Disney’s Pablumfication Factory 0
The Local notes how Disney alters German folk tales they “adapt” from those collected and codified by the Brothers Grimm. Here’s one example:
In the Grimm version though, the road to young romance is a lot more rocky.
The story goes that Rapunzel lets down her hair so that a prince can climb it up to her window, but when the evil sorceress that guards her gets wind of what’s happening, she cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and keeps it for herself.
One day upon climbing up the rope of hair dangled by the sorceress, the prince finds the witch instead of his beloved girlfriend and throws himself from the tower in desperation, landing face-first in a bed of thorns and thus blinding himself.
The prince then wanders blindly for years until he finally stumbles into Rapunzel, who apparently had been living “miserably” in the forest as a single mother of twins all this time. Her tears heal his eyes, and then they live happily ever after.
My grandmother had a two volume collection of Grimm’s tales in translation dating likely from the 1930s. I remember reading “The Snow Queen” when I was (probably) about 12.
The un-Disney-fied tale is one of the darkest and scariest stories I have ever read.
