What Is the Name of the Kingdom in Tangled? (& Where Is It Set)
Tangled is a 2010 American animated musical fantasy film created by Disney, and it is based on the story Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th century. The film was a joy to watch and people loved the charm and humor Rapunzel, Finn, and other characters brought to the movie. Of course, some fans got interested in the setting of the movie and realized an unbelievable and coincidental fact about Rapunzel and her origins. In this article, we will find out what is the name of the kingdom in Tangled, and where is it set.
The kingdom in Tangled is called Corona. This coincidental name shocked some fans of the movie and sparked discussions on social media. Corona’s kingdom was built on an island somewhere in Europe, and if we need to speculate, the island would be set somewhere in Germany. Since the Grimm Brothers wrote the original German fairytale, it seems that is truly the case.
We will discuss this unintentional detail from Tangled, and further explain the origins, and inspiration of this successful Disney movie. If you are interested in the Rapunzel and Tangled lore, stay with us until the end.
Rapunzel’s origins
Before we dwell into the world of Tangled and its setting, we will talk about the source material of the movie Tangled, and its characters. We all know that the source material for Tangled and other Rapunzel cartoons came from the Grimm Brothers and their Rapunzel, released in the 19th century. Classic fairytale follows a lonely couple, who are living near the sorceress’s garden.
The couple desperately wants a baby, and the woman finally gets pregnant. During pregnancy, a woman experiences cravings and longs for the “rapunzel”, a plant that is used in Germany in salads. The man wants to soothe his wife and decides to go and steal the plant from the sorceress. Of course, the sorceress finds out about the theft of her crops and decides to punish the man. Desperate to not get killed by the sorceress, the man decides to beg for mercy, which the witch uses for her own gain.
She demands a child after it’s born, and the man desperately agrees to the deal. The witch takes away a child and names her Rapunzel, by the plant her mother craved during her pregnancy. Anyway, the child grows up into a beautiful young girl, isolated from anything and anyone, in the high tower where only the witch can reach her.
Anytime the old witch wants to visit Rapunzel, she calls out “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!”, which prompts Rapunzel to throw down her really, really long hair for the sorceress to climb up to the Tower. One day, a young prince hears the old witch call out to Rapunzel and curiously does the same to reach a mysterious girl in the high tower.
The two fall in love with each other, but after some time, the witch finds out about their little affair, cuts Rapunzel’s hair, and throws the prince out of the tower. He survives and he and Rapunzel live happily ever after. As you can see, the source material is vastly different from the Tangled version, but still has similar aspects to the story in the film.
One huge difference between Tangled and the original tale, relevant to its topic, is the absence of the kingdom in the Grimm Brothers’ story, and the fact the parents were poor people.
Now, that we talked about the source material, which is important in this instance, let’s find out the name of the kingdom in Disney’s Tangled.
What is the name of the kingdom in Tangled?
The time period from 2020 to 2021 was really hard for people all over the world. The Covid-19 pandemic caused chaos and “forced” people to self-quarantine in their own homes. Of course, people needed to entertain themselves in any way possible to not think about the dangerous disease, and do something with their time.
Binge watching became really popular amongst people, and the movies that we did not watch for a very long time, appeared on our watchlist once again. One of them was Tangled, a movie about a young girl named Rapunzel, who was kidnapped and raised by an evil foster mother. Unbeknownst to Rapunzel, Mother Gothel took her away from her parents, King Frederick, and Queen Arianna.
The pair-rule the Kingdom of Corona. When people found out about the name, they instantly went to social media and started a discussion on how Tangled is actually quite relatable with the way they are living during the pandemic. One user on Twitter pointed out that Rapunzel was practicing social distancing in a tower away from the kingdom of Corona.
The tweet went viral and other people joined the conversation about this unusual fact about Tangled’s lore. Other people were saying that Mother Gothel was actually doing Rapunzel a favor by locking her in the tower away from Corona. Of course, this was a funny discussion on Twitter to distract people from the reality of things, and in the end, concluded that Rapunzel can teach us a lot about how to survive isolation.
One user pointed out in their tweet “if Rapunzel can entertain herself in her tower for 18 years, they will be able to survive a few weeks.” It was a fun discourse indeed.
Now, let’s find out where is the Kingdom of Corona set in the Disney universe and in real life.
Where is the kingdom set in Tangled and real life?
Besides the Tangled movie, we got an animated series Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure, that follows our heroes six months after the events of the Tangled movie that ran successfully for three seasons. We found out a lot about The Kingdom of Corona, and their rulers, King Frederic, and Queen Arianna, and it truly expanded the Tangled lore.
What we gathered from both show and film, is the turbulent past of the Kingdom and its oldest known monarch, King Herz Der Sonne. Most people will notice this name originates from the European continent, particularly, it’s meaning in German. I was curious and translated the name of the monarch from German to English – Herz Der Sonne means “Heart of the Sun”, in literal translation.
Of course, that fact points us to Grimm Brothers, who were German, and their fairy tale Rapunzel, which, you guessed it, is part of the German heritage. We already established in the plot of the original fairy tale that Rapunzel is actually a type of plant that is used as a salad in Germany, and we can safely assume that the Kingdom of Corona is set somewhere in Germany.
The Tangled film hints at it as well, since there are kingdoms, which are dominant in European history, the beautiful green setting that looks like the terrain from Middle Europe, and some names that sound suspiciously German – Mother Gothel comes to mind.
All in all, the Kingdom of Corona is set, at least somewhere in Middle Europe, and although the film is not religiously following the source material, it does hints at some glaring details.
