Fridge Brilliance / Frozen (2013)

• During Elsa and Anna's fight in Elsa's ice palace, Elsa says, almost imploringly, "What power do you have that can stop this winter? That can stop me?" The line highlights how Elsa feels she has lost control over her powers and her mounting fears of hurting everyone — but her question is actually answered in the end. Anna DOES have a power that can stop the winter and Elsa: namely, The Power of Love. Anna's Heroic Sacrifice directly leads to Elsa gaining control over her powers. Even though Anna's powers aren't like Elsa's, hers are every bit as important. This is briefly foreshadowed during the reprise of "For the First Time in Forever" - in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, Elsa's face betrays that she is considering letting Anna's love get through to her, right as Anna is singing, "You don't have to live in fear." It's not enough, though; she scrunches up her face again in realization that her fear is still too powerful. We see for a brief moment that love will work, but Elsa's fear is too great for a simple plea, and it will take a much greater act of love to counter it.
• Some studies have found that left-handed people tend to be more vulnerable to negative emotions such as depression and anger. They are more prone to fear. Their brain hemispheres have more symmetry than right-handed people, which explains why their skills are most randomized and less specified to either side of the brain. So, how is this relevant to Elsa, you may ask? Elsa uses her left hand almost every time she gestures or conjures. These psychological facts support the intense fear that Elsa experienced when Anna was hurt and when the prophecy was revealed to her—which led her to a life of isolation and loneliness. Elsa's love and instinctive nature to protect Anna had made this even more difficult for her and this, in turn, had worsened her fear. Note that fear isn't good for Elsa for this will only make her power uncontrollable and dangerous. Elsa's susceptibility to experience fear also makes her quick to anger when threatened.
• Notice how throughout "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?," both sisters wear increasingly darker colors as their separation and isolation, as well as repression for Elsa and neglect for Anna, take a toll on them. However, when Anna is adult, she still wears the same warm palette she did as when she was five. She's a big kid, she’s the same and managed to retain her cheerful and optimistic personality, as well as her loving nature. This reflects the climax of the film, when she breaks Elsa's accidentally-cast curse with The Power of Love and thaws herself. Elsa grows up to darker blues, as she closes herself off from the world. Her sleeves get longer and show less skin. Also her hairstyles get to be tighter and reflect her mother's as she becomes more repressed and attempts to be the perfect queen. This all changes when she sings "Let It Go" and she goes back to pale blue and lets her hair down. In other words, Anna still kept her warm personality, while Elsa became more and more cold towards Anna and everyone else, but found some of her own bright cheer again when she stopped repressing herself during "Let It Go," remembering the positive in her magic and allowing her hair to return to her own preferred style rather than the one used by her mother, but even then, retained much of her anxiety and fear of letting others close.
• Some brilliant Scandinavian fridge: Hans, from the Southern Isles, seems to be Danish, his name indicates the same. The landscape of the movie is clearly Norwegian, with high snow-peaked mountains and steep slopes. Kristoff has a Swedish-sounding name (Bjorgman), but dresses like a Sami. Given the geography of Arendelle (Arendal is a Norwegian city to the south of Norway), Elsa and Anna are then technical Norwegians, and Anna chooses the Swedish boy over the Danish one. A fitting movie to be released at the time of the bicentennial for the Norwegian Constituent Assembly, when Sweden fought to win Norway and won, while Denmark lost it forever.
• Word of God confirmed that Anna's greatest attribute is love. She also has shown incredible feats of superhuman strength despite being a petite woman. Why? Because "love is the strongest force of all".
• In the original story by Hans Christian Andersen, the Snow Queen is more a traditional sort of fairy-tale monster and The Vamp that uses her beauty and kisses to lure a boy to a cold Ice Palace and away from a the pure-hearted friend who loves him. She also promises to give him the world if he does what she asks. Here, Elsa is a good-intentioned young woman who doesn't want to hurt anyone, but doesn't know how not to. And a guy named Hans, who himself is guilty of seducing an innocent young girl, tries to rewrite the story so that the heartbroken Guile Hero defeats the monster and is rewarded with a kingdom of his own. Whoa.
  • At first glance, Frozen appears to have little in common with its source material. But in the original The Snow Queen, the heroine goes on a journey to rescue her childhood friend, who was lost to negativity brought on by magic (a magical glass shard) and the Snow Queen, the former of which made him vulnerable to the latter. The story ends with the otherwise-ordinary heroine freeing the friend through The Power of Love. In Frozen, the heroine goes on a journey to rescue her childhood friend, who was lost to negativity brought on by fear (both her own and others') of her magic, which led her to believe that if she could not repress it, then the Snow Queen was all she could be. The story ends with the otherwise-ordinary heroine freeing the friend through The Power of Love.
  • The original Snow Queen promises Kai a pair of skates if he can break the curse. What's the last thing we see Elsa see give Anna?
  • In the original story, Kai was jabbed by two shards of an evil magic mirror: one in his eye (making him see only ugliness in the world) and one in his heart (turning him cold and cruel). Anna is struck twice by Elsa's power — once in the head, once in the heart.
• The producers just made a relatively scientific explanation of thermodynamics: Elsa's "magic" is just absorbing heat and energy from the outside world. How do you make her, a walking singularity, absorb less? Give her INTERNAL warmth. There must be a pretty high exchange rate between physical and emotional heat, though.
• At the start of the movie, the King gives Elsa a pair of gloves to conceal her power in a room. The same room Anna is left to die in when Hans reveals his treachery.
• When Kristoff says "You know? Most people who disappear into the mountains want to be alone." He's talking from personal experience.
• Anna conversing with a painting of Joan of Arc looks cute at first ("Hang in there, Joan!"), but the fact that she is talking to a famous martyr seems to be a very dark foreshadowing of the numerous sufferings that will be inflicted on Anna and Elsa later on in the film. If both sisters grew up looking at and identifying with a picture of Joan of Arc, it's likely they would have seen her as a role model, and thus both picked up her virtues of courage and self-sacrifice. It's also a nicely subtle hint as to how Anna will break the heart-freezing curse upon herself, by becoming a martyr to save her sister.
  • Anna, who is implied to be a Hero-Worshipper towards Joan, has many parallels to her. She is a young, idealistic Action Girl devoted to her family and kingdom to the point where she voluntarily accepts a Cruel and Unusual Death to save her beloved sister. Anna's Heroic Sacrifice makes people see Hans' true colors and ends his unjust rule, and the way she breaks the curse inspires Elsa to finally master her magic.
  • Joan of Arc was condemned as a witch. Elsa nearly suffered a similar fate and almost was killed for witchcraft, although Anna saved her before it could be carried out.
• Look at the names of four main characters — all names of good Nordic roots: Hans, Kristoff, Anna, Sven. Sounds like...Hans Christian Andersen.^note  The name of the author of ''The Snow Queen," the literary work that inspired Frozen.
• Elsa has one braid in her hair, meaning she's the oldest. Anna has pigtails, stating that she came after Elsa or she's the youngest.
• Prince Hans is very much a Nice Guy...in the real world slang, Entitled to Have You sense, brought down to its basic elements — much like real people who only pretend to be perfect to a potential romantic partner, he's just a selfish manipulator. This plays into the overall plot perfectly, as the traditional villainess is an unwitting antagonist, and the traditional hero is actually a Villain with Good Publicity. It's a complete inversion of the classical fairy tale! In fact, they work as very good foils. Elsa acts cold and distant, but has good intentions and does so in part because she wants to keep people safe, despite the fact that she doesn't want to be alone. Hans acts friendly and kind-hearted only so he can manipulate and hurt people, all purely for his own benefit.
• More of a romantic foreshadowing as to who ends up with who but during Olaf's "In Summer", we see in one brief scene a picnic. Anna and Kristoff are looking at the snowman with sandwiches. What is that infamous line that Anna sang earlier about finishing each other's sentences/sandwiches? This becomes extra significant when you remember that Olaf is composed of both Elsa and Anna's personalities. So for Olaf, depicting a couple finishing each other's sandwiches in his daydreams indicates that they're in love because Anna considers it to be a sign that they're in love. So even though he's only known Kristoff and Anna for a few minutes, he can already forsee love between them. I guess he really is a love expert!
• Why is Anna so eager to get engaged to a man she just met? It isn't just her romantic mindset or idealism (though those certainly contribute). In "For the First Time in Forever," Anna imagines meeting the love of her life. Near the end of the song, she says "I know it all ends tomorrow, so it has to be today!" She assumed that Hans was her only chance at finding true love. It makes further sense at the end of the film (and subsequent shorts) where Anna is shown to be taking it slow with her relationship with Kristoff, because she can now! She's no longer imprisoned inside castle walls meaning that she now has the opportunity to have an actual romantic relationship with someone without the fear of losing it due to her isolation. And it's clear from the movie's ending (and the shorts) that Elsa approves of their relationship, unlike with Hans.
• Hans reeks of Fridge Brilliance. One lingering complaint about Disney films is the overabundance of Love at First Sight romances and Fourth Date Marriages, and how the idea of falling in love with someone you've known for two minutes is more dangerous than the films tend to portray. By the end of the film, the trope has been subverted, but also deconstructed - in hindsight it makes sense that it was never going to work out. The film repeatedly emphasized that Anna, even though she "know[s] it's totally crazy" to think she'll find love in one night, also knows that night's her only chance because she's supposed to be locked up again the next day, and that after years of isolation, childhood neglect, and feelings of abandonment resulting from her sister's bitchy front, she's desperate to form a human connection, whether it's a friendship or a romance. 73% of Americans in her age bracket believe in soulmates, and since she only has one day to potentially meet hers, no wonder she mistakes chemistry for destiny. She's also naive as a result of the isolation - she was raised in a castle with very few people and no one who was her age. Her only experiences with love are her parents (who she would think were each other's true loves), paintings, and possibly books. She is established as brave but incautious and therefore liable to sometimes act without fully thinking things through. As for Hans...what reasons are we given to buy into him proposing so quickly, especially as it's so firmly established that Fourth Date Marriages are not the norm in this universe? His willingness to do so suddenly makes sense when The Reveal comes that he's a Gold Digger who's taking advantage of Anna's vulnerability.
• Why did Olaf call himself a love expert? Because he's the living symbol of the bond between Elsa and Anna. Therefore, he's the symbol of the love between them. He is literally the very first thing Elsa builds after she exiles herself from Arendelle, thus subtly answering Anna's "Do you wanna build a snowman?"
• Olaf and warmth:
  • One could assume that Olaf's desire to experience heat and summer stems from Elsa's own unfamiliarity with it, having spent most of her life alone in a confined space with her own self generating cold. It's entirely possible that given his creation by Elsa in a moment of high emotion, Olaf may have a bit of Elsa rattling around in his head, especially in how he deals with Anna. When Kristoff leads them to a field of rocks, Olaf believes the situation is dangerous and says to her "Because I love you Anna, I insist you run." Less than ten minutes earlier, Elsa had more or less said the same thing to her "I love you, it's dangerous, get out of here!". Not long after that Anna is locked up and told that no one loves her, only to be rescued by Olaf who had been the only one to outright tell her "I love you". He then puts his own life at risk to save Anna in the same way that Anna would give her life to save Elsa later. In the Broadway adaption, Olaf is explicitly "a little bit of" both sisters.
  • There's another reason why Olaf has a thing for warmth. When Elsa first created him as a child, she didn't really delve into his personality...other than specifying that he enjoys one thing: "warm hugs". Because Elsa never gave Olaf an identity beyond that one trait, he ended up developing a fixation on warmth in general.
  • On a meta level Olaf was probably based on a lesser known Andersen tale in which a snowman falls in love with a fireplace.
• "Love Is An Open Door":
  • It sounds like another love song. But watch it a second time and never mind all the double entendres...a traditional Disney Duet is re-practiced over and over until they are super-awesome perfect (see "A Whole New World" for an example) but he and Anna seem to always be one practice session away from that. Hans doesn't start singing until it's clear what Anna's going to say. He often comes second to copy Anna's words, and he's just a smidge behind when they sing together. Even when they are in sync, they're not quite perfect.
  • A more obvious example is the "We finish each other's —" "Sandwiches!" bit seems at first like them both being, as Anna puts it, 'crazy':
    Hans: I mean it's crazy...
    Anna: What?
    Hans: We finish each other's —
    Anna: Sandwiches!
    Hans: That's what I was gonna say!
  • This is Disney, and it's animated. Anything they show you is deliberate. You expect 100% perfect choreography in their ridiculous spontaneous songs. But here, they're not quite in time with their dancing, or the lighting. When they dance in the spotlight, it's not centered like you'd think it would be, when they come to the top of the lighthouse Hans falls behind Anna, and when they run down the corridor, they're slipping and sliding, and Anna is yanking Hans along.
  • There's something musically peculiar about "Love is an Open Door". When it comes to duets, you need specially trained singers to get it perfect, and some voices just don't match others in their harmonies. Disney doesn't usually hold back for that. They will hire special duet singers to get a love song perfect, if that's what it takes. Kristen Bell and Santino Fontana are both trained singers, if that means anything. But as well as the words and dancing being off, they're not quite in harmony...In the line "Love is an open door", the harmony on the word "door" starts out as a consonance but on the last syllable of Hans's "doo-oo-oor" it turns into a dissonance, where the underlying chord changes to a dominant 7. This contains a tritone, one of the harshest dissonances there is, and it's subtly emphasized in the arrangement. "Fixer Upper" also contains dominant 7 chords, but because it has elements of gospel and Latin rhythms, they seem idiomatic and natural. "Open Door" is mostly written as a classic, joyful, diatonic Disney-style Love at First Sight song, so the presence of harsh, bluesy harmonies seems a little strange and plants the suggestion that Anna and Hans are not in such perfect harmony as they appear to be.
  • There's a line in the song that says "You and I were just meant to be." But Hans says "You" and Anna says "I". Like all the other confusions in the song, it's so fast that you don't even notice it — just like how fast their relationship is moving.
    • Something else about the line "You and I were just meant to be." They're supposed to take turns saying each word, both coming together on "be." But listen closely, and you can hear that Anna sings the word "meant" when Hans was supposed to take it. More subtle proof that they're not really in sync!
  • Why does Anna think Elsa doesn't know much about love during "The Party Is Over" scene? Because at this point of the movie, Anna sees love as an open door, and all Elsa appears to know "is how to shut people out," which makes Anna feel like Elsa doesn't reciprocate her love - a belief Manipulative Bastard Hans is all too willing to encourage through his version of a Villain Song. Elsa doesn't open her door because she's afraid, but thanks to Laser-Guided Amnesia and a lack of experience due to a childhood of isolation, Anna doesn't realize it. Gaining a more sophisticated understanding of love is a large part of her Character Development.
  • The lines "Love is an open door" and "Life can be so much more". It sounds cute at the time, but afterwards you realise...
    Hans: With you!
    Anna: With you!
    Hans: With you!
  • It's a bit like they're arguing, isn't it? Like "Love is an open door for me with you" and "Life can be so much more for me with you." Who's it going to be best for? And guess what? Hans gets the last word in.
  • Also look at Hans's first line in the song. "I've been waiting my whole life to find my own place." Not "my place" as in "where I'm supposed to be" but as in, "the place that I own." And he's gesturing, not toward Anna, but toward Arendelle.
  • Just the idea of "love is an open door" from Hans' perspective: Anna's love for him is an open door into her kingdom, an open invitation to take it over.
  • Taken in context, all the disjointed nature of the song is brilliant given what type of song both singers are singing. Anna is singing what she thinks is a straightforward Love Song and engaging in Duet Bonding over the course of a Falling-in-Love Montage. Hans is singing a Villain Song, both trying to seduce her and dropping subtle hints about his true plans along the way.
  • And just to cap off the "door" symbolism, what does Hans do later, when he reveals his true intentions and exposes the whole of "Love Is An Open Door" for the treacherous deception that it is? He shuts and locks a door, leaving Anna trapped in a freezing parlor to die.
  • It's amazing how subtle "Love Is an Open Door" is compared to "You're You", the Cut Song in which Hans is more overt in the underhanded way he puts Anna down while singing a love song to her.
• Three of the songs in Frozen have a similar theme in their titles: homes. There's "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", "Love is an Open Door", and "Fixer-Upper", the latter being a term often used for a home that needs extra renovations to become livable. The subtle message here is that home is where the heart is. Elsa and Anna saw their own castle as a prison for so long, and then later Elsa created her own castle entirely out of her own magic. But after she is captured, she never returns to her Palace of Ice-olation, and she and Anna declare that they are never closing the doors to their home again — and this is only possible because love thawed out both their hearts. Extra brilliance for "Fixer-Upper" — the trolls are singing about how love is the ultimate thing to fix a fixer-upper. Love was what ultimately allowed Anna and Elsa to reunite in their childhood home and to transform their home into a joyous place, rather than allow it to remain a prison for them both.
• Notice that when eternal winter does start, Elsa takes a step into the fjord. When she starts building her castle, Elsa takes a step to begin sculpting her new home. Then, when she returns back home, she takes another step to build an ice skate rink for Arendelle. A subtle aesop that it only does take that one step to cause something horrible or create something wonderful.
• The last verses of "Fixer Upper", if you listen closely. The trolls sing that "everyone's bit of a fixer-upper", essentially saying that nobody is perfect, but true love brings out the best in people nonetheless and makes their other flaws seem small in comparison. And every character in the movie, good or bad, is shown to be flawed in some way This is another clue hinting that Hans is not all he appears. He is initially portrayed as the flawless Prince Charming that Disney is so well known for churning out right from the very start, but since no one is really flawless, this is all a façade..
• Gloves play a symbolic role of concealing one's true nature for two characters. The first one is Elsa, who conceals her powers when wearing them. When she takes them off, she's not restricted anymore from showing emotion and using her ice powers. What other character removes their gloves in this movie? Hans. He takes off his glove when he is explaining his plan to Anna of usurping the throne from Elsa. Hans wears gloves not only to conceal his true nature, but also to conceal a crime he was attempting to commit. Think about it: Gloves have been used by criminals to help them avoid being caught in a crime. Hans wears his gloves the entire time to conceal his true intentions that would lead to a crime. And he puts the gloves back on when he says "I, however, am the hero who is going to save Arendelle from destruction."
• A more literal take on 13=unlucky: Hans is the youngest of 13 siblings, making him unlucky 13.
• Sometimes we fall for someone who's similar to our sibling. And Anna gets into a relationship with Kristoff, who has a lot of similar traits with Elsa: Both are 21, chew out Anna for marrying a guy she just met, have some relationship with ice (Elsa has ice/snow powers and Kristoff is an ice harvester) and enjoy it, both start off as an Ineffectual Loner (but they aren't by the epilogue), and have a close bond with a Non-Human Sidekick (Sven for Kristoff and Olaf for Elsa.)
• The snowmen Elsa creates are actually parts of her will. Olaf represents her desire to see heat and the sun and not to bother with the cold. It also represents her bond with Anna. Marshmallow, on the other hand, represents her wanting to stay away from others and Arendelle when she flees. Note how he was created when Anna tried to bring her back home. It's been mentioned that Olaf is so innocent and constantly happy because he was created when Elsa was finally happy, during her "I Am Becoming" Song. Marshmallow gets created when she becomes overwhelmed by fear upon realizing the extent of her Power Incontinence, and conjures him to literally throw Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf out of the ice palace. That's why he's so big and dangerous and his reaction to having a snowball thrown at him is to try and kill Anna for it, and his happy ending is to rule over the empty castle, completely alone. Note, too, that Olaf is small and weak. Marshmallow is huge, and dangerous. Which side of Elsa's personality was more aggressively fostered...? Probably coincidence, but it makes a nice bit of recursive sense. The scene where Olaf tries to stop Marshmallow from getting to Kristoff and Anna's ice anchor gains an undercurrent of Mood Whiplash laden symbolism when you think how in For The First Time In Forever Reprise, Anna tries to convince Elsa that their bond is enough to stop the Eternal Winter Elsa accidentally set off. This foreshadows the end of the movie when The Power of Love does prevail, but all that happens in this scene is Anna is hit with a potentially fatal ice blast in the heart, because the fear is still the dominant force.
• "Let it Go"
  • It's a very ironic song. The entire song is about how free and unrestrained Elsa is, and how she can finally do whatever she wants. How does the song end? By two massive ice doors slamming on the viewer. While it's one of her own design and choosing, all Elsa did was exchange one prison for another to seal herself away.
  • Irony's built into the music too: from a music theory point of view, the final line of the song, "The cold never bothered me anyway", is sung in an almost throwaway fashion on the subdominant harmony, which by the usual rules of your big Disney power ballad amounts to leaving the song unfinished, and is a sign that although Elsa may feel that "Let It Go" is her last word on the subject, the score knows better. Also, with a little bit of Fridge Horror: The crescendo of the song, the line to which the whole thing is building? "Let the storm rage on!".
  • Elsa overcomes her fear with love, and thereby gains control over her powers. Specifically, it was her sister's agape love that got her to this point. Perfect love drives out all fear, and The Snow Queen is a heavily Christian text, in which the power of prayer is instrumental in saving Kai. In keeping with one of the film's major themes, of actions speaking louder than words, though, this is expressed in Frozen through an indisputable act of faith and perfect love rather than a spoken affirmation of it.
  • During "Let It Go", she first makes the childhood snowman with a gesture — nostalgic, but let's face it, a rather crude blob of snow. Then she creates the staircase, first as a thing of rough snow with another gesture, then turning to polished ice as she runs up it. Finally she looks around craftily, before raising her castle as perfect ice from the beginning. Meanwhile she's been singing about testing her limits and seeing what she can do; it's a nice visual for her growing into her power.
  • Elsa 'lets go' of the three things that restricted her: the gloves (lets go of the restriction of her using her powers), her cape (restricted her from being herself, having to put on queenly facade), and the crown (she lets go the queenly duties that bound her).
  • Notice, the moment Elsa takes off her one remaining glove during "Let It Go", the snow around her stops. Because the storm was more than likely due to her emotion, once she let go of the glove, she also became less afraid and therefore less likely to unintentionally activate her powers.
  • Dropping the cloak is just as iconic: for most of her life, Elsa has been dressing in warm clothes that wall her in and make her look like everyone else, clothes made to shut out the cold that she fears unleashing. But now, as she finally admits that she doesn't need warm clothes, either to shield herself from low temperatures or to repress her powers, she can accept that the cold is part of who she is — one with the wind and sky — and finally stop being afraid of that fact. And suddenly she's enjoying herself for the first time as a grown woman.
  • The ice castle Elsa creates during 'Let It Go' can represent her desire to finally belong in her own place and not to be scared. The song's meaning and the palace's creation aren't just a coincidence-the song represents her letting go of her past, and the ice castle is a place she thinks she belongs.
  • Elsa being able to construct a beautiful ice castle with the right shapes, even with a center point to make sure it was balanced, may seem like a Rule of Cool moment, but the "fractals" line in "Let It Go" implies she actually is thinking mathematically as she does so. She looks around her surroundings before creating the castle, suggesting she was trying to figure out the right calculations for her castle so it doesn't collapse due to a poor structure, and the companion book A Sister More Like Me also states that Elsa loves geometry.
  • Probably just a happy coincidence, but what other wholly appropriate song has a title that rhymes with 'Let It Go'? 'Let It Snow'!
  • In Sweden "Let It Go", while being a popular song, is often criticized for sounding too much like a schlager. Disney has been known for having the music in their movies match the setting. Maybe it's not a coincidence that "Let It Go" sounds like something that might represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest?
  • At the beginning of 'Let it Go', Elsa sings of ruling "A kingdom of isolation." Isolation...or Iceolation.
• Elsa's cold and Anna's warmth:
  • While Elsa represents the cold and ice, Anna represents light and heat. She is always energetic and excited about everything. Also, Olaf spends the movie with Anna. Olaf's biggest wish is to see summer and heat. He sticks close to Anna.
  • It's not just in her manner, but even her appearance. Her hair is strawberry blonde while Elsa's hair is platinum blonde, and she has a tan and freckles on her shoulders that her sister doesn't have.
  • Elsa is winter, Anna is spring. This theme heavily influenced their design — Elsa is pale and blue-eyed, and most of her outfits heavily cover most of her body. Anna has pinker skin (and a tendency to blush), generally freer clothes, and turquoise eyes. In some adaptations of the original story, Gerta encounters a Queen of Summer, who's the Snow Queen's sister. In one such adaptation, the Summer Queen also, like Anna, doesn't want to be alone.
  • As far as Anna's warmth manifesting in Olaf: others have noted that Anna swiftly and confidently ignites the bedroll on Kristoff's sled and throws it at the wolves. Her knack for fire seems to be something Olaf shares: notice how ridiculously easy it is for him to start a fire in the fireplace, and that's right after Hans has poured water on it.
  • There's also the revelation of their birthdays courtesy of Jennifer Lee: Elsa was born on or around December 21st (winter solstice in the northern hemisphere) and Anna was born on June 21st (summer solstice in the northern hemisphere).
  • The implications their birthdays have for their zodiacs. The traits associated with their specific signs definitely are not perfect fits^note A Sagittarius, even a Sagittarius-Capricorn cusp, is known for optimism!, but there's enough similarity to be worth noting:
    • A Sagittarius is likely to have an affinity for winter, have a sense of humor, dislike being constrained, and long for change. Elsa is also regal, and can be blunt when she disagrees with someone. She's also born on the cusp of Capricorn, which adds practicality, independence, and responsibility, although also a tendency towards loneliness, moodiness, and impatience. People born on this cusp also tend to be meticulous and high achievers, but also to strive for perfection to such a degree that can be thoughtless of others. They're often leaders and tend to attract admiration, although their drive and tendency to err on the side of caution can pull them away from loved ones.
    • A Cancer like Anna is often tenacious, loyal, emotional, sympathetic, and insecure. They're likely to "wear their heart on their sleeves," and are family-oriented and seek harmonious relationships. They can also be vindictive, and despite her generally forgiving nature, Anna is quick to show her anger when her loved ones are harmed or threatened, as both Marshmallow and Hans find out. More specifically, she's a Gemini-Cancer cusp, who are known for being "fun, kind, whimsical," with "a huge heart," a "loving demeanor and childlike wonder" that lend themselves to generally happy, positive personalities. They're also devoted and very social, and take a genuine interest in the well-being of others, but can be over-energetic, illogical, self-destructive, and may have difficulty sharing their own feelings and insecurities even as they make a habit of helping others through emotional struggles. They have an ability to inspire others, and as discussed above, are generally patient and forgiving, but can also be pushed too far.
    • The Gemini-Cancer cusp that Anna was born on is also known as the "Cusp of Magic" - but then again, in the Broadway adaption she's referred to as "the magic one," tying into one of the story's main themes of love being the most powerful magic. (See first Fridge Brilliance entry above.)
    • The tarot cards associated with Elsa's birthday is the Ten of Wands, signifying someone carrying a heavy burden. In Elsa's case, those are the burdens of being Queen, and the burden of staying emotionally and physically detached when she has a warm, caring, friendly nature. It could also represent depression and anger weighing her down. Elsa's character development arc is to cast away that burden: being Queen is a less harsh business with Anna by her side, and she must work to come to terms with her powers.
    • Anna's card is the Two of Cups, talking about a harmonious relationship (that could potentially break down over time if not nurtured, which is exactly what happened between the two sisters). Having a harmonious relationship is Anna's life goal as well: she tries to reunite with Elsa, who she had that bond with before, but Elsa keeps pushing her away. She thought she found that with Hans, but he's an evil villain. And in the end she found her sister again and her romantic love interest in Kristoff, but their relationships are given time to grow, develop and strengthen, not a "hooray everything is back to normal again" or "love at first sight". The Two of Cups also speaks about interpersonal growth, and learning the idea of love. It points towards knowing what love is and loving yourself before you can be expected to be loved by anyone else — which is Anna's character development arc. (Her act of sacrifice for Elsa is both an act of self-love and love for others: she considers her life valuable enough to be given away in trade of Elsa's.)
    • Ironically, An Ice Person Elsa is a Sagittarius (a Fire sign) and the fire-associated Anna is a Cancer (a Water sign). But this fits in with their complex Yin-Yang dynamic: Despite the ice, Elsa can be warm, nurturing, but also passionate, quick to anger and destructive (like how a small spark of fire can eventually burn down a house). And despite the fire, Anna can be emotional, flexible, adaptable, but also destructive (water can drown, cut diamonds, make metal things rust, etc.). Water is also life-giving, which ties into her breaking her fatal curse, showing Elsa how to revitalize the kingdom by restoring summer, and helping Elsa be herself.
• Hans not being executed or imprisoned for what he tried to do to Elsa and Anna (attempted regicide and murder of a member of the royal family, current heir to the throne) makes sense. As a foreign national, a hanging would strain relations and possibly trigger a war, given Hans' status as royalty. 13th or not, it's still blue blood. It's also a clever diplomatic move, for several reasons. One, Elsa demonstrates benevolence and magnanimity to both her subjects and foreign powers. Two, it obligates the Southern Isles to punish Hans, as they'd rather not risk angering someone who's essentially a goddess. Three, she can leverage the diplomatic capital to obtain compensation or put political pressure on the Southern Isles in future politics.
• Olaf's simple minded personality can possibly be a result of how Elsa first created him when she was a kid, and while acting him out, gave him a personality a kid would have. When she subconsciously creates him again and he is brought to life, he gets infused with that personality.
• Hans shares multiple sweet conversations with Anna, tells her that he would never shut her out, shares a cute duet over it, asks for her hand in marriage, and simply tells her when he's worried about her without acting on it. He asks her if she's alright, but when she replies in the negative, responds only by asking if she had known about Elsa's powers. He also makes no move to help her feel warmer while she's visibly shivering, instead pulling his own jacket tighter to him. Kristoff threw Anna onto Sven to save them both from the gorge aware that he may not make the jump himself to protect her from wolves, rode on Sven twice in eternal winter at breakneck speed; first bringing her back to Hans in spite of his own feelings, the second time braving a blizzard over the fjord to help Anna. When he asks Anna if she's cold and she says "a little," he responds by actively looking for and finding a way to make her feel warmer, and gives her his own hat. Outside of the occasional bickering; he's a man of few words, even less charm, and only sings a goofy lullaby to Sven. But in the end, Hans' words were just an act to get to the throne, while Kristoff and Anna become a couple. Actions speak more than words, indeed. And on that never shut you out business, he shuts her in the room after revealing his plan so she can't interfere.
• Elsa has platinum hair, which seems odd when you consider both her parents are brunettes and her sister is a redhead. Then you consider that after being struck by her ice powers, Anna's hair turns white as well. Elsa's hair has always been blonde because she's always had her powers since her birth.
• Anna already subconsciously knew that sisterly love was the key to ending the winter, as evidenced by the reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", in which she expresses getting together with Elsa to "fix it hand in hand", but Elsa's reflexive rejection of love and conviction of her inability to end the winter prevent her from hearing what Anna's saying.
• The trolls:
  • The Trolls are love experts, as boasted by Kristoff. And apparently in lore, given the time the parents consulted to find them and ask for help. Despite Kristoff's protestations during "Fixer Upper" they weren't just enthusiastic because this was the first girl he brought home...they could tell a spark of love had already ignited in Kristoff, and they were so blasé about the engagement because humans arrange marriages without love all the time.
  • Also, despite the fact it is almost a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, there's these lyrics: "People make bad choices if they've mad or scared or stressed. But throw a little love their way and you'll bring out their best. True love brings out the best." Considering how Elsa's powers seem to react to her emotions and until then, only really used them when mad, scared or stressed, the "true love brings out the best" acts as Foreshadowing for the fact the way for Elsa to control her powers is through love.
  • The Trolls also seem to hint at Hans' true personality. They're love experts, right? For love between family, and love between, well, lovers. So, if Anna loved Hans, why would they try to push her to be with Kristoff? As stated above, they knew Kristoff was starting to fall for her, they also knew that Anna's love for Hans wouldn't work because he didn't actually love Anna.
  • The Trolls also note, "her 'quote engagement' is a flex arrangement" which is revealed to be absolutely accurate. They literally can't see any love between Anna and Hans so to them, the engagement is meaningless. Not to mention the line "Get the fiance out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed!" In the end, sending Hans back to the Southern Isles opens the door for Anna's and Kristoff's budding romance.
  • Speaking of the Trolls, consider how different they are from the original "The Snow Queen" tale, in particular Grandpabbie. When Grandpabbie cured Anna of her head-freeze, he took care to "leave the fun". In other words, he makes Anna remember only the good things of her childhood and not the bad ones (i.e., getting shot in the head). Contrast that with the original tale's trolls who make a mirror who makes people see only the bad things and not the good ones.
• The first time we see Elsa and Anna together, they are both skating on an ice rink made by Elsa, and they are with Olaf. The last seen we see is Elsa helping Anna to ice skate on the ice rink created by Elsa, and Olaf is there with them as well.
• Elsa and Anna's childhood scene suggests that Elsa could control her ice powers to an extent and even actively used them. It was only after she accidentally hurt Anna that she started letting the fear take over and lose control of her powers.
• These lyrics from frozen heart: "Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, cold!", "Stronger than one, stronger than ten, stronger than a hundred men." Are they describing ice...or Elsa? "Beware the frozen heart." Rule of Symbolism and handy foreshadowing all rolled into one sentence. Really, the entire song could be sung about Elsa.
  • The song really is all about Elsa, who is an "icy force both foul and fair." "There's beauty and there's danger here" — yup. "Strike for love and strike for fear"...and that's exactly what she does to Anna, hitting her once with her powers out of love (trying to prevent her from falling) and again out of fear (to keep her out of the ice castle.) The whole song is an excellent foreshadowing of the story.
  • Or the song isn't about Elsa, but someone else. Consider the Following:
    • Kristoff is the only main character who hears the song, thus, it's meant for him. He's obsessed with ice and devotes his life to it, becoming somewhat misanthropic and metaphorically cold to other people along the way. His introductory song is all about how he doesn't like or trust other humans, and slowly warms up and lets warmth back into his heart over the course of his journey with Anna.
    • There's the Duality at play. "Split the Ice Apart" (make one into two), two warnings about the "Frozen Heart", two warnings to "Watch Your Step, Let it go." In addition, Ice is always ascribed traits two at a time.
    • Twice in the film, two characters let things go, but they are ill informed missteps. Elsa sheds her duties as queen, unaware of the growing danger she is to the kingdom, and Kristoff let's Anna go to her apparent true love, unaware of who that really is.
    • The only time things happen in three in the song, it is a failure, specifically the attempt by one, ten, or a hundred men to contain the magic of Ice. Three separate men will be given a chance to save Anna from Ice: Her father, Hans, and Kristof. In all cases, these do not work. Similarly, three times men will try and contain or control Elsa's powers without success: Her Father, The Duke, and Hans. The only thing that would work is the love of two sisters for each other... Stronger than one, stronger than ten, stronger than a hundred men, indeed.
    • Twice we're warned about the dangers of a "Frozen Heart." This is quickly confirmed by the troll two scenes later who says the heart is not so easily changed from this condition. The audience is now set up to expect a frozen heart to appear...but remember there's two frozen hearts. The first one is clearly beautiful...it's sharp and sheer...we'll know it when we see it. And this is the one that is given a softer warning. But the next time we discuss the frozen heart, there's a beauty and a danger...and this danger is given a much more ominous warning. As the audience, we know that Anna has the literal frozen heart...but Hans is ascribed the same condition at the end of the film, metaphorically in his case. The song could be the closest thing to his Villain Song the film has without surprising the reveal, making the song applicable to all four main characters — thus violating the duality rule twice over. Of course, a frozen heart is not a good thing for any of them, although the double nature of the violation may ease it a bit — the frozen hearts of most of the main characters are thawed by the end of the film. The exception is Hans, whose was the only truly frozen heart all along, as the other three still remained fundamentally caring people.
  • When they sing "Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, cold," the "beautiful, powerful" part is in one shot, and the "dangerous, cold" part in another, implying they are talking about two different people. Elsa is the former, and Hans is the latter.
    • Alternatively, they are talking only about Hans, as he uses his beautiful appearance and his powerful lying skills to trick Anna.
    • Alternatively, they are talking about all four main characters: Anna is "beautiful", Elsa is "powerful", Hans is "dangerous", and Kristoff is "cold".
  • When Elsa freezes Anna's head, it's by accident, as what she meant to do was create a mound of snow for Anna to land safely on. When Elsa freezes Anna's heart, it's because her fear turning into anger. "Strike for love and strike for fear," indeed. Bonus points for an instrumental version of "Frozen Heart" playing in the background after Elsa freezes Anna's heart!
  • "There's beauty and there's danger here" is also exactly what Pabbie says about Elsa's powers.
• In hindsight, Kristoff's claims about the trolls being love experts make a lot more sense. Pabbie knows to leave Anna the memory of having once been close to, and having once had fun with Elsa. They know that with the long years ahead of Elsa's necessary distance from Anna, Anna will need that to continue loving her sister.
• There's an old saying that "Time stands still" when something horrible happens to a person's life. When Elsa hears of her parent's death, we see her in her room, and all the snow is standing in place. She instinctively stopped their motion because the death of her beloved folks made her want to stop time. The same thing happened when Elsa is led to believe she killed Anna. In tangent to this, most people have a sense of numbness when hearing horrible news like this. Because Elsa's powers react to her emotions, the snow continues because of all the despair she feels, but it stops in place because it's so much that she goes numb and doesn't know how to feel. In writing, this tends to be noted as being, well, "frozen". The word frozen is also used to describe stopping motion.
• Notice that when child Kristoff and child Sven are near water on an icy ground, and when child Kristoff is about to fall in, child Sven tosses him back to the icy ground. Fast forward thirteen years later, when adult Kristoff and adult Sven are racing across the ice filled waters of the fjord Sven tosses Kristoff on the solid ice, when it looks like he'll fall in the icy water.
• Hans' name:
  • While the line's obviously just meant as a joke to show how little Anna knows him, if we consider the naming traditions of European nobility (in particular, the use of nobiliary particles), 'of the Southern Isles' probably is the closest thing Hans has to a last name. In fact, 'of Arendelle' is the sisters' last name, it seems. If this is all in Norsk, their name is von Arendelle, it's quite a viable last name.
  • Even better: Hans has gained the surname Westergård from a (possible) earlier version of his character in the script when Elsa is still villainous, and it doesn't conflict with Anna saying this, because Westergård could be the surname of the Southern Isles' royal family. Charles I of England was referred to derisively as Charles Stuart after his overthrow, because he's part of the House of Stuart — so Hans could be part of the House of Westergård.
• As the trolls say, "Love will thaw"; as a little girl, Elsa seemingly had full control over her powers and it was only tripping and misaiming that led to Anna getting hurt. Elsa appears to have only developed Power Incontinence after the accident. And the longer the two were separated the worse her powers got. It's after the two have their argument at the ball and Elsa runs out of the room — into a crowd of citizens with high expectations for their new queen — that she has one of her most notable bouts of Power Incontinence. But then Elsa reaches the North Mountain and, with less pressure and fear — her enemy — due to the absence of people, lets herself exercise her powers intentionally and create her palace, her dress, etc, thereby showing some control for the first time in years. However, the increased level of isolation obscures the fact that the problem of her Power Incontinence is actually worse than ever, creating an Endless Winter and sentient life not only by accident, but unknowingly. She loses even more control when she fights with Anna again. But she regains control of her powers for good when Anna sacrifices her life for Elsa, reaffirming the love between the two. Love not only thawed the ice in Anna's heart, but Elsa's too.
• Pabbie's advice:
  • Every time Pabbie gives advice on Elsa's powers, those who receive it misinterpret it horribly (the King and Queen thinking that the fear referred to people fearing Elsa, while Anna and Kristoff both thought "True Love" meant a True Love's Kiss) and ends in disaster. It makes his character seem rather misguided despite being presented as wise; but it fits in perfectly with the "reconstruction of a conventional fairytale" theme, as Pabbie fills the role of the wise old Master Yoda-type mentor who usually dishes out advice in the form of vague words or weird koans and expect the heroes to figure it out and ''not'' interpret it as something else.
  • While Pabbie is smart and knows his stuff, he's not all-knowing. He shows the family a vision where people are angry/afraid of and attack Elsa, who then fears them, and he alters Anna's memories to protect even her from Elsa's power, so you can easily see why the King went to the "we have to hide Elsa from everyone while she's still learning control" thing from there. Pabbie warns Elsa to control her powers, but doesn't say exactly how. He also says "an act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart", which is true—it's the other Trolls who automatically assume it's True Love's Kiss (and the movie doesn't actually say that wouldn't work—we never get to see if it does). That's why Anna's sacrifice was so big — she turned down what she thought was a sure chance at her own survival to protect her sister with a dying breath. And if the Act of True Love needed had to be a sacrifice, then Pabbie telling Anna that would have made it impossible, because any sacrifice she attempted to make would have been with the expectation that it would save her, meaning it would no longer be one and so wouldn't work. And if not, Pabbie likely doesn't know the details of Anna's life and her relationships and can't tell her whether or not Hans is the right person for the job anymore than Kristoff can.
• While it now seems foolish for the parents to suggest Elsa control her powers with "Conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show" and giving her gloves to literally cover up the problem, they were only going by what they know from being royalty because holding back is probably what they're used to. As king and queen, there is always a physical and emotional wall between themselves and the subjects they are in charge of. Notice some of the lyrics of "Let It Go" include Don't let them in, don't let them see. // Be the good girl you always have to be. // Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know. They apply to Elsa's status as a future queen as well as someone with potentially dangerous powers. It also probably didn't help that Pabbie showing them a vision of a grown Elsa being attacked by a mob is shown to be what prompted the decision, so it makes sense their attempts to protect their daughter from such a fate focused on appearances and hiding — it's the reaction of others and how they may harm Elsa that they fear most, not the powers themselves.
• Two meanings of "Control" define Elsa's entire character arc — Control as in Containment (i.e. Elsa's ability to hide / conceal her powers, and what Elsa's parents tried to teach her) and Control as in Mastery (Elsa's ability to do as she pleases with her powers). Pabbie only mentioned "Control", but maybe he should've been a little more specific...
• Notice how that the first and last time we see Hans includes a bucket:
  • The first time, Sitron (Hans's horse) accidentally knocks Anna into a boat, with a bucket on her head. The last time, after his true intentions were revealed, a bucket lands on Hans's head, after he was arrested. The bucket could represent how Anna was tricked by Hans, but when his crimes are known, the bucket is on the other head.
  • Disney's first Prince Charming, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has been Named by the Adaptation as Prince Florian, but he also gives himself a self-deprecating nickname in a comic and early version of the script, during his Meet Cute with Snow: Prince Buckethead. Snow White and Anna are both naïve, isolated, trusting young princesses. Florian is genuinely kind, romantic, and moral; Hans is only pretending to be someone like Florian.
• Elsa's theme song "Let It Go" has received praise aplenty, while Anna's song "For the First Time In Forever" has sometimes been criticized for having less than poetic lyrics ("The window is open, so's that door/I didn't know they did that anymore!; "Don't know if I'm elated or gassy, but I'm somewhere in that zone!"; etc.). In hindsight, it makes sense that Elsa's lyrics might sound more polished: Elsa is the elegant, more eloquent sibling, whereas Anna is silly and awkward. This also applies to "Love is an Open Door," which according to the songwriters is meant to sound casual, like "a karaoke song" — more fun and playful than grand and dramatic.
• Kristoff's job:
  • At the end, Kristoff gets the position of Royal Ice Master and Deliverer, a job that they created just for him. Given how the monarch is an ice-generating queen, you'd probably need a position like that, and it keeps Kristoff in business.
  • Alternately, it's a position they can use for the first time. Elsa can generate ice, but only where she is. She can create the ice for Kristoff to take and sell. By massively increasing the amount of ice that Kristoff can sell, while massively decreasing the time and effort and cost of obtaining the ice, Kristoff can sell more ice for much less (or just give it away entirely, since he's pretty well provided for as the consort of a princess), benefiting the entire kingdom.
  • Also this job — whether or not the position existed previously — could serve the purpose to introduce and establish Kristoff at court while he and Anna are dating. That way he can learn court manners, etiquette and maybe a bit about economics and politics (considering he's the boyfriend to Princess Anna, who is next in line for the throne) while potentially also building himself up financially. After all, IF it ever comes to a wedding there probably would be a bit of a ruckus if the next heir apparent married a poor, uncivilized country bumpkin, True Love and all this be damned. So, Elsa both made the position useful and ensured Kristoff would eventually be able to move somewhat gracefully on the proverbial political ice.
  • Another possibility is that it's an entirely fabricated position, but Anna and Elsa created it and gave it to Kristoff and Sven as a form of civilian honor (something similar to the US Presidential Medal of Freedom). He can't be given any military honors (he's not part of Arendelle's military or guards), and the kingdom may not have had a Royal-backed civilian honor before. The name of it may be because Anna is not always the best at thinking up something appropriately regal, and so just went with the first thing she remembers about the duo.
• Olaf seems to be made of Fridge Brilliance, because another one of his lines ("Some people are worth melting for.") could apply to not just his love/adoration for Anna, but for Elsa's love towards Anna. Seeing Anna's Heroic Sacrifice, and by extension, her love for Elsa and the power of that love, helped Elsa thaw the Endless Winter. Anna's Heroic Sacrifice didn't just melt her heart, it also melted Elsa's! Elsa's heart was frozen by her fear of her own powers, and that's why she couldn't melt her ice-because her heart, which should have been her source of warmth, was frozen with fear. Anna really is someone worth melting for!
  • Kristoff, who also had his guard up and was afraid to trust or care about other people (see the entry on the song "Frozen Heart"), slowly learns to open up his heart again with Anna.
  • For that matter, inverting the line makes it work perfectly for Anna, whose snap decision to defend her sister from Hans showed that love is worth freezing for, too. The inversion is perfectly justified too, under the circumstances: when Olaf says the line, the very heat that's melting him is restoring Anna, because their relationship to freezing and melting temperatures are opposites.
• Kristoff is a human raised by trolls. What other Hans Christian Andersen story deals with one species raising another? The Ugly Duckling. The trolls may even recognize that such an upbringing has left him "socially impaired" with his own kind. No wonder they're thrilled when he brings a human girl home to meet the family.
• Much black comedy (and drama) is made of Olaf's impossible desire for summer. But look at how he was created, and it makes perfect sense. Elsa didn't even know that she was bringing a snowman to life, much less that she could. Olaf himself is the impossible made possible. He'd understand — if on nothing more than a subconscious level — that reality's limitations are meaningless faced with magic.
• Anna has trouble ice skating at the end because she hasn't done it since she was five, but Elsa has none:
  • Elsa could have had some practice in private in her room where no one would see her using her powers, but her powers would also instinctively activate to provide her secure footing.
  • Grown-up Elsa never slips on her own ice again, be that her castle, or the bridge, or the rink — because sliding occurs due to a thin coating of melted water (while skating, it's melted by mass concentrated on a very thin sharp blade), and she's freezing water, not vice versa.
  • She may also be unconsciously shaping the ice under her feet, adding microscopic traction-ridges to it with each step.
• Hans promises he's never going to shut Anna out, so he tries to speed up her death by locking her in.
• More foreshadowing of Anna being in a relationship with Kristoff, and not Hans, is their relationships with their families. Anna has always wanted to reignite the warm love between her and Elsa. And let's look at Hans and Kristoff's families: Hans told Anna that some of his brothers ignored him for two years. This may or may not be true after his reveal as as Evil All Along, but Hans' resentment over being 13th in line and his implication during his Motive Rant that the only reason that he didn't try to take over his own country instead of Arendelle is that there were too many of his brothers in line before him indicates that his relationship with his family is non-existent or strained. By contrast, Kristoff's family are trolls who openly love and treasure him, and Kristoff seems to feel and reciprocate it, calling them "love experts" and talking fondly to them when he first brings Anna to meet them. In other words, Kristoff has the warm love of family that Anna needs (and gets after she and Elsa are able to be together), while Hans has the cold family relationship that Anna doesn't want.
• Why doesn't Elsa know how to melt the ice?
  • Because love is much easier to hide than anger and fear. Not enough slipped out for her to realize its power.
  • Also (Fridge Horror) because she hasn't actually felt much love in a while. It was only when she was in her family's presence that she could give or receive love, and she'd have been trying to suppress her powers then.
• Grand Pabbie's line about how the heart is not as easily changed as the head is also foreshadowing for the eventual 'love, of course' realisation for Elsa. She spent years suppressing her emotions by mantras and force of will (the head), but her feelings towards Anna never changed. She always loved her sister (the heart). She could change her mind, but not her feelings.
• After an entire childhood of Anna asking her "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" and being unable to for fear of revealing or losing control of her powers, what's the first thing Elsa builds during "Let It Go"? Her first instinct when finally able to freely use her ice powers was to answer that question her sister had been asking all those years. It's on the “can’t hold it back anymore” line that she builds Olaf. Can’t hold back her love for Anna, even as she leaves. And it is answering that question which causes Olaf to exist, meaning he could save Anna, meaning she could save Elsa, thus saving Arendelle. Anna's childhood devotion to her sister and Elsa's positive memories of it are the key to saving both of them, decades on.
• Elsa's crown is different from her mother's...because her mother's crown sank beneath the sea when she drowned. Also, being the Queen Regnant, rather then just a Queen Consort as her mother was, probably meant Elsa would be expected to wear a more regal crown.
• While Hans' color motif being white makes a delicious subversion of Disney expectations, there's also a more symbolic dimension. White was indeed a colour associated with death in Slavic countries and at the very least a colour associated with evil in surviving pagan Scandinavian records, as seen in the comparisons between "White Jesus" and "Red Thor" by Norse pagans, and certainly not a very pleasant colour when you're in the middle of the freaking winter, naturally or otherwise.
• Notice that when Anna falls and is caught by both Hans and Kristoff: Anna is pushed by Hans's horse and while Anna willingly falls, knowing that Kristoff would catch her. A romantic foreshadowing that while Anna was pushed to fall in love with Hans, she fell for Kristoff on her own.
• "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" is almost the Arc Song for Anna and Elsa's entire relationship. If Anna hadn't enticed Elsa into building a snowman in the first place, Anna would have never received the injury that caused Elsa to retreat into herself and close herself off from her sister and Anna wouldn't have gotten Laser-Guided Amnesia and thought Elsa didn't love her anymore. When Elsa flees the castle, the first thing she does—almost casually—by way of exploring her own powers, is to rebuild Olaf. Later in the film, we see that Olaf has somehow come to life. Later still, when Anna is dying in a locked room in the castle, who picks the lock on the door, discovers Anna, relights the fire—which Hans had put out—in order to keep her alive a bit longer, and helps her to realise that Kristoff loves her? Olaf. He then helps Anna to break out of the castle—when she can't figure out how to get out of the high window, he encourages her to slide down the packed snow, which we've already seen he's a master of. He gets Anna out onto the ice, which if he hadn't done, she wouldn't have been able to stop Hans from killing Elsa, an act of true love which also saved her own life. Ironically, Olaf is created right around the start of their problems, but it's Olaf who resolves their problems too!
• "For the First Time in Forever":
  • The song includes the line "I suddenly see him standing there, a beautiful stranger, tall and fair.":
    • Look at Hans's hair. Now look at Kristoff's... Seems like foreshadowing who she ends up with.
    • This could also refer to Elsa; she is practically a stranger after 13 years of isolation, and is also tall and very fair. And it is the sisterly love between her and Anna that is the true love that saves the day.
  • Anna mentions that "...For the first time in forever, there'll be magic, there'll be fun!" Those memories may not be as locked away as the trolls thought, which couples brilliantly with the remaining white shock of hair she has.
  • At one point, Anna "talks to" several objects, including a bust of an evil-looking noble and several portraits of friendly-looking peasants. Of her two suitors, guess which one was Evil All Along.
  • The song ends when Anna runs into Han's horse as she sings "Nothing's in my way!" This has more sinister implications given Hans' true role in the story. Having "nothing in her way" means that she is as vulnerable to danger, and that Hans is going to be "in her way," and she needs to keep her eyes open. As in: in the way of her finding happiness. Subtle foreshadowing.
• Why is Hans "concerned" about Anna leaving to find Elsa? He isn't concerned about Anna at all, and immediately stops protesting when she leaves him in charge. He sees this as an opportunity to become king more quickly as Anna would be next in line. As Hans says when he reveals his true intentions, "Elsa doomed herself." If Anna never left to find Elsa, Hans's plan would've been complete without the death of Anna.
• Some have pointed out that Kristoff (who is, by Word of God, Sámi) has a Scandinavian-styled sled instead of a Sámi-styled one. Actually, if he's been conducting trade with the Scandinavians as an ice harvester, it makes perfect sense that he might pick up some of their technology along the way. This sadly is a case of Shown Their Work and Truth in Television, the Sámi people are an Indigenous race who have experienced and continue to face ethnic discrimination among other Scandinavians. Historically they used to change their names in order to hide their ethnicity and from the 1700s onward Norwegian language and culture was promoted, and Sámi language and culture were dismissed as backward, uncultured, downright ridiculous and even the product of an inferior race. It's pretty clear that Kristoff's ethnicity plays a part in his initial distrust of people.
• The scene where Hans reveals his true intentions has a chess set visible. A few minutes later when Olaf tries to warm Anna up said character inadvertently knocks over the pieces. Even better, when the window first blows open, that chess set is out of focus in the foreground as Olaf is rushing to the window to close it — even so, we can hear and see the White Queen piece fall over. At that moment, Elsa is on the run from Hans, who is planning on killing her.
• The presence of companions, human or not, seems to signify a character's conscience and morality, with non-human characters representing a far healthier conscience. Anna and Elsa both have Olaf, the film's most sentient non-human companion who is a reminder of their love for each other, and are the most good, kind and noble of the film's characters. Kristoff has Sven and his troll family to serve as his conscience, and it's his persona as "Sven" that often gets him to act selflessly for others despite his own bitterness and cynicism. The Duke of Weselton has two guards that function almost as extensions of his will rather than actual companions and he is mostly judgmental and unreflective on his own actions even though he is capable of feeling pity and sadness. Hans has his horse, Sitron, but he rarely interacts with it and when he reveals his cruel nature at last, Sitron disappears from the film entirely. This represents how he uses his conscience in an entirely utilitarian manner and is willing to shed it in an instant when he has to.
• In the Swedish dub, Weselton is translated into Vässleby, which is pretty much a direct translation of Weaseltown, and the name everybody else uses is Vassleby, which is a bit like a Swedenised version of Weselton. This reversal seems odd until you realize that the difference between the two is an "ä". This letter doesn't exist in the Danish and Norwegian alphabet, so if you go by the theory that Weselton is supposed to represent Sweden, it's possible they don't actually know how it's supposed to be pronounced (or simply don't care) and just did what most English speakers confronted with an umlaut they don't recognize do: ignore it and pronounce the word as if it didn't have it.
• Look how Hans dresses when Anna meets him. He's wearing an outfit that's blue, purple, and black. But once he decides to have an interest in Anna, he dresses in a light green outfit. Who else wore a blue, purple, and black outfit? That was Elsa's coronation outfit. Who wore a light green outfit? Anna. Hans's outfit showed that he was clearly interested in Elsa at first. When Hans betrays Anna and reveals his intentions, Hans is wearing his first outfit...also showing he stopped caring about Anna as a love interest and wouldn't mind killing her off. His outfit at that point represents the queen he would've overthrown.
• The trolls, according to Kristoff, are love experts. The first think they thought about seeing Anna is shipping her with Kristoff. 'Love' is their way of life. Fridge kicks in that maybe, when they told Elsa 'to control her powers' they thought it was obvious they were telling her 'to control her powers with love'. They didn't say 'with love' parts, because for them, it is obvious. It is not so obvious to the humans, though.
• "Fixer Upper" has several lyrics that sound more like they're referring both Elsa and Kristoff:
  His isolation is confirmation of his desperation for healing hugs
  People make bad choices when they're mad or scared or stressed/Throw a little love their way and you'll bring out their best!
• Much like real-life sociopaths, Hans tailors himself to match up to the person he's manipulating — he's a goofy dork towards Anna, a would-be Morality Pet towards Elsa, a wise leader towards the locals and the dignitaries, and a cold Jerkass towards the Duke. What was the thing that really screwed things up in the original story? A mirror.
  • He also utilizes the "predatory stare" that real-life sociopaths use when talking to others (that is, unbreaking eye contact to subconsciously intimidate and control the other person).
  • If A Frozen Heart is canon, then Hans is a combination of the magic mirror and Kai. As mentioned above, Kai is jabbed with two mirror pieces, one that makes him see only the bad in life, and one turns his heart cold and cruel. Hans suffers from a more mundane version of this: his abusive upbringing gave him a case of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good. He's greatly disturbed upon witnessing wonderful things like the Great Thaw, the sound of children laughing, trees blooming, etc. — similarly to how Kai was unable to find the roses beautiful after being jabbed in the eye. His reaction to Elsa grieving over her sister's supposed death is one of confusion, believing it makes her look weak, and is left even more baffled how Anna managed to reconcile with her sister — his heart no longer understands familial love after the abuse he suffered from his own family members.
• During the film's climax, each of the protagonists perform an act of true love:
  • Anna sacrifices herself to save Elsa.
  • Kristoff braves the storm to get back to Anna when he fears she could be in terrible danger.
  • Olaf starts the fire to save Anna, despite the fact that doing so causes him to melt. That's the love of a friend.
  • Sven throws Kristoff off his back before falling into the freezing water. In that weather, when there's no guarantee of a thaw, he could freeze to death.
  • It's not the climax, but we see the love of the trolls for Kristoff. They can see his faults, but they also see through them! That's family love!
• Han's attempt to kill Anna by simply locking her in a room may be seen as Genre Blindness but no one is allowed near there and the fact that he simply speeds up the process Elsa unintentionally began will ensure that his hands look clean while Elsa's look very dirty.
• The eternal winter starts after Elsa runs across the water, freezing it as she goes. A common reason that northerly regions have warmer than expected weather is because of warm-water currents increasing the air temperature above what one would expect for their latitude: see the British Isles, for instance. But if, say, a particularly cold winter (or a magical Snow Queen) freezes a strait through which the current runs, it can drop the temperature of the whole region, making the winter even colder, making the strait stay frozen, and starting a feedback loop that drastically changes the local climate.
• Notice that whenever Elsa is in the cold, you can't see her breath. Though this is also done with Anna and Kristoff as the movie progresses, for them it's most likely for visual effect. However, if you think about the fact that Elsa is the one with the powers to create winter, her body temperature is probably as low on the inside as the temperature of the outside, making it so that she doesn't create fog with her breath. She is literally the same temperature as the air around her. The reason for the audience not seeing the fog earlier in the movie is also most likely both visual effect and to some degree, she is still human.
• Olaf describes Elsa (who he had not met personally at that time) as "the nicest, gentlest, warmest person ever". This shows that Olaf knows Elsa on a somewhat spiritual level, as his warm and friendly nature reflects how Elsa was during their childhood.
• Kristoff's "Didn't your parents ever warn you about strangers?" comes as a good foreshadowing of Hans' true nature. Particularly funny as Anna misses the point and moves slightly away from Kristoff.
• One interpretation of the ending: when Pabbie said that "true love will thaw a frozen heart", he really was talking about Elsa. Anna's revival isn't so much a result of the ice magic's mechanics as it is Elsa's action, her long-frozen heart finally in full harmony with her power. This ties in brilliantly with Olaf's earlier suggestion that "love is putting someone else's need before yours": for thirteen years of her life, all Elsa has really known of love is enduring isolation and untold pain in part so that the people she cares about stay safe. When Anna throws aside her own survival for Elsa's, she embraces her sister's hard but true notion of love — thus showing Elsa for the first time in forever that yes, Anna will always love her no matter what.
• Notice that when Anna is restored, the white lock of hair from the first accident is now gone. This is a good, subtle way to show that she and Elsa can truly put the past behind them.
• During "Let it Go", Elsa sings about finally being able to stand in the light of day. Almost every time we see her use her powers, it's dark outside, with the sole exception maybe being Hans's raid at the castle (which happens in the early morning). Even her castle was created during the night, and when she was brought back to Arendelle, it was overcast and grey. But by the end of the film when she learns to love and gets a handle on controlling her powers the lighting changes. Giving Olaf his own personal flurry and creating the ice skating rink in the courtyard was done during the day in full sunlight.
• During the banter between Kristoff and Anna during the sled ride, he quizzes Anna about Hans to see how little she knows about him. This happens:
  Kristoff: What's his best friend's name?
  Anna: Probably John.

Hans is the Germanic / Scandinavian version of John. Seeing as he has no problem using and discarding people, as seen in his treatment of both sisters, he would be his own best friend.

• The sisters' shared love of chocolate is an insight into their characters. Chocolate is considered to be a "warm" flavor, as opposed to "cold" flavors like mint (though it's notable that today, chocolate gets combined with "cold" flavors all the time). The fact that it's the Trademark Favorite Food of both sisters hints at Elsa's hidden warmth.
• Having chocolate as a 'trademark favorite food' might provoke a response of 'is that supposed to be unusual?' until you remember that the film is set in the mid-19th century...and chocolate sweets like the ones staked on the buffet were first manufactured in 1847, so they're a very new and exotic treat, although chocolate as a hot drink was by then relatively commonplace. Chocolate fondue is still about 140-150 years off, though, alas.
• How much stuff has Hans brought with him for an event that was meant to be over in 24 hours? Why did he just happen to have his winter coat? Okay, so maybe it could get cold at sea (especially at the northern latitudes), but nobody else seemed to have them...why does he have his sword with him? Okay, so it could be for ceremonial reasons, except he doesn't seem to wear it as part of his dress uniform...why has he gone to the trouble of bringing his horse? The castle is in spitting distance of the quay! Is he too lazy to walk short distances? Sure, he ended up using all that stuff, but how come he was so Crazy-Prepared? The Reveal supplies the answer: he wasn't planning on leaving any time soon...
  • Why Hans was there at all is interesting to ponder. Not only was he the 13th and last brother in his family, at least some of his older brothers probably have children of their own, putting Hans absurdly far down the line of succession (since every child born to his brothers bumps him further down the list.) Weselton sent its head of state (who admittedly had his ulterior own motives) but the Southern Isles sent the lowest possible — while still technically royal — representative they could get. It's fairly insulting, actually. Why would they do this? Hans alludes to the fact that "no one was getting anywhere" with Elsa — so its likely that the Southern Isles' royal family spent a fair amount of time trying to marry off one of their sons to this single and highly marriageable princess and/or queen of a neighboring country, and took the constant rebuffs as an insult. Now, building on the idea that the Southern Isles' rulers are feeling a little peeved, and that Hans came with way too much stuff for a short stay...Hans's family couldn't possibly have missed the fact that he brought a horse, right? In the Narnia story The Horse and His Boy, the Tisroc (king, basically) of Calormen sends the crown prince on an invasion mission in such a way that he can take all the credit if it succeeds, but deny everything and blame it on his rash and foolish son if it fails. The Southern Isles might have been doing just that.
• Elsa's posture is always very elegant, regal and composed, except, of course, when she's having emotional breakdowns. This is particularly noticeable after the "Let It Go" sequence, where Elsa sheds all the pretenses that held her back and made her miserable. But then you notice that Elsa continues her queenly mannerisms even in her scenes after "Let it Go". For instance, notice that her manners and gestures when Anna first finds her in the ice castle are very similar to the way she acts during the post-coronation party, or the way she keeps herself composed when Olaf enters earlier than instructed. They show that they are not just a pretense, they are who Elsa really is, and likewise being the queen of Arendelle is not a role that has merely been forced upon her, it is who she is truly meant to be. So for all to be right with the world, Elsa not only needs to be free to live as an ice-sorceress, she also needs to return and live among her people as their rightful ruler.
• The ice harvesters at the very beginning of the film sing about how beautiful and dangerous ice is, but nevertheless that its "frozen heart" is "worth mining", showing that they have a greater appreciation of ice than the average citizens of Arendelle. Kristoff's line of "Now that's ice. I might cry" upon seeing Elsa's castle wasn't just because he grew up with trolls and was accustomed to magic. He had spent some time with the ice harvesters too as a child, and their appreciation of ice had rubbed off on him.
• A very subtle bit of foreshadowing, when Olaf shouts in excitement (while — rather oddly — looking into the camera to address us: "Let's go kiss Hans! Who is this Hans?" Partly it draws attention to the fact that Anna seems to have forgotten about the existence of Hans for a couple of days, if she's never even mentioned him to Olaf, which already says something about the state of the relationship and Anna seems to only ''think' she's in love with him. However, we immediately cut to Hans at the head of the force about to make a raid on Elsa's palace, so we do ask ourselves, "Who is this Hans, indeed?"
• Compare the faces of Hans and Kristoff when they emote. You'll notice a subtle clue that Hans's emotions are him acting: A lot of the time, Hans seems a little...distant, especially when compared to Kristoff, who is always very open and emotional. And when he smiles, look at his eyebrows and see they don't budge an inch. His smile looks a little pasted on, artificial, and maybe even slightly creepy. There are only a few times where his expressions look genuine, like when he's dangling from the stairway after Marshmallow tries taking him into the chasm.
• The first verse of "Do You Want to Build A Snowman?" ends with Anna singing, "Okay, bye" as a sad and simple three-note melody, to rhyme with a previous line: "I wish you would tell me why!" When Anna is pleading with Elsa for the last time to come out after their parents have died, she sings, at the same place within the verse: "What are we going to do? Do you want to build a snowman?" The audience expects the same simple three-note melody with a similar rhyme: "Yes, I do." Instead, the first two notes of the melody are played twice, finally completing the three notes on the third attempt, with no rhyme sung by either sister. The melody at this time has become Elsa's thoughts: she is thinking, "Yes, I do," but cannot say it. It also creates a Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion, resulting in the audience feeling the disappointment of the sisters.
• When Anna and Elsa are first brought to the trolls, Pabbie asks if Elsa was "born with the powers or cursed?" and her father responds that she was born with them. Later, when Anna confronts Elsa in her ice castle, Elsa sings, "I can't control the curse." That's the issue: she's treating her powers like they are a curse rather than a part of her that needs to be embraced.
• Watch the finale again. Each character's role in it is key:
  • Do you know what else is subverted about Disney movies here? The heroic male lead. Oh yes, Kristoff cares for Anna. He's being brave. But he's not the one to perform the rescue. He doesn't even get to Anna in time. It's Olaf who risks his life inside the castle — he unlocks Anna's door, helps to warm her up at the very strong risk of melting, and gets her out of the castle to find Elsa. And then Anna saves Elsa and herself. Yes, Olaf really does have relevance to the story's progression and isn't just there as a cute, marketable sidekick.
  • At the same time, Kristoff's presence isn't entirely superfluous to the climax: if you think about it, everything might have gone wrong if Sven hadn't convinced him to return or he hadn't arrived right then. Why? Because it was only Kristoff's presence that made Anna's act of willing self-sacrifice a genuine self-sacrifice, not just a case of Defiant to the End. Until Anna saw Kristoff coming to save her, she'd been doomed for sure, and saving Elsa under those circumstances wouldn't have been a genuine forfeiture of life. But because Anna'd come to believe that Kristoff's kiss could save her, her decision to shield Elsa rather than go to her own potential savior became a genuine Heroic Sacrifice — a willing surrender of a life she thought could yet be preserved. We'll never know if otherwise her rescue of Elsa would've rated as a sufficient Act of True Love to unfreeze Anna's heart or not, but thanks to Kristoff, it became a sure thing. In other words, it's because Kristoff seemed to be the big savior that Anna's choice is so meaningful, not just on a meta level but in terms of the plot.
  • The fact that Anna had to be the one to perform the Act of True Love rather than have it done to her makes a lot of sense. Being kissed wouldn't have summoned Anna's inner warmth; only Anna herself could have done that. Sacrificing herself to save her sister's life was the ultimate expression of her warm-heartedness, which was so strong it overpowered the ice magic.
• Anna tells Hans that she once dreamt about being kissed by a troll. Kristoff was raised by a family of trolls and though he's human, he can be considered a "honorary" troll.
• It's no wonder Kristoff "only likes to tinkle in the woods"! For nearly all his life, before he met Anna, he's lived in the mountains — and he's often away from the trolls (who are also only active during the night) for a long period of time anyway because of his work. What did you expect?
• There's some logic behind why, right before Elsa loses control of her powers at the coronation, she tells her guards, "The party's over. Close the gates." She knows she's in the type of argument where she could lose control of her powers, and needs to leave the party as soon as possible so she can let it loose without anyone noticing, but it was typically norm in this time period that the hostess of a ball had to be the last to leave.
• It seems odd that Elsa comes "of age" to inherit the throne in December yet has her coronation the following July (the dates given by Word of God). However it's very possible she has a second, "official" birthday. The Queen of England's true birthday is April 21st, yet she celebrates it in Summer (June) as per tradition (also for clearer weather), as have monarchs before her. Another real life example: the former queen of the Netherlands' birthday was January 31st, but its celebration (a national holiday, during which everybody goes out on the streets) was April 30. They just kept the date of the birthday of the queen before that (her mother). The current king's birthday is April 27th and now it is again celebrated on that exact date. It could be that Elsa does something similar. Anna on the other hand is able to celebrate her birthday when it occurs in June because it's a summer month!
  • It's very common for a monarch to ascend to the throne but hold their coronation several months afterward, so it wouldn't be unusual for Elsa's coronation to be months after ascending the throne. King Charles III became Monarch in September 2022, but his coronation was held in May 2023.
  • With Elsa ascending the throne in December, holding a coronation then would have been impractical anyway. As shown, several foreign dignitaries were in attendance, and for them to travel across the ocean in the middle of winter would have been impractical at best, if not impossible considering the fjord that Arendelle sits in appears to freeze over in the winter. The ships would have virtually no way of entering the harbor.
• Kristoff's sled bursting into flames for no reason seems like Rule of Funny until you remember he said it was covered in a fresh coat of flammable lacquer which is detonated by the lantern he was carrying.
• Why do the Duke's men use crossbows instead of firearms in what appears to be 19th-century Europe? Firing guns in the mountains can cause avalanches. Word of God (not to mention the map briefly seen in Frozen Fever) has said it's around the 1840s, a period when many armies were still fielding flintlock firearms. The modern percussion cap cartridges were just being introduced. Not only are the guns likely to cause an avalanche, but they also risked snow getting their powder wet.
• In "In Summer," during Olaf's imagine spot, Anna and Kristoff appear at one point for no real explained reason and they're shown holding ridiculously large sandwiches while sitting on a picnic blanket. But then remember Anna blurted out "sandwiches!" in response to Hans's line "We finish each's others'..." in "Love Is An Open Door", meaning sandwiches are one of Anna's favorite foods^note This also get a nod in Frozen Fever: Elsa lets Anna find a sandwich during the "treasure hunt", to which Anna delightedly exclaims "Ooh, sandwich!". They are clearly her favorite food only second to chocolate. So when Elsa created Olaf, he got many of her memories of Anna and thus imagines Anna making an oversized sandwich, or something like that.
• Elsa's crying over Anna's frozen body seem rather subdued for someone who just had her greatest fear realized, but makes sense in context:
  • This comes from the girl who spent the major part of her life concealing her emotions (especially crying, as she says during "Let it go"). Even in these catastrophic circumstances, she has become unable to cry in any other way.
  • She'd also already collapsed from grief and horror about Anna's death, when Hans lied about having witnessed it. That lie had rendered her so broken that she just stayed there on the ice and didn't move even as Hans audibly drew his sword to kill her. By the time Elsa actually embraces frozen Anna, she's probably so far gone into bereaved misery that she's emotionally shutting down for an entirely new reason: not repression or stoicism, but sheer, abject despair.
• A big deal is made in the ice harvester work song "Frozen Heart" is about how ice is beautiful, but it's also dangerous. With that in mind, the fact that Elsa's winter magic makes her immune to cold (and immune to the potential of frostbite or hypothermia) seems to make her almost one with ice itself, and there's not doubt that Elsa, too, is both beautiful and dangerous.
• It's common for trolls in fairy-tales to raise human children, such as Kristoff, although most traditional tales involve kidnapping rather than adoption of orphans, the latter of which seems to be Kristoff's case, as he later explains to Anna that it was just him and Sven, until the trolls took them in.
  • Jennifer Lee stated that Kristoff was an orphan and wild child that just couldn’t be tied down to the orphanage. He loved sneaking out and exploring the woods and following the ice teams and befriended Sven in the process. On the night Sven and Kristoff follow Anna and Elsa’s parents into the woods, Kristoff finds his family. In a way, Anna gave Kristoff his family and it goes full circle with Kristoff helping Anna find love with her own family (Elsa) in the end.
  • This is also a case of Shown Their Work because in most Nordic countries they were evildoers who eat humans, especially children, or tried to trick them. But there are also stories where they are nothing more than magical neighbors who borrowed stuff from the farmers, and if the farmers treated them well, they were rewarded with gold or luck. They also loved children, so the easiest way to make friends with a troll was to be nice to their kids, and it was said that they took care of the human children that were abandoned in the woods. The stories include that the Trolls were particularly attracted to blond hair and beauty, and often treated the child as if it were truly one of their own. In return, they gave the child gifts such as strength, stamina, or an affinity for the wild. Which is exactly what they did with Kristoff and Sven. In the Broadway musical, where the trolls become the "fair folk" due to practical reasons, there's a line where Bulda tells Queen Iduna to "Call on us anytime, we love children and even raise a few strays ourselves."
• The sisters' outfits don't appear to incorporate the increasingly popular crinoline that was starting to come into style during the 1840s. Given that the girls have been isolated for the past decade, it makes sense they're not going to be up-to-date on the latest trends.
• Listen to the lyrics of "Let It Go" again. The song could literally double as a transformation song from innocent princess to evil sorceress. It fits so perfectly, especially since she originally was designed to be the antagonist as per the original short story. Word of God has it that the song was initially written to be a Villain Song, but the tone of it was so upbeat and inspiring, they rewrote her character and subsequently the movie. Disney toys with the possibility of Elsa becoming a villain throughout "Let it Go," which in itself is the closest thing to a villain song in the movie. Consider the line "No right, no wrong, no rules for me, I'm free!" Doesn't that sound like something a villain without moral scruples would say? And also consider straight after her transformation into the Snow Queen, she says "That perfect girl is gone!" A lot of villains during their transformations often shed their older identities. But here, it's acknowledged that this isn't always an entirely negative thing, and can be a step towards self-improvement.
  • The German translation of the lyrics makes it more of a villain song, with phrases such as "Die Kraft sie ist Grenzenlos" (The power is limitless), "Die Kälte sie ist nun ein Teil von mir" (The cold is now part of me) and "Nur ein Gedanke und die Welt wird ganz aus Eis" (Just a thought will turn the world to ice).
  • It's not even just "Let It Go". When Anna begs Elsa to look for a solution together, Elsa asks "What power do you have to stop this winter? To stop me?" In context, it's already Fridge Horror when you realize it's an indication of Elsa's hopelessness and how she blames herself for the Endless Winter. But take away Elsa's anguished face and Idina Menzel's heartbreaking inflection, and it sounds an awful lot like something a smug villain would ask the heroine, an "I'm the most powerful person in the world! You'll never defeat me!"-type brag. Doubles as Fridge Brilliance, Foreshadowing that the power to thaw this Endless Winter and overcome Elsa's extremely powerful magic will come from "completely ordinary" Anna herself.
  • In "No right, no wrong, no rules for me," the word "wrong" is sometimes interpreted to mean "evil", but given Elsa's struggle to hold her powers in, it probably means "screwing up". She no longer has to worry about failing because there is no one here to judge her, no one here that she can fail.
• Consider that Hans has been shown to be a Manipulative Bastard on a scale rarely seen in Disney canon, who expertly manipulated both the protagonist and the audience until The Reveal. It seems out of character, then, for him to immediately engage in Bond Villain Stupidity and simply assume Anna would be a good girl and die out of sight, as opposed to, say, locking the door, pulling up a chair, and watching to be sure. This wouldn't even change the subsequent scene's script much. But the version in the movie actually makes Hans worse — he cares so little for Anna that he just walks out and doesn't think twice about leaving her to die alone in the cold when there's a kingdom to start ruling, and highlights the film's point about "completely ordinary" and "no match for Elsa" Anna not seeming that important or useful, which of course makes the climax where she is the one to save the day that much more striking.
• Hans's Evil Gloating after The Reveal. Was he smart to suddenly engage in melodramatic and cheesy dialogue, going over his scheme in detail? No. Has it been done in real life? Yes. Many criminals — a lot of them murderers and serial killers — have been arrested and sentenced due to their inability to keep their mouths shut^note Members of the Manson family bragged about the Tate-LaBianca murders or get cocky/irrational after a series of crimes. Hans' entire reveal speech and his firm clutching of the Idiot Ball that resulted in him leaving before making sure Anna was dead from Elsa's power just reeked of "look at me, I'm a genius for having pulled off this entire operation, and I need someone to appreciate me and how clever I am".
• The trailer for the movie refers to an "ice guy", a "nice guy", and a "snow man". At first glance, the "ice guy" is Kristoff, the "nice guy" is Hans, and the "snow man" is Olaf. However, "ice guy" and "snow man" have very similar meanings if you think about it, which would make Kristoff a "snow man" and Olaf an "ice guy". There's also the fact that Olaf is a genuine Nice Guy despite literally being made of ice, and Kristoff is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, making them both "nice guys", whereas Hans is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who is metaphorically made of ice, making him both an "ice guy" and a "snow man". So really, each of these three descriptions can fit any one of the three main males!!!
  • Hans also fits the other definition of "nice guy:" an entitled person who acts kind to further their own selfish motives.
• In the new songs exclusive to the Broadway musical, Elsa’s songs as an adult see her using the same vocabulary she used as a child when she and Anna were still together (in particular, the "me and you" from "Let the Sun Shine On" and later "Dangerous to Dream"). When thinking of Anna, she goes back to times of old when she was happy and free and building a snowman with her best friend.
• Kristoff wearing black and Hans wearing white is obviously a complete inversion of the usual idea that black=evil and white=good, but it isn't just arbitrary. Remember, most of the scenes are covered in snow, making Kristoff much easier to see and symbolizing how honest Kristoff is and how sneaky Hans is.
• The power of love was prevalent from the very start. When Elsa initially hits Anna in the head with her ice, in the ballroom scene, she rushes to Anna and cradles her. Completely out of conscious control, Elsa exudes a powerful wave of ice that is strong enough to freeze the entire floor, walls, ceiling and even breaks up Olaf. Everything that it touches freezes instantly. Except for Anna. In direct contact with the source of the ice, Anna did not freeze. Anna was protected by the power of Elsa’s love, and Elsa never knew.
• When the camera pulls out after Elsa creates her impromptu skating rink in the courtyard at the end of the movie, we see that Elsa's ice magic has extended to not just encompass the courtyard, but a good portion of the castle's exterior. She's turned the castle into a re-imagined version of her ice palace. Combining the home she made for herself to be free in though it meant she’d have to be alone, and the home she always had and was filled with love for her, though she could not let it in, and had to shut away who she really was.
• In her solo in "For the First Time in Forever," there's a shot where Elsa looks out the library window at the crowds coming over the bridge entering the castle. Elsa's still doubting her role as Queen here. But the key is the window:
  • It symbolically separates Elsa from her kingdom, as it physically divides her and the people, and keeps her within the castle. What's more is that it casts her reflection, partially blocking her view of Arendelle. Reflections have meaning in the movie, and we later see this very shot mirrored with Hans later in the movie, but here it provides another meaning. Elsa's main obstacle is herself. It's the act of learning to accept who she is that was her main challenge. So here in this shot, Elsa's reflection represents that hurdle. In order for her to be a good queen, she must first get past herself.
  • Also, when Elsa looks out the window, she sees the people outside, but when Hans looks out the window, he only sees his own reflection. Maybe it's because of frost...or maybe it's because of how selfish Hans is. Bonus points for Hans looking out of the left pane rather than the right pane like Elsa.
• When we are introduced to Olaf, he makes a remark in his ramblings (before he comes into frame) of "yellow and snow? Brrr, no no!" which is meant to come off like a Toilet Humor joke. That is, until one notices that when Elsa's fighting the Duke of Weselton's men in her ice palace, the walls are bathed in yellow. Yellow snow is Elsa's breaking point, where her powers are first used for destruction, and where she almost becomes the monster people think she is.
  • Yellow is one of those colors that can have several different meanings depending on the context of its use. Here, it's being used in the "caution" kind of way, especially since it's partnered with a lot of darker/blacker colors. It's like a subconscious warning from Elsa to the guards attacking her that they need to back off. Yellow makes more sense than red, which they instead used earlier to represent Elsa's fear. Red is typically associated with anger, but the way they use it in the movie makes the scene appear more unsettling and claustrophobic. It really helps visualize just how anxious Elsa is. The use of yellow in the fight scene is her fight response.
  • Yellow, when used appropriately, can actually come off as upsetting and unnerving. It can cause feelings of isolation and fear, and it can drive someone to start feeling rigid and defensive. And all of these things can describe Elsa in this current moment as she fights for her life.
• When we see the rows of gloves in Elsa's old trunk in Olaf's Frozen Adventure, the gloves from that trunk are the same as the ones she wore on her coronation. And they match pretty well with the dark teal of her dress. But they are lighter. They match Anna's eyes. But look at what those gloves are meant to represent to Elsa. They're there to keep her powers contained. They provide a security net when all else fails. As a result, she's come to rely on them emotionally to a desperate degree, to the point that removing them is enough to cause her to panic. She believes they're all she has left of keeping her powers in check. And they're the same color as Anna's eyes. Anna, the one who ends up helping Elsa learn the real secret to controlling her magic. Anna, the one who had so much faith that her sister would be able to control her "curse" and bring summer back that she scaled a mountain and ventured into a blizzard in a ballgown in an effort to prove it. Anna, whose go-to method of comforting Elsa is grabbing onto both of her hands. Because she's not afraid of them. She knows Elsa can control her magic. And she's going to help her through every step of the way. So in a way, Elsa's gloves matching Anna's eyes make sense. Because in that instant after Anna is thawed out, Elsa's not looking at her hands, she's looking into Anna's eyes.
• Olaf is the embodiment of the childhood relationship between the sisters. Fittingly, he displays some of Elsa's mannerisms and beliefs.
  • Whenever he puts his arms back on, he does so like he's putting on gloves.
  • When Elsa refuses to let Anna marry Hans, she asks pointedly, "Anna, what do you know about true love?" When Olaf finds Anna freezing in the library after Hans betrays her, he says, "Wow, you really don't know anything about love, do you?"
  • Elsa and Olaf make similar "I love you, so go" remarks to Anna: Elsa's "Just stay away and you'll be safe from me" in "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)", and Olaf's "Because I love you, Anna, I insist you run" when he thinks Kristoff is going insane talking to rocks.
  • When Olaf finds Anna freezing to death in the library, he says, "I guess I was wrong. I guess Kristoff doesn't love you enough to leave you behind." He thinks that love is leaving them behind forever because that's exactly what Elsa has been doing to show love. Elsa left Anna behind when she embraced her powers because she thought her powers would hurt her. But...the other half of Olaf–-Anna-–left Elsa behind, too. Anna loved Elsa so much that she chose to die even though it meant leaving Elsa behind. Forever. So in other words...Elsa and Anna left each other behind for the sake of love. No wonder he had this rhyme from the bridge in "In Summer":
    The hot and the cold are both so intense
    Put 'em together, it just makes sense!
• The song "Reindeers are Better than People" contains the line "People [besides Kristoff] will beat you and curse you and cheat you." It would make sense for a non-Kristoff reindeer owner to beat his reindeer, but cursing or cheating it sounds a bit extreme...until you realize that Kristoff (or Sven, depending on how you look at it) isn't talking about what people will do to reindeer, but to other people. And indeed, Kristoff is the only main character, besides Anna herself, who didn't do one of these things to her: She was cursed by Elsa (albeit by accident) and cheated by Hans.
• Most of Elsa's non-ice dress clothing has been shown to be various shades of purple, including many of her teenage dresses as well as her nightgown as an adult as well as the cape she wears during her coronation in the first film. Purple is known as the traditional color worn by royalty. In Europe and North America, purple is the color most often associated with royalty, magic, mystery, rarity, and piety.
  • Royalty: Purple is the color traditionally associated with royalty, and Elsa is the Queen of Arendelle.
  • Magic: Elsa has magical ice powers.
  • Mystery: The origin of Elsa's powers are a mystery, so this fits color fits her for this reason.
  • Rarity: Because Elsa's powers are extremely unique and rare, this description fits her, too.
• Despite his Large Ham tendencies the Duke of Weselton claiming he could have died by slipping and falling on the ice is not exaggerating. At his age, slipping and falling is the leading cause of death by injury.
• Why did the argument between Elsa and Anna escalate so quickly towards the end of the party? Because Elsa was saying to close the gates, essentially saying close the doors. What's the one thing Anna has dreaded her whole life? Her sister shutting the door in her face. Between hearing those words and the visual of Elsa headed for doors, Anna was legitimately scared that once Elsa went back into her shell, she wouldn't get to see her sister again for who knows how long...and that's on top of not being able to see anyone else outside of the castle with its gates closed again.
• At first it seems odd that when Hans is inches away from kissing Anna, he suddenly decides to not go through with it and tells her his true intentions instead, not even trying to kiss her and then playing up sadness when it doesn't work. But while Hans knows that his kiss won't save Anna, he isn't aware of any specific rules in this curse or magic in general. For all he knows, kissing Anna without truly loving her could curse him as well, and he sees no point in taking that risk.
• The most common criticism about Hans is that his reveal as The Sociopath seemed to come out of left field. However, for audience members familiar with real-life Manipulative Bastard sociopathic tactics abusers use, Hans' conduct can border on Obviously Evil. It serves to reflect how naive, sheltered, and desperate for love Anna is, but also her insistence on believing the best in people. Just as her sister cannot possibly be a wicked sorceress, there's no way (in Anna's mind) that Hans could be villainous. Anna has probably never met a wicked person in her entire life, up until Hans, and therefore had no reason to doubt his intentions. Similarly, most viewers, on top of growing up with romantic expectations for Prince Charming codified by Disney themselves, are not likely to have even met a superficially charming, ruthless sociopath, let alone be able to see through said tactics. It's Truth in Television — "But he was such a nice person! He was so nice to me!" is often said about abusers and even serial killers.
• Doubling with Funny: Santino Fontana chose to audition for Hans with a rewritten version of "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story. The original is Maria, a young, idealistic girl, singing joyfully about how she is loved by Tony, a wonderful boy — similar to Anna circa "Love is an Open Door".
  I am pretty, oh so pretty
  I am pretty and witty and bright
  And I pity any guy who isn't me at night
  I am charming, oh so charming
  It's alarming how charming I feel
  And so pretty that I hardly can believe I'm real
  See the pretty guy in that mirror there? (What mirror? Where?)
  Who can that attractive guy be? (Which? What? Where? Who?!)
  Such a pretty face, such a pretty suit
  Such a pretty smile, such a pretty me!
  I am stunning and entrancing
  Feel like running and dancing for joy
  For I am such a perfect wonderful boy!
• The casting of Santino Fontana as Hans is also this for musical theatre fans. He starred as Prince Topher in Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein) in 2013, the same year that Frozen was released. Audience members who have seen Fontana as a classic Prince Charming in Cinderella might assume that he was being typecast as Hans, which would make The Reveal more of a shock.
• The trolls spend most of "Fixer-Upper" bagging on Kristoff, but they slip some compliments in as well. Anna seems bemused by the whole thing and reacts that way to compliments and insults alike. But when the trolls sing about how Kristoff likes "healing hugs", her face briefly changes from bewilderment to "aw, how sweet." Why did that one get through to her when the others didn't? Well, "I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs!" is as much a figment of her own past as Elsa's. Calling Kristoff "the honest goods" doesn't get far with Anna, because she hasn't been betrayed by Hans yet and so hasn't learned to look for honesty in a guy. (And didn't appreciate it much in Kristoff at first anyway.) But hugs, that's been her jam since she was little.
• Everyone seems a bit too accepting of Hans' claim that Anna effectively married him right before dying... But with Elsa having effectively abdicated Anna was now the acting queen and she had no successors, and by marrying Hans as she was about to die she was insuring the succession. In short, those were the exact circumstances that would make his claim believable.
• Elsa's opposition to Anna and Hans' engagement has a very good reason: with them being royalty and Anna the only successor, any and all marriage proposals had to go through the monarch, that is Elsa herself. While Anna may have not known, Elsa had been prepared for the role her entire life, so Hans trying to have her face a done deed would automatically make her suspicious.
• Olaf assuming that Kristoff and Sven share the same name isn't just a gag — Kristoff tends to "speak" for Sven; so in a way, they are one and the same.
• When Olaf rekindles the fire to keep Anna warm and alive longer, even though it means he'll melt, why does this not count as an "act of true love" and thaw her frozen heart? Because the act of true love has to be done by Anna, not for Anna. The fact that Olaf's act doesn't save her foreshadows the twist.
• Most people wear gloves to protect their hands from the cold environment around them. Elsa wears gloves to protect other things and the general environment from getting cold (frozen) by her ice powers, which often come out of her hands!
• When Anna suddenly tells Hans to kiss her, Weselton looks horrified but immediately leads everyone out of the room, and when Hans comes out claiming she married him and thus he's now in charge everyone accepts it. Weselton knew Anna had been cursed and reasoned that if she wanted to stay alone with Hans she expected to die very soon and thus was securing the succession, and Hans used the same reasoning to take over.
• Marshmallow seems nicer in The Stinger and in later material. Perhaps this was because he was created by Elsa lashing out in fear, and so lost his aggression once she was no longer scared.
• Elsa being an elegant singer could be a reference to Jenny Lind, a well known opera singer in her time. Hans Christian Anderson, based The Snow Queen off of Jenny after she rejected his feelings. Thus, by extension, it would makes sense for Elsa, who is based off The Snow Queen, to have a similar aptitude in singing to Jenny Lind.

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