The following is a comment that I wrote on
Ned's blog in part because I'm a smartass who thinks that trying to put Tangled into a larger historical context, or even give it an era, is ridiculous*, but also because it was a bit of fun.
It is most odd that it would be set in the 1780s with no guns in sight. However, this does open the possibility for an exciting sequel, "Tangled 2: The Coronian Revolution!" The year is 1793, Rapunzel's father has just died and she has been elevated to Queen. The fervor of the French Revolution has spilled over into the borders of Corona and it's left to the new Queen Rapunzel to try and calm the rabble. An attempt on the life of the Price Consort Eugene pushes her past her limit and she tries to purge the leaders of the revolution. Maximus is tasked with leading the secret police who disappear revolutionaries in the dark of the night. Eventually the citizenry has had enough and the film ends when the despot Rapunzel and her sponge of a husband are beheaded by guillotine in the same town square where they first danced. The credits role over their corpses being paraded around the kingdom as onlookers jeer at the ousted royalty.
Today, Ned posted
chapter five of his excellent new (smutty, not at all safe for work) story
Trust Me. When reading it something very specific caught my eye.
...drops an overly large burlap sack onto the table, making a noise that's somehow both a clunk and a flutter.
That's the noise money makes.
The brainless mountain of muscle growls before stomping back to his post, and Flynn lets him get a fair distance away before reaching for the bag.
"Hey! Slowly!" the middle man snaps, eyeing the thief's fingers as though expecting him to do some sort of sleight of hand and make the whole stash disappear. Flynn holds up his hands in a show of indulgent passivity. He then makes a show of pushing his sleeves further up his arms so he can't slip anything inside. Using your sleeves to hide things is amateur hour anyway. He then pulls the bag towards himself with clear, exaggerated movements.
It's so tightly packed with bank notes that he has to tug a bit to pull out one of the many bundles. He does some hasty math to be sure the amount's about right as he flips through the stack quickly with a thumb, making an annoying shuffling noise.
I had assumed that Corona would be a trade and barter economy with bullion coins; maybe just so that Eugene would have to carry around a bag of heavy ass gold after dealing Rapunzel's crown. Having a central bank that issues representative money is so much more interesting because a sovereign would be able to easily order the Federal Reserve of Corona to cease exchanging banknotes for specie. This would allow the sovereign a great deal of control over the economy of Corona. Rapunzel is going to be the sovereign in a few years. Still follow? Excellent. Without further interruption, I present a newer, better, story of revolution in Corona:
Rapunzel's Downfall (A fanfiction summary)
Four years ago, Corona's traditional major export, fish, was found to be making the island nation's trading partners sick. They all ceased buying Corona's stock immediately. The oversupply of worthless fish fueled a deflationary trend that grew into a deflationary spiral once fishers were no longer able to pay their crews sufficient wages and stopped investing into their fleets. The once beloved king has died leaving a thirty year old Rapunzel to run an ailing Corona. A popular movement has sprung up trying to convince Rapunzel to move the Coronan Crown off the gold standard to fiat currency that can be inflated at will. Her goldbug husband and the cash rich court are against the move because their gold and land holdings have never been worth more. Rapunzel's indecisive actions are interpreted by the starving people on the street as being callous and biased towards her friends in the court. A botched kidnapping by a fringe group ends with Pascal dead. An enraged Rapunzel cuts all crown funding for essential charities. The suffering of the commoners deepens and the fringe groups calling for a new democratic government gains traction. Rapunzel is incapable of rejection on this scale and she dramatically throws herself off the royal balcony that was once where lanterns were launched from. Eugene goes berserker, but is trampled by the crowds rushing the castle hoping to find sustenance. Their corpses are dumped into the sea off of a dilapidated fishing boat.
*Speaking strictly in the sense of the story. There's no reason that artists can't give it a very specific setting and time in architecture, style, etc...
