The affects of parental figures on children: Astoria Rapunzel

 

Regal Academy, for being a kids’ show with fewer rules than kindergarteners’ games, has some very detailed characterization, naturally forming relationships, and behavior linked to the little things in their lives. I’ve done a LOT of musing on the subject, and whether accidentally or intentionally, the characters have deductible struggles and inner worlds that are strongly connected to what we know of them and their home lives. In the following essays, I wanna focus on their behaviors and inner worlds linked to the parental figures in their lives. And I want to start with Astoria.

A few things to get out of the way for those who don’t know Regal Academy. The show is a “fairytales are real” setup and focuses on the grandchildren of classic fairytale heroes in a school, Regal Academy, located in The Fairytale Land. The school breaks the classes up into teams and teams collect grades more on group effort rather than individual. Our main team consists of Rose Cinderella, Travis Beast, Astoria Rapunzel, Hawk Snow White, Joy Le Frog, and after season 2, LingLing Iron Fan. Their grandparents, with the exception of Princess Iron Fan, are teachers at Regal Academy.

Astoria is the one I think about the most. She is the granddaughter of Rapunzel and her grandmother is the reason behind most of her behaviors. As for most of the kids on the show, Majester Rapunzel is more of a parental figure to Astoria than her parents. This alone has consequences. We know nothing about Astoria’s father and the very few we see of Astoria’s mother (unnamed) is not good. Her mother is mostly ignoring Astoria and has shown a clear disinterest in Astoria’s wants as seen in the Parent’s Day episode where she refuses to go to Regal Academy for Parent’s Day because it would take away from her reading time. When Astoria expresses that if no parents from their team show up, they get a failing grade, her mother dismisses Astoria’s desire to keep good grades, because she doesn’t need grades or school to be a princess. When her mother does end up coming to the school, it’s framed as more of a parents reunited as old friends for their old classmate than there to support their kids.

Astoria’s mother is actively ignorant of her daughter, which causes Rapunzel to be Astoria’s biggest parental figure. Which is not good, because while Majester Rapunzel is shown to love her granddaughter and is actively in her life, she has beliefs that clash with Astoria’s and an unyielding need for things to go her way. Majester Rapunzel has this unshakeable belief that Astoria must become a “true fairytale princess”. As we learn from the things she says, this entails being what most people think of when they hear “fairytale princess”: a damsel with no way to do anything for herself and just waiting for her prince to save her. She is helpless and incapable of self-sufficiency. Ignoring the bit where I could argue that this entire mindset is similar to generational trauma, there’s one more aspect to being a “true fairytale princess”. And that is no big goals. Astoria wants to become Headmsiteress of Regal Academy when she grows up and Majester Rapunzel disapproves. Which is a tad hypocritical given that she herself is a teacher at Regal Academy. But I guess she doesn’t take that very seriously.

Now, Rapunzel’s need for Astoria to be a princess has clashed with Astoria’s wants. In fact, Rapunzel herself actively puts her want over Astoria’s in opposition on a regular basis. She uses the phrase “You should give up on that silly dream” on multiple occasions, always followed up, or preceded, or both, by Rapunzel telling Astoria in some way that she needs to become a true fairytale princess. It’s a pattern, and one we can safely assume has been going on long before the show ever started. In episode 4 of season 1, Astoria is already having a reaction to this like someone who’s been hearing this for years. Majester Rapunzel putting her own desire vs Astoria’s in opposition in such a way has resulted in a split in Astoria’s mind. It’s one or the other. She can’t be what her grandmother wants her to be if she becomes what she wants to be. Which for the most part isn’t even wrong. She can’t be a helpless damsel and the  Headmistress of Regal Academy of all places at the same time. But this opposition is stronger than just the natural contradictions.

As we learn in Mystery at Cinderella Castle, Astoria’s desire to be Headmistress is more than just a want. It has been her dream since she was a child. And combined with the unbreakable stubbornness that is clearly running in the family, she likely decided that nothing was going to stop her from achieving her dream at a young age and has been working towards it ever since. She adopted this mindset of “I’ll show her!” about her grandmother. Which extends beyond just the school. In furthering her goal of becoming Headmistress, Astoria wants to be the best at school, causing her to become the smartest in nearly all of The Fairytale Land, but she also shows extreme badassery when it comes to fighting and extreme competence in all situations regardless of circumstance. As we recall, part of Majester Rapunzel’s idea of a fairytale princess is a damsel. Damsels are helpless. So, due to that previously discussed opposition, Astoria did her best to be as competent as possible. She became an absolute boss in battle and competent in any situation. The latter I believe is why she studies for every situation. Astoria knows everything. No matter where the gang goes or what they’re doing, if Astoria doesn’t already know everything about it, she has at least ten books on the subject. Allowing her to be prepared in any situation and not need rescuing.

It is perhaps not surprising that Astoria is a perfectionist and doesn’t know how to take things easy. Rapunzel, not even realizing (which makes it all worse), created this situation where Astoria is constantly overworking herself and doesn’t know how to stop. Combined with Regal Academy’s tendency to turn everything into a contest, she doesn’t know how to engage in most things without turning it into a race for who will be the best. As is seen in The Sleepover where the immediate instinct when starting the sleepover’s treasure hunt is to win so they can get the best grade, or in the Dragon Olympics episode where she has no idea what to do with the competition when it isn’t for actual stakes. This is highly damaging for a person and Astoria even ends up projecting this mindset onto her friends who remain uncracked by the pressure Astoria is placing on them but it’s still there.

The most noticeable aspect of the discussed opposition is Astoria’s love life. I’ve seen people joke that Astoria constantly claims she doesn’t want a boyfriend and yet sort of acquires one anyway, but that isn’t inconsistency or hypocrisy. Rapunzel wants Astoria to be a damsel and as much as it is required for the classic damsels to be incapable, it’s also required that they have a prince that saves them and takes care of them. This is the bit that Rapunzel seems to push the most. Every time she lectures Astoria about being a real princess, finding a prince comes up. Often just finding a prince is placed in opposition to Astoria’s dream. Thus the biggest aspect of that opposition of Astoria’s, becomes that she either gets married/has a boyfriend OR she becomes Headmistress. She can’t have both. As this whole internal feud over what she wants to be and what is expected of her started in childhood, where romance wasn’t a priority, Astoria chose to become Headmistress and stick it to her grandmother. Due to the stark contrasts Rapunzel has set, Astoria acquired her belief that it was one or the other. As a result, she came up with this lie that she doesn’t care about boys. She doesn’t want a boyfriend. She will never marry. She told these lies to everyone around her and even herself until she came to believe that not having love was what she wanted.

Enter Shawn. Astoria becomes dysfunctional for the first time ever when around Shawn. This is because of this lie she fed herself as well as the contrast Rapunzel set and enforces. Astoria believes that she can’t have love if she wants to have her dream, and more importantly, that she doesn’t want love. Thus her uncharacteristically scattered behavior when it comes to Shawn. She can’t comprehend that she has genuine feelings for him because it goes against every lie she has been told. She slowly warms up to the idea, but it’s clearly difficult and requires seeing Shawn fight for her autonomy and state that one should get to know a lady’s desires rather than force their own agenda. (How does this decade-old children’s cartoon have a better understanding of romantic relationships than most people today?)

Rapunzel gets one good strike in my book. She respects her deal with Astoria. In the Test of the Tower Rapunzel and Astoria make a deal. Astoria lets Rapunzel put her up into the family tower, a contest where if a prince makes it through the traps on this island where the tower is located, and gets to the top of the tower, ringing the bell, they get to marry the Rapunzel in it. In exchange, Rapunzel lets Astoria take this insanely hard Regal Academy exam, passing which is a whole-ass record, and if she passes, Rapunzel has to leave Astoria alone about boys. Rapunzel agrees to the deal. And in the end Astoria of course aces the test and Rapunzel genuinely lays off Astoria when it comes to princes.

However this one good act we see of her does not erase anything else. Rapunzel is controlling, or at least trying to be, and her relentless pushing Astoria in directions she doesn’t want to go, damaged Astoria in ways that will take years to recover from. She developed perfectionism, anxiety, a winner’s complex, an inability to rest, an inability to accept she is in love, and who knows what else she could be diagnosed with by an actual psychologist?

And of course, we can’t forget that her mother is ignorant of her. Which doesn’t sound like much, but if it weren’t for her extreme need to prove her grandmother wrong, it could easily result in low self-esteem or loss of identity and the fact that she does have a mother physically present but absent in every other way, is insanely damaging to any child. It teaches them that themselves is the only ones they can rely on as they can’t trust their parent to be there for them. Rapunzel also failed to be a safe space for Astoria, which further amplifies her extreme competence and all its damaging qualities. She has to be self-sufficient because no one was there for her as a child or teenager.

The only thing that can help Astoria avoid growing up to be just as much of a damaged adult as she is a damaged teenager is Rose (this is going to be a recurring theme). Rose is less concerned about grades and achievements and is constantly pushing Astoria to try and take things easy as well as to remember that she is not alone. Let’s also not forget that Rose is a scheming shipper, thus Astoria has no choice but to confront her feelings about Shawn. Rose’s supportive, significantly healthier, and constant presence allows Astoria to unlearn these unhealthy habits and beliefs and grow into a healthier adult.