10 Dark Storylines That Disney Movies Left Out
4. Rapunzel is cast out into the woods to give birth alone while the Prince is blinded by thorns
A tale included in the Brothers Grimm compendium in 1812, Rapunzel was the inspiration for the 2010 film Tangled.
The book tells of a pregnant woman who will only eat the Rapunzel plant at the bottom of a tower owned by a sorceress. When the sorceress catches the woman’s husband desperately stealing the plant to stop his wife from starving to death, she agrees to let him have as much as he wants in exchange for their baby. She then locks the child in the tower and visits her by climbing up her long (but not magical) hair.
A passing prince hears Rapunzel singing from the tower and watches the sorceress climb up her hair. He comes back later and calls out to her, and the two of them start meeting up at night with Rapunzel becoming pregnant soon after.
The sorceress finds out when Rapunzel asks why her clothes don’t fit anymore and angrily cuts Rapunzel’s hair, before casting her out into the woods to give birth by herself. She then waits for the prince and tricks him into climbing into the tower using the cut hair.
In his horror at seeing her and his despair after being told he will never see Rapunzel again, he throws himself from the tower landing in a thorn bush which horribly tears his eyes out and blinds him. He does eventually find Rapunzel and his sight is restored by her tears.