Varian

Varian is a young alchemist who appears as a recurring character in Tangled: The Series. He later serves as the main antagonist for the latter half of the first season.

Personality
Varian is an intelligent scientist, inventor, and alchemist. He does not believe in magic and tends to solve problems through scientific means. However, his experiments were confused as magic, which makes others believe that he is some kind of wizard. He has good intentions and wanted to make his father proud of him for his creations. He has heard about the princess' hair along with his father and the villagers and also shows respect to the royal family, as he bows to Rapunzel and calls her princess until he was told to just call her Rapunzel. Despite his intellect, he is pretty much naïve and sometimes overlooks his plans and inventions. While he has a gift of inventing and alchemy, his creations usually backfire and causes more mayhem than good.

Besides inventing and alchemy, he enjoys reading about the adventures of Flynn Rider. He became his biggest fan for his bravery and combat skills. But the excitement of his hero have him confuse Eugene Fitzherbert as Flynn Rider when Eugene used the name in his life of crime. He quickly trusts Eugene with his secret hot water machines and tries to assure him that its under control when Eugene expresses his concerns about how unstable the machines really are. When the machines start to cause mayhem, he did try to turn them down but nearly got hurt in the process. After his home and village fell to the ground and the machines got destroyed, he shows regret for his actions and for letting his father down.

After the events of "Queen for a Day" however have left Varian hurt and his heart began to fill with rage and an urge for revenge after feeling betrayed by Rapunzel turning her back on him during his time of need; as well as an urge of desperation to save his father. Which was combined with his determination, stubbornness and the little passions that he has. While tricking Rapunzel into stealing the withered golden flower from Corona's vault revealed a ruthless side to him, when Rapunzel discovered his true agenda for asking her for help in his task, as well as putting up barriers to protect himself from being hurt again, as he was about to accept Rapunzel's promise until he hears the guards and realized in his own way that the princess can't keep any promises she makes with him.

In the end of "Secret of the Sun Drop", Varian have become mentally unstable.

Physical appearance
At fourteen years of age, Varian is a slender teen with fair skin, shaggy brown hair with light brown and blue highlights, freckles, two front buck teeth, and light blue eyes. He wears a gray shirt with a green patch sewn on to it, brown pants, dark brown apron, black gloves, dark brown shoes, and brown and gold goggles.

When Rapunzel and Cassandra first met him, he was wearing a black and gray coat and a gray bauta, which makes his eyes appear to be glowing a yellow-green color and makes his voice sound intimidating.

During a blizzard in "Queen For a Day", he wore a brown coat with a two grayish-brown colored cloak with a white fur-lined hoodie, a black belt, and a red scarf.

Role in the series
In his debut appearance in "What the Hair?!", Cassandra enlists Varian's help in solving the mystery of Rapunzel's hair. At first, he was thought of as a wizard with magical abilities. But Rapunzel and Cassandra learned that Varian is actually an alchemist who doesn't believe in magic but is a man of science. At the same time, he reveals that he's a huge fan of Flynnigan Rider, confusing Eugene as him, and willingly told Eugene that he has been working on a machine that will give his village hot running water. However, he fails to realize that his creations are unstable and causing a lot of earthquakes from beneath his village, resulting in all his work blowing up, at the same time disappointing his father Quirin.

He appears again in "Great Expotations", where he comes to the Exposition of Sciences event with his latest invention. He had just considered Cassandra as his friend as he calls her "Cassy" and is willing to help her with her duties as Lady-in-waiting in exchange for having her help him with his invention as his assistant. He also apparently has a crush on her from the way he asks Rapunzel and Eugene if Cassandra is going to be at the event when he presents his new invention. He uses alchemy to help Cassandra clean up the castle and set up the event. He also showed Rapunzel and Cassandra the black, spiky rocks, which had grown near Old Corona and shows an reaction when Rapunzel stands near them. Rapunzel asks Varian to help them figure the mystery of the rocks and keep it a secret, to which he agrees.

Varian plays a major role in "Queen for a Day". When black rocks start growing and destroying everything, Varian wants to find a way to stop them from destroying anything else, but Quirin tells him to stay away from them. Varian then went with his father to see the King to tell him of the situation. Upset when his father instead lies to the king about the rocks, Varian tells Rapunzel the truth. He then decides to take matters in his own hands and works on find a way to remove the rocks with alchemy. When Quirin finds out what Varian was doing, Varian admonishes him for trying to run away from their problems. But then, Quirin pushes Varian away from being trapped in a growing crystal, made by one of Varian's attempts on using a chemical on the rocks. Varian runs to Rapunzel to get her help but, with her people in the crisis of the upcoming snowstorm, she reluctantly turns her back on him and lets him be dragged out by Pete and Stan. Varian returns home and finds his father frozen in solid crystal. In tears, he vows to find a way to save him and, feeling betrayed by Rapunzel's refusal to help him, make everyone who turned their backs on him pay.

He returns in "The Alchemist Returns", where he seemingly forgives her and convinces Rapunzel to help him steal the Magical Golden Flower. Rapunzel agrees to help him only because he said "it was for Corona". He later confesses that he used Rapunzel to get to the flower, and he only did this to save his dad and not the kingdom. This was part of his revenge on everyone who turned their backs on him. Rapunzel pleaded with him to let her help him and promises to free his father. For a moment, Varian regretted his actions and considers trusting before he heard the door being opened, which made him change his mind and proclaimed he no longer trusted Rapunzel, believing she can’t keep promises. He then escapes in a purple cloud of fog. Rapunzel is heartbroken, now that she realizes she was used by Varian whom she trusted deeply. Later, in his alchemist lab, Varian tries to free his father from the rocks with the flower, but it does not work, much to his anger and frustration. Remembering back from his conversations about the black rocks and the flower, he then realizes the heart-throbbing truth: the flower was not the Sundrop anymore, Rapunzel was.

Trivia

 * According to the first book in the Tales of Rapunzel series, "Secrets Unlocked", Varian is canonically fourteen years old.
 * As of the end of Secret of the Sun Drop, Varian remains as a villain, Varian has not become evil but mentally unstable. Since he refused to believe everything he did was wrong, that it his own fault for what happend to his father and wanted to blame someone.