Alternate Ending for Rapunzel

Disney's sassy new Rapunzel

Rapunzel had been locked in the same room for three years with no connections to the outside world but a single window and monthly visits from the witch who had enslaved her and placed her in solitary confinement. “Rapunzel! Rapunzel!” cackled the witch, her eyes framed by grotesque wrinkles, her eyebrows gray and bushy and overgrown, “let down your hair!” Rapunzel’s hair, allowed to grow unfettered since she was born, was long enough to act as a rope the witch used to climb up to the tower. Occasionally she would bring Rapunzel food, but more often than not she would beat Rapunzel; for insubordination, for being pretty, for having hair insufficiently long to create a ladder.

Rapunzel was starting to have a hard time figuring out what was real and what wasn’t. Often, she’d hear the cackle at her window and there would be no witch. She feared that any day the witch might scar her to obscure her beauty, or worse, torture her to death. She cut a lock of her hair off and tied it into a series of knots to create a doll, her only companion in solitude. She named her new friend “Wilson” and conversed with him for months about topics ranging from the horrors of captivity to the correct approach to hair-care in a tower with no running water.

“RAPUNZEL! RAPUNZEL!” shrieked the witch, “LET DOWN YOUR HAIR!” She climbed up the massive blonde rope, cackling all the way to the top. “What is THIS?!” she screamed upon finding Wilson, fraying at the edges.

“It’s… nothing…” replied Rapunzel, all hope lost.

“NO FUCKING DOLLS,” replied the witch, taking the knots apart and throwing the tuft of hair out the window. “How many times do I have to tell you, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO CUT YOUR HAIR! I brought you a loaf of bread, but now I’m going to eat it all by myself.” And with that, the witch left Rapunzel hungry, depressed, and alone.

Rapunzel took her massive braid and threw it around an outlying brick above her, tying a sturdy knot. She wrapped this strand, directly above her, around her neck, forming a noose, and stood atop her chair, kicking it out from underneath her. As the air left her lungs you could almost hear a sigh of relief at having finally let go.

A few months later, a handsome young prince strode by on his trusty horse and something rank filled his nostrils. “Man, what died here?” he asked himself. He rode home where he never had to work, was constantly doted upon by beautiful women, could torture and kill anyone who disagreed with anything he said, and lived happily ever after. Because that’s what princes do, duh.