Mother Knows Best (song) own gains. Falco continued, "The audience knows what Gothel wants with Rapunzel, but the fact that we are unable to protect the naïve princess results in further hatred for the witch." Falco also concluded that Gothel's "sinister reprise at the end of "Tangled" allows for these horrifying undertones to emerge, which makes 'Mother Knows Best' one of the most sinister villain songs in the Disney library." Similarly, Elissa Smith of Paper Droids wrote that while the audience is fully aware of Gothel's evil intentions, Rapunzel is denied "the outsider's point of view." Glen Chapman of Den of Geek wrote that
Mother Gothel dismissing her as a weaker, less intimidating Disney villainess than Maleficent from "Sleeping Beauty" (1959) and Cruella de Vil from "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (1961). Walt Disney himself first attempted to adapt the fairy tale "Rapunzel" into a feature-length animated film during the 1940s. However, the filmmaker's efforts were never fully realized because the fairy tale was considered too "small". In 2008, co-directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard decided to enlarge the film's scale in order to transform it into a "big event" in order for it to be successful. Meanwhile, the character Mother Gothel was developed into a