*muttering to myself* don’t analyze the pillow thing it’s not that deep iT’S NOT THAT DEEP GOD HELP ME—
so it was weird how rapunzel snatched the pillow away from varian in “day of the animals”, right? kiera and catalina were bemoaning their fate, kiera threw a pillow at varian for (hypocritically) reminding her of her crimes, and he started to throw it back. if rapunzel had let it play out, they would have been distracted with a good old-fashioned pillow brawl. that would have given her time to try to work out a plan, since she admitted she didn’t really have one.
now, it’s perfectly likely that she just didn’t think about that. she hasn’t been socialized— maybe she thought they were only getting angrier with each other, instead of doing a couple jabs that were in play/to alleviate tension. maybe she misunderstood, or maybe she just wanted them to focus on their circumstances.
but it’s odd. i feel like, had it been non-moonstone’d cass, eugene, and lance, rapunzel would’ve let them tussle a bit. or if it had just been kiera and catalina with her.
my point isn’t to demonize rapunzel. all she did was stop a pillow fight, for crying out loud. however, i think this reveals that she’s been traumatized by varian’s actions, and she’s subtly trying to prevent him from even getting a little angry.
she lost her first mother figure, and, for all anyone knew at that point in time, the amber could have killed her second one. varian proved that gothel wasn’t just a one-time thing— people can betray rapunzel again and again. varian proved that the guards aren’t invincible, and— even though this wasn’t his fault at all— his role in things led to rapunzel seeing how low frederic is willing to stoop.
and then, on varian’s side of things, he’s going to notice what rapunzel’s doing sooner or later. he’s going to feel babysat at best and untrustworthy/traitorous at worst. he probably will get angry if this goes on for too long, and that confrontation will reveal that forgiveness can’t be as easy as they’re both pretending it is.
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