Queen Elsa of Arendelle

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/elsa_transparent.png

♫ The cold never bothered me anyway... ♫

Voiced by: Idina Menzel (adult), Danielle Bisutti (Disney Dreamlight Valley and Disney Speedstorm), Eva Bella (child, 2013), Mattea Conforti (child, 2019), Spencer Lacey Ganus (12-year old)^{Other Languages}
Appearances: Frozen | Frozen Fever | Olaf's Frozen Adventure | Frozen II
Appearances in alternate continuities: Frozen: Northern Lights | Once Upon a Time | Frozen Free Fall | Disney Infinity | Ralph Breaks the Internet | Kingdom Hearts III | Disney Dreamlight Valley | Disney Speedstorm

♫ Every day's a little harder
As I feel my power grow
Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go...
Into the unknown! ♫

— "Into the Unknown"

Elsa is the Snow Queen, the oldest child and the first-born daughter of King Agnarr and Queen Iduna of Arendelle. She is the older sister of Anna. Elsa has had the ability to conjure up ice from birth, sometimes unwittingly, but tried to suppress and hide it for years before embracing it with the support of her family.^note

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#-F

0% Approval Rating: Downplayed, exploited, and zig-zagged. It starts and ends well, and doesn't reach absolute zero, but comes close for much of the story. She starts off well-liked, and people are excited to see her crowned, but during the coronation ball, Elsa loses her temper and shoots ice spikes at her sister, then flees the castle. When she enters the crowded courtyard, she starts to lose control of her powers, which turn a fountain into spiky ice, and accidentally shoots a blast into the crowd. She then flees the kingdom as, unbeknownst to her, her Power Incontinence sends the country into an Endless Winter. Pretty much everyone begins to fear her and believe that the new queen intentionally doomed them to freeze and starve, with the exception of her sister and, once she creates him, her snowlem Olaf. After it looks as if she murdered said sister, Hans is able to convince people to accept him as their new ruler and even comply with his orders to sentence the former queen to death without fuss. Once she is able to end the Endless Winter and the prince's deceptions are exposed, though, her popularity returns.
Abdicate the Throne: At the end of Frozen II, Elsa passes the crown on to Anna while she herself retreats to the Enchanted Forest. Despite this, she is often still called "Queen Elsa" and "Snow Queen Elsa" in extended works such as Polar Nights and Forces of Nature.
Above Good and Evil: Played with. After running away to be alone, she resolves to discard concepts like "right" and "wrong" and simply live by her own rules, no longer caring what the rest of the world will think of her actions. Nonetheless, when she finds out she has unknowingly frozen the entire kingdom of Arendelle, she is deeply horrified. Essentially, she is rejecting right and wrong because she's internalized a toxic view of what right and wrong actually are. The only way for her to do what is really the right thing and come into herself is to let go of those ideas.
Action Heroine: As the token super of the main cast, using her superpowers to blast ice at things is her main method of problem-solving. It's how she deals with the wind spirit and the water spirit, freezing the wind spirit and beating the water spirit in battle with her ice magic. It also plays a key role in how she deals with the fire spirit, blasting ice before charming it with ice flakes after it becomes clear it's a super-adorable and cuddly salamander.
Adaptational Heroism: The Snow Queen was a neutral entity in the original tale, open to interpretation as either good or evil. While Elsa fears she's the latter, she's really the former, especially in later installments.
Adaptational Name Change: Is a Composite Character of the nameless Snow Queen and a boy named Kai from the source material, The Snow Queen, but is called "Elsa".
Adaptational Sympathy: Most prior adaptations usually depicted the Snow Queen as an outright villainous character, who sought nothing but power, or, in the case of the original tale, made her a morally ambiguous party with questionable intent. In this film, Elsa does do harmful things, but she usually does them entirely by accident, having no idea how to control her powers, and is shown to be a good person who's afraid of hurting those she cares about, due to a childhood accident that harmed her sister.
Aesop Amnesia: In the first movie, Elsa learns the importance of opening up and trusting in people, especially 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 too far into Ahtohallan.
Affection-Hating Kid: Elsa is seen as a child being disgusted by her sister Anna's story that has everybody get married.
Afraid of Their Own Strength: Ever since she was a child, she has obsessively tried to suppress her ice powers and stay as far away from people as possible and is afraid that she will hurt others like she did Anna.
Aloof Big Sister: Justified. Elsa acts distant and aloof to Anna because she's afraid of losing control of her powers. The trope ends when she finally controls her powers.
The Atoner:
- Played with. When she learns that she caused an Endless Winter in Arendelle, she would like to fix it, but ends up panicking over not knowing how.
- Her desire to make Anna happy in Frozen Fever is driven by guilt over how much her sister suffered because of her powers. "For everything you are to me, and all you've been through..."
Badass Adorable: She's a cute woman who has very powerful ice powers and is a Big Sister Instinct to Anna.
Badass Boast:
- "Here I'll stand, and here I'll stay" from "Let It Go" is a boast to the world that it won't be making any more demands of her.
- In the same song: "I am one with the wind and sky."
- "What power do you have to stop this winter? To stop me?" An odd version since at that point, she herself can't stop the winter either.
Badass Bookworm: Her powers make her considerably badass. Anna also says in the book Unlocking Arendelle that Elsa likes to read.
Badass in Distress: Although extremely powerful, she's vulnerable whenever her state of mind is affected.
Beauty Equals Goodness: She is beautiful and, Beneath the Mask, kind and caring.
Beneath the Mask: Anna has only seen her distant attitude for years on end, so she's both surprised and a little relieved to see Elsa having fun talking about chocolate and teasing her by making her dance with the Duke of Weselton, and also surprised to see Elsa grinning when she shows up at the ice palace. It turns out that Elsa really hated having to always repress her emotions, and she shows a playful and creative side with a lot of artistic sense. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of anxiety bubbling away beneath the surface.
Benevolent Mage Ruler: The first movie is basically the story of how she becomes one, and the hard road to mastering both her magical talent and the responsibilities of a Queen.
Beware the Nice Ones: Elsa usually doesn't want to hurt anyone intentionally, even two guys clearly sent to kill her. But when it's clear that it's her or them, she becomes brutal. She also bans all trade and business with Weselton for the Duke's actions.
Beware the Superman: Played with. Elsa is generally good at heart, but she is so afraid of accidentally hurting someone that she feels she has to shut everyone out of her life, including Anna. The show of her powers makes her someone to fear. Once she runs away, she decides "screw this, I'm going to run away and let loose", yet it causes an Endless Winter. Hans exploits this trope to justify killing Elsa.
Big Sister Instinct: After Anna informs Elsa about the Endless Winter, Elsa panics and accidentally shoots Anna in the heart. Worrying that Anna isn't safe near her, she conjures a giant snowlem to throw Anna out of her ice palace, believing this will help protect her.
Blessed with Suck: She was born with magical ice powers, but started to fear them after her accident with Anna. She actually loves making ice and snow, but could never do so for fear of hurting others or them hurting her. Then the powers start operating out of control, exposing her to the fear of other people, plunging the kingdom into an Endless Winter, and killing Anna.
Blue Is Heroic: Elsa's primary color scheme is blue and despite her aloof nature, she's quite kind-hearted.
Blue Means Cold: Befitting her ice magic, her outfits tend to be very blue.
Born Winner: Elsa was born with her extremely powerful ice powers, and she's the only human character in the franchise to have any magic. It's zigzagged; her powers aren't always predictable and can be both dangerous as well as beautiful. At the end of the first movie, ironically, it is "completely ordinary" Anna who helps Elsa reach her inborn potential and reconcile the complicated nature of her powers. In the sequel, Pabbie suggests Elsa's powers make her Arendelle's only hope. They certainly are helpful, although in the end, not enough in themselves. She and Anna — who has no inborn powers — end up both having to play a role in saving the day, Elsa with her magic and Anna with her determination to keep doing the next right thing.
Braids of Action: Elsa wears a French braid over her left shoulder for the majority of her screentime after "Let It Go", including her fight with two of the Duke of Weselton's guys.
Breakout Character: Despite Anna being the protagonist of the first film and Olaf initially receiving most of the marketing before the movie's release, Elsa became the most popular character in the film by far, eclipsing Anna and the rest of the cast. As a result of her popularity, much of the franchise's marketing treats Elsa as the Series Mascot.
Break the Cutie: Starts off rather cheerful, but after accidentally striking Anna with a misaimed ice bolt and being shown an image of her future self being attacked by a mob as Grand Pabbie warns her there's danger in not controlling her power, she becomes haunted and repressed. She reaches the Despair Event Horizon when Hans tells her that her magic killed her sister.
Broken Ace: Brilliant, beautiful, artistic, intense magical power, graceful, and even a very kind person. However, she has a lot of emotional issues because the graceful perfect act is a misguided attempt to keep her magic in check.
Broken Bird: After many years of isolation in fear, Elsa has become more detached.
Byronic Heroine: She is an Ice Queen who not only is brooding about her powers, but also exiles herself after her powers are exposed at the coronation. Her inner conflicts over her powers end up driving many central elements of the plot. In fact, "Let It Go", with its extolling of rejecting the conventions of society — not to mention her responsibilities as monarch — is essentially an anthem to a kind of Romantic Existentialism.
Brutal Honesty: As much as how she shuts people out, she outright forbids Anna marrying a guy she just met and tells her that she knows nothing about true love.
Calling the Old Man Out: Upon travelling the mystic river called the Ahtohallan, Elsa learns of a horrible truth: her grandfather King Runeard, who was thought to be a benevolent ruler, turns out to be a ruthless tyrant who plotted to subjugate the Northuldrans to his rule because he feared magic that they have connections with. To that end, he had built a dam to weaken their resources under a ruse of peace and murdered the Northuldran leader. As such, Elsa coldly condemns her grandfather for letting his fear overcome his judgement.
Elsa: [to statue of Runeard] That is NOT what magic does! That's just your fear! Fear is what can't be trusted!
Cape Swish: She performs one at the end of "Let it Go", right before the door to her ice palace balcony closes behind her.
Celibate Heroine: While trying to hide her powers, Elsa is reclusive and avoids relationships of all kinds, including romantic ones. When Hans is explaining his plans to Anna, he notes that his original plan to take the throne of Arendelle was simply to woo and marry Elsa, but he had to abandon that plan since "nobody was getting anywhere with her". The creators clarify that she is not in the right place yet for a romantic relationship as she is focusing more on herself as a person, understanding her powers, and finding her place in the world. Even as a kid, she's shown not to like the idea of the princess kissing the prince when her younger sister suggests the idea when they are playing.
Jennifer: One thing that came out clear was that she wasn’t ready for a relationship at all. She was still getting used to the fact that people were accepting her and she still had so many questions about her powers. The big thing with this film is that this woman is carrying the weight of the kingdom on her shoulders and is wrestling with this extraordinary power. It was this feeling on which she is focusing on and that is a lot.
The Chains of Commanding:
- Implied. Although much of Elsa's stress is about hiding her powers, the way she looks at her father's portrait and models it during "For the First Time in Forever" suggests she is also concerned about the responsibilities of her royal position, at least until she gleefully breaks those chains in "Let it Go".
- 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 says a feeling that she isn't where she's meant to be and is seemingly eager by the end of the film to put Anna in charge and leave Arendelle to live in the Enchanted Forest.
Character Development:
- 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 uses 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.
- Zigzagged Trope for some of her development: 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, after realizing her mistakes — first trying to cut off both the entire world and her own magic to protect herself and others, then later trying to cut off the world entirely so she could focus on that magic, both of which ended in disaster. During the "Into the Unknown" sequence of Frozen II, she again runs off into the night to explore her magic without any preparation or a word to anyone. In the end, she decides once again to leave Arendelle and the queenship behind to live as a full-time mage, but now does so in a much healthier and more responsible way, remaining in contact with other human beings this time, including her loved ones.
- Her reaction to realizing that she accidentally set off a magical disaster in the second movie shows a lot of growth from her reaction in the first. In the first, she became consumed by panic and would not consider looking for a way to reverse the storm. In the second, she is able to keep a cool head and work together with her family to evacuate people and look for more solutions.
Character Tics: Notably, a lot of them are variants on hiding or containing her emotion, which in her case is often expressed through ice powers that she associates with her hands.
- She tends to cross her arms when she feels stressed. Moments include when she is confronted by Anna during the coronation just before she cuts loose with her powers (especially since it's to hide her uncovered left hand), when she's alone on the North Mountain during the first lines of "Let It Go", and twice in her ice palace when she realizes that her powers have plunged Arendelle into Endless Winter.
- When she laughs (once when she and Anna are kids and sneak off into the ballroom to play, and a couple of times during the coronation), she tends to place her fingers over her lips^note.
- She also wrings her hands a lot.
- She rolls her eyes when she's impatient (when Anna keeps stalling to tell her what happened in Arendelle).
- Elsa often clasps her hands in front of her when she is anxious.
Cheerful Child: In the beginning of the first film, before she accidentally hurts Anna, she's gleeful about playing with her powers.
Chewing the Scenery: Most of the time, she is an anxiety-ridden Stoic, but when she lets her emotions loose during "Let It Go", she makes dramatic gestures and relishes in Badass Boasts.
Classical Anti-Hero: In the first movie, most of her story is more about her learning to deal with her anxiety over controlling her powers and facing her mistakes than it is about facing any external enemy.
Clothing Reflects Personality:
- At first, young Elsa and Anna wear light-colored clothes, which symbolizes their light-heartedness. After they are separated and grow apart (especially during the "Do You Want To Build A Snowman" sequence), their clothes become progressively darker, with Elsa regaining lighter clothes after fleeing the kingdom and feeling less restricted.
- While she's concealing her powers, she wears gloves to help her do so. On a more metaphorical level, they also represent her hiding a key part of herself.
- At the end of Frozen II, she's wearing a loose, flowy white dress, showing how free-spirited she's become.
Color Motifs: Blue — The main color choice for her clothing (including her ice dress); represents her melancholy and her ice powers, and later her happiness with said powers.
Composite Character: Elsa takes the role of both the Snow Queen and Kai from the source material, The Snow Queen.
Conspicuous Gloves: Hoping to constrain her powers, Elsa is never without her gloves. Anna later comments that she thought the gloves were due to Elsa being Terrified of Germs.
Contrapposto Pose: When Elsa is feeling at her most assertive and confident, she often falls into some version of this pose, reflecting her dynamic nature. See for example some of the film posters.
Consistent Clothing Style: She consistently dresses in cool tones, especially an icy blue, that evoke her ice magic.
Control Freak: Elsa shows this tendency in Frozen Fever, with perfectly kind intentions: she insists that Anna's birthday celebration should be "perfect" and that for it to be perfect, it should go exactly as she planned, in spite of her sickness and Anna's protests.
Cool Big Sis: Pun intended, but she's this for Anna when they are younger. In the ending, she becomes it again. In Frozen Fever, this trope is definitely on her mind as she forces herself to go through Anna's birthday celebrations, even while suffering a bad cold.
Cool Crown: She initially wears a small tiara, but she discards it when she abandons Arendelle. The Stinger reveals that her minion Marshmallow found it.
Cope by Creating: After Elsa escapes Arendelle, she creates a beautiful ice palace both to test her Elemental Powers and to release her pent-up emotions. She is singing "Let It Go" as it forms around her.
Costume Evolution: Though she changes her coronation dress to something she's more comfortable with, she's willing to wear other clothes, as long as they also fit the general form of the ice dress.
- In Frozen Fever, she gives her ice dress a spring look, but still keeps the general shape.
- In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, her winter dress is a fabric dress that looks like her ice dress, but darker blue, a more obvious snowflake motif on the ice train, and a fur collar.
- In Frozen 2, she wears a blue travel outfit with trousers before being transformed into a white dress with a long cape once she reaches Ahtohallan and ascends to her true power.
Costume Porn: 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 she wears for most of Frozen II is even more detailed and elegant.
Covers Always Lie: A downplayed example 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.
Creating Life Is Unforeseen: When she recreates Olaf during "Let It Go", she has no idea that he's alive until he shows up with Anna. In Frozen Fever, she spawns the Snowgies by just sneezing and it takes a while for her to realize what she's doing.
Cultured Badass: The "cultured" part is more prominent in A Sister More Like Me, which shows her many talents. The "badass" part comes from her powers. "Let It Go" unites them when she uses math to create her ice palace.
Damsel out of Distress: After Elsa is captured, she uses her powers to break her shackles and escape the dungeon.
Daddy's Girl: During the growing up montage, it's implied that she is closer to her father than to her mother, as she interacts with him more.
Dark and Troubled Past: As a child, accidentally hit Anna in the head with her powers, severely injuring her little sister, which makes her Afraid of Their Own Strength. To make matters worse, when the trolls try to warn her how important it is that she learn control and that "fear will be your enemy," they show a vision of a fearful mob to illustrate the danger, which also makes her fear for her life. Then her father tries to protect her from such a fate by isolating her, locking her up in the castle. This essentially drives the entire plot and is the reason why Elsa is so detached from her sister and avoidant in general.
Dark Magical Girl: She's a good person at heart who was isolated from everyone due to her powers, leading to her becoming an (unintentional) antagonist. As with most Dark Magical Girls, she's eventually saved through the Power of Love by her heroic Foil.
Death Glare: Executed with a Kubrick Stare when she fights off the Duke's guards.
Defrosting Ice Queen: She has to keep her emotions and feelings in check, because if she doesn't, she loses control of her magic, and it can do terrible things to the people. It is Anna's love for her that ultimately frees her from her fears and unlocks the ability to thaw out the winter.
Demoted to Extra:
- The story of the first movie is adapted for a section of Kingdom Hearts III, but the player gets to see little of the plot or the Frozen characters, so despite being the deuteragonist of the movie, Elsa only appears to interact with Sora exactly once before being relegated to a background character as the plot of the movie goes on without Sora's further input.
- 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.
Determinator: In the sequel, once she sets her mind on following the voice, nothing can stop her. If she has to fight a forest fire or stormy sea, she will.
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 handling her uncontrollable ice powers.
Disease by Any Other Name: Naturally, no specific diagnosis is mentioned, the closest being references to the general "fear" Elsa feels, but in the first movie, her social isolation, emotional invalidation, and the trauma of nearly killing her beloved sister and losing their parents certainly left its marks: Elsa is emotionally unstable, brooding, anxious, and irritable. The creators state that she suffers from depression and anxiety.
Dreamworks Face: She does this classic promo expression In-Universe a few times, but much more often on posters.
Early Personality Signs:
- 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 becomes interested and answers with a mischievous grin, and the two of them sneak into a bigger room to play with Elsa's 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, she chooses to live in the Enchanted Forest to be with the spirits and explore the magic of Ahtohallan.
Earn Your Happy Ending: Finally conquers her crippling fear and reconnects with her sister.
Easily Forgiven: Once she returns to the kingdom and undoes the Endless Winter she caused on Arendelle, the citizens welcome her with open arms without any hint of resentment despite the casualties it could have caused.
Elemental Motifs: She's An Ice Person, and the franchise presents ice as being a combination of air and water. This fits in with her role as one half of the bridge between the four elemental spirits (who represent water, air, fire, and earth), with her sister fulfilling the role of the other half associated with fire and earth. 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.
- Water is known for its duality, much like Elsa and her powers. It can be life-giving or very destructive. It's associated with creativity and reflection, two things Elsa is prone to. It's also associated with change, and changing water is considered healthy while stagnant water is considered unhealthy. Elsa, too, tends to be unhealthy when stagnant but thrives when unbound.
- Air is associated with freedom, something Elsa craves and thrives in. It's also associated with curiosity, something that can be a powerful driving force for her.
Elemental Personalities: Analyzed. The dangerously uncontrollable nature of Elsa's ice powers strongly influenced her personality. Elsa hides from the world by acting emotionally detached because she's afraid of what might happen to her or what she herself might end up doing if she doesn't control her powers.
Emotional Powers: Her powers are connected to her emotions. When she's feeling better she creates happier things like Olaf, but when she wants to hide away from the world she creates the massive Marshmallow. Negative emotions like fear or worry tend to give her Power Incontinence, while positive ones allow her more control of her powers. Embracing her love for others is what allows her to lift the Endless Winter from Arendelle.
Emotionless Girl: Comes off like this, but is actually a subversion. Elsa spends years constantly suppressing her emotions in fear she would lose control of her powers, but she's actually quite emotional.
Ethereal White Dress: She gains a white gown upon entering Ahtohallan and becoming more in touch with her powers and nature as part of the fifth spirit.
Everything's Better with Sparkles: Her ice dress is pretty glittery, which becomes particularly evident when she steps into the sunlight at the end of "Let It Go". There are also sparkles in her hair, as her braid is adorned with tiny sparkling snowflakes.
Expository Hairstyle Change: Elsa wears her hair in a French braid as a child. As a teenager, she starts wearing it in a bun similar to her mother's, first seen when she's saying good-bye to her parents before their voyage. Fast-forward to Coronation Day and it's still in a bun, symbolizing how she's trying restrain herself and imitate her parents. Then at the end of "Let it Go", Elsa drops her Prim and Proper Bun in favor of the French braid she originally wore, symbolizing she isn't as constrained anymore and is trying to find her own identity. When she crosses the Dark Sea, she loosens her hair further into a ponytail, and when she enters Atohallan, she completely unties it, showing she's embracing her magical nature even more.
Fatal Flaw: Elsa's refusal to work with others 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: Anna's death in movie 1, and Elsa's own in the sequel. Even in the relatively light-hearted short "Frozen Fever," her insistence on planning every part of Anna's birthday herself and rejecting any suggestions she make any adjustments leads to her nearly falling off a clock tower, only surviving because Anna rescues her.
Fanservice Pack: Her breasts become larger and her curves become even more pronounced in Frozen 2, in addition to letting her hair down, and taking off her shoes to go barefoot.
Fisher King: The weather changes according to her mood.
Foil: In the first movie, she is serious, reserved, and primarily fear-driven in contrast to her goofy, outgoing, and optimistic sister, Anna.
Form-Fitting Wardrobe: Her coronation dress, and especially her ice dress, are tailored enough to perfectly highlight her curves. She wears even tighter clothing in Frozen 2 that further flatters her body.
Freudian Excuse: Played with. One reason why she's so distant and cool towards others is that she's afraid of their reactions if she loses control of her powers, having been shown a vision of an angry mob when younger. Another is that she knows part of the reason why mobs are a possibility is that her Power Incontinence can end up hurting other people (and making her look like an Evil Witch in the process). This is especially true because she had accidentally almost killed her little sister with her powers before, giving her more reason to worry about the harm she could to do if she lost control and thus more reason to be distant.
Friendless Background: She was raised in seclusion and she doesn't have any friends her age for most of her childhood.
Friend to All Children: She's often shown to get on well with children. In Frozen II she creates toys made of ice for them.
Full-Contact Magic: Whenever she uses her powers intentionally, she always makes grand gestures with her hands or dancing. When she creates her ice palace, it's more like she's actually lifting it out of the mountain than anything.

G-M

Glass Cannon: She's very powerful, but still ultimately a young woman susceptible to conventional harm if one bypasses her icy defenses. When a crossbow knocks down the ice chandelier, it knocks her out.
Go Mad from the Isolation: Inverted. Instead of involuntary isolation giving someone mental/emotional issues, she isolates herself on purpose because of her emotional issues.
God Save Us from the Queen!: The whole kingdom after Elsa accidentally casts an eternal winter in Arendelle, thinking she has done it on purpose,and when Anna's horse comes back alone, they think Anna is in trouble and is taken hostage by Elsa. Later due to Han's lies, they think Elsa has killed her sister Anna.
Duke Of Westlton: "There can be no doubt now. Queen Elsa is a monster and we are all in grave danger."
Good All Along: Downplayed in that the audience knows from the start that she's at least not completely evil, since she shows concern for her family's safety as a child. But there's a good chunk of the first film where it looks like she's become a villain when she plunges the country into a severe storm with her powers while singing a song about how she doesn't feel any contraints now that people know about her magic anyway, even singing "No right, no wrong, no rules for me!" Anna's steadfast faith in Elsa and decision to go on a journey through the storm on that faith is questioned just as much as her rushing into marriage with someone she barely knows is. However, when Anna reaches Elsa, it's confirmed that the storm truly was an accident and Elsa 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 the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that she was built up to be.
Good Is Not Soft: She usually doesn't like to hurt people on purpose, but does do so when she thinks it's necessary.
Good with Numbers: It is stated in A Sister More Like Me that Elsa loves geometry. This is shown in the film when she describes her snow designs as "fractals", an advanced geometry concept for the time period.
Gorgeous Garment Generation: Her powers can conjure clothing made of ice, or clothing closely associated with winter such as ice skates.
- Her sparkly blue Snow Queen dress is woven from ice and snow.
- In Fever she updates it to green, with flower decorations, to fit with Anna's birthday.
- And, in the sequel, she suddenly finds herself wearing a pure white dress that transitions smoothly to a gown from frost on her skin, although it's not clear whether she generated this one herself or Ahtohallan did.
Guilt Complex: Almost killing Anna when they were kids hit Elsa hard, and even though it was an accident, she seems to blame herself for all the grief it caused her family and for things out of her control.
- In Frozen Fever, she thinks she's "ruined" Anna's birthday because her cold interferes with her regimented plan for how she wanted them to spend the day.
- In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, Elsa says it's her fault she and Anna don't seem to have any Christmastime traditions.
- In Frozen II, when Elsa finds out that her parents perished on the journey to find answers about her powers, she says she's responsible for their deaths — no matter Anna quite firmly pointing out that their parents were adults capable of making their own decisions and the lack of sense in insisting it was her fault.
Hairstyle Inertia: After "Let It Go", Elsa goes back to wearing the same single French braid she had as a child, and sticks to this for the rest of the first movie, plus both animated shorts, and in part of Frozen II.
Hand Blast: She shoots her magic primarily from her hands.
Happy Holidays Dress: In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, Elsa has a dark blue dress◊ with a snowflake motif visible on the train, and the neckline is trimmed with white fur, giving her a festive snow queen look.
Hartman Hips: Elsa has very large hips. This is especially evident in her iconic song Let It Go. Olaf even uses this attribute to nail his impression of her.
Hates Being Touched: She won't let other people touch her, out of fear of losing control of her powers. Once Elsa has her powers in check, she's freer with physical contact.
Hero Antagonist: She unintentionally drives the conflict, creating an Endless Winter in the middle of summer when she runs away to the mountains to isolate herself. Her sister, Anna, has to seek her out so that they can find a way to stop the winter she unknowingly caused.
Heroic BSoD:
- When Hans tells her that Anna's dead, she collapses in horror and despair. When Elsa goes through these, the snow tends to freeze outside (also happens when she learns that her parents have died).
- She goes through one in Olaf's Frozen Adventure when she believes she and Anna don't have any traditions.
The Hermit: She tries this lifestyle for a while, as she thinks she can escape her problems by living alone in an ice castle on the side of a mountain. She ultimately learns otherwise, however.
Hidden Depths:
- She demonstrates a sly sense of humor during the coronation, when she tricks Anna into dancing with the Duke of Weselton and barely suppresses a laugh at her sister's expense.
- Although she is passive compared to Anna, it is implied that she ironically enjoys more thrilling activities than her sister. When she creates a public ice rink in the first film's epilogue, she also creates a pair of ice skates for Anna. While Anna is somewhat hesitant at first, claiming she doesn't skate, Elsa grabs her arms and spins her around on the ice.
- In Frozen Fever, she's game enough to dance at the top of a clock tower.
Hidden Heart of Gold: Although Elsa may seem aloof towards Anna, this is only her repressing her emotions in order to keep her powers in check, and she really does deeply care for her sister and her well-being, but thinks she has to push her away.
High-Class Gloves: Though her gloves are to contain her power, they are still items fit for royalty. Even her coronation gloves match her dress.
The High Queen: She tries to be a good ruler for her kingdom. She continues to do so while being herself after she returns, and her people love her in the follow-up shorts and Extended Universe material.
Hot Witch: Once she's finally able to be herself and embrace her powers, her beauty really shines.
Hypocrite: Elsa says that Anna is too sheltered to understand what love is. But Elsa herself is just as sheltered, having never set foot outside the castle for the same amount of time. Anna throws that back at her.
Elsa: Anna, what do you know about true love?
Anna: More than you! All you know how to do is shut people out!
Hypocrite Has a Point: Elsa is right that Anna is too sheltered to understand what love is, although Elsa herself is just as sheltered.
I Can't Dance: In one of the tie-in comics, Elsa doesn't know how to dance, so Anna teaches her in preparation for a group of princes she's scheduled to dance with...and it turns out said princes can't dance either.
An Ice Person: Has the ability to create ice and snow, which also extends to creating sentient snowmen and even a dress made of ice for herself. The origin of these powers isn't revealed until the sequel, which establishes them as part of her parents' union between Arendelle and Northuldra.
Ice Queen: Both literally and figuratively! At first she feels a need to tightly control her emotions so that no one will find out about her secret ice powers, which are affected by her emotions, or be hurt. In particular, Anna feels shut out and disliked by her sister for no reason she can understand. When, in a moment of anger during an argument, Elsa unleashes her powers in public, she just gives up entirely on controlling it, leading into her song "Let It Go".
An Ice Suit: Elsa's slinky blue ice dress seems much better suited for warm weather. As a cryomancer, the cold never bothered her anyway.
I Choose to Stay: Ultimately decides to remain in the Enchanted Forest at the end of Frozen II, leaving her to abdicate the throne to Anna.
Iconic Outfit: Her silky blue gown + gauzy cape is her most recognizable outfit by far, and is printed on more merchandise than her others, and appears in more fanart and cosplays.
Icy Blue Eyes: Not evil, but since her element is ice, this fits.
If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: While she was going to kill the Weselton guards attacking her, Hans pleads with Elsa not to do it, telling her "Don't be the monster they fear you are!"
Imagination-Based Superpower: She can make ice constructs of anything, including clothes woven from ice, a whole palace, and sentient snowmen. Plus, she can use the wind part of her powers to move things around, like when she uses them to move flowers and chlorophyll to decorate her and Anna's outfits in "Frozen Fever."
Important Hair Accessory: Elsa's crown was a symbol of the responsibility she didn't want, and when she throws it away along with her purple cape and regal gloves, it shows her becoming more free.
Impossibly Cool Clothes: Her main outfit was woven from ice crystals.
Impossible Hourglass Figure: Downplayed, as her figure is still unrealistic, but not to the proportions typical of the trope. It becomes more impossible in the sequel. See Fanservice Pack.
Inexplicably Awesome: In the first movie, her powers go unexplained to focus on the trouble and beauty they cause. Averted come the second movie, where they get a proper origin.
Ink-Suit Actor: Downplayed example, with the shape of her eyes and mouth and the way her mouth forms words being based on Idina Menzel's natural speaking voice.
Instant Expert: During the course of "Let it Go", she gains increasing control of her powers, going from creating a few wisps of cold, to constructing a crude snowman, to a fairly large bridge, which becomes crystalline and intricate as she crosses it, to an entire palace made of ice. Also downplayed in that while she knows how to direct it, she doesn't know how to turn it off.
Internalized Categorism: Thanks to some childhood trauma, she grows up fearing her own powers. This is especially bad for her since her powers can be triggered by her own emotions, so this made them even harder to control.
It's All My Fault:
- In Frozen Fever, she thinks she's "ruined" Anna's birthday because her cold interferes with her regimented plan for how she wanted them to spend the day.
- In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, she says it's her fault she and Anna don't seem to have any Christmastime traditions.^note
- In Frozen II, when she finds out that her parents perished on the journey to find answers about her powers, she says she's responsible for their deaths. She is also clearly overprotective of Anna to the point that she is continually trying to leave her behind to 'protect' her and denying Anna agency in her decisions, all out of the enormous guilt she still carries around for everything that has happened to her sister. She may no longer feel this way upon discovering the truth of their grandfather's treachery.
Jerkass Has a Point: While she isn't being particularly understanding, she's right you shouldn't marry a man you just met, to which a sentiment Kristoff calls Anna out on it when taking her up to the North Mountain. She and Kristoff were proven right upon the reveal that Hans was Evil All Along.
Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Best displayed when the Duke's guards try to kill her. She's in her ice outfit, as in the slinky dress, cape, and heels, and her powers still make her formidable against them.
Kubrick Stare: She does it in the end of "Let It Go"◊ and while fighting the Duke's guards◊.
Lady of Black Magic: Ice-oriented variant. Downplayed, as her magic can be destructive but is certainly not evil.
Letting Her Hair Down: After tossing away the crown, she knocks off her bun in favour of a French braid. In the sequel, she undoes her braid into a ponytail before facing the nokk. And then she undoes the ponytail.
Lonely Among People: In the sequel. Elsa has a circle of friends, including a sister who loves her more than anyone in the world, but still feels like she doesn't belong because of her powers. Thus, when she starts hearing a strange call from the north that nobody else can hear, she decides to embark on a journey to find the source, wondering if maybe the singer is another being like her.
Lonely Rich Kid: She's a princess whose parents isolate her for most of her childhood to avoid potential mobs attacking her while she's dealing with Power Incontinence. Even after they're gone, she isolates herself from everyone, including Anna, even though they live in the same house.
Love Redeems: A downplayed example. She spends much of the first film aloof because she's trying to keep her emotions in check and she can be a bit of jerk when she's stressed, but in the end, the love between her and her sister helps Elsa warm up.
Mad God: Technically she's a Neurotic Overpowered-Mage, but the results are surprisingly similar: She sets off an eternal winter by having an anxiety attack, and accidentally creates life while in a good mood.
Madness Mantra: "Don't feel, don't feel, don't feel, don't feel!" She says this after Anna tells her that she caused an endless winter in Arendelle. To make it creepier, the icy room around her turns red and ice spikes jut forth from the walls as she says this, springing from the dread she is unable to suppress.
Mage Born of Muggles: She was born with powerful ice magic, despite being born into a family of ordinary, mundane human beings. Exactly how that works isn't elaborated upon until the sequel.
The Makeover: In the first movie, once people learn about her ice magic she leaves Arendelle, she quickly drops her restraint, lets down her hair, and puts on something that embodies that ice magic. In the second movie, she gets another hair and dress makeover upon learning the truth about who she's meant to be. This time, her hair is completely free and her dress is a spectacular white masterpiece showing her role as the magical half of the bridge between magic and humanity.
Male Gaze: Her chest, legs and hips are shown at many flattering angles.
Malfunction Malady: In the Frozen Fever short she has a cold that gets progressively worse. Every time she sneezes, she creates a few tiny armless "snowgies". At the end, Olaf and Kristoff herd hundreds of them up to the ice palace. She also sneezes right as she tries to blow on the ceremonial horn which through sheer coincidence happens to launch a massive snowball that knocks Hans into a pile of manure all the way over in the Southern Isles.
Master of the Mixed Message: Elsa and Anna's strained relationship is not helped by Elsa acting happy to see Anna (such as her coronation party and when Anna first enters her ice palace), which gets Anna's hopes up, only to turn around and abruptly tell her they can't see each other anymore.
Meaningful Appearance: As a kid, An Ice Person Elsa had a blue headband and generally sticks to cool-tone colors, especially blues and whites, in her clothing as she ages. Elsa's hair is subtly adorned with snowflakes as an adult and is white like ice. She usually appears in an ice dress, and several of her non-ice outfits have snowflakes on them.
Meaningful Name: "Elsa" is German for "noble", which alludes to her high status as a princess, her ascent as queen of Arendelle, and the fact that deep down she really has a good heart and spirit. Also, the name Elsa comes from Elizabeth, which stems from the Hebrew name Elisheva, which means "God is my oath", reflecting her sense of duty.
Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: When fleeing across the fjord. she doesn't realize that behind her the steps across the water are expanding, causing the entire area to freeze solid. The rest of Arendelle freezes over within hours, before she manages to figure out how to actually thaw the ice she creates.
Milking the Giant Cow: During "Let It Go", she makes a lot of grand gestures, some for Full-Contact Magic, some for kicks. She makes even bigger gestures during "Show Yourself" in the sequel.
Ms. Fanservice: Fairly Downplayed, but after transforming into her ice dress, she is the most scantily-clad character in the film (relatively speaking). Enhanced somewhat in the sequel, when she lets her hair down, takes off her shoes and goes barefoot in the 2nd half.
Most Common Superpower: Downplayed. Though it's hard to tell given the animation style, Elsa's figure qualifies as a downplayed version of the Impossible Hourglass Figure (see above). It's easy to see what contributes for Elsa's top half and she does have powers, completing the trope. Also, looking at the sisters side by side, one notices that Elsa's bust is considerably larger than Anna's.
Mood-Swinger: In her songs.
- "Let It Go" is emotionally deep and complicated, and during some of its most intricate moments, Elsa wears many highly expressive faces that change within seconds. It almost seems like Elsa has mixed emotions. At points, she has the facial expression of outright anger (for instance, when she casts off the gloves and cape), mixed emotions (when she creates Olaf), and outright happiness (when Elsa conjures up the icy staircase to bridge the chasm). And there are lines like "I'm never going back, the past is in the past!" where Elsa really rapidly changes facial expressions: from anger, to distress, to resolve, to anger, to relief and happiness, and triumph.
- "Into the Unknown" shows her flipping between fear of making mistakes and losing her beloved family, annoyance with the persistent voice, longing to find out where it would take her, sadness that she won't find that out as she refuses to follow the voice, hope that there might be someone else like her, sorrow and fear at the thought that she is not where she's meant to be, and joy at the thought of following the voice into the unknown.
Mundane Utility: At the end of the first film, Elsa uses her ice powers to make an ice-skating rink in summer. She also can use magic to create and redesign clothing, and in Frozen Fever, to decorate Anna's birthday cake. For Christmastime, she makes a giant ice Christmas tree and decorations. During the harvest festival in the sequel, she makes some ice toys for the children.
My God, What Have I Done?: She suffers this a couple of times in the first film:
- When she and Anna are first playing with snow in the beginning, Elsa hitting her sister accidentally with her ice spell is what first causes her to hate her powers.
- She's horrified when she learns that her powers have caused an endless winter, and utters the line word-for-word when she sees it firsthand.
My Greatest Failure: She deeply regrets how she almost killed Anna by accident when they were kids, and still worries it might happen again (in a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, she does almost kill her again). This is the main reason she refuses to get close to her sister.
Mystical White Hair: It's implied that Elsa's platinum-blonde hair (a shade of blonde that is a few shades away from perfect white) is somehow connected to her ice magic, since she clearly couldn't have inherited the gene for platinum blonde hair from her parents, and Word of God confirms that Elsa's hair-color is due to her magic. This is evident when she accidentally hits Anna with her ice magic and Anna gains a platinum blonde streak as a result.

N-Y

Near-Death Experience: In the first film, she is almost murdered by Hans. In the second, she becomes frozen alive upon venturing into the deepest part of Ahtohallan; she thaws once the dam breaks down.
Neat Freak: More prominent in A Sister More Like Me, in which Elsa keeps a neat and tidy room. Downplayed in the film itself, in which Anna admits that she always assumed that this was why Elsa wore gloves so much, implying that Elsa isn't one to get messy often.
Named by the Adaptation: In Andersen's original tale, the Snow Queen character is only referred to by that title. When Disney transformed the story into Frozen, she was given a name.
Nervous Wreck: Underneath her calm and aloof façade she's this. The creators state that she suffers from depression and anxiety.
Nice Girl: She is caring, protective, and benevolent. Even before her Character Development, her metaphorical Ice Queen tendencies were really an act to keep her powers in control.
Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Acts aloof and secretive, attempting to be an Emotionless Girl, for thirteen years in order to keep her powers as a literal ice queen controlled and hidden, both to avoid the reactions of others and to avoid hurting them, but it makes her look like a metaphorical one. And then she opens up the castle for her coronation day, during which a stressed Elsa lashes out, shooting ice spikes and revealing her powers, in an argument with her neglected sister Anna, who doesn't know why her family's been keeping her and the rest of them so isolated or why Elsa appears to not care about her. She flees as, unbeknownst to her, the kingdom plunges into an Endless Winter — which doesn't help her image. For all the other characters know, it looks as if Elsa cursed the land on purpose. Despite the argument, Anna's the only one to believe that Elsa is not the stereotypical evil witch-queen she appears to be and to realize that she's just scared.
Not So Above It All: Despite her Emotionless Girl facade early in the first film and generally serious demeanor, she still has a (good-natured) Gadfly moment during the coronation when she manages to rope Anna into dancing with the Duke, who is a horrible dancer. And she proves game enough to dance on the clocktower while high on Oaken's medicine.
Odd Name Out: All the main characters follow a trend of filling in parts of the original novel's author's name (Hans, Kristoff, Anna, Sven = "Hans Christian Andersen"), except for her.
Ode to Apathy: The song "Let it Go" is sung by Elsa and about how she doesn't care anymore about people finding out about her powers since now they know. She also mentions not being bothered by the cold.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The first movie and shorts establish that "the cold never bothered" Elsa due to her powers...so when she starts shivering in Ahtohallan and her breath becomes visible, viewers immediately know something is wrong. As the scene progresses, she ends up freezing solid.
Parental Marriage Veto: She's the queen^note and Anna's older sister, so Anna goes to her to ask for her blessing to her engagement with Hans, assuming it's a done deal. She says no because Anna has just met Hans and definitely has known him for no more than twelve hours.
Passing the Torch: To Anna, when she chooses to stay in the Enchanted Forest and make her the new queen.
The Perfectionist: She always tries her best to be "the perfect girl" so could keep her powers under control. Even after opening up and learning to use her powers, she still keeps this trait, as seen in Frozen Fever where Elsa is fixated on giving Anna her idea of a "perfect" birthday. She insists on keeping everything according to her party plan, despite Anna herself clearly wanting more to take care of her sister's cold, which Elsa refuses to acknowledge because it's not in her plan. It's not until she nearly falls off a tower she was dancing on that Anna is able to convince her to make accommodations in her plan. The day might not be perfect, but taking care of the cold makes Anna happier than trying to ignore it for the sake of sticking to a plan.
Person of Mass Construction: She can use ice powers to construct an ice castle for herself filled with giant doors and a spiral staircase, all in the course of a single song!
Person of Mass Destruction: She accidentally causes a country-wide Endless Winter.
Physical Goddess: Her powers are impressive and with no addressed limit to them, having the power to plunge all of Arendelle into an Endless Winter in the middle of summer, create giant ice-constructs within minutes and can even create life. In Frozen II, it's revealed that she's half of the fifth spirit (the other four corresponding to the classical four elements), the bridge between magic and humanity.
Pimped-Out Dress:
- Her coronation dress has gold trimming on the waist and neckline, and floral motifs on the skirt and bodice.
- The dress she makes is loaded with small wintry things that make it glitter, and an attached cape with subtle snowflakes all over it.
- She creates another one with her powers in "Frozen Fever", and a holiday-themed one in Olaf's Frozen Adventure.
Poor Communication Kills: A lot of Elsa's stoicism stems from corrupting her father's "conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show" mantra and dropping the "it"s to "conceal, don't feel".
Power Dyes Your Hair: Elsa has a platinum-blonde hair color not shared with any other members of her family, which is presumably related to her ice powers. Without her powers, she'd look like her mother with similarly brunette hair.
Power Incontinence:
- Her powers can manifest involuntarily, such as freezing things she touches. When running away after the coronation ceremony, she accidentally freezes the entire harbor and fjord and creates an Endless Winter without even realizing it. When Anna tells her what she's done and asks her to lift the winter, a horrified Elsa tells her she doesn't know how. The secret turns out to be love.
- Played for Laughs in "Frozen Fever". Elsa catches a cold and whenever she sneezes, the snowgies appear. In the end, she sneezes into a bukkehorn and accidentally creates a giant snowball that travels across the sea to knock Hans into a cart full of horse manure.
Power Limiter: Her gloves allow her to touch things without freezing them and keep her from blasting anything around her with ice on accident. The plot is kicked off when she loses one while arguing with Anna. It's implied that their effect is mainly psychological, as later on, hand-covering manacles can't keep her powers at bay, and it repeatedly shown that her powers don't come directly from her hand. Ice can appear from beneath her feet, or not even near any body part, such as when her powers make it snow from the sky all over the kingdom.
The Power of Love: How she gains control of her powers. "Love will thaw" indeed.
Pretty in Mink: In Olaf's Frozen Adventure, her holiday dress has an extra festive touch with a white fur collar◊.
Pride: Her Fatal Flaw in later installments. Elsa's pride manifests in overconfidence in her powers and a reluctance to let Anna and other allies help her. This combined with her tendency to push herself means that Elsa often finds herself in over her head in life-threatening situations — she nearly fell off a clock tower because she wouldn't admit she was sick and she ran off to find Ahtohallan alone and nearly froze to death.
Prim and Proper Bun: Elsa's coronation appearance is with her hair woven in a French-braided crown twist bun. When she realizes she can cut loose with her emotions, she tears out the braid and allows her hair to hang in relative freedom.
Proper Lady: After learning to control her powers, she's collected and poised enough to eventually be The High Queen. In A Sister More Like Me, she enjoys keeping things clean and neat, and intellectual pursuits such as geometry.
Properly Paranoid: Played with in an interesting way, with a hint of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. As a child, Elsa is told to never reveal her powers in case people attack her for it, and is told this shortly after an accident involving said powers nearly kills her little sister. She ends up refusing any physical contact with her parents as well as Anna, so as not to hurt them. This seems to be justified when she appears publicly for the first time on her coronation day, and, by the end of it, she's set off an eternal winter. Later, Anna gets too close to her during a moment of panic, resulting in her accidentally freezing her sister's heart. However, since her powers are affected by emotion, her fear of what might happen if she gets near someone is actually a big reason things go wrong. Once she overcomes her fears, she gains enough control over her powers to not need to be afraid.
Psychometry: While she doesn't have to directly touch the water/ice involved, her powers allow her to make ice sculptures depicting past events of environments where she is by using the water there. This is explained in Frozen II as being because "water has memory".
Psychoactive Powers: When Elsa feels agitated or fearful, her power tends to manifest as an untamed explosion of ice and snow. When she's despairing, everything stops, ending any ongoing storms from her powers and suspending any snowflakes in midair. When she feels good about herself, it becomes much more controlled and even artistic, such as when she creates her own castle out of ice, gives a makeover to the Arendelle castle, and creates a giant Christmas tree from ice.
Purple Is Powerful: Her coronation cape and the dresses she wears as a teenager are deep purple. In Frozen II, she wears a violet colored nightgown, and she's shown wearing a purple colored dress in daytime. Her bedroom is decorated in shades of lilac and violet, which is more obvious in A Sister More Like Me, in which the parts narrated by her are told in purple font, and in concept art.
Rage Breaking Point:
- She does a fairly good job at keeping her powers in check by "concealing, not feeling" her fears... until Anna asks her a few Armor Piercing Questions and causes Elsa to snap, showing her powers.
- When the Weselton guards try to assassinate her, she tries to reason with them, but is forced to defend herself when she realizes they won't stop. So she goes into Tranquil Fury mode, and on the offensive.
Reasonable Authority Figure: Becomes this after learning to better deal with her problems in the first movie. When not freaking out, Elsa is a competent ruler, and helps evacuate the kingdom after accidentally awakening the elemental spirits.
Reluctant Ruler:
- In Frozen (2013), Princess Elsa is a teenage shut-in who has no choice but to become Queen after her parents' deaths. When the powers are revealed and manifest themselves in dangerous spikes and blasts, her people are naturally terrified. She flees into the mountains, renouncing her throne and preparing to live a life of complete exile. By the end of the film, however, she gains mastery of her powers, thanks in largest part to the love of her younger sister, and the people accept her as their Queen once more.
- In Frozen II, Elsa, now Queen, says that although she's happier now that she's living openly with her powers mostly under control and with the enthusiastic support of her family, she still feels as if she's "not where I'm meant to be." While initially afraid to acknowledge the mysterious voice she's been hearing, when she begins to think it could lead her to her destiny, she immediately leaves the castle behind to chase after it and never looks back. At the end, she renounces the crown to live with her mother's people in the North, where she has more opportunity to practice her magic than she did while ruling.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Anna's more openly-emotional Red given her stoicism.
Required Secondary Powers: The cold never bothered her anyway.
- Not only does she not get cold, even on top of a frozen mountain wearing a dress made out of ice, she doesn't even have visible breath like everyone else in the cold.
- Subverted in Frozen Fever, where she tries to argue that she doesn't catch colds either, but unfortunately that's not how colds work.
- She doesn't slip on the smooth ice she makes (except one time, when she got scared.) In the first movie, she runs the stairs of her Ice Palace in high-heeled shoes made of ice. In the sequel, she runs up a platform made out of ice while she's soaking wet.
Requisite Royal Regalia: She has a Cool Crown, a Staff of Authority and an orb, a Pimped-Out Dress, a pair of High-Class Gloves, and a Pimped-Out Cape at her coronation as queen. She abandons most of it and changes what she does keep (her Pimped-Out Dress and Pimped-Out Cape) after reinventing her image from Queen of Arendelle to the Snow Queen.
Right for the Wrong Reasons: Elsa is right Anna shouldn't have gotten engaged to Hans right away. But she doesn't have a clue he's evil; she's just afraid anyone getting too close to their family will learn her secret.
Royal Blood: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Elsa is the Queen of Arendelle and the plot kicks off at her coronation.
Safety in Indifference: After an incident in her childhood when she accidentally hit her little sister in the head with her ice powers and is warned about the need for control, Elsa detaches herself from others, convinced that she should "conceal, don't feel" and is better off alone.
Sexy Slit Dress: The skirt of her ice gown has a slit in it, symbolising her percieved freedom.
Sheltered Aristocrat: Elsa didn't leave the castle grounds for 13 years and her parents tried to protect her by keeping her isolated for much of her childhood. As a result, she doesn't really know how to handle problems when she grows up.
Showing Off Your Powers: As a child Elsa uses her powers to delight and entertain Anna. As an adult, she falls back into this by creating an ice palace during her song "Let It Go" (although this is only showing off to herself).
Sibling Yin-Yang: Elsa is calm, reserved, and introverted while Anna is energetic, outspoken, and extroverted. This is especially evident in "For The First Time In Forever" where Anna bounces around inside and outside the castle joyously looking forward to the coronation while an anxious, collected Elsa nervously sings about it in her room, and even more so in the book "A Sister More Like Me": Anna is messy and loves picnics and physical activities while Elsa is tidy and shown to enjoy tea parties and quiet activities.
Significant Birth Date: It's All There in the Manual, but according to scriptwriter/codirector Jennifer Lee, she was born on the winter solstice.
Significant Wardrobe Shift: In the middle of her song "Let It Go", Elsa magically changes her clothes from stately royal robes to a slinky gown, symbolizing her decision to stop hiding her powers and letting others determine how she will live her life.
Simple, yet Opulent:
- Her coronation dress has very few decorations, but is still made of high-quality materials, and she wears a simple but grand purple cape. Purple is such a "royal" colour because the dye was made of sea snails, and according to The Other Wiki, twelve thousand snails yield no more than 1.4 g of pure dye, enough to colour only the trim of a single garment. Elsa's cape is at least 3 meters long.
- Her ice dress is not complicated, but it shows just how beautiful and versatile her magic is.
Solitary Sorceress: Elsa runs off to the mountains to live by herself after exposing her powers.
Squishy Wizard: Downplayed. God-like ice powers, but human-like constitution. She's knocked out by a falling chandelier.
The Stoic: Her attempt to shut down her Emotional Powers leads to her often trying to repress her emotions.
Strong Family Resemblance: Elsa and her sister look similar to their mother, save for subtle differences in the shapes of their eyes, nose, chin, etc.
Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She's reserved and tries to control her emotions, but she genuinely cares for her sister and the people of Arendelle. She reacts with "What have I done?" when she sees the frozen fjord. In this case, the "ice" part mostly results from her self-discipline, but she noticeably lightens up after she's ultimately able to control her powers and undo the Endless Winter.
Supermodel Strut: During Let It Go, shortly after she generates her snow dress, she's seen doing an assertive strut while swaying her legs and hips, denoting her newfound confidence. The sequel reveals that this specific strut has become linked with her, to the point where how Olaf (successfully) demonstrates her in a game of charades. Amusingly, none of the players were there for L"et It Go" — suggesting she sometimes walks like this in her everyday life now, too.
Survival Mantra: "Conceal, don't feel." She casts this off later.
Sweet Tooth: It runs in the family: just like her sister, Elsa loves chocolate. In A Frozen Heart, they inherit this from their mother Iduna, and in their childhood, the sisters used to sneak into the kitchen while the cook was baking and dip their fingers in bowls of melted chocolate; at the end of the book, after their reunion, they do it again.
Swiss-Army Superpower: Her ice magic covers a wide range of possibilities, from dress-making to the creation of sentient life, so long as it's in snow form.
Symbol Motif Clothing: Her coronation dress has the crocus of Arendelle on it, while her ice dress has snowflakes all over the cape. Her holiday dress in Olaf's Frozen Adventure has an even larger snowflake motif.
Take Care of the Kids: When Elsa escapes the castle, she tells Hans to take care of Anna.
Thermal Dissident: Elsa, who has ice superpowers, remarks as such. She seems immune to hypothermia, wearing a single-layer dress in a blizzard without any problem.
Elsa: The cold never bothered me anyway.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: 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 Proper Lady through the series, even as a free-spirited nature guardian. By contrast, Anna is a feisty Spirited Young Lady who stuffs her face with food, punches out a prince, rescues her sister repeatedly, acts awkwardly, is Not a Morning Person with the hairstyle and drool to match, and rides a bicycle indoors.
Thrill Seeker: As revealed "In Into the Unknown" partially prompted by her powers, Elsa is revealed to want to seek out adventure and magic. This is a marked contrast to Anna, who takes strength and joy in being grounded and surrounded by her friends and family.
Took a Level in Badass:
- Elsa has a pretty good control of her powers as a child, and can cover a room in snow. She then spends some years repressing them, and when she finally lets go again when she's older, she ends up — not just accidentally, but unknowingly — freezing the entire kingdom and creating sentient life.
- She takes another one by the time of the second movie, this time in control. While her attempts at offense in the first movie were somewhat clumsy and panicked, now her aim is perfect, she utilizes other abilities beyond simple hand blasts, and she's capable of clever strategic thinking. She's also braver and more tenacious than she was before, more willing to face her problems.
  - And by the end of the second movie, she's gotten another boost in power, to the point where she froze the entire Dark Sea.
Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Elsa grew up highly reserved, because she was afraid being emotional would cause her ice powers to flare. The first time she opens up is when she sings her iconic "Let It Go" solo. She's still very anxious in "For The First Time In Forever (Reprise)", but at the end seems to have opened up more thanks to The Power of Love, and has gained greater control over her ice powers.
Took a Level in Kindness: After letting go, she uses the Power of Love to end the eternal winter, creates a small storm over Olaf so he'll never melt, makes Kristoff the official Ice Master and Deliverer, creates an ice skating rink open to the public, and, in the final scene, she helps Anna learn how to ice skate.
Trademark Favorite Food: Elsa has a liking towards chocolate.
Tragic Ice Character: After accidentally striking her sister with her ice powers, she is forced to hide them for most of her life out of fear that she would be seen as a monster. This fear prevents her from properly controlling them. When she loses her temper and uses her powers in public, revealing them, she becomes so panicked that she accidentally freezes the entire kingdom and runs away to live in isolation. "Let It Go" connects both her isolation and later rebirth with her ice powers.
The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation,
And it looks like I'm the queen.
Trauma Conga Line: Elsa goes through one traumatic experience after another:
- She accidentally knocks out her little sister with her ice powers, which makes her Afraid of Their Own Strength.
- When the trolls try to warn her how important it is that she learn control and that "fear will be your enemy," they show a vision of a mob to illustrate the danger, which makes her fear for her life.
- Then her father tries to protect her from such a fate by locking her up in the castle.
- Then her parents are lost at sea.
- She's crowned queen but her powers are exposed to the entire kingdom, so she runs away and accidentally freezes Arendelle in the process.
- She's tricked by Hans into thinking that Anna is dead (and because of her, too!).
- She's heartbroken when Anna sacrifices herself to save her and she sees her frozen body. Thankfully, her younger sister comes back to her and they both reunite and reconnect, finally ending the line.
Troubled, but Cute: She's shown to be rather aloof and brooding.
True Blue Femininity: With a couple of exceptions, almost every outfit Elsa wears is mostly made of blue, up to and including non-fabric items she wears (like the headbands she wears in her single-digit years). Her coronation cape is purple, but it's still over a mostly blue/cyan dress. This continues in the holiday special Olaf's Frozen Adventure, where her Happy Holidays Dress is mostly dark blue. Her main outfit in Frozen II is a light blue ensemble.
Truly Single Parent: Is an accidental one of the magical variety to snowlems Olaf and Marshmallow, since she created them with her magic, and she does seem to regard Olaf at least with some kind of maternal affection. Furthermore, in "Frozen Fever" Olaf calls the small snowmen that Elsa's cold creates his "little brothers", suggesting that he does view Elsa as a parent and other (living) snow creations as his siblings.
Unskilled, but Strong: Her main problem for most of the first movie. She can freeze hearts and make a harsh winter in the middle of summer, and she does all that by accident, because she has little control over her powers. This quality carries over into the sequel, albeit downplayed and this time less as a problem and more as strength. Although she shows some skill when she crafts a bridle for the Nokk during their fight and her aim with her powers has improved since the first film, Elsa goes through obstacles mainly by blasting them with her power. This is how she deals with the wind spirit, and the main way she deals with the fire and water ones.
Unstable Powered Woman: The film plays with the trope. Elsa had repressed her ice powers since childhood, so they are an additional stressor when she is crowned queen. Not knowing how to handle them in public, she keeps the castle closed off from the rest of the world until her coronation day. When she reveals her powers to the court while arguing with her sister, who has had the powers hidden from her, over Elsa's decision to close off the castle again, she is branded a monster and runs away to the wilderness. In doing so, she embraces her powers but inadvertently plunges Arendelle into an Endless Winter for which she is demonized. However, thanks to The Power of Love and The Power of Family, she is able to rein in her powers and comfortably settle into the role of a Benevolent Mage Ruler by the film's end. The movie also gives reasons for her difficulty handling the situation besides her natural character; her parents also didn't know how to handle it and started the isolationist strategy in an attempt to protect her.
Used to Be More Social: Before the accident with Anna, Elsa was perfectly willing to play around with her sister and happily participated in the Yule Bell ceremony every Christmas.
Vapor Wear: Implied, as her stockings disappear after she forms her ice dress.
Villain Song: Her big song "Let It Go", during which she builds her ice kingdom after running away and gleefully allows herself to express her emotions and show off her powers, is a subversion. It was initially written as a Villain Song^note, and sounds like one, with lines like "No right, no wrong, no rules for me" and "The cold never bothered me anyway" (sung in the middle of Elsa unleashing her ice magic, enveloping the kingdom in an Endless Winter in the middle of July). But it's revealed later that the Endless Winter part is actually an accident — Elsa didn't even realize her powers went that far.
Voice for the Voiceless: When Elsa and Anna first build Olaf as children, Elsa provides a funny voice for the inanimate snowman Olaf ("Hi, I'm Olaf and I love warm hugs!") to make Anna laugh.
Walking Wasteland: Zigzagged Trope. Elsa's powers aren't always dangerous, especially when she manages to control them, but when she doesn't, the ground and the fjord sometimes turn to ice beneath her feet, and she unwittingly freezes some of the things she touches. At its height, she even accidentally sends the entire kingdom into a harsh winter. She becomes reclusive because of it, wearing gloves constantly to prevent accidents, afraid of the destruction she can cause if not careful and how people will react to it. By the end of the movie, she gains better control over her magic, and is even able to use them constructively.
"Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Implied during "For the First Time In Forever", by the way she looks up at the painting of her father while she is mentally preparing herself for her coronation.
We Used to Be Friends: She and Anna were close as children. Then, the accident happens, and their parents decide it's best to keep Elsa's powers secret while she's still learning control and isolate her in order to do so, and Elsa grows up to be reclusive.
What the Hell, Hero?: Anna calls her out on her hypocrisy in mocking Anna's ideas about love when the equally-isolated Elsa doesn't have any more knowledge about it than her.
When the Planets Align: The circumstances of Elsa's birth, according to Jennifer Lee. A child is born with ice magic "when Saturn is in this alignment with such-and-such on the thousandth year". It was meant to be explained in the film but was left out due to in part to raising too many more questions about the rules of magic. However, this was subjected to a Retcon in the sequel, where her powers are instead a gift of the elemental spirits, because as one of the two daughters of a Northuldran and Arendellian who fell in love, Elsa is one half of the bridge between magic and humanity along with her sister.
Willfully Weak: After nearly killing Anna with her powers, she spends a good chunk of her life doing everything she can to keep her powers in check.
Winter Royal Lady: A regal Ice Person queen often dressed in blue, especially light blue.
Youthful Freckles: They're not as prominent on Elsa as they are on Anna (which can be partially explained as Elsa is a bit older than Anna), but they are still there.

Characters / Frozen - Elsa

Queen Elsa of Arendelle

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Queen Elsa of Arendelle

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