Gothel was my first assignment for CMN247 Writing for the Illustrated Book in 2022. I chose to make a pitch for a flip on the Rapunzel fairytale by making it about the witch Gothel, because I was dissatisfied with the simplicity of the whole narrative. Majority of the story relied on the visual portion to carry the story, yet as it was a pitch with descriptors of each panel the challenge was in communicating that visual element carrying the story. I had a word limit of 500 words plus or minus 10% which was even tighter than my 2019 flash fiction entrant.

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Gothel the Witch was a blank canvas to paint with. Why did she live away from others? What underlying reasons could she have for keeping Rapunzel isolated from the world? My playground was a font of potential. Writing her as an old shut-in puttering around her property behind walls blocking out the world of humans came easy as did the notion that in the beginning when she walled herself in she was far younger and humans hadn’t reached her part of the world yet.

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Walls were safe. Walls kept the humans out. Walls prevented her losing everything to humans a second time. Her past is a dark one having been neck deep in a war against the nonmagical witnessing travesties and barbarism. Her spirit was broken by the loss of both the war and her homeland leading her to run away until she found a corner of the world the humans hadn’t reached yet. When the narrative takes place is a time when humans had reached the part of the world she took refuge in. Their village was just a short way away beyond her eastern wall and a baker’s home had a window on the second floor above their shop which looked out onto her wall and the field of rampion beyond. So the spark of the fairytale is struck when the baker under the pressure of his wife’s desire starts a habit of scaling the wall to pick rampion for her stew.

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It’s a simple fairytale of found family, of love healing old wounds, and learning to have faith and trust again. Gothel didn’t confront the thief in his home with desire to take their unborn child in payment, yet the quickness of the baker and his wife to offer the unborn child rubbed Gothel the wrong way. Deeming them undeserving of the precious gift a child is she took the deal. Carried by the visual portion is snapshots of Gothel raising Rapunzel including teaching her how to be a witch. The drive to go against the grain and be jarring with the graphic descriptive of a nightmare was the fulcrum for offering a sympathetic character for the reader because death and trauma were the intended themes of this adult picture book pitch. Bundled with the verbal in the visual-verbal relationship the reader is given an idea what trauma raising Rapunzel is mending inside her. It’s inevitable that children leave to find their way in the world, so the pivotal moment in this character story is when through the visual the fractious moment of Rapunzel wanting to explore the wider world and Gothel opposing it out of fear. Its resolution with Gothel finding the faith to let go is the marker of the change in Gothel because of Rapunzel she blew out a gap in her wall. In time her faith and trust in Rapunzel is rewarded with her daughter's return with a husband and child in tow.

 

Legend:

• Verso = Left

• Recto = Right

• Brackets = Visual

• No Brackets = Verbal

 

“p5

Below: Gothel the Witch was an old woman who had seen troubled times.

[Above: Tall thin woman in sleeveless dress and tall boots; mid-60s; light brown complexion; fair features, oval face, short hair, hazel eyes with thousand-yard stare; forearms tattooed with 5+ peoples’ and 2+ place names in separate colours; cutaway of her chest displaying shattered heart.]” – Not your typical witch.

 

“pp8-9

Verso above: For kingly rampion stolen by a man for his wife’s stew, Gothel accepted their offer in payment with their unborn child.

[Verso below: three panel close-ups looking up to Gothel who’s looking down. Expression transition moment-to-moment: guilt, hope, then fear.

Recto: Swaddled baby in a pink blanket, with honey-gold hair and wide-open blue eyes reflecting night sky overhead.]” – Future laid bare.

 

“pp14-15

Verso: Raising Rapunzel, her heart began mending.

[Recto: square room; chuckling Gothel holding staff aloft guiding Rapunzel’s floating soiled bed linen into a full washtub with washboard, suspended over a fire.]” – Quintessential experience for a parent is when your child wets the bed.

 

“pp16-17

[Double-page spread: Thread connected shards of a shattered heart on a black background, acting like a window for imagery of raging fires, and slender towering black humanoids with laughing faces looming over raped and disembowelled women and children.]” – Figures shroud in black have an abstract horror appeal when I think of nightmares, especially when their mouth split open contorting into the expression of cruel gayful laughter.

 

“pp20-21

[Double-page spread: Bird’s-eye view of a bedroom; the door is ajar and across the room is Gothel peacefully asleep in the bed cuddling a young teen with honey-gold dreadlocks.]” – Security in her daughter’s company after waking from a nightmare.

 

“pp24-27

Recto: ‘Have faith in me.’ Rapunzel told her.

[Verso: Over shoulder third-person shot: Rapunzel facing Gothel sitting at a table in library; wild-eyed crying buckets, mouth agape, crossed forearms (legible) on table-top.]” – Knowing something will happen can’t prepare you for it.

 

“pp28-29

Verso: Below: Somehow someway she gathered faith and let go.

[Verso: Above: Gothel standing in a doorway frowning with thought, carrying a large travellers pack.

Recto: Gothel standing in her east field watching Rapunzel leave through a blown-out gap in her wall.]” – Contents include a knit jumper Gothel made with enchanted wool.

 

“pp32

Below: ‘Hi mother, I’ve got a cracking tale for you’, Rapunzel told her.

[Above: Grinning Rapunzel – mid-20s – cradling a blanketed babe in her arms beside a tall fit long brown-haired man; wedding rings are on their hands.]” – Patience does bring reward.