itspileofgoodthings:

the thing that kills me most about the lantern scene in tangled is that it isn’t disappointing. rapunzel has been “looking out a window for 18 years” dreaming of the day she’ll see the lights; she’s built them up in her mind so much that it would have been so natural if it fell flat. but it doesn’t. it’s everything she’s ever wanted and more and it’s MORE because she doesn’t get only the thing she thought she wanted the most in all the world.

looking out her window from her tower all those years, rapunzel didn’t just want to see the lights. she wanted freedom and she wanted love and so the lights became for her the symbol of everything she missed out on for all those years. and I love the way the movie overlays her voiced desire with her unvoiced, truer, deeper desire so that the moment when the first comes true- when she sees the lights for the first time in all their glory- is the same moment that she sees what’s right next to her, in the same boat, and what she’s really wanted along: a person whom she loves and who loves her back.