History Characters / FrozenElsa

TomboyAndGirlyGirl: The Girly Girl to Anna's Tomboy. Elsa is more reserved and graceful and strives to be a "perfect girl" as a way to control her emotions and her ice powers. She manages to be very queenly even after she runs away. She is shown to be more of a ProperLady through the series, even as a free-spirited nature guardian, in contrast to Anna, a feisty SpiritedYoungLady.

* FormFittingWardrobe: Her coronation dress, and especially her ice dress, are tailored enough to perfectly highlight her curves. The clothes she wears in ''Frozen 2'' also include tight trousers.

* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: Downplayed, as her figure is still unrealistic, but not to the proportions typical of the trope.

[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frozen_elsa_png_7_copy1.png]]
[[caption-width-right:200:''♫ The cold never bothered me anyway... ♫'']]

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Cutting off Anna when they were kids.

** And, in the sequel, she makes a pure white dress that transitions smoothly to a gown from frost on her skin.

* FriendlessBackground: She was raised in seclusion and she doesn't have any friends her age.

* {{Foil}}: She is serious in contrast to her energetic sister, Anna.

* FatalFlaw: Elsa's self-reliance leads her to take on far more than she is able to handle alone and at times views her sister's help as a hindrance. This ultimately leads to death twice: [[spoiler: Anna's death in movie 1, and Elsa's ''own'' in the sequel ]]

* ElementalMotifs: She's AnIcePerson, and the franchise presents ice as being a combination of air and water. In "Let It Go," she sings about being "one with the wind and sky." In the sequel, the glacier Ahtohallan is said to be a frozen "river" found "where the North Wind meets the Sea." "Frozen Fever" also establishes her powers include wind. Much of her ice is blue like water.

* {{Deuteragonist}}: Anna serves as the main protagonist in the first movie, but the story is just as much about Elsa coming to terms with and gaining control over her uncontrollable ice powers.

** Her first appearance features Elsa sleeping in a very neat pose. When her younger sister wakes her up asking to play, Elsa tells her at first to play by herself - until her sister, with a knowing look on her face, asks if she wants to build a ''snowman''. Then Elsa answers with a mischievous grin, and the two of them sneak into a bigger room to play with Elsa's [[AnIcePerson snow powers]]. As an adult, Elsa is generally poised and reserved, but she has a rebellious side, ''especially'' when magic is involved.
** When Elsa and Anna are making up a story with snow figurines, Elsa's focus is on the magic, talking about a "fairy queen who breaks [a] spell." When Agnarr tells them the story about the Enchanted Forest, she's mostly interested in the spirits and the Enchanted Forest itself, in contrast to Anna being mostly interested in the part about him being rescued and wondering why the fighting began. As an adult, Elsa is often motivated by a desire to explore magic, and at the end of the movie, [[spoiler:she chooses to live in the Enchanted Forest to be with the spirits and explore the magic of Ahtohallan]].

* DreamworksFace: She does this classic promo expression InUniverse a couple of times, but much more often on posters.

** Downplayed in ''A Frozen Heart'': despite being the deuteragonist of the movie, she appears only in a handful of chapters of the book. The narration is shared between Anna and Hans, and in many of her important scenes in the movie, Elsa is alone.

* CoversAlwaysLie: For the first movie. A lot of promotional art depicts her as confidently smug, while in the movie proper she only appears this way briefly, but spends much of it anxious.

* CostumePorn: Par for the course for Disney, but Elsa's sky-blue snow queen dress deserves a special mention. It's breathtaking, and detailed to the stitch. Her revamped ice outfit in ''Frozen II'' promotional material is even more detailed and elegant.

* ControlFreak: Elsa shows this tendency in ''Frozen Fever'', with perfectly kind intentions: Anna's birthday celebration should be perfect, and to be perfect, it should go exactly as she planned, in spite of her sickness and Anna's protests.

** ZigzaggedTrope in Frozen II: By the end of the first ''Frozen'', Elsa seems to have fully come to peace with her identity as the Snow Queen of Arendelle, beloved by its people and accepting her responsibilities as Queen with her sister at her side. By the end of ''Frozen II'', she is almost eager to drop the crown in Anna's lap and run off to Ahtohallan.

** Following her return to power as Arendelle's reigning monarch, Elsa's original personality, not dominant since childhood, makes a return. With a warm aura, Elsa rules her kingdom with a genuine smile, and spends most of her spare time using her abilities for the pleasure of herself, her sister, and the entire kingdom. As seen in ''Frozen Fever'', this aspect of Elsa's personality has not only remained, but strengthened, as the short heavily showcases Elsa's lighter side as fun-loving and devoted to her sister.

* BadassInDistress: Although extremely powerful, she's vulnerable whenever her state of mind is affected (in the original movie) or when she's sick (in ''Frozen Fever'').

%%TomboyAndGirlyGirl:-Not quite. The Girly Girl to Anna's Tomboy. Elsa is more reserved and graceful and strives to be a "perfect girl" as a way to control her emotions and her ice powers. She manages to be very queenly even after she runs away.

* CoversAlwaysLie: A lot of promotional art depicts her as confidently smug, while in the movie proper she only appears this way briefly, but spends much of the first film anxious.

* ClassicalAntiHero: She is ''very'' unsure of herself and often afraid of hurting others.

** Downplayed in Frozen II: While she has become content and happy with her position as Queen, finding her current days "precious," she does display a reluctance to socialize with dignitaries and some stress. She also displays a desire for change and is seemingly eager by the end of the film to put Anna in charge and leave Arendelle to live in the Enchanted Forest.

* AesopAmnesia: In the first movie, Elsa learns the importance of opening up and trusting in people, especially [[TheHeart Anna]], after her attempts to avoid her problems by avoiding other people backfire and while no perfect solution exists, love turns out to be much more helpful. In the following installments, Elsa has a bad habit of forgetting this. While Elsa is more open, she displays a reluctance to believe in Anna or acknowledge her own need for help. This is especially prominent in ''Frozen II'', where she repeatedly refuses to work with others and ends up becoming frozen after ignoring warnings about going to far into Ahtohallan.

* GoodAllAlong: Even in the first film when she was more of an anti-heroine, she still doesn't like hurting people and is in shock when she finds out that Arendelle is frozen in eternal winter. She also collapses when she thinks she killed her sister. Showing that she is not a BitchInSheepsClothing that she was built up to be in the trailers of the first movie.

* SiblingRivalry: While downplayed, it's definitly their with her relationship with Anna. It's not nearly as malicious as some other sibling rivalries in fiction, but it is there.

** While she does some un-heroic things in Frozen 2 and is rather stubborn, she still loves and cares for her family and people. She grows into a more responsible and alturistic person (if still somewhat cold and aloof). When she is fighting the fire spirit, her first instinct is to get the other people to saftey before fighting it off. Showing she has learned to put other people's needs before her own.

* GoodAllAlong: Even in the first film when she was more of an anti-heroine, she still doesn't like hurting people and is in shock when she finds out that Arandelle is Frozen in eternal winter. She also collapses when she thinks she killed her sister. Showing that she is not a BitchInSheepsClothing that she was built up to be in the trailers of the first movie.