Mother Gothel from the Tangled fandom.

Canon
After the Sun Drop flower was used to save the Queen and her unborn child, and with Gothel slowly beginning to become her true age again, she sneaks into the castle to see if the Sun Drop's power was indeed within the baby princess. She originally planned to cut a stand of the princess's long golden hair, since it is what the sun's healing power flows through while singing the Healing Incantation, but when the cut strand of hair turned brown and lost its power Gothel knew that she'll have to kidnap the baby in order to stay beauty and young. With the royal guards gaining on them when Gothel reached her cottage home, Gothel was forced to abandon her daughter Cassandra in order to keep the guards from catching her, while she starts anew with her new daughter, who she has named Rapunzel, within a hidden tower. Because Gothel had lost her flower once she became determined to keep her new one safe and forever hidden from the world, even if it means never allowing Rapunzel to step outside the tower and telling her "daughter", that she sometimes calls "Flower", terrible things about the outside world that she wants to keep Rapunzel safe from. Since Rapunzel's hair loses its power when cut, Gothel has her growing it out to a very long length and whenever she notices signs of her elderly age returning she has Rapunzel singing the Healing Incantation to her while Gothel brushes her hair. Even though Rapunzel loves Gothel as any daughter would love their mother, she kept her friend, Pascal, and watching the floating lights from the tower window a secret from her.

On the day before Rapunzel's eighteenth birthday, after Gothel returns from one of her foraging trips Rapunzel asks her mother if she'll allow her to leave the tower so she can see the floating lights in person, as a birthday gift that she has wanted for a long time, but Gothel wouldn't have it. After filling Rapunzel with fears about the outside world and asks Rapunzel to never ask such a thing from her again, before leaving the tower for another foraging trip so she could collect parsnips to make parsnip soup for Rapunzel.

Fanon
Despite who Gothel really was to Rapunzel when the Sun-Drop realized who she really is and the lies Gothel has told her for the last eighteen years, in order to keep Rapunzel locked in her tower forever, and how Rapunzel feels about her since she returned to her true family, it doesn't change the fact that Gothel had raised Rapunzel as her own child and there have been fans, before the Tangled TV series was aired, who believed that the love Rapunzel once had for Gothel has her misses the woman who had raised her from time to time. Since Cassandra revealing herself to be Gothel's biological daughter and Rapunzel being raised by the woman had gotten the princess to tell her former handmaiden and friend that their link to Gothel makes them sisters. There have also been Disney fans who enjoy shipping Disney Princesses and Heroes with the antagonists of their films, in which could also have Gothunzel as a femslash ship for when they don't want to focus on the family side of it.

As part of the Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons fandom, the two are often featured in AU scenarios. One example of this is a Les Miserables AU with Rapunzel and Gothel as Cosette and Madame Thénardier, respectively, due to the similarities between them, a mother raising someone else's child while selflessly gaining something from it. Alternatively, it is common to edit Rapunzel and Gothel into similar daughter-mother or innocent-wicked duos from other fandoms, such as Aurora and Maleficent from Maleficent (2014) and even as Glinda and Madame Morrible from Wicked.

Fandom
FAN FICTION
 * Rapunzel/Gothel tag on FanFiction.Net
 * Rapunzel/Gothel tag on FanFiction.Net
 * Rapunzel/Gothel tag on FanFiction.Net

WIKI
 * on the

Trivia

 * In Kingdom Hearts III, Rapunzel is revealed to be one of the New Seven Hearts while Gothel's darkness had turned her into a Heartless when she felt out the tower window.
 * Both characters are part of the Once Upon A Time series, where the second Rapunzel what is of Tangled is also the second Cinderella's evil stepmother.