Raised in a secluded tower, Rapunzel escapes with a wanted thief who promises to help her see the elusive floating lights in time for her 18th birthday, in exchange for a crown she has hidden from him.

[7] Walt Disney himself had attempted to adapt "Rapunzel" shortly after the release of the studio's first feature-length animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), but the project was shelved due to challenges developing its story, much of which is confined to a single tower.

[24] Following Witherspoon's resignation, Rapunzel remained uncast for quite some time, further jeopardizing the film's already belabored production, a period during which the character's voice was temporarily provided by "friends around the studio" in lieu of actors.

[25] The directors continued to audition hundreds of young actresses to find Rapunzel's voice,[25] among them Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell (who both were eventually cast as Disney Princesses Elsa and Anna in the Frozen franchise respectively),[26][27] but none sounded quite right until they discovered Mandy Moore.

[14] She had little idea what her character looked like because, in terms of visual aid, she was only shown rough, incomplete sketches and storyboards,[34] relying on her imagination and the directors' input for "everything else".

[14] She found recording "When Will My Life Begin" particularly difficult due to its speed, and cites both Menken and discovering Rapunzel as a character with guiding her through the process.

[36] Executive producer John Lasseter explained that one of the main challenges encountered when developing Rapunzel's personality was making her "feel like a smart, clever, educated, healthy, fun human being", despite the fact that the character had not left her tower for 18 years.

Taking this into consideration, Keane maintained a sense of asymmetry while drawing Rapunzel, incorporating into her face several subtle imperfections, specifically her bucked teeth.

[47] While Keane working on Tangled, Claire gave birth to his first grandchild, Matisse, whose appearance served as the animator's inspiration for the infant Rapunzel.

[54] As directors, Howard and Greno provided the animators with much live-action material and reference to use as inspiration for the appearance of Rapunzel's hair, such as attaching long strands of string to a baseball cap that they would take turns wearing in the studio and moving around it.

[59] For simplicity, the animators reduced the realistic total of 100,000 individual strands of hair found on a typical human head to a more manageable 100 for Rapunzel.

As her eighteenth birthday arrives, Rapunzel grows increasingly eager to leave the tower and see the floating lanterns, and blackmails a wanted thief named Flynn Rider to take her there in her mother's absence.

Soon afterwards, Flynn is ambushed and turned in to the police by his former partners-in-crime the Stabbington brothers, whom he abandoned in an attempt to outrun the king's soldiers, and is sentenced to death.

Several guests are in attendance, including Rapunzel's birth parents, the King and Queen, the pub thugs and the Stabbington Brothers, while their animal friends Pascal, a chameleon, and Maximus, a horse, serve as the Flower boy and ring bearer respectively.

After pursuing the rings on tumultuous chase around the kingdom and encountering several obstacles along the way, they finally manage to recover them from a flock of flying doves, crashing into a tar factory in the process.

Exhausted from their previous endeavors, Maximus sits down, nudging the wedding cake in the process and causing it, which has been positioned on wheels, to roll down the aisle.

In the middle of all this stress, on the night of the royal banquet, Eugene publicly proposes to Rapunzel, but she rejects it, feeling she is not sure if she is interested to stay at the palace after marriage and that she needs to sort out her life first.

Most of the first season is set on her uncovering the mystery of her new hair and its connection to the mystical rock spikes she had discovered several weeks ago, with the help of her lady-in-waiting Cassandra (who later turns out to be Mother Gothel's daughter), and a young scientist named Varian.

[84] In anticipation of the film's theatrical release, several Tangled-based attractions were constructed at various Disney Parks locations in both California and Florida, United States.

[88] In a detailed description of the piece, Us Weekly wrote, "The stunning image — captioned 'Where a world of adventure awaits' — shows the 23-year-old Grammy winner perched on the window ledge of a moss-covered stone tower.

[95] Sandie Angulo Chen of Common Sense Media wrote that Rapunzel is a "guileless, strong, and beautiful" character who is "so breathtakingly good that you can't help but weep with her when she thinks all hope is lost."

"[98] Similarly, the Mountain Xpress praised Rapunzel and Flynn's relationship, writing, "what works best is the interplay between the two leads ... these animated characters are frankly more believable and charismatic than the human ones in ... Love and Other Drugs (2010)".

The creatives behind "Tangled" deserve praise for molding a one-dimensional fairy tale character (who, on the page, is outshone by her imposter mother) into a dynamic heroine well worth rooting for.

"[101] Jim Schembri of The Age gave the character a very detailed, positive review, writing: And, of course, the heart of the story is Rapunzel, a freshly minted heroine who morphs from prisoner to strong-willed seeker of her own destiny.

She's not only a great role model for kids, she's the type of gutsy, independently minded, value-added blonde Mae West would have been proud of.The character was not void of criticism.

Corliss questioned the future of Disney's animated heroines, writing, "For 60 years ... girls were the focal characters who could be expected to come of age, triumph over adversity and, in general, man up," and accused various film studios of "abolish[ing] female-centered stories".

[105] James Berardinelli of ReelViews was fairly mixed in his review, writing, "although likeable and energetic, [Rapunzel] is not as memorable as Snow White, Ariel, or Belle".

[108] Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch opined, "when the big-eyed heroine tries to tug at our heartstrings and Flynn turns into Prince Charming, the too-familiar hero-and-damsel motif feels like a fashion faux-pas".

"[110] Jen Yamato of Movies.com criticized Disney for "failing to give Rapunzel a backbone and retreading ground so familiar you can fall asleep for ten minutes and still know exactly what happened".

Comparing the character's spirited personality to that of preceding Disney Princesses Ariel and Jasmine from Aladdin (1992), Saraiya described Rapunzel as "badass," despite the fact that "her naivete sometimes gets in the way of her progressivism."