To do so, she cleverly poses as a kind, yet overprotective mother figure, that simply hopes to keep her daughter away from the outside world which, according to her, is filled with people who would abuse Rapunzel's power (which makes her somewhat hypocritical since she is one of those people who is doing just that.

Throughout the story, Gothel's goal is to keep Rapunzel in a hidden tower forever in order to take advantage of the healing powers within the lost princess's hair. Gothel often left her alone in their cottage to restore her youth with the flower and gave her gifts only to keep her away from her, rather than by motherly affection, much like she later does with Rapunzel, and finally abandoning Cassandra to escape with the baby princess, not caring about what would happen to her afterwards.

Gothel was also negligent to her biological daughter Cassandra, presumably having to be an unintended result of an affair with an unknown man. Gothel was a lazy mother, as evidenced by her treating her four-year-old daughter Cassandra as a maid by forcing her to do all household chores in their cottage by herself while Gothel spent all her time looking at herself at her magic mirrors and talking about the compliments she got by men, which also demonstrates her vanity. Aside from manipulating Rapunzel herself, she also manipulated the Stabbington Brothers by seemingly giving them the chance of getting revenge on Flynn Rider as well as Rapunzel's gift to make themselves rich, only to betray them without keeping the latter half of her promise as she no longer needed them. She is also very possessive and selfish, evidenced by the fact that she had been hoarding the magical flower for hundreds of years all to herself, which could have instead been a gift to share with other ailing beings of the world. Aside from the magic golden flower Gothel selfishly uses to prolong her life to live forever, and her life alone, she lacks magical attributes, relying solely on her intellect to achieve her ambitions. This ties into the fact that she is a phenomenal actress, a dangerous manipulator, and is very intelligent, while it also indicates that in her actual lifetime before discovering the flower, she was indeed an actual stage actress and performer before she retired due to her aging. Gothel presents herself with a theatrical flair, often flaunting her beauty and curvy appearance with much enthusiasm and dramatics.

4.3 Mother Knows Best: A Tale of the Old Witch.

4.2 The Isle of the Lost: A Descendants Novel.

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