Case for Mother Gothel (Tangled)

Economics Political Theory
1

Mother Gothel was a victim of Tangled.

There happens to be a magical golden flower that can heal all wounds and allow a person to live forever.
Great.
Mother Gothel finds this flower and I assume acquires the property on which the flower resides. She then uses the flower to keep herself alive for “hundreds of years”, at which point some pawns of the State (guards) steal the flower and take it to their overlords, the king and queen, to save the pregnant queens life.
Mother Gothel goes to retrieve her property which is now infused into the queen’s babie’s hair. She tries to cut the hair, but then the hair loses its power. So now Mother Gothel has a choice to make: Steal the baby or die.
So she raises the baby, providing her with nearly everything she could ask for, but can’t let her leave for obvious reasons.
So the rest of the movie revolves around how evil Mother Gothel is for doing all the aforementioned. I posit that Mother Gothel was completely justified in what she did.

“But Mother Gothel didn’t own the property on which the flower grew!”

Oh please, pure propaganda from the overlords of the State. Mother Gothel would not have just tried to hide the flower that’s on unowned property, and she certainly wouldn’t have been wandering around on someone elses property and just happen to find the flower. The most likely scenario is that it was either unowned property and homesteading would apply, or she bought the land with the flower on it (Unknown to the original owners.). Since the area was sparsely populated in the setting of Tangled, I can only assume it was even less populated “hundreds of years” before then, so the former explanation is more likely than the latter.

It’s just amazing to me how property rights are competely outside of the the average persons frame of reference to the point where we’re actually supposed to cheer for a thief and the carrier of stolen property, Repunzel.

That said, what do you guys think? Was Mother Gothel justified?

2

I haven’t seen the movie yet (but I’m going to soon), but from what you’ve stated, Mother Gothel is right up until the point that she kidnaps the baby. Or, if someone can show how that is justified (as after all she’s only after the right to guardianship of the baby), then she is wrong when holds the girl against her will (unless of course she isn’t, but then there wouldn’t be conflict in the movie).

It’s not Repunzel’s fault that her hair is magical because of the stolen flower. But the hair is Repunzel’s, and Mother Gothel cannot enslave Repunzel without being in the wrong.

Really it just sounds like an incredibly unfortunate situation for Mother Gothel, and while I understand her actions, I do not believe they are just. However, she should sue the pants of the king and queen. It sounds like that flower was really valuable.

3

I agree that Repunzel was certainly no villain in the story, but how could Mother Gothel get justice? Like I said, she either had to kidnap the baby or die, and she couldn’t sue the king and queen for damages unless the king and queen could produce another flower.
Is it not an extension of the King and Queens injustice for Mother Gothel to take the baby?
I certainly would’ve done the same thing in Mother Gothels shoes, but what would you have done? Die for the sake of the babies freedom? Very noble, but is that your obligation or choice?

Also, this was a very fun movie. I hope I’m not ruining it for you! There really aren’t any spoilers, everything I’ve said so far is told to you in the first few minutes of the film.

4

My allegorical interpretation:

Mother Gothel looks distinctly gypsy or - gasp - maybe even Jewish. For hundreds of years, Jews controlled banking and hoarded the secret of their wealth and success (the flower is golden, after all) but, one day, in order to improve human welfare (heal a sick girl), European royalty sought to understand banking for themselves. Once they did, the power of banking had been wrested from the hands of the dirty Jews. However, the Jews would not give up so easily, so they plotted to wrest back the power of banking to themselves by deceiving the Royals (kidnap of Rapunzel). Again, for many years, Jews surreptitiously controlled money through their dirty tricks but then, through chance (Flynn Rider) the secret of banking is discovered by an outsider and carried away from the Jews. Eventually, it lands up right back in the lap of Royalty where, we see, it always belonged (Rapunzel’s the daughter of the King, after all) while the Jewish menace has simply evaporated and gone away (Mother Gothel disintegrates).

Now let’s just sit back and wait for some brickhead to accuse me of anti-Semitism!

Clayton -

5

She’s justified up until the point where she steals a little girl and tries to put her into slavery. Actually I feel as thoug Mother Gothel is a good allegory for the state for most of the movie where she tries to convince Rapunzel that she would die without her if she sought freedom, and all the time when she tried to convince Rapunzel that she owed her something.

6

“Is it not an extension of the King and Queens injustice for Mother Gothel to take the baby?
I certainly would’ve done the same thing in Mother Gothels shoes, but what would you have done? Die for the sake of the babies freedom? Very noble, but is that your obligation or choice?”

You get into what exactly is a moral obligation, but if risking your own life is justification for the violation of property rights then there was no crime in the first place. Remember “she[the queen] got sick, really sick” implying that she may well have died had she not gotten the flower. It was also implied that had Gothel just shared the flower she would have been able to continue using its powers, but she didn’t, so the theft of the flower was justified in the first place.

I would have stolen away the baby in an instant, but this does not make it moral. If you could kill five people and live a long happy life in eternal bliss, and you took the offer, I know many would, does this make the act moral?

7

I wouldn’t call you an anti-semite, but you definately hate jews.
I actually really liked your post, I didn’t look at it that way, but I definately see an allegory between the king and queen as the state and Mother Gothel as an individualist.

Woe, it’s alright to take someone’s personal possessions if it benefits you? Explain…

I don’t feel like that’s an accurate comparison. Mother Gothel was using a completely benign flower to keep herself alive for hundreds of years, the conflict only began when the King and Queen aggressed against mother Gothel to take the flower. Mother Gothel needed to take the baby to regain her own possession. She did need to enslave an innocent baby which is an injustice, but she did not do it out of her own personal desires, she did it because of the actions of the king and queen.
Imagine you had a goose that lays golden eggs, but one day a witch comes and steals your goose. She then irreversably changes the goose into a baby that lays golden eggs. As an added twist, you must consume the contents of these golden eggs in order to survive. Do you have the right to take the baby?

Admittedly, this is a bizzarre situation, but I think that’s the fun of it.

8

I didn’t make the movie. Perhaps my allegory is just a fiction of my own imagination but why did they make Gothel look so… Jewish?

Clayton -

9

I know you’re not hating on the Jews, aha. Actually now that I’m thinking about it, bad banking metaphors seem to be part and parcel to kids films.

A great example of this is in Rango where they use water as money. Water as money! The obvious extrapolation there is that we should just print as much money as we can. After all, if there’s so much water it’s worthless, that’s a great thing!

10

Yes, the King and Queen definitely aggressed against Mother Gothel. However, I don’t think that justifies Mother Gothel’s keeping Rapunzel in captivity in any way. While Mother Gothel wouldn’t have abducted Rapunzel and held her captive had the King and Queen not done what they did, I think she’s still entirely responsible for her own actions. So yes, I think she did do it out of her own personal desires.

Although this is definitely an insane hypothetical, my initial answer is: I have no right to take the baby, but I do have first claim on the baby’s golden eggs.

That said, there’s no guarantee for perfect justice in this world. Ever.

11

I think the real lesson is that you have to choose your hypotheticals wisely… not all thought-experiments are created equal and Tangled is a pretty poor platform for thought-experimenting property rights. IMNSHO.

Clayton -

12

Wow, this is exactly the opposite of my own scenario of the movie. I didn’t factor in the opening homesteading issue when I wrote about the analogy between the state and Gothel.

13

Please understand what I was trying to say, I was using your logic.

“So now Mother Gothel has a choice to make: Steal the baby or die.”
The fact, as you pointed out below, that it was death she was facing didn’t matter. The flower could have just glowed and according to this line of thought Rapunzel would have been her property, you included the death part to, I assume, give a partial justification for the kidnapping. If, when facing death, then entire lives can be stolen and ruled upon, then such is small compared to stealing a bit of property to save one’s life. Also, please do not quote people so that relevant information is taken out and so it appears they are saying something they are not, I assume that you just didn’t catch it though so no foul.

“You get into what exactly is a moral obligation, but if risking your own life is justification for the violation of property rights then there was no crime in the first place. Remember “she[the queen] got sick, really sick” implying that she may well have died had she not gotten the flower. It was also implied that had Gothel just shared the flower she would have been able to continue using its powers, but she didn’t, so the theft of the flower was justified in the first place.”

As for my analogy I used a very large case to prove a principle, which was this: That the fact that an individual would engage in the act does not make it moral in objective standards. The example could have been “stealing a penny” for eternal hapiness, but if the stealing of the penny was still immoral, then this would not make it a moral act, nor would the brutal murder of thousands. What matter is principle, not extent. So the fact that I might have stolen away Rapunzel is irrelevant to the argument.

“Imagine you had a goose that lays golden eggs, but one day a witch comes and steals your goose. She then irreversibly changes the goose into a baby that lays golden eggs. As an added twist, you must consume the contents of these golden eggs in order to survive. Do you have the right to take the baby?”

  1. WTF did you make it gold eggs if you’re just eating the gold eggs??? :stuck_out_tongue:

  2. If the child was sentient then it would have rights and be its own individual, I would have no right to it or whatever it… Laid…

Let’s take a real life example.

A woman has a child. For the first ten years of this child’s life, unbeknownst to the child, everything he ever eats has been farmed by others and stolen by his mother.

At the age of ten, with everything which he has ever consumed being stolen for him by another, is he the property of the farmer?

If the kidnapping of Rapunzel is justified then this is even more so, because only a part of Rapunzel’s being was made up by the flower, all of this person’s existence is made up of stolen property, so if from the example of Rapunzel we determine that individuals, if partially composed of stolen property, become the property of others, then this child would have to become the total slave to the farmer.

This is incorrect because of the fact that the child, in both question, was in no way at fault. To kidnap the child is to hold the child to an obligation of contract which he never agreed to. It is natural sin incarnate.

14

Well yes and no. It’s very much like the state pointing a gun at your head and saying, “give us your money!”, sure it’s you’re desire to live, but it was not your desire to have this decision foisted upon you. Obviously, this decision is a bit different, Mother Gothel either has to steal a baby or die.

That’s an interesting thing to say. What about when the child grows up, do you still have claim to the eggs? Or does Mother Gothel have right to the hair (when the child grows up.), if we get back to Repunzel?

I think there’s alot of truth to that.

I’m starting to get some heat here for these hypothetical situations, and I understand why. However, just like with a Reductio Ad Absurdum, there’s alot to be learned about the world by taking it to a logical extreme. What’s the value of human life? What’s the value of a babies freedom? Is it ever alright to steal, even if it’s to get justice? etc…

Where’s that at, I’d like to read it! Overlooking the initial sequence is easy to do since we really don’t know for certain that Mother Gothel owned the flower. (I think the case is very strong that she did, but no one really knows.)

There’s alot of merit to the argument that a baby shouldn’t be aggressed upon, because the baby is completely innocent of the circumstances, and depending on the day I might take this side.
This is not one of those days.

I posit the following:
1.) Babies don’t have freedom, so no one can talk one way or another about enslaving a baby. Therefore Repunzel was not really aggressed upon, neither as a baby nor as a child.

2.) Human beings do have obligations to act in the benefit of another human being when our actions are intertwined with the life of another. If an emo kid is hanging from a cliff-side with a narcissistic histrionic dangling off his ankle, it is not only a good decision for the emo kid to remain holding onto the cliff-side, he has an obligation to do so. Same applies to Repunzel: When she has the ability to make decisions for herself, she has an obligation to Mother Gothel to keep her alive. Before that, Mother Gothel can make the decision for her.
a.) Does this apply to the king and queen? Did Mother Gothel have an obligation to help the queen? No. Mother Gothel was not at all inextricably linked to the situation, she was entirely an outsider.

From those two points there seems to be a solid case that Mother Gothel did the right thing, and it was not her that was the villain, but the king and queen.

If you still think that Repunzel was aggressed upon then…

3.) Injustice can be performed as a remedy to a greater injustice. If a husband beats his child with his wife’s purse, the boy would be justified in stealing and hiding the purse. Similarly, Mother Gothel stole Repunzel to prevent the injustice of being killed by the actions of the king and queen.

15

“2.) Human beings do have obligations to act in the benefit of another human being when our actions are intertwined with the life of another. If an emo kid is hanging from a cliff-side with a narcissistic histrionic dangling off his ankle, it is not only a good decision for the emo kid to remain holding onto the cliff-side, he has an obligation to do so. Same applies to Repunzel: When she has the ability to make decisions for herself, she has an obligation to Mother Gothel to keep her alive. Before that, Mother Gothel can make the decision for her.”

Why? This is just an assertion and I could follow the same logic to say that people have obligations whether or not they hare involved with somehting, why does being involved matter? Especially with the case of Rapunzel she did not choose to be involved in the entire situation, she was raised in it.

It’s literally just like if I was walking down the street and I stepped on a pressure switch hooked up to a detonator. Pulling up my leg will blow up someone’s house. Now I never agressed against these people, I am not invovled, it was just pure chance, not choice that brought me into the situation. Only choices should be used when considering one’s moral obligations.

Moral obligations only truly exist with what one has agreed to and the defense of property in the frist place, which can only be considered to be violated by choice.

16

You are right, I did not catch that and I apologize. I do think I explained why Mother Gothel did not have an obligation to the queen, even though Repunzel has an obligation to Mother Gothel in my previous post.
Solely to save ones own life is not a justification for an initation of force.

The color of the eggs turned out to be insignificant, but I wanted to make it as close a comparison to Repunzel as I could, haha.

I understand why you used this comparison, but the difference is that Repunzel does not have an obligation to Gothel solely because she is made up of the stolen property of another, she has an obligation because the stolen property that is infused into her hair is both the property of Gothel and is needed to keep her alive. If Repunzel could give the property back or find another flower obviously the obligation would be immediately lifted. Just like if the Emo kid got the narcissistic histrionic to safety before letting himself fall off the cliff, in my previous example.

It is alot like that, except there’s a family inside the house. You don’t think the mild inconvenience of standing on a pressure plate until someone can come and place an object on it is what he has a moral obligation to do? Or at the very least have the family come out. Surely a small stipend of a persons freedom isn’t more important than the lives of a family and all of their possessions!

17

If the shoe fits…

18

But the trouble is that you got to choose hypotheticals that are ceteris paribus (all things equal)… and Tangled just is not. The flower is growing on a hillside that is not clearly Gothel’s property and while the guards are wrong to shove her aside, it hardly constitutes trespass and theft. The baby is “infused” with the power of the flower… but what is that? What sort of property can be infused in another? If I have a marijuana plant growing in my house and you steal it and smoke it, do you become my chattel property since the marijuana is now inside of you?

Clayton -

19

As I said, it’s the movie creators who saw fit to choose a distinctly Aryan-looking king and queen and a Jewish-looking villain. My allegory is, of course, a fanciful elaboration but the movie-makers’ choices of heroes and villain speaks for itself.

Clayton -

20

Don’t I though? We know that property does not belong to someone simply because they’ve consumed it, and indeed, when people do consume your property it would be ideal justice for them to un-consume it, return it to its original condition, and give it back. Further, when we want justice for a theft the first thing to do is to attempt to retrieve the stolen item, and failing that or if it is prohibitively expensive we might take a persons labor in exchange, which is the very definition of indentured servantry.

However, Repunzel is not under an obligation to Gothel because of some wrong she committed against her. She has an obligation, through no fault of her own, because circumstance has inextricably linked her to the life of another human being. This of course can’t be defended solely on the basis property rights, but Gothel is competely in the clear up until Repunzel reaches the age of consent, at which point… it’s hazy.

Mark my words: There is absolutely no way that Gothel is dumb enough to not purchase the property* on which the flower resides after centuries of using it. Whether or not she originally obtained the flower legitimately is irrelevant by the time the events of the movie take place. It is for all intents and purposes hers, and anyone she may have wronged are long since dead. (I suspect homesteading applies, but it’s just speculation.)

*Especially since she’s a Jewish banker!