Mother Gothel

"Mother knows best."

- Mother Gothel "You want me to be the bad guy? Fine! Now I'm the bad guy."

- Mother Gothel about to seize Rapunzel

Mother Gothel is the main antagonist in Disney's 2010's animated movie Tangled.

In the movie, an old woman, Mother Gothel has a flower that keeps her young, but one day the flower is found and given to the queen so she would not die in child birth. All the flower's power is now in the queen's daughter, so Gothel stole her and kept her in a hidden tower for 18 years. Although she tried to cut a lock of Rapunzel's hair to stay young, once cut, it goes from golden blonde to dark brown and loses its power.

Once Rapunzel turns 18, she begs to see the floating lanterns on her birthday; however, Gothel refuses both musically and angrily. In order to trick her, Rapunzel asks for special paint for her birthday, a gift that would take 3 days to get. While reluctant, Gothel believes Rapunzel and sets off. However, when she sees Maximus, she worries that someone's searching for Rapunzel. When she arrives at the tower, she's frightened to find that Rapunzel's gone. Believing she was kidnapped, Gothel takes a sharp dagger from her drawer and sets out to find her. She passes by the Snuggly Duckling and while listening to the thugs and Rapunzel sing, she realizes that no one kidnapped Rapunzel, but she instead left with wanted criminal Flynn Rider. Deeply furious, when one of the men staggers outside and attempts to flirt with her, she threatens him with her dagger unless he tells her where they are.

When she finds their location, she runs into Flynn's partners whom he abandoned. She gives them the choice of receiving either the tiara or revenge on Flynn. They unhesitantly choose revenge. She then confronts Rapunzel, saying that Flynn's only with her for the tiara. Unfazed by Gothel's warning, Rapunzel agrees to put him to the test.

Soon, the men Flynn abandoned take the tiara and knock Flynn unconscious and tie him to a boat, making it look like he was abandoning Rapunzel. They try to kidnap her, but Gothel betrays them by knocking them unconscious and comforting a heartbroken Rapunzel. When they arrive home, Rapunzel has a sudden epiphany that she's the lost princess of the King and Queen and she furiously confronts Gothel, refusing to let Gothel use her hair again. Enraged, Gothel gags and binds Rapunzel in chains and when Flynn tries to save her, Gothel stabs him with her dagger. Rapunzel begs to heal him and says that if she lets her heal him, she'll be with her forever. While reluctant, Gothel agrees, but Flynn cuts her hair with a shard of glass from a broken mirror. Gothel screams in horror as her true age catches up with her, Pascal pulls the length of the cut hair, and Gothel trips over it, causing her to fall out of the tower window. As she falls, she begins to turn into dust and by the time she hits the ground all that remained of her was her cloak.

Magic
Mother Gothel's abilities are few, but she does manifest a small amount of magic, being able to use the Golden Healing Flower for her own purposes to stay forever young.

Dagger
Mother Gothel carries a dagger that she uses in self-defense and the attack on Flynn Ryder.

Trivia

 * Gothel is very similar to fellow villain Judge Claude Frollo from Disney's animated version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Both have harbored their "children" for their own reasons, both have sang a song about why their kids can't leave their homes, both have tried to kill a friend of their kids, and both have died of falling.
 * She is also similar to Stromboli from Pinocchio: Both have locked up the main protagonists in their own films, and when the protagonists protest, they yell and shout at them, However the only difference between the two is that Stromboli is the secondary antagonist of Pinocchio and Mother Gothel is the main antagonist of Tangled.
 * Her original name was Madame Gothel.
 * Gothel also very similar to King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph:
 * Both villains won't let heroines enter the world. Mother Gothel keeps Rapunzel to leave outside to discover, because it is where danger is beyond, and King Candy tries to keep Vanellope away from entering the race, because she's a glitch.
 * Both villains made deals with the hero alone while hero's friend left to get something like Eugene for logs to keep fire longer and Vanellope to make her own medal to Ralph.
 * Both villains arrived and offers a item for interested like Tiara for Rapunzel and Medal for Ralph and made betrayal friend like Eugene for Rapunzel and Vanellope for Ralph, until Eugene discovered Gothel's trick and Ralph discovered King Candy's trick as both heroes return to have final confront with villains at the location like Eugene headed to Rapunzel's Tower and Ralph headed to Sugar Rush as well as saving the heroines.
 * Both villains stopped the heroes to reach their goal like Mother Gothel stabbed Eugene to save Rapunzel while King Candy in Cy-Bug form stop Ralph to smash last on Diet Cola Mountain to save Vanellope along with Felix and Calhoun. Both villains die at the end in different ways: Gothel falls from the tower and turns into dust, while King Candy flies towards the Diet Cola Hot Springs Mountain acting like a beacon (due to his transformation into a Cy-Bug after he got eaten by one) and got vaporized.
 * She is also similar to the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2: Both have done something to the heroines when they were babies, both are responsible for the heroines being locked up, both have tried to kill a friend of the heroines, both villains died at the end like Mother Gothel falls from the tower and turned to dust and The Fairy Godmother got shot by her own attack and turned into bubbles to her death.


 * Mother Gothel appears to be named after Gothel, the main villainess of the Barbie movie called Barbie as Rapunzel.