V. Rapunzel Love and Hate by Marissa Meyer

Rapunzel by Gustaf Tenggren

More of your Rapunzel Love and Hate thoughts. Here's part V. by Marissa Meyer.

One of my favorite parts of reading and studying fairy tales is being able to spout off at any passing comment all the nitty, gritty, creepy, peculiar, uncomfortable aspects of the tales that have gotten lost in our Disney culture. Whether it's the rape of the sleeping beauty, the cannibalism of Little Red's grandmother, or the evil queen being forced to dance in piping hot shoes, there's always a weird fairy-tale tidbit that makes people stop and ask me, "Really? In a children's story?"

Rapunzel is one of my all-time favorite tales for this very reason. To many, the story is about a girl in a tower with long hair. Not much to it, right?

But what about the husband who was so afraid of his wife's food cravings (of all things) that he willingly sold off his unborn child to a witch?

And why, exactly, did the witch get so mad just because her ward's clothes were a little too snug? (Perhaps because she had excellent deduction skills.)

And of course, one of my favorite fairy-tale gore moments is when the brambles beneath the tower poke out the prince's eyes. I mean, ew.

Although I don't expect Disney's variation to make much use of the darker side of the tales, I can't wait to see what they have done with it. But, like a true Grimm geek, I'm perhaps equally excited to talk to people once they've seen the movie and be able to tell them, "Sure, that was cute, but here's how it really went down . . ."

by Marissa Meyer

Marissa has a series of fairy tale based novels due out in 2012, the first will be Cinder: Book One of the Lunar Chronicles.