Frozen 2013 / Tropes A to H

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Tropes #-B

• 1-Dimensional Thinking: Kristoff and Sven would have had a much easier time escaping the ship capsizing upon them on the frozen fjord just by swerving a bit to the right; it would have barely slowed them down from reaching Anna. Instead, they ride at full speed in a straight line, right along the ship's length, barely avoiding being crushed.
• 13 Is Unlucky:
  • Elsa and Anna are shut in for thirteen years — Anna was 5 while Elsa was 8 when shut up, ending when they were 18 and 21 respectively, and adding their younger ages adds up to 13 as well.
  • Hans' family consists of thirteen brothers (himself included), and he is the youngest 13th and unlucky one.
• Accent Adaptation: The te reo Māori dub has characters from different areas speaking in different dialects:
  • Arendellian characters such as the royal family, Kai, and Oaken and the snow creatures made by Elsa speak Te Reo o Ngāi Tahu, the dialect of a southern (colder area) iwi with the Southern Alps in their area.
  • Kristoff and the trolls who raised him speak Te Reo o Ngāti Tūwharetoa.
  • Hans speaks Te Reo o Rangitāne.
  • The Duke of Weselton speaks Te Reo o Te Tai Rāwhiti
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • Olaf calls Kristoff "Sven" for a good part of the film due to a misunderstanding when first meeting (he learns Kristoff's real name when they meet the trolls):
    Anna: I'm Anna.
    Olaf: [gestures in the direction of Kristoff and Sven] And who's the funky-looking donkey over there?
    Anna: That's Sven.
    Olaf: And who's the reindeer?
    [Beat]
    Anna: ...Sven?
    Olaf: Oh they're bo—oh! Ok. Makes things easier for me.
  • Anna also calls him Kristoffer at one point when the wolves knock him off the sled.
  • Played for Laughs when Kai announces the Duke of Weselton as "the Duke of Weaseltown", which prompts a stern correction from the Duke.
• Accidental Murder: Elsa accidentally strikes Anna's heart with a blast of her magic which leads to Anna freezing from inside out and eventually turning into solid ice. She gets better though.
• Action Insurance Gag: When Kristoff's sled is destroyed as it goes off the cliff and bursts into flames, his first reaction is, "No! But I just paid it off!"
• Act of True Love: The Trope Namer. The only thing that can save a frozen heart is an act of true love. It doesn't come from whom you'd expect, nor in the way you'd imagine. When a bolt of ice strikes Anna's heart, a wise troll informs the victim that "Only an Act of True Love can thaw a frozen heart." Everyone listening assumes that it's True Love's Kiss and rushes her to her fiance for one. Unfortunately, the prince to whom Anna is engaged, Hans, turns out to be a heartless sociopath who was just using her for a shot at Arendelle's throne, and leaves her to die. Anna, on the verge of turning to ice from the inside out, then gives up her chance to kiss Kristoff and save her own life, in order to block Hans' sword and save Elsa. It's through her love for Elsa that Anna's curse is broken, and she comes back to life.
• Actor Allusion: The Duke warns Hans that Anna might be "conspiring with the wicked sorceress," the "wicked sorceress" being Elsa. Idina Menzel previously played Elphaba in Wicked.
• Adaptation Title Change: Frozen is a very loose adaptation of The Snow Queen, but the story ended up being changed so much that the title was changed along with it. Some translations still call it The Snow Queen.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • In The Snow Queen, the Snow Queen is rather morally ambiguous. It's implied that she casts a magic spell on Kai to get him to stay with her, in turn leading to an implication that she is kidnapping him for unknown reasons. Elsa is most definitely not evil; rather, she is a victim of her own powers as she didn't learn to properly control them.
  • The trolls are good now too. In the original story, they were Always Chaotic Evil.
• Adaptational Protagonist: The film is loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. Unlike the tale, it has two female protagonists, the sisters Queen Elsa and Princess Anna. Anna is this movie's version of Gerda, The Heroine of the original story, while Elsa is a Composite Character of Gerda's male friend, Kai, and the Snow Queen —who is not so much of a true villain, just the one who takes Kai with her during a snowy night, prompting Gerda's quest for him.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Elsa in this film is this, compared to how the Snow Queen was depicted in various versions of the tales, including an earlier draft of this very film. Most versions told before this film usually depicted the Snow Queen as a morally villainous character, who sought nothing but power, or, in the case of the original tale, made her a morally ambiguous party with questionable intent. In this film, Elsa does do harmful things, but she usually does them entirely on accident, having no idea on how to control her powers, and is shown to be a good person who's afraid of hurting those she cares about, due to a childhood accident that harmed her sister.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: "Frozen Heart":
  This icy force both foul and fair
  Has a frozen heart worth mining.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Elsa freaking out about her ice powers and obsessively trying to suppress them is what causes her running away (which is what jump starts the main conflict).
• Age-Progression Song: Each verse of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" takes place in a later year than the previous, showing Anna and Elsa growing up from the start of their separation to their parents' deaths.
• Airplane Arms: Anna does this pose at the end of "For the First Time in Forever", and Elsa does it in the middle of "Let It Go".
• Alertness Blink: Several times the trolls blink with tones associated.
• All Animals Are Dogs:
  • Sven acts like a dog, and is described as a Labrador in a reindeer's body at the website.
  • The wolves that chase Anna and Kristoff in the forest are heard barking. While this is something that real adult wolves are capable of (being a member of the canine species), they really don't do it all too much.
• All There in the Manual:
  • The Junior Novelization adds more details and information to the story. Additionally, the book A Sister More Like Me gives a few details about Elsa and Anna growing up, which was only briefly glimpsed at during "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"
  • You'd only know that Kristoff's last name is Bjorgman if you read the supplementary material. Unless you have a working knowledge of Scandinavian and Saami culture, you might have to read the supplementary material to find that Kristoff is also a Saami.
  • The king and queen's names are Agnarr and Iduna.
  • Hans' horse is called Sitron.
• All There in the Script: The chief servants are never explicitly called Kai and Gerda onscreen.
• All Trolls Are Different: They have rock-shaped bodies, are very kind, and even use magic to help humans in need.
• Almost Kiss: An incredibly cruel example. Dying from a curse, Anna believes True Love's Kiss will save her, and tries to initiate one with Hans, who acts very concerned... only for him to pause and say "Oh Anna... if only there was someone out there who loved you."
• Altar the Speed:
  • Played with and averted. Hans lies to the Queen's cabinet that he and Anna spoke their vows just before she died of a frozen heart, in order to create a false claim to the throne and arrange to have Elsa executed for treason.
  • More humorously, in "Fixer Upper", the trolls think Anna is Kristoff's girlfriend, and hence try to wed them during their musical number. They get halfway through the vows before the accidental participants catch on to what they're doing and cut them off.
• Always Save the Girl: Played with. Multiple characters, most notably the Duke of Weselton, are willing to kill Elsa to stop the winter and save the kingdom, but Anna believes that saving both is possible and insists on trying.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Kristoff's whole family, the trolls. Over half of "Fixer Upper" is them asking Anna which of his flaws is turning her off from dating him, with each flaw lovingly detailed (even tinkling in the woods).
• Ambiguously Christian: Elsa's coronation is set in a chapel, complete with a choir, a priest in priestly uniform and "dragonstil"-style church. However, all signs of the cross are noticeably absent, all parts where one would be are instead replaced with a crocus (a flower in mid-bloom) adorning Elsa's scepter and orb, the priest and choir's clothes, decorating the church and can even be found of Arendelle's national flag. The film is confirmed to be set in the early nineteenth century, with Arendelle as a vaguely Norwegian kingdom, so Arendelle's chief religion is likely a Fantasy Counterpart Equivalent of the Church of Norway, an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: Rare inversion. The American trailer gives more emphasis on the comedy and slapstick side of the film. Non-American ones, such as the Japanese and French trailers, meanwhile, give more emphasis on the action and drama.
• Amusing Injuries:
  • Early in her journey, Anna falls down a hill and lands in a river which covers her entire lower body in near-freezing water. She comically stumbles as her summer dress freezes solid but she herself does not find it at all comical. There's a brief look of sheer panic on her face before she gets to Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna.
  • Olaf is constantly getting impaled on ice, falling apart, losing bits of himself, etc., with only a lighthearted joke to show any discomfort on the matter. Then again, he's not human and the regular rules of injury don't apply to him. Makes for a really Wham when he lights the fire at the end and starts to melt.
• Anachronism Stew: Generally speaking, aside from the fact that the overall aesthetic is Scandinavian, there's really very little true Norwegian stuff. Architecture, music, characters, practices and even folklore from Norway to Finland from the early middle ages to the early 20th century combine very tightly. Everyone speaks English with American accents (except for Oaken), and in the end, the film is not representative of any given place or time period, only that it's definitely before the automobile was invented and well before the construction of the first railroads.
• An Ice Person: Elsa is by now probably the most well known fictional character with this power set.
• Animal Motifs: The Duke of Weselton is constantly annoyed when people refer to his home as "Weaseltown". In folklore, weasels are usually seen as sneaky, evil animals; fitting, considering that the Duke is somewhat of a shady businessman. This is a Red Herring, to help obscure the true villain of the film.
• Animated Musical: Why do you think they cast Idina Menzel as Elsa? There are seven and a half songs^note "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People" is short enough that the songwriters have said they only consider it "half" a song and even decided to continue it with a Part 2 in the sequel. — the ice harvesters' work song "Frozen Heart", Anna's "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", Anna's "For the First Time in Forever", Anna and Hans' "Love Is an Open Door", Elsa's "Let It Go", Kristoff's "Reindeers Are Better Than People," Olaf's "In Summer," Anna and Elsa's reprise of "For the First Time in Forever," and the trolls' "Fixer-Upper."
• Annoying Arrows: Played straight and averted when Hans shows up at Elsa's ice palace. His mens' crossbow bolts barely tickle Marshmallow and are like being injected with needles, but this is averted with Elsa, as she has to block and deflect the shots at her.
• Apologetic Attacker: Played for Laughs. After Oaken throws Kristoff out of the store for calling him a crook, he cheerfully apologizes "I'm sorry about this violence!"... to Anna, since she witnessed an act of violence in his store.
• Arc Symbol:
  • The crocus is a symbol of spring and rebirth and is part of the official crest of Arendelle and is seen adorning various props and official regalia.
    • It is found on the scepter and orb Elsa takes as part of her coronation ceremony, her gloves, and her coronation dress and cape, as Sigil Spam, but also contains thematic significance. Elsa throws away her gloves and cape and replaces her dress with an ice dress when she flees Arendelle, signaling her leaving behind both the responsibilities that tied her down and her home and much of her hope, but the symbol still appears embedded within the walls of the ice palace she constructs, indicating they are still a part of her.
    • It is also heavily associated with Anna, who wears it on most of her clothing, including her formal princess dress, her blue winter dress she finds at Oaken's, and her casual summer dress. They are also found on much of her bedroom furniture. This fits her Hope Bringer role, fitting for a character who brings back the sun. Crocuses are also an official symbol of Arendelle and denote her devotion to the kingdom.
  • Doors, both open and closed, represent the state of relationships:
    • After the accident when the princesses were children, the castle doors were ordered closed, and a closed door constantly divided Anna and Elsa. Anna is overjoyed that the doors to the castle will be open for Elsa's coronation, while Elsa wishes she could keep them closed to protect her secret. After all is well at the end, Elsa decrees that the doors will never be closed again, denoting that she no longer feels she must conceal her nature and can open up to people.
    • Elsa's "I Am Becoming" Song "Let It Go" has the lyric "Turn away and slam the door" and concludes with her doing just that. The theme of slamming doors shut is brought up again in reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", in which Anna begs Elsa to not shut her out from her life again.
    • The duet between Anna and Hans is called "Love Is an Open Door". They use the door motif in conversation, discussing their trouble connecting with their siblings. Anna laments that "Elsa and I were really close when we were little, but one day she shut me out, and never told me why," to which Hans responds that he'd "never shut you out." When they begin their duet, Anna sings her life has "been a series of doors in my face" until Hans, and shuts the door on the party (including her sister) she had been longing so desperately for, now believing love lies with Hans instead. Hans locks Anna in the drawing room once his duplicity is revealed.
  • Falling, and catching people:
    • In the beginning of the film, the sisters lovingly play together in the snow, and Elsa creates snowbanks that catch Anna as she jumps around, but then slips and falls, resulting in her missing and in Anna also falling without anyone catching her. This accident leads to the separation of the two girls, Elsa growing up repressed and Anna, who is Locked Out of the Loop, growing up feeling unloved.
    • Anna turns to inanimate objects to catch her in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" and "For the First Time in Forever," including an empty suit of armor, because no one else is around.
    • Anna's first encounter with Hans knocks her into a boat, and he uses his horse to stabilize it before she falls into the water. She falls twice more due to the movement of the boat during the meeting, literally into his arms, signifying that someone who will offer her support has arrived and foreshadowing that although he appears helpful and caring, Hans is really more trouble, actually exacerbating Anna's problems.
    • When her conversation with Elsa at the coronation ball ends with Elsa turning away again, Anna walks away dejected and is nearly bumped to the floor by a dancer, and Hans swoops in and catches her.
    • When Elsa flees, Anna slips on some of the ice created and falls to the ground.
    • Kristoff catches Anna when she comes down from the cliff she was climbing, signifying that they're growing closer. Anna even compares it to a trust exercise.
    • When Elsa is captured, she stumbles and falls.
    • After "Fixer Upper", Anna collapses as her frozen heart worsens, and Kristoff catches her.
    • Anna literally falls into Hans's arms when she goes to him for a curse-breaking True Love's Kiss, but he lets her fall off the couch when he reveals he was Evil All Along and decides to just let her die, signaling he will no longer offer her support because he no longer has anything to gain from her.
    • Elsa falls to the ground when Hans tells her Anna, her only supporter, is dead. She then collapses again onto Anna's frozen body after Anna makes her Heroic Sacrifice to save Elsa.
    • Anna slips on ice again toward the climax, but Elsa helps hold her up and Olaf, the physical embodiment of the love between the two sisters, catches and supports her.
  • Gloves are associated with hiding one's true self. The king gives Elsa a pair as she begins to conceal her powers, and she temporarily removes them for her coronation ceremony, for which she also opens up the gates and lets herself be somewhat vulnerable for the day. When she and Anna fight, one comes off and her powers come out, and she throws the other one away in "Let It Go", when she's decided to embrace her magic. Hans also wears gloves throughout the film, only removing them for The Reveal scene, which is the only time he shows his true self. He puts them back on when he declares he will be "the hero" of the story and puts his mask back on to meet with the dignitaries.
  • Hands in general. Hans offers his gloved hands to Anna repeatedly, pretending to open up to her while really concealing himself, and Elsa attempts to both cover hers and keep them away from people, not touching anyone or, in contrast to Hans, even giving the appearance of connecting with people. She looks at them in horror when she's terrified by her power, and in amazement when she realizes she can create life, and often uses them to make gestures as she casts magic, although her Power Incontinence establishes that they're unnecessary for it to work.
  • Elsa's signature snowflake symbolizes the beauty and danger of Elsa's power. They Sigil Spam her dress and her ice castle. They also appear as pock-like marks on Anna's skin after she is cursed with a frozen heart.
  • Boats are associated with hope. The girls lose their parents when their ship is overtaken by a storm, Anna looks longingly at the ships coming into the harbor during the excitement of "For the First Time in Forever" and is knocked into an unsteady boat when she meets Hans, their Falling-in-Love Montage includes a shot of their shadows on the sail of a boat as the two dance in a lighthouse, a ship nearly falls onto Kristoff and Sven as they race to rescue Anna, and when Elsa thaws the Endless Winter and the fjord melts, they are all find themselves standing on the deck of one.
  • Light is also associated with hope. The girls' joyful play in the beginning of the movie is spurred by the presence of Northern Lights, but after the accident the lights are no longer visible in the sky. The lighting grows progressively darker during "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" and completely fades at the end, after the parents' ship sinks at night. The light returns after a Time Skip for Coronation Day, when Anna sings "there'll be light" again "for the first time in forever." Anna and Hans dance on a lighthouse during their Falling-in-Love Montage, Elsa concludes "Let It Go" and rediscovering the beauty in her powers at the break of dawn, wolves attack Anna and Kristoff at night and challenge their resolve, and they meet Olaf ^note  described by scriptwriter/co-director Jennifer Lee as "the moment for Anna of hope again" in the daytime. Elsa reveals she doesn't know how to thaw the Endless Winter and accidentally freezes Anna's heart at sundown; the trolls give hope for a cure at dawn. Hans extinguishes all light sources at The Reveal of his Evil Plan to kill the sisters and take over the kingdom, and sentences Elsa to death at night with one of the lights in the chandelier out. Elsa then breaks out of her cell and Kristoff makes the choice to return in day. When Olaf finds Anna, he relights the fire as he brings back hope of her surviving the curse, and the film's last shot is of light glinting off a snowflake at the top of the Arendellian castle.
• Arc Words:
  • "Conceal, don't feel", and its variations. While this is Elsa's mantra for suppressing her powers, it also reflects her need to both emotionally and physically distance herself from others in general.
  • "Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart."
  • "Open up/Close the gates."
  • "Do you want to build a snowman?"
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Anna firing off a string of these during the coronation party is what gets Elsa to snap:
    Anna: What did I ever do to you?!
    Elsa: [walking away] Enough, Anna!
    Anna: No! Why, why do you shut me out?! W-why do you shut the world out?! What are you so afraid of?!!
    Elsa: I said, ENOUGH!!! [creates imposing ice spikes around her at that word — cue huge Oh, Crap!/My God, What Have I Done? reaction and fleeing the scene]
  • When Elsa is is fighting the guards, we get the Armor-Piercing Statement variant:
    Hans: Queen Elsa! Don't be the monster they fear you are!
• Armor-Piercing Response: Elsa's refusal to bless her engagement to Hans leads to this exchange:
  Elsa: Anna, what do you know about true love?
  Anna: More than you! All you know is how to shut people out!
  [Elsa is visibly shocked]
• Art Imitates Art: During "For the First Time in Forever", the paintings hung on the wall of the castle are pastiches of Grand Masters works. One can recognize the style of Bruegel, Watteau, Goya and a bowdlerised version of the rather risqué artwork Les Hasards heureux de l'escarpolette by Fragonard.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • Hans's horse Sitron is a Norwegian fjord horse, as is every other horse seen. However, real-life fjord horses◊ are actually smaller and chubbier than they all appear to be, meaning the visual designers likely "dignified" the breed a little to make them more befitting of royalty.
  • A male reindeer that is Sven's adult age should have antlers nearly twice the size seen. Here, they probably made them smaller so he doesn't come off as intimidating.
  • The wolves in the movie have blue eyes (wolves never have blue eyes) and attack humans (wolves generally avoid humans).
• Artistic License – History: The main setting of the film is inspired by Norway in the 1840s.
  • Although sailing vessels were in wide use until at least the mid-nineteenth century, the type of sailing vessels shown look more at home a century or so earlier.
  • Anna rides a pedal-driven tandem bike, which wasn't invented until 1870.
  • The extensive use of purple in 1840s Arendelle would imply that the kingdom is far wealthier considering the price of Tyrian purple at the time; such was the astronomical price of purple during those days that it never saw use in national flags and even members of royalty would sometimes balk at using something that's far more valuable than gold. Fast forward over a decade later and we got Mauveine, the first synthetic purple dye which pretty much made the hue more accessible than sacrificing a thousand or so snails to get a gram's worth of purple.
• Artistic License – Law: Two particularly prominent ones regarding royalty that would have derailed the film's plot.
  • A royal's spouse doesn't automatically inherit the throne. The next person who is set to inherit the throne would acquire it, regardless of marriage. Any cousins of Elsa or Anna that happen to exist would likely inherit the throne from Elsa, definitely not Hans. For a real-life reference, Elizabeth II of England's husband was never the heir to her throne.
  • When Arendelle supposedly looks to Hans for guidance in the climax of the film, he charges Elsa with treason. Except that high queens and kings in 1840s weren't servants of the state like the modern US, they were the state, and thus can't be charged with treason (with a few exceptions such as Charles I). She could, however, have been charged with witchcraft.
• Artistic License – Music: Kristoff's lute has four strings, but only three tuning pegs.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • In the beginning of "Frozen Heart", we see ice harvesters plunge their saws into the water as they cut blocks of ice from an icy lake high in the mountains. The ice harvesters are clearly standing on the ice they are cutting. Ice that is thick enough to support the weight of a person, let alone the thickness of the blocks they cut, would require a hole to be drilled to mark a spot for the saw to actually start cutting. Trying to harvest ice this thick by simply plunging a saw straight into it like shown in the movie should actually cause the saw to bend.
  • A blink-and-you'll-miss-it point in "Let It Go" when Elsa's braid has to go through her arm on the far side of her body to end up where it does. The animators couldn't do it realistically and still keep the flow of Elsa's movements, so they used Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
  • Both of Kristoff's sleds (his original and the one Anna gets him at the end on Elsa's behalf) are too large and heavy for a single reindeer to realistically pull.
  • During "For the First Time In Forever (Reprise)", when Anna is following Elsa through the ice castle, there's a point where she passes between two pillars. The pillars reflect her face from the front, when they should be reflecting the sides of her face.
  • When Hans comes upon Elsa in the ice palace, realistically there's no way he could bolt across the room in time to deflect the beardless Weselton guard's shot when the guard raises his crossbow to aim at Elsa.
  • Doesn't matter how much powder there was at the base of the cliff. In real life, if you were to jump off a 200+ foot cliff like Anna and Kristoff do to escape Marshmallow, the landing wouldn't be "like landing on a pillow". You'd probably be killed by the impact. It's not 100% out of the realm of possibility that someone could survive that (after all, a few people have survived falling out of an airplane), but it's pretty close. And two people both surviving completely uninjured is even more implausible than that.
• Audible Sharpness: It becomes important in the climax, as Anna hears the shing sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath, and that alerts her that Hans is trying to kill Elsa.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Elsa receiving hers is a major part of the first act. The Awesome Moment part is dampened however, when it's clear she's absolutely terrified of accidentally revealing her powers to the crowd. Also notable is that Elsa becomes only the second Disney Princess to ascend the throne and become a Queen during her film as opposed to having it implied to happen like in most prior cases, the first being Kida.
• Badass Boast: Some of Elsa's lines in the third verse of her "I Am Becoming" Song "Let It Go":
  Elsa: I am one with the wind and sky
  [...]
  Elsa: I'll rise like the break of dawn^note This line is actually the title of the Italian version of the song: "All'alba sorgero", "I'll rise at dawn".
• Bait-and-Switch: The whole film runs on this trope. The trailers making it out to be more of a comedy like Tangled (which itself wasn't quite as comedic as its trailers implied) helps this along. Just in case you're wondering: The love interests, the villain and the act of true love all lead you to believe one thing and then switch it around. You at first think that Hans is the Love Interest but it's actually Kristoff. You at first think that the Duke of Weselton is the villain but it's actually Hans. You at first think that Kristoff is the one who will use true love to save Anna but she saves herself by pulling a Heroic Sacrifice for Elsa (the real act of true love - familial rather than romantic, and from the princess herself actively showing how much she cares about someone, instead of someone kissing her).
• Bait-and-Switch Comparison: Olaf does an accidental version with Kristoff and his reindeer, Sven.
  Anna: I'm Anna.
  Olaf: [gestures in the direction of Kristoff and Sven] And who's the funky-looking donkey over there?
  Anna: That's Sven.
  Olaf: And who's the reindeer?
  [Beat]
  Anna: ...Sven?
  Olaf: Oh they're bo—oh! Ok. Makes things easier for me.
• Banister Slide: Anna gets a nice long one on a spiral staircase toward the beginning of "For the First Time in Forever".
• Barehanded Blade Block: Just before she turns to ice, Anna holds up her bare hand to stop Hans' attack on Elsa, and her icy hand breaks his steel sword! Although if you look closely, the sword has become cold enough to form a visible layer of frost; steel that changes temperature that quickly is extremely brittle.
• Beast and Beauty: Both are women, as well as sisters instead of lovers, but other than that, Elsa and Anna suit the dichotomy well. Elsa is the reclusive "witch" with potentially destructive power which she has trouble controlling, and Anna is the only one who can help her come out of her shell and gain control of her powers simply through loving her. The art book indicates that they thought about doing this visually — a few rough sketches from early in development suggested that the original plan was for Elsa to become more unkempt and angry-looking as she grew older, as if she'd given up on personal appearances.
• Beat: During the "Fixer Upper" song...
  Kristoff: Enough! She is engaged to someone else, okay!
  [beat]
  Troll: So she's a bit of a fixer-upper...
• Berserk Button:
  • Do not ask Elsa Armor-Piercing Questions about fear when fear is her worst enemy.
  • Do not call Oaken a crook. Kristoff learns this the hard way, finds out how massively bulky Oaken is, and seconds later, Oaken is throwing him out into the cold. What's funny is that he does it without losing his cheery persona that he puts on for other customers.
  • Do not taunt or throw snowballs or arrows at Marshmallow. He'll kill you.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: Kristoff's and Sven's relationship is lampshaded by the trolls as being "outside of nature's laws."
• Betrayal by Inaction: Exaggerated Trope. Hans attempts this, depriving Anna of a supposedly life-saving True Love's Kiss. Instead, he leaves her to freeze to death after a Break Them by Talking speech in which he taunts her for trusting him and trying to help the seemingly-evil Elsa, as well as gloats about his plan to murder her beloved sister. He also locks her in the room and extinguishes all sources of heat in order to prevent any chance of her being cured.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: The greedy and prejudicial Duke of Weselton is one of the least physically attractive characters. The trope is subverted when the Duke turns out to be a Red Herring (though still an unpleasant antagonist), and the true villain is actually the attractive Prince Hans.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Oaken. He looks quite small and nonthreatening when sitting behind his counter with his overly-cheery voice. Turns out he towers over Kristoff, and has no problem chucking him outside when Kristoff insults him. He does it without even losing his cheerful demeanor when he returns to his desk and apologizes to Anna, offering to add a jar of pickled lutefisk to her purchases for free as compensation for the act of violence she had to witness in his store.
  • Hans. His niceness is either a façade (to Anna) or Pragmatic Villainy (to the commoners of Arendelle).
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Anna, at the climax, for Elsa. Coupled with Heroic Sacrifice and Disney Death to boot.
  • Olaf finds his way to Anna after Hans's betrayal, and he then tells her exactly what she needs to hear, despite melting himself in the process. It's not as dramatic as this trope usually plays out, but the context of the moment makes it clear.
  • Kristoff and Sven mount a daring charge into the maelstrom surrounding Arendelle to rescue Anna. After nearly being crushed by ships collapsing into the frozen fjord and almost losing Sven in the icy waters, Kristoff reaches Anna... just in time to watch her die. Thankfully, she gets better. In the Junior Novelization, Kristoff punches out Hans after his sword breaks on the frozen Anna.
• Big Damn Hug: Anna and Elsa embrace after Anna is revived from her Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Big Damn Kiss: Par for the course for a princess-centric Disney animated film. Except when it's both subverted and defied, twice. First, Anna goes to Hans for a life-saving True Love's Kiss, and he leans in... only to sneer "If only there was someone out there who loved you." Afterwards, Olaf suggests Kristoff is actually her True Love, and she and Kristoff dramatically make their way towards each other in the whiteout blizzard of the climax, only for Anna to notice that Hans has successfully pushed Elsa over the Despair Event Horizon. She turns away from Kristoff and instead uses the last of her strength to throw herself in front of her sister and take the blow from Hans's sword. When a kiss finally does happen, it's downplayed and not the focus of the scene, which instead places more emphasis on the reunited sisters enjoying time together, with Elsa feeling free to use her powers, to the acceptance and even delight of everyone around her.
• Big "NO!": Anna shouts this when she rushes to protect Elsa from Hans.
• Big "SHUT UP!": After Elsa refuses to bless Hans and Anna's engagement, Anna and Elsa get into an argument that ends with Elsa telling Anna to leave if she is unhappy. Anna begins to ask Elsa Armor Piercing Questions that lead to Elsa snapping:
  Elsa: I said ENOUGH!!
• Big Sister Instinct:
  • Elsa's main reason for shutting out Anna is because she wants to protect her.
  • Little sister instinct when Anna refuses to see Elsa as a monster and goes out to find her. Then later she steps in front of Hans's sword when he is about to kill Elsa.
• Bilingual Bonus: During Elsa's coronation as Elsa holds the orb and scepter, the Bishop says, in Old Norse: "Sem hón heldr inum helgum eignum ok krýnd í þessum helga stað ek té fram fyrir yðr...". In English, this means: "As she holds the holy properties, and is crowned in this holy place, I present to you...Queen Elsa of Arendelle."
• Big Word Shout: Elsa screams out, "I can't!!!" at the very end of the Dark Reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", which simultaneously releases a huge blast of snow which strikes Anna, freezing her heart.
• Black Comedy: Because Olaf is a snowman, the script can get away with doing some pretty "adult" things to him, such as playing grab-ass, impalement, telling people to literally watch out for his butt, and keep it PG. On top of this, the entirety of "In Summer": not only is it a song about a snowman in the middle of summer, but every single thing Olaf sings about wanting to do in summer is something that would make him melt even faster.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: With her powers, Elsa is able to blast a mook's crossbow out of his hands when he tries to shoot her at her castle.
• Blessed with Suck: This is how Elsa views her ice and snow powers; while there's nothing evil about the powers themselves (but harmful if used in certain ways), her inability to control them means she grew up alone, neglected her beloved little sister, and lives in fear of losing control entirely, which depending on who she is with and how exactly she loses control, could result in her seriously harming innocent people or being attacked herself.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The three female speaking human characters consist of the blonde Elsa, the brunette Queen Iduna, and the redheaded Anna.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Upon learning that Anna's frozen heart will kill her, Hans removes all sources of heat from the room and locks her in, but he doesn't trouble himself to wait around to make sure of her death.
• Bookends:
  • The first time we see Elsa and Anna, they are playing in an indoor winter landscape created by Elsa, where they build a snowman named Olaf, and the three of them skate together on the ice. In the last scene, Elsa converts the courtyard outside the castle into a skating rink, and she, Anna and Olaf skate together again.
  • The song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" begins and ends with that line.
  • Elsa accidentally outs her powers to the general public by freezing the ornamental fountains and most of the surrounding courtyard solid. Much later on when she returns, she celebrates her powers by turning the courtyard into a public ice-rink, this time using the frozen fountains as decorations.
  • In the beginning, the trolls show Elsa a vision of her creating a beautiful snowflake with her powers. When she creates the winter wonderland and skating rink at the end, she repeats those motions, causing it to snow upon the rink.
  • Young Elsa freezes the ground in the ballroom with a giant snowflake forming at her feet. It's the same way she starts forming her ice castle in "Let It Go" and the skating rink at the end.
  • Anna's first encounter with Hans results in her causing him to fall into the fjord, entirely by accident. Their last encounter ends with her very deliberately punching him into the fjord.
  • The story begins and ends with characters standing on a form of ice. The ice workers on the frozen lake at the start and the 5 main characters on a ice rink at the end.
• Boom, Headshot!: A downplayed, PG-rated example, where Elsa accidentally shoots ice in Anna's head in an attempt to keep Anna from falling, incapacitating her. Grandpabbie does tell their parents that Anna was lucky it wasn't in the heart, which would prove fatal later in the film.
• Born of Magic: Olaf and Marshmallow spontaneously come alive after being formed by Elsa's magic.
• Braving the Blizzard: After Elsa traps Arendelle in a severe winter and flees, her sister Anna chases after her, braving the storm and recruiting an ice trader named Kristoff to help her get there.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Elsa distances herself from Anna to keep her sister safe from her powers, but until after the coronation ball, Anna doesn't understand why her beloved sister had turned away from her.
• Breaking the Bonds: Near the end, Hans shackles Elsa in the dungeon. Too bad for him, extremely low temperatures make iron brittle. In a matter of minutes, Elsa breaks the shackles and runs off again.
• Break the Cutie: Happens to Elsa and Anna a lot, starting with the accident as children, moving through the death of their parents, and then the Endless Winter, Anna getting cursed to freeze from the inside out, as well as Hans's evil taunts to Anna that he never loved her (and claims that there is no one who does) and is planning to let her die, followed by then guilting Elsa about Anna's assumed death.
• Brick Joke:
  • During "Let It Go", Elsa removes her crown and throws it out of sight somewhere in the ice castle. We never see her pick it up again. Immediately after the credits, Marshmallow finds it and puts it on, seeming quite happy about it.
  • The ice staircase Elsa creates during the same number. When Anna and Kristoff struggle to hike up the mountain to Elsa's palace, Olaf suggests they just take the staircase he noticed.
  • Kristoff claims that all men pick their noses to Anna. It gets mentioned in the credits:
  The views and opinions expressed by Kristoff in the film that all men eat their own boogers are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Walt Disney Company or the filmmakers. Neither The Walt Disney Company nor the filmmakers make any representation of the accuracy of any such views and opinions.
• Bridal Carry:
  • Kristoff carries Anna in his arms as he brings her back to the castle. This can also be called the "princess carry", which is fitting.
  • Hans also briefly carries Anna like this after she is brought to him by two servants.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When Kristoff reunites with the Trolls, three approach them with their good news. One grew a mushroom, another discovered a crystal, and the third reveals he passed a kidney stone.
• Bright Castle:
  • Arendelle's royal palace has a fortified wall around it, but is otherwise in the style of a fairy tale castle.
  • Elsa's ice palace is even more in this style.
• Bullying a Dragon: Let's try to kill the woman who you've seen shoot ice from her hands with a thought, and then buried Arendelle in a near apocalyptic mid-summer snowstorm, both without even meaning to. It's no wonder that when Elsa finally tries to kill the Duke's men, they are only saved at the last second because Hans reminds her she isn't a cold monster. They don't even know that the Endless Winter was an accident — they just have Anna's word that it was, and the Duke makes it clear he doesn't really believe it, meaning they attacked her given the possibility that she was The Unfettered.
• Burn the Witch!: Heavily played with. When their parents see the girls in an ice-covered room, they're upset — because Anna's seriously injured, not because magic was involved. When they take the girls to trolls for healing, though, the trolls warn of the possibility of mobs attacking Elsa and warn she must learn control. Elsa and her parents then do all they can to keep her magic hidden. There's then a different subversion when people find out and the general response includes some Fantastic Racism and accusations of "monster," but no one's calling for a pyre yet and most people show more concern about the effects of her magic, rather than that it was magic at all, as an Endless Winter sets in and Elsa flees without explanation. Anna attempts to defy the trope and defend Elsa, but when the blizzard persists, the Duke sends men to kill her. The trope then becomes triple subverted when Hans redirects their arrow, saving her.^note A Freeze-Frame Bonus, more noticeable with knowledge of Hans's Evil All Along status, adds another twist by showing Hans looking at the chandelier before redirecting the Mook's arrow toward it so it would fall on her. He then exploits the trope to have Elsa sentenced to death, not for magic so much as for appearing to have used it to murder her sister and curse the country. The trope gets twisted yet again when the execution fails because Anna takes the blow for her sister.
• Busby Berkeley Number: "In Summer" plays this trope up, with Olaf dancing with cartoon seagulls.

Tropes C-E

• Cain and Abel: Inverted when Anna saves her sister Elsa from being killed by Hans. Made particularly interesting in that this act involves Anna forgoing a cure for, and thus being killed by, a deadly curse from her sister - a curse that had only been placed accidentally.
• Casting Gag: Elsa's voice actress, Idina Menzel, originated "Defying Gravity," another "I Am Becoming" Song of a misfit witch finding herself like in "Let It Go," in Wicked.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: A minor variation. Elsa never realized just what she triggered when she ran off to the North Mountain and believes she's doing everyone a favor. Then Anna goes and proves her wrong during "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)".
• The Cameo: Rapunzel and Eugene appear for just a moment among the guests arriving for Elsa's coronation.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: The wolf attack scene. First as Anna and Kristoff are being chased by the wolves, they momentarily banter about Anna's Fourth-Date Marriage. Then when Kristoff is pulled off the sled by a wolf, Anna cries out "Christopher!" and his first response as he's dragged through the snow is to correct her. After Anna lights a bedroll on fire and uses it to take out the wolves biting on Kristoff, he's more upset that she almost set him on fire.
• Changing Chorus:
  • The chorus to "The First Time in Forever" changes every time, but it still counts as a chorus because it has the song title several times in each one.
  • In "Let it Go", the chorus changes every time, with the only consistent lines being "Let it go! Let it go!" and "Let the storm rage on".
• Character Tics: The film uses these to give the characters further personality. See the Characters pages for specific details.
• Chekhov's Gun: Hans mentions his twelve older brothers as a counterpoint to Anna's problematic relationship with Elsa. During his Motive Rant he points out that all those older brothers put him so far down the line of succession, he needs to marry into another kingdom's throne to fullfill his ambitions.
• Church of Saint Genericus: The bishop at Elsa's coronation wears Arendelle's crocus on his mitre instead of a cross. Similarly, the orb used in the coronation is not topped with a cross but a crocus flower. So at most we can surmise this is some form of Christianity, but don't know anything more specific. His vestment looks very Catholic, though Arendelle would most likely be Lutheran and Scandinavian Lutheran Bishops usually dress very differently from their Catholic and Anglican counterparts.
• Circle of Standing Stones: The magical trolls live in such an area (when they aren't being the standing stones themselves).
• Closed Door Rapport: "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?" is basically this in song form.
  Anna: Do you wanna build a snowman?
  It doesn't have to be a snowman!
  Elsa: Go away, Anna.
  Anna: Okay, bye...
• Clothing Reflects Personality: At the start of the film, Anna and Elsa wear light-colored clothes, which symbolizes their relationship with each other going well. After Elsa is separated from Anna and they grow apart (especially during the "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" sequence), their clothes become progressively darker, with Elsa regaining lighter clothes after fleeing the kingdom once the eternal winter is unleashed. Then at the end, both the sisters' clothes are light again representing they have finally reunited. See the Characters pages for more details.
• Colour Motif: See the Characters pages for more details.
  • Anna's outfits nearly all contain some form of green (even her mostly blue and violet winter outfit has green stems on the rosemaling), tying her to spring.
  • Elsa, by contrast, has outfits that are some shade of blue, tying her to winter. Even her coronation dress is teal, with cyan gloves.
  • Hans is associated with white, which only drives home his status as a subversion of the Disney Nice Guy archetype.
  • Kristoff wears mostly brown, symbolizing his down-to-earth nature and his humble origins.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Anna misinterprets Kristoff's repeated question "You got engaged to a man you just met that day?" as inattention rather than incredulity, from the way she replies, "Yes! Pay attention!"
  • When Kristoff asks Anna if her parents ever warned her against strangers (in relation to the above mentioned engagement), this only causes her to look at Kristoff, her hired guide, suspiciously and scoot farther away on the seat from him.
  • After her heart is frozen, he takes her to see his family in hopes they can heal it. They promptly try matchmake the two before either can explain the actual reason for their visit, and in the process, list all of the reasons they're concerned Anna might not be interested in him. Kristoff tries to bring up the fact that Anna is dying, pleading "We've got a real, actual problem here." Bulda responds "I'll say," and continues to list his flaws and traits that they think Anna might find unattractive.
• Coming of Age Story: A large part of the story is Elsa and Anna both growing up out of their cloistered childhood. In particular, the plot is kicked off by Elsa quite literally coming of age and having to take on adult responsibilities.
• Company Cross References': Rapunzel and Eugene are seen in the crowd entering the castle when the gates are opened.
• Composite Character: Elsa is not in the fairy tale, but is a merging of the eponymous Snow Queen and Kai, the boy whose heart freezes with all the negativity he sees and is thawed by sisterly love.
• Consolation Backfire: After Elsa reveals she doesn't know how to thaw the winter, either, Anna worries about how to save the kingdom. Then her hair starts turning white and she becomes colder and colder, and is told it's because her sister froze her heart, which is slowly turning her to ice. But at least she can be brought back to the castle, to her fiancé and True Love Hans, who will break the curse with his kiss, right? Wrong. He reveals his true colors, mocks her for falling for him, and leaves her to die.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • The fact that Kristoff, who has never seen Anna since witnessing Pabbie use his magic on her, would happen to cross paths with Anna 13 years later at Oaken's.
  • That Oaken's "winter department" happens to have the exact items that both Anna and Kristoff are looking for. In Anna's size. And nothing else.
  • Anna's curse turns her into solid ice at the exact second where she walks into the path of Hans's sword.
• Convection, Schmonvection:
  • In their childhood, Anna and Elsa play in the snow dressed in their nightgowns and seem perfectly comfortable. Elsa is immune to cold but Anna isn't.
  • We see it where extreme cold should be incredibly harmful. Twice in the film characters fall into water (Anna, then Sven) and are perfectly safe once they climb out despite that it's freezing cold out. Getting wet in freezing temperatures is bad, and getting out of the water does not remove the danger. Anna's dress freezes but it is Played for Laughs, and since she immediately goes into Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna moments later, it probably wouldn't be that serious. Sven, on the other hand, even if he is a reindeer, would potentially have been in trouble after he falls through ice into freezing water, even though he climbs out, had Elsa not ended the winter so soon after.
  • When the heroes go to visit Kristoff's troll family, Olaf does not melt, or even thaw a little, despite walking between what appear to be geysers of steam, and this is well before he gets his personal flurry. The steam suggests that the area where the trolls live has geothermal features, which are the reason why it stays clear of snow while the rest of Arendelle is snowed in.
  • At the end of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" Elsa is sitting against the door, and has flash-frozen it and the surrounding walls to the point where snow is raining from the ceiling. Anna's sitting against the same door on the other side, but has no reaction to how the door would feel.
• Cool Crown: Elsa gets a gold tiara for her coronation, but tosses it away. Marshmallow finds it in The Stinger, and takes it for himself.
• Cope by Creating: After Elsa escapes Arendelle, she creates a beautiful ice palace both to test her Elemental Powers and to release her pent-up emotions.
• Costume Porn:
  • As in Tangled, all of the characters' costumes, especially the royals', are detailed to the stitch.
  • In the various music videos for "Let It Go" (English and other languages), the singers usually are seen wearing fancy outfits. In the Mandarin version the singer is wearing a dress with a train of white feathers.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Anna points out "Of course, none of this would have happened if she had just told me her secret. She's a stinker!" in response to Elsa's powers.
• Counterpoint Duet: "For the First Time in Forever" for Elsa and Anna, towards the end of it. The former is dreading the day and the latter is ecstatic. They later have a second one in the Triumphant Reprise/Dark Reprise where the lyrics of the two melodies in the reprise diverge even further into dark and light emotions than in the original, to the point where the major and minor chords struggle for dominance.
• Cracks in the Icy Façade: Kristoff is first shown to be a be a aloof, emotionally distant misanthrope whose only strongest connection he ever had is with Sven, his pet reindeer. When he first meets Anna, he acts very snugs toward her, saying that he'll only help her find Elsa if she pays him first. However, as he spends more time around Anna, he starts to see the good in her and the kindness that humans can have, allowing him to be more affectionate an attentive towards her. He also cares for Anna when she's hit by Elsa's powers and tries to get her back home in time to save her life. This is just the early part of his Character Development as he finally starts to see that not all humans are bad and begins to be more warm and caring towards others as well, and by the end of the first movie, becomes a Nice Guy.
• Crash-Into Hello: Anna meets Hans by bumping into his horse. They quickly become engaged.
• Creator Cameo: Anna and Elsa's mother, Iduna, is voiced by Jennifer Lee, the co-director of Frozen.
• Credits Gag: Before the information pertaining to Disney holding the rights to the film appears in the end credits, we get this legal disclaimer:
  The views and opinions expressed by Kristoff in the film that all men eat their own boogers are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Walt Disney Company or the filmmakers. Neither The Walt Disney Company nor the filmmakers make any representation of the accuracy of any such views and opinions.
• Crowd Song:
  • The opening song "Frozen Heart" is sung by ice harvesters as they work.
  • The trolls' song "Fixer Upper" is sung by every single troll, even the children.
• Cry into Chest: Elsa finally breaks down and does this to Anna's frozen body after she sacrifices herself for Elsa.
• Cue the Sun: At the very end of "Let It Go", which both represents and celebrates the awakening of the "new" Elsa, the sun rises, and this coincides with her walking towards it after singing "Here I stand, in the light of day."
• Cup Holders: According to Anna, Kristoff's new sled has one.
• Curse Escape Clause: "Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart." The characters assume this means True Love's Kiss, but what breaks the curse is Anna sacrificing herself for her sister; an act of familial love on Anna's part.
• Cut the Safety Rope: Anna cuts the rope so she and Kristoff could escape Marshmallow. They fall 200 feet but land in soft snow.
• Dagwood Sandwich: During "In Summer", Anna and Kristoff are confused as to why exactly they appear in Olaf's dream sequence holding these when Olaf imagines what summer will be like.
• Dance Party Ending: Skate party ending, but the idea's the same; happy fun at the end.
  Olaf: And glide, and pivot, and glide, and pivot...
• Dangerous Interrogative: When Kristoff refers to Oaken as a "crook", Oaken stands up (revealing himself to be much taller than Kristoff) and asks, "Vhat did you...call me?" Cue him tossing Kristoff out of his store.
• Darker and Edgier: A contender for this among Disney films, despite having permanent deaths of only two minor characters (the King and Queen), and the villains punished justly without death. The film features childhood trauma, parents lost at sea, friendly noblemen who turn out to be murderous, a comic relief character that spends the movie dreaming about the thing that will kill him, and the entire kingdom nearly dying in a massive snowstorm near the end.
• Darkest Hour: Elsa has accidentally frozen Anna's heart and only an act of true love can save her. Kristoff takes her back to the castle to be kissed by Prince Hans, who turns out to have been playing Anna for a sucker so he can kill Elsa, who had been captured and imprisoned, and take over Arendelle, leaving Anna to freeze to death.
• Dark Reprise: Although "For the First Time in Forever (reprise)" starts off as a Triumphant Reprise, it quickly descends to become a Dark Reprise, resulting in Elsa freezing Anna's heart. Also, listen to the ominous music that follows right after and the fact that you hear the percussion from the ice harvesters' song "Frozen Heart", from the line "beware the frozen heart".
• The Day the Music Lied: When Anna asks Hans to kiss her, he leans in and both pucker as the romantic music swells...but then suddenly the music stops, Hans pulls away and gives a Slasher Smile, and delivers his Wham Line below.
• Decon-Recon Switch: Several. To wit:
  • True Love saving the day. Rather than Love at First Sight and Fourth-Date Marriage being the cure for isolation and abuse, this movie treats it as a symptom, for both Anna and Hans. After years of isolation and neglect (as Elsa was acting aloof in order to keep her powers controlled and secret), Anna Desperately Craves Affection and Thinks Like a Romance Novel and so confuses companionability for True Love, not having much reference for an actual healthy relationship. While she sincerely believes the two of them are meant to be, Hans himself is a subversion of the Prince Charming trope and a deconstruction of the Prince Charmless trope, his own neglect as the youngest of Massively Numbered Siblings turning him ruthless, and is exploiting Anna's vulnerability to get closer to a throne. While the realistic shock expressed by other characters in response to the sudden engagement and Hans' revelation as a Sociopath seem to deconstruct the tropes, the Power of Love is still what saves Anna, but through an Act of True Love rather than a Grand Romantic Gesture such as True Love's Kiss. She comes to a more sophisticated understanding of what love looks like and finds a healthier romantic relationship with a man who has proven himself true.
  • Anna veers between being an Action Girl and Damsel in Distress, but never in a stereotypical manner. When she's taken captive, she's on her deathbed, her heart and body slowly freezing solid, so one can forgive any "helpless" vibes, and she ends up breaking the curse herself. She's also a a princess who journeys to save her sister and their kingdom and always puts up a fight against threats, but as a Sheltered Aristocrat who spent most of her life locked up, and without any magic or training, it's a struggle with mixed results, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. In the end, she does succumb to the curse, but revives without being rescued by a Knight in Shining Armor or outdoing any villains in combat, but by curing the curse herself through her Heroic Sacrifice, because The Power of Love within her is what mattered, rather than whether other people wanted to rescue her ''or'' her Action Girl qualities.
  • "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", "For the First Time in Forever", and "Let It Go" are each an unusual "I Want" Song:
    • Anna has two I Want Songs about longing for love. "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" focuses on how much she misses her big sister and is becoming increasingly lonely as the two are isolated. It then transitions into "For the First Time in Forever", in which Anna, having come to believe her sister has no desire to mend their relationship, spends the first half of the song excited over the chance to connect with someone when the castle gates open. The second part brings another transition: after singing about desire for a friend, Anna begins singing about possibly finding romantic True Love. Immediately afterward, she runs into the friendly Hans, only later to discover he's not actually what she wants. Instead, he's a Gold Digger exploiting the Thinks Like a Romance Novel mindset she expresses towards the end of her second "I Want" Song, which resulted, along with low self-esteem and a starvation for love of which he also takes advantage, from the isolation and neglect demonstrated in both songs. She does want love, and love is what saves her from her curse later, but it's the mended relationship with her sister, which is what she'd wanted most all along, that takes precedence. Moreover, the love that saves her is the love within her for her sister, demonstrated with an Act of True Love, as opposed to receiving a True Love's Kiss or other gesture, romantic or otherwise. She does get that romantic love she'd come to also desire, but it's secondary to her repaired relationship with Elsa, and when she does, it's with a man who's proven himself sincere.
    • In "For the First Time in Forever," Elsa has her own part, but sings about what she does not want, namely to lose control of her powers. Yet there's a hint that part of her does want to use her powers, but is afraid to. "Be the good girl you always have to be/Conceal/Don't feel/Put on a show/Make one wrong move and everyone will know." This desire becomes more apparent in "Let It Go," when Elsa flees the kingdom and believes that increased isolation means freedom to enjoy her powers, not realizing that her unchecked magic is destroying the kingdom. In the end, Anna shows her love can thaw the ice and she gains better control and is able to truly embrace her powers without fear.
  • "Let It Go" is a speech of these expressed through song. After having spent most of her life concealing her ice powers, once Elsa runs to the North Mountain, she realizes she has no one to fear and no one to hurt. "Let It Go" comes on and she starts testing the extent of her powers, creating a new dress and an entire ice castle. However, she trades one form of isolation for another and still does not have full control, and ends up setting off an Endless Winter in the process and later accidentally cursing her sister. When Anna sacrifices herself to save Elsa, her love for her sister is enough to reverse the effects of the curse, and Elsa realizes that she will still be loved and that love will thaw - love, not a life of fear, is the key - and finally truly embraces her powers.
• Deconstructed Trope:
  • Talking to animals. Anna talks fondly to adorable ducklings, but they're ordinary, non-talking ducklings. Kristoff, the outdoors man, is the character who has full conversations with an animal companion, but even Sven, while a reindeer of relative intelligence, doesn't actually speak. In fact, when "Sven" does, it's Kristoff saying things for him in a goofy voice, the way real pet owners often do with their pets. When he tries to communicate, he must use body language, like a real pet. And neither human Speaks Fluent Animal. For both of them, it's connected to their social isolation — Kristoff's Establishing Character Moment is singing a lullaby to Sven called "Reindeers Are Better than People," about his negative experiences and subsequent distrust of other humans, and Anna excitedly tells the ducks about her excitement over the chance to meet people for the first time in the years since the castle gates closed.
  • It turns out locking princesses up for most of their childhood isn't so great for their psychological development. Afraid that Elsa may be attacked if her powers become known, King Agnarr and Queen Iduna keep Elsa and Anna shut up in the castle in a misguided (albeit well-meant) effort to protect her. Elsa, having been raised to fear interaction, ends up severely withdrawn and avoidant. Anna, having never been told this and instead isolated by her family without explanation and seemingly rejected by the only friend she had left, ends up so desperate for affection that she throws herself headfirst into a relationship with a guy she just met, agreeing to marry him less than a day later.
  • Even though Anna is a Princess and Hans is a Prince, and they sang that love duet "Love Is an Open Door", Queen Elsa refuses to let them marry right away no matter how infatuated they are, since Fourth Date Marriages aren't actually as normal as they usually are in fiction.
    Elsa: You can't marry a man you just met.
• The Defroster: Anna's Heroic Sacrifice, and subsequent resurrection (her act of love for her sister thawing the frozen heart inflicted on her accidentally by Elsa) being the thing that finally breaks Elsa out of her own (figurative) Ice Queen status. She still remains a literal Ice Queen, but a happy and cheerful one, now.
• Descent into Darkness Song: The Dark Reprise of "For the First Time in Forever" starts out mainly positive. Anna starts the song with hope she and Elsa can be close again and that she can give Elsa support. But the tone ends up degrading into this, thanks to Elsa's fear getting the better of her and her expressions of panic drowning out Anna's ones of hope and utmost confidence that she can control her powers and bring back summer; since her powers respond to emotion, it culminates in her accidentally releasing a blast of magic which freezes Anna's heart.
• Description Cut: As the castle prepares to open its gates, we hear a couple of townspeople discussing how beautiful and elegant the princesses must be. Cuts to Anna looking like a complete bedhead: fast asleep, very messy hair, snoring and drooling all over her pillow.
• Designated Girl Fight: A gender-flipped subversion. Kristoff rolls up his sleeves to deal with Hans at the end, but Anna stops him to deliver the thrashing herself.
• Despair Event Horizon: By lying to Elsa about Anna having already died and emphasizing the part her powers played in the curse, Hans deliberately pushes Elsa over it. Would've worked too, if it hasn't made Elsa so emotionally empty that her Psychoactive Powers shut down, ending the blizzard and allowing Anna to spot them and save her sister.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?:
  • The Duke of Weselton says this in his introduction when he openly says how he plans to exploit Arendelle's profits.
  • Anna, briefly, after running into Hans. "You're gorgeous. Wait, what?"
  • Kristoff when he gleefully tells Anna "I could kiss you!" when she gives him his new sleigh.
• Did Not Think This Through: As a Reconstruction of The Heart and the Plucky Girl, although Anna is brave, optimistic, and extremely loving, these strengths come with the downside that this is one of her weaknesses:
  • When the castle gates temporarily open and Anna gains a reprieve from her isolation, she becomes excited about the chance to meet and befriend new people. Among the new visitors is the charming Hans, the first person in years to treat Anna as a friend. She agrees to his marriage proposal before the night ends and the gates close, despite not having met any other potential suitors yet to compare and the two only having known each other for a day. Despite being aware the decision is "totally crazy," in her happiness and fear of losing her only apparent friend, Anna neglects to consider potential issues with the quick decision, some of which are later discussed by Kristoff. First, the queen refuses to allow the marriage because of its suddenness, and then, Hans turns out to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Lampshaded by Hans after The Reveal:
    Prince Hans: You were so desperate for love, you willing to marry me, just like that.
  • Her plan to find Elsa and bring back summer. She's so quick to undertake the journey that she leaves unprepared for the ordeal. She also has no assurance that Elsa will want or know how to thaw the Endless Winter the snow queen's powers created and is acting out of optimism and faith in her sister, but without a backup plan. She's right about Elsa not being malicious and the curse on the kingdom being an accident, but it ultimately takes more than words of support to show Elsa how to thaw. Lampshaded by Kristoff:
    Kristoff: That's your plan? My ice business is riding on you talking to your sister?
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Hans calls Anna out on being so willing to marry him when they don't truly know each other. "You were so desperate for love, you were willing to marry me, just like that!"
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Hans claims that Anna died in his arms, when really he's locked her in a room and left her to freeze to death.
• Dies Wide Open: A magical variant, combined with Taken for Granite. When Anna's curse completely envelopes her and turns her to ice, her eyes are wide, staring, and fearful.
• Disney Acid Sequence: A mild example with Olaf's number, "In Summer". The movie has its fair share of anachronisms, but "In Summer" feels like it comes straight out of the 1950s or even from something like Mary Poppins. Its visual style, with blazing sunshine, saturated colors, and bloom, is completely unlike the rest of the movie. It's lampshaded when Anna and Kristoff seem surprised and confused to find themselves in it towards the end.
• Disney Death:
  • Princess Anna turns into an ice statue but thaws moments later.
  • Sven falls into a chilly ocean when the ice breaks, but resurfaces moments later.
• Disneyfication: As expected, the story bears little resemblance to "The Snow Queen" beyond a few elements. Unusually for this trope, it's probably an overall darker story than the original! Sure, Gerda and Kai have problems, but nowhere on the psychologically torturous level of what Anna and Elsa face.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • Downplayed. Anna punches Hans hard enough to knock him overboard, but not to his death.
  • Subverted. Marshmallow "dies" when falling off a cliff, but returns in The Stinger. Notice who else just narrowly escapes falling to his death in that scene...
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Marshmallow's response to Anna hitting him with a snowball is to chase her and Kristoff off a cliff.
• Dodgy Toupee: The Duke's toupee comes off at one point.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Kristoff asks if Anna knows how Hans picks his nose. Anna says Hans is a prince, he doesn't do such disgusting things. Kristoff's response: "All men do it", which is usually a thing they say about masturbating.
  • "Oh, hey, do me a favor and grab my butt." Olaf's (detached) butt is wandering by at the time, but the fact that Olaf follows it up by saying something along the lines of, "Oh, much better..." once Kristoff puts Olaf's head back in place brings a whole new meaning to the innuendo.
• Doomed New Clothes: Anna's coronation ballgown doesn't really last. When she falls into an icy creek, the skirt is frozen solid within seconds of Anna standing up, thus further justifying that her main purpose for stopping at Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna (conveniently just a few hundred feet away from the creek) is go get more appropriate cold weather gear.
• Double Aesop: "Fixer Upper" is about a potential romantic relationship with Kristoff, but the song applies perfectly to Anna's sisterly relationship with Elsa.
• Double Meaning:
  • "Let It Go" is about how Elsa can finally stop trying to hold in her powers, but also about how she is leaving her past and her kingdom behind.
  • "Love Is An Open Door" and "Fixer Upper" are both about romantic love but also can also be applied to the familial love between Anna and Elsa. The former song can also refer to Prince Hans's plan to use Anna's infatuation with him ("Love") as a way to gain access ("Open Door") to the throne.
  • At the end of the movie, there's an exchange that refers to not just the literal castle gates, but also to Elsa and Anna's relationship.
    Anna: I love the open gates.
    Elsa: We are never closing them again.
• Double-Meaning Title: As revealed by co-Director Chris Buck in an interview, the title refers to not only the frozen landscape but also the relationship between the two sisters, "which is frozen in the film when they were little girls".
• Dramatic Irony:
  • After getting Laser-Guided Amnesia and until the Internal Reveal, Anna is unaware of Elsa's magic and the reason for their separation; Anna doesn't know that Elsa still loves her and pushes her away in an attempt to protect her.
  • When the sisters meet in the ice palace and Elsa loses control of her magic again, she doesn't exactly see her curse hitting Anna's heart, unlike the audience.
  • Unlike the audience, Elsa doesn't see Hans Motive Ranting to the dying Anna, extinguishing the fire, and leaving her in a locked room, so Elsa seems to see him as a good man as she asks Hans to take care of Anna.
• Dramatic Wind: Elsa's emotional state can usually be determined by observing how hard it's snowing. You can also tell whenever she has hit a full-blown Heroic BSoD, which causes the Dramatic Wind to halt completely and the snow to simply freeze in the air. This only happens twice in the film — once after she learns that her parents have died, and again after Hans tells her that Anna is dead.
• Dreamworks Face: In all the posters for the film, Elsa is shown making this face. Typically, the rest of the main cast will be all smiles alongside her, although there are some posters of the sisters where Anna attempts to imitate Elsa's, which shows how much she looks up to her big sister.
• Dual-Meaning Chorus: The first appearance of "Let It Go" begins with the chorus indicating Elsa is now free to use her powers, but ends with it being a declaration that she is leaving her past behind.
• Dying Candle: A variation is used for a Murder by Inaction: Hans extinguishes the candles in the room where he leaves Anna to die.
• Dysfunction Junction: Everyone has or is implied to have a Dark and Troubled Past, and as a result, Anna is a reckless Love Martyr with unspecified mental issues, Elsa is a Broken Bird suffering from anxiety and Internalized Categorism, Hans is The Sociopath, and Kristoff is a bit of a misanthrope.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Elsa and Anna reconcile and reconnect and they and the kingdom are happy. After all the tragedies both sisters have been through, they really, really deserve one.
• Easily Forgiven: Elsa is well-intentioned, and most of the harm was accidental, but she also has very bad publicity, and is quickly and easily forgiven without her innocence being proved:
  • Anna has been straight-up abandoned by her older sister for 13 years without explanation. Elsa continues their parents' policy of keeping the family isolated, still without explanation, before opening the gates for one day, only in order to hold her coronation ceremony. During a confrontation about this, when Anna begins begging for an explanation, Elsa snaps and shoots ice spikes at her, and then promptly runs out of the room and the kingdom as an Endless Winter begins. Anna blames herself for this and defends her sister against the naturally suspicious townspeople and dignitaries, despite the situation looking as if Elsa had cursed the kingdom on purpose. An apologetic Anna heads into the blizzard to save the kingdom and her sister, but when she informs the queen that the latter had frozen the entire kingdom, Elsa's response is to insist there was nothing she could do and accidentally curse Anna's heart, before summoning a giant Snowlem to literally throw Anna and Kristoff out of her Ice Castle in her panic. Despite not even knowing that the cursed heart was an accident, Anna doesn't hold any of this against Elsa, and doesn't hesitate to sacrifice her life to save Elsa.
  • Also applies to the populace of Arendelle as a whole. Despite the fact that Elsa abandoned her kingdom and plunged the world into an Endless Winter that could surely have caused some casualties, as well as froze her sister who magically turned to ice from inside out in public view, and no one - even Anna - has any evidence that these things were accidents besides her word, none of the people of Arendelle have a grudge against her and they actually welcome their queen back with open arms. Made especially impressive by the fact that until that point, Elsa had stayed shut up in the castle and only opened up the gates for her coronation ceremony and its celebration, during which she had a fight with her sister that ended with her snapping and shooting a ring of ice spikes, so she didn't exactly have much of an established reputation to help, either.
• The Eleven O'Clock Number: "Fixer-Upper" occurs at the end of Act II, right before the climax gets set off with the reveal that Elsa's frozen Anna's heart, which will kill her without an Act of True Love. The song focuses on the movie's themes of giving people chances and realizing that "people make bad choices if they're mad or scared or stressed."
• Emotional Powers: Elsa's powers are tied to her emotions. Positive emotions tend to lend themselves to positive creations, such as Olaf and her ice castle, which she constructs beautifully while in a self-affirming mood. Negative emotions can have more negative consequences: her fear when she flees the kingdom brings about an Endless Winter, and when her sister tells her about the curse on the kingdom, cracks start appearing and a red light appears within. She comes to fear that her powers go out of control when she feels even the smallest bit of emotion, and eventually takes her father's well-meaning advice to "conceal it, don't feel it" in order to deal with Power Incontinence to the point that she attempts to suppress her emotions in general, which increases her fear of losing control, and by extension, her Power Incontinence, which grows the more fear she feels.
• Endless Winter: Elsa sets off an endless winter in Arendelle, though she didn't intend to do it and is shocked when Anna tells her that.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Although the Duke of Weselton attempts to exploit Arendelle, he's the first to put a consoling arm on a devastated-looking Hans and help him into a chair.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: When Kristoff's (wooden, freshly lacquered) sled falls off of a cliff, the impact breaks a lit lantern, splashing the sled with flaming oil.
  [sled bursts in to flames]
  [Beat]
  Kristoff: But I just paid it off!
• Evolving Attack: Elsa is born with ice powers than only grow as she gets older. At eight years old, she can cover a rather big room with ice and snow. Ten years later, she can plunge a whole country into a premature, apparently Endless Winter — complete with dangerous snow storms when she's feeling agitated. This is even mentioned by the trolls when Elsa's parents seek their counsel. She can also suffuse life onto her snow/ice constructs. After Character Development kicks in, she obtains the ability to reverse the effects of her magic.
• Exact Words:
  • "Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart." And it doesn't have to be romantic love, nor does it state who has to do said act — or even which heart needs thawing. Anna's heart — and body — literally freeze solid, but when their sisterly love unfreezes Anna, it also thaws Elsa's metaphorically frozen heart.
  • The troll's warning at the beginning of the film when he says that "Fear will be your enemy." The king and queen think that he's talking about how people will fear Elsa when they find out she has powers. In reality, it's Elsa's fear of her own powers (along with her parents' fears) and her constant repression of them that leads to them running out of control.
  • The king advises Elsa to "Conceal it; don't feel it; don't let it show" when coaching her on controlling her power, but she grows up shortening it to "Conceal; don't feel" and attempting to completely suppress her power and the emotions that set them off, which just makes her fear — and by extension, her Power Incontinence — worse.
  • A funny example is when the group first arrives at Elsa's castle. After Anna tells Kristoff that he shouldn't go in yet, Olaf tries to go in with her, and Anna tells Olaf to give her a minute. Cue Olaf quietly counting the seconds. It's made even funnier when Olaf sits down beside Kristoff, and Kristoff very reluctantly joins in counting as well. If you count along slowly while Anna goes in to talk to Elsa, it is almost sixty seconds exactly when Olaf comes in. In real time it feels a bit closer to seventy seconds, but they did have to get up the stairs.
  • Deconstructed and played with heavily in one case, with the film raising the question of which parts of the spirit of a wish matter:
    • In "For the First Time in Forever," Anna dreams of love and of meeting "a beautiful stranger, tall and fair." Hans seems to more or less deliver: a beautiful stranger, not particularly tall but relatively so compared to her, and redheaded, so debatably fair. He also seems to capture the spirit of the wish: just as charismatic, regal, brave, and friendly as the Prince Charming implied. But since the charm is a cover for Hans also being selfish and cruel, and the relationship between the two isn't love as Anna first believes it to be, he doesn't fit the most important parts of the spirit of her wish after all, making him a downplayed example of the trope.
    • Anna also meets Kristoff, who fits the literal description better, as he's blond and tall. On the other hand, Kristoff differs from the classic Prince Charming archetype implied in that he is a gruff, aloof, decidedly non-royal Pig Pen who can be rude. But he also has a has a heart of gold and he and Anna fall in love, so he fits the most important part of the spirit of her wish.
    • On top of that, while Anna's dream is implied to be romantic, the Exact Words can also be applied to the platonic case of her sister, "a beautiful stranger, tall and fair", since the two have been separated for most of their childhood so as to be near-strangers. Not quite what Anna had been implying in those particular lines, but their reconciliation is in line with the most important parts of her wish, as the two sisters truly love each other, and as seen in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", what she really wanted all along was her big sister back.
    • While Anna is bonding with Hans, he promises her he would never shut her out. After his true motives are revealed, Hans leaves Anna to die by shutting her in a room.
• Exposed to the Elements:
  • Justified Trope. While surrounded by snow and ice, Elsa changes from a conservative summer dress to what looks like a winter-toned sundress, with bare arms and light enough material that it would probably be a little chilly even on a bright spring day. And it's made of ice and snow. She doesn't have a problem with it because she wields ice magic; as she says, "The cold never bothered me anyway." She puts it on specifically because she wants to play with that magic.
  • Subverted Trope with Anna who runs off to find her in a blizzard still wearing a summer ballgown. This is because she's so worried about her sister that she rushes out, not because the writers want to avoid showing the environment affecting her. The temperature is shown to affect her, and she shivers and pulls her cloak closer. Anna then changes into a more suitable winter outfit when she finds a shop.
• Expository Hairstyle Change:
  • During "Let It Go", Elsa undoes her hair that was in a bun before to show how free she now feels. However, it is still bound up in a long braid, indicating a second, deeper level of emotional binding.
  • Anna's hair gains a platinum blonde streak after she is struck in the head by Elsa's ice powers. Later, her hair goes completely white after Elsa strikes her in the heart and she is slowly dying as a result. After Anna thaws from being frozen solid, the platinum blonde streak in her hair is gone.
• Eye Recall: When Anna comes to Elsa's ice palace and reminds her about their happy childhood, camera zooms on Elsa's eyes and a flashback shows her nearly killing Anna.

Tropes F-H

• Failed a Spot Check: Elsa apparently doesn't notice that she accidentally caused an endless winter until Anna tells her, or at least she isn't aware of how far it extends, which is strange because Arendelle can easily be seen from the mountainside.
• Failsafe Failure: Deconstructed. The failsafes actually make things worse.
  • After accidentally hitting Anna in the head, a troll tries to warn Elsa about needing to learn control by showing a vision of Elsa's older self being attacked by an angry mob. To protect her from such a thing happening, the king decides to close the family off from the world as a temporary precaution while Elsa is still learning, but this increases her fear and thus her Power Incontinence. He gives her gloves as another way to hide the magic from people, telling her "Conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show," but again, this ends up increasing Elsa's fear.
  • As a result of that anxiety, once it becomes apparent she cannot completely hide her powers, Elsa tries another failsafe and runs to the mountains, believing she can push her powers to the limit without endangering others or attracting their anger because of her isolation, only to find that her Power Incontinence has reached such an extent that the kingdom has actually plunged into an Endless Winter and that some people suspect she's done it on purpose.
• Failures on Ice:
  • In the teaser trailer, Sven has difficulty crossing a frozen lake. He even gets his tongue stuck to the ice at one point! Olaf the Snowlem isn't much better.
  • In the film itself, Olaf's actually pretty decent on the ice, and along with Elsa, actually helps Anna, who's learning to skate for the first time in the epilogue.
    Anna: I got it! I got it! ... I don't got it! I don't got it!
• Fairy Tale: Inspiration is drawn from Hans Christian Andersen's original The Snow Queen.
• Fake Memories: Grand Pabbie replaces Anna's memories of snow play indoors with Elsa in their nightgowns to regular memories of them outside in winter gear.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: When an arrow meant for Elsa, due to the intervention of Hans, heads towards the ice chandelier of Elsa's castle, it causes the chandelier to fall and break apart. While Elsa manages to run away from it, the ice shards from the chandelier fly in all directions upon hitting the floor, hitting her. She falls and is knocked out as a result.
• Falling-in-Love Montage: "Love Is an Open Door" acts as one for Anna and Hans. To further drive the nature of the song home, they agree to marry the second it ends.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The landscape and setting of the movie is heavily based on Norway. What's more, Arendelle sounds like "Arendal", the name of a small Norwegian city,◊ whose economy is built around a port as well. There's also some influence from other Nordic countries, with Oaken having a sauna (associated with Finland) and there being so much steam (associated with Iceland) around where the trolls live. The Southern Isles are Fantasy Denmark (which becomes explicit in Frozen Fever) and Weselton, in its antagonistic relationship with Arendelle in a 19th-century setting, is implied to be Fantasy Sweden. Kristoff is a Saami, from his clothes and having a reindeer as a companion.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Despite its ambiguous setting, the clothes and architecture resemble those from the Victorian Era, but the only ranged weapons are javelins and crossbows.
• The Farmer and the Viper:
  • Zigzagged. Elsa is never evil, yet she does lose her temper and shoot spikes of ice at her younger sister, Anna, before plunging the kingdom into an Endless Winter. But Anna continues to trust and try to help her, despite the warnings of others. Anna turns out to be right, though. Despite her outburst, Elsa doesn't usually like hurting people and the Endless Winter is actually an accident. Still, Anna's attempt to do a good deed does get her hurt when Elsa, in a fit of panic, freezes her heart. But Anna continues to try to help Elsa, without knowing she only froze her heart accidentally and despite just having had her heart broken by Hans, and her support for her misunderstood sister helps Elsa recover and harness her powers for good.
  • From the moment they meet, Anna shows Hans nothing but kindness. That doesn't change his Evil Plan one bit and doesn't soften his attitude towards her — when he reveals his true colors, he mocks her for wanting to marry him "just like that" and for being "dumb enough" to try to help Elsa, locks her in a room to die, and tells he was planning to murder her sister.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Elsa's main flaw is being overwhelmed by fear after an accident involving her powers nearly kills her sister and the trolls warn of the possibility of angry mobs if she doesn't learn control, and her Character Development revolves around learning how to deal to with it.
  • Played with in the case of Anna, who has two: naivete and impulsiveness. After falling for Hans, she impulsively agrees to a Fourth-Date Marriage. She also shows impulsiveness and naivete when she rushes after Elsa as the Endless Winter begins, with no protection, no plan to bring Elsa back beyond talking her down somehow, no idea how she'd accomplish that, and no reason to be sure that Elsa really isn't evil and intentionally cursing the land. As a result, she nearly dies when Elsa accidentally curses her and Hans leaves her to die. However, while her trust in Hans is misplaced, her trust in Elsa is validated, and the film shows Hans to be a talented actor who fools all the other characters and even the audience. The Reveal creates a lesson for the audience as well as Character Development for Anna, who realizes that after her childhood of isolation she does not know much about love and her Wrong Genre Savvy mindset was wrong. She uses her experience to grow and gain a more sophisticated understanding of love while keeping her large heart and choosing to continue to see the best in Elsa, her unflappable bravery and loving nature saving herself, her sister, and the kingdom. Lampshaded repeatedly:
    Kristoff: That's your plan? My ice business is riding on you talking to your sister?
    Anna: Yup.
    Kristoff: [after nearly being impaled by one of the spikes created by Elsa's magic] So you're not at all afraid of her?
    Anna: Why would I be?
    Olaf: Yeah. I bet Elsa's the nicest, gentlest, warmest person ever.
    Olaf: [after actually being impaled by one of the spikes] Oh, look at that. I've been impaled.
• Fat and Skinny: The two servants of the Arendelle castle who have given names: Kai (fat) and Gerda (skinny).
• Fictional Age of Majority: It's suggested that 21 is the age of majority in Arendelle; according to Jennifer Lee, Elsa is 21 years old during the main events of the story and although her parents died when she was 18, she isn't formally crowned queen until she "comes of age" three years later.
• Finishing Each Other's Sentences:
  • In "Love is an Open Door" to show how well Anna and Hans fit together. Except Anna says "sandwiches" instead of "sentences"... and Hans's reaction, very brief confusion followed by claiming "That's what I was going to say!", foreshadows how he is tailoring himself to fit Anna's ideal to manipulate her.
  • Anna botches it again a little later in the same song, finishing the phrase the way it usually is supposed to be finished, but not realizing that doesn't quite fit the particular circumstances. At least, it's not supposed to, since Hans leaving her to finish "and I" implies that it's just her alone. Anna thinks she and Hans are meant to be together, but his love is faked.
    Hans: You—
    Anna: And I—
    Both: Were just meant to be—
  • "Fixer Upper" has it so that every other line is sung by a troll other than the line before or by the group.
• Final First Hug: For thirteen years, Elsa was suppressing her emotions and denying Anna any form of affection. In the end, Anna turns into an ice statue, and Elsa hugs her as she breaks down in tears. Anna gets better though.
• Finger Extinguisher: During the climax, Hans takes off his gloves and extinguishes a candle with his fingers so Anna will freeze to death faster.
• First Girl Wins: Played with. Though Hans is the first boy shown to the audience as a love interest and the first boy to properly meet Anna, Kristoff appears in the movie before him during A Minor Kidroduction along with Sven, Elsa, and Anna. This means that Kristoff is the first boy introduced to the audience.
• Fisher Queen: Elsa inadvertently creates an Endless Winter for her entire kingdom that can't be lifted until her emotional problems are dealt with. On a smaller scale, her ice palace on the mountainside changes between beautiful and scary depending on her mood. Her moods can also more acutely affect the weather: strong anxiety and emotional turmoil tend to cause a swirling snowstorm around her, while emotional shock and numbness tend to cause such a frozen stillness that snowflakes are suspended motionless in midair.
• Flashback Cut: When Anna tells Elsa that they can be close again like they were as kids, Elsa has a sudden flashback to the traumatic accident in which Anna was hurt by her magic, leading her to rebuff Anna's request, since she is dealing with Power Incontinence.
• Flower Motifs: The crocus flower, generally associated with Spring and rebirth, is a symbol of Arendelle and is found throughout the film, including on banners, wallpaper, and costumes.
• Flyaway Shot: The movie ends with a zooming out from the court to an aerial view of the entire castle, now partially ornamented with Elsa's ice powers.
• Forced into Their Sunday Best: One boy, for Elsa's coronation, as seen in this exchange:
  Son: Why do I have to wear this?
  Mother: Because the Queen has come of age! It's coronation day.
  Son: That's not my fault!
• Forced Dance Partner: Played for Laughs. Elsa "sacrifices" Anna to the Duke of Wesselton after saying she herself doesn't dance. She gives Anna a small smile and a soft "Sorry" as the Duke drags her off to dance.
• Foreshadowing: Has its own page.
• The Foreign Subtitle: Some countries keep the main title of Frozen, but add a subtitle in their local language, most commonly translating to "The Kingdom of Ice", "A Freezing Adventure" or "The Frozen Kingdom". Good examples are the two Spanish titles: "Frozen: El reino del hielo" in Spain ("The Ice Kingdom") and "Frozen: Una aventura congelada" in Latin America ("A Frozen Adventure").
• Forgot About His Powers: Downplayed. When her ice palace is under attack, Elsa initially retreats rather than use her powers, but begins to use them once her attackers start firing at her.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Played with. Kristoff sees the troll elder curing Anna when they are kids, and when they meet as adults, he initially appears not to recognize her. He later tells her about the event, but does not tell Anna, who had been unconscious at the time and unaware of its occurrence, that she's the girl he saw healed and she remains unaware.
• The Four Chords of Pop: "Let It Go", in the chorus.
• The Four Loves: Played with. The "act of true love" that would save Anna is initially implied to be romantic (Eros), but it turns out to be a combination of Anna's unconditional, sacrificial love (Agape) for her sister (Storge) in the climax. Learning to understand the difference between Grand Romantic Gestures and love in all its forms is a large part of Anna's Character Arc as she befriends Olaf (Philia), finds the caring Kristoff to be a better lover than the romantic but selfish Hans (Eros), realizes that she and her sister have loved each other all along (Storge), and shows unconditional, selfless love for all three.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Upbeat, active and optimistic Anna is the sanguine, her elegant, responsible and ridden with fear sister Elsa as the melancholic, laid-back, snarky-but-staunchly-moral Kristoff as the phlegmatic and ambitious, hard-working, do-whatever-it-takes-to-get-my-goal Hans as the choleric.
• Fourth-Date Marriage:
  • Lampshaded, subverted, and deconstructed with Anna and Hans becoming engaged very quickly, despite every character who knows about it (including Anna and Hans themselves) acknowledging how unusual this is. The engagement ends before the wedding, since Hans turns out to be a Gold Digger manipulating Anna, who's vulnerable because she grew up isolated and seemingly rejected, so she Desperately Craves Affection and Thinks Like a Romance Novel.
  • Played with further when Kristoff brings Anna to his family of trolls and they assume it's because the two, who have barely known each other a day, are romantically involved. When the trolls find out that's not the case, they try to conduct a wedding for them on the spot, despite the fact that neither of them is interested. The two become an Official Couple later on, but take things slowly when they do.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: The movie has many of the classic Disney elements; the Plucky Idealist Princess who believes in Love at First Sight, the Powerful Sorceress who curses the land and/or protagonists, a Race Against the Clock to save the princess (with True Love's Kiss no less) and a Prince Charming waiting in the wings. Except, Elsa didn't curse the land on purpose; it's just a case of Power Incontinence gone very wrong. Anna's naive belief in Love at First Sight proves to be disastrous, as Hans turns out to be the Big Bad, and was manipulating her naivete to get the throne. Finally, the curse is not broken by True Love's Kiss, but instead a Heroic Sacrifice, on Anna's part. We never find out if the kiss (from Kristoff) would have worked.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Rapunzel and Eugene are two of the guests at Elsa's coronation.
  • When everybody else is panicking after Elsa reveals her powers to the public, one of the Duke of Weselton's guards (to be more specific, the beardless one) smiles and looks momentarily attracted to her.
  • Literally: When Hans is about to strike the ice-infused Anna, you can see the frost forming on his blade just before it shatters.
  • When Pabbie alters Anna's memories so that she won't remember Elsa's magic and puts them back in her head, look closely and you can see Anna's tired expression change to a smile.
  • More noticeable to a viewer when rewatching with knowledge of Hans's Evil All Along status, Hans looks at the chandelier above Elsa's head before redirecting the Mook's arrow toward that chandelier so that it'll fall on her.
• Freudian Excuse: Played with heavily. In particular, subversion of this trope in particular is a key theme in the film, with several non-villainous examples:
  • Kristoff's a hero rather than a villain, but his initial misanthropy is implied to stem from a history of poor treatment by other humans. His Establishing Character Moment is a song called "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People", which includes lyrics such as "People will beat you, and curse you, and cheat you". Subverted as he begins to warm up over the course of his adventure with Anna.
  • When they're children, Anna gets hurt in an accident involving Elsa's powers. The trolls who heal her warn Elsa she must learn control and that "fear will be your enemy", showing a vision of a mob. Fear of causing more harm and of others' reactions contribute to Elsa's emotional distance later on, which make her appear cold-hearted and exacerbate her Power Incontinence, hurting Anna further in the process with misguided Break Her Heart to Save Her treatment and leading to an Endless Winter that contributes to her Hero with Bad Publicity status. Subverted when Anna's Act of True Love shows her that love is stronger than fear.
  • Despite being poorly treated by his older brothers, Hans appears to still be a well-adjusted and heroic Prince Charming. The trope is actually Double Subverted in his case. He's a Villain with Good Publicity who knows how to act charming, but is revealed to be selfish and cruel beneath the act.
  • Anna's spent most of her life feeling unloved and shut out, so she makes sure to be friendly and to show love to others by being open with them. After Elsa kicks her out of the ice palace without attempting to undo the Endless Winter and curses her heart (accidentally, but only Elsa and the audience are aware of that), and The Reveal of her apparent One True Love as Evil All Along, she questions whether she "even knows what love is", but rejects a Cynicism Catalyst and retains her big heart, instead adjusting her view of what love looks like to one that blurs the line between apparent openness and love.
• Friendless Background: Both Anna and Elsa spend most of their childhood in seclusion, and both of them have no friends growing up.
• Friendlessness Insult: A very cruel example occurs when Anna, while slowly freezing to death, tells Hans that only an act of true love can save her. He asks "a kiss of true love?", touches her face with apparent tenderness, bends to kiss her... just to retreat and says, "Oh, Anna. If only there was someone out there who loved you," before revealing his intention to get rid of Elsa and Anna to get the throne of Arendelle. It is particularly nasty because Hans knows how lonely and desperate for affection Anna is, and doesn't hesitate to rub how few people she has in her corner in her face.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: A rather tearjerking one happens in the climax: Anna has nearly completely frozen to death and Kristoff is about to approach her and give her a kiss to save her, but then she notices Hans about to murder Elsa with his sword. Willingly, she uses her last breath to throw herself in front of Hans and freezes over just before the strike. Her sacrifice was the "act of true love" which thaws her minutes later.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: In keeping with Disney tradition, this trope is not in play: the party guests, Hans included, are quite obviously drinking champagne, making his line "or maybe it's the party talking" in "Love is an Open Door" suddenly make a lot more sense.
• Funeral Cut: During the song "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?", we see Anna and Elsa's parents on a ship in bad weather, and the next shot is their funeral.
• Funny Background Event:
  • During "For the First Time in Forever" (about 22 seconds after Rapunzel & Flynn's cameo), Anna very briefly grabs a random man's hand and then immediately runs away from him. It's easy to miss because Anna's singing in the foreground, but in the background you see the man first quickly looking confused, and then he gets a smile on his face upon recognizing it was actually the Princess who just ran into him.
  • During Elsa's coronation, while Anna and Hans wave to each other (right before the bishop places the tiara on Elsa's head), you can see the guy sitting on Hans's left is apparently so bored by the event that he has fallen asleep and is leaning against him, gently snoring.
  • When Anna and Kristoff are tossed out of Elsa's ice palace by Marshmallow, Sven is shown to have his tongue stuck to the railing of the staircase.
  • During the coronation, when Anna is announced she runs on stage and awkwardly waves at the crowd. If you look at the bottom of the screen one of the guests waves back at her.
• "Gaining Confidence" Song: "Let It Go", where Elsa firsts laments how her power has caused her to become an outcast, but then she embraces her powers and basically declares "This is me? Deal with it."
• Get Out!:
  • Elsa doesn't exactly say it, but this is what she conjured up Marshmallow to say.
  • Oaken physically throws Kristoff out of his store after Kristoff calls him a crook.
• "Getting My Own Room" Plot: Inverted in the opening scenes when the sisters were children; Elsa is forced to move to her own bedroom to keep her ice powers safe from Anna after almost accidentally killing her with them, and neither sister is excited about it. While Elsa knows why, Anna remains unaware because the trolls erased her memory of Elsa's powers.
• Gilded Cage: To shield Elsa's powers away from everyone else, her parents order the castle sealed off and take it upon themselves to help her control her growing magic. Elsa spends much of her time in her room, working desperately with her parents to contain her powers, and her sister Anna is Locked Out of the Loop and left alone, wondering why her sister appears to suddenly not care about her anymore. Consequently, both sisters have unhappy and very lonely childhoods despite living under the same roof, and said roof being that of a castle.
• The Ghost: Hans's brothers are only mentioned in the movie, but never appear in person due to Hans visiting Arendelle alone.
• Gilligan Cut: Two men say that they think Anna and Elsa will be beautiful. We then cut to Anna with a major case of bedhead.
• Girls Love Chocolate: Both Anna and Elsa love chocolate.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Heavily played with. Princess Elsa was born with powerful ice magic. An accident involving her powers seriously injures her sister, and the trolls warn of the necessity of control, showing an image of her future self and an angry mob. She then works to avoid becoming this trope, but her attempts make her come off as a metaphorical ice queen to those Locked Out of the Loop and exacerbate her Power Incontinence. The day of her coronation, after years of shunning her younger sister Princess Anna, Elsa forbids her marrying Prince Charming Hans and leaves the kingdom in an Endless Winter as she builds an ice palace on the North Mountain and sings about now seeing "no right, no wrong, no rules for me." The good-hearted princess journeys to save both the kingdom and Elsa, believing her a Hero with Bad Publicity, and Elsa makes no effort to unthaw the kingdom, instead cursing the heroine... yet really is a Hero with Bad Publicity: freezing the kingdom and Anna's heart were accidents, she doesn't know how to undo the winter and her response is a result of panic, she has understandable concerns about the engagement, and her seemingly-cold treatment of Anna is an act, because her powers are emotion-based, so she tries to be an Emotionless Girl to prevent Power Incontinence. With Anna's help, she learns how to deal with her fear and magic and becomes a Benevolent Mage Ruler, rather than an Evil Queen / Wicked Witch or an Emotionless Girl afraid to use her power.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Played for Laughs during the second verse of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", when Anna mentions that she has started talking to the paintings in the castle because of her lack of company. Takes a more serious turn when she agrees to marry Hans the same day she meets him, not having much reference for what a truly loving relationship actually looks like, and panics at Elsa reclosing the gates early. Also plays a role in Elsa's spiraling anxiety.
• Go Out with a Smile: Olaf smiles as the sisters are reunited and summer returns, although he's melting: "This is the best day of my life... and quite possibly the last."
• The Good Kingdom: Arendelle has a Benevolent Mage Ruler, a Princess Classic as her sister (if not demure, like typical examples), and people who love their queen after it was clear she would only use her powers, when under her control, for good (despite Elsa growing up worried how others would treat her regardless).
• Good Parents: Played with. Elsa and Anna's parents are shown to be caring and loving towards their daughters. They frantically search for a way to help Anna after the accident, and act very protective of Elsa, firing most of the staff and closing themselves off as they shut the castle gates to protect her from others. They also patiently attempt to help her control her Power Incontinence so one day the isolation can end with less fear. However, their well-intentioned attempts backfire and harm both sisters, exacerbating Elsa's anxiety and subjecting Anna to neglect that damages her own self-esteem and ability to recognize the difference between gestures and actual love. The issues of the two girls set off a chain of events that leave the kingdom in an Endless Winter and nearly get both of them killed.
• Good Princess, Evil Queen: Zigzagged. The "Good Princess" part is played straight, but the "Evil Queen" part is subverted. Princess Anna is a compassionate, goodhearted princess, who saves the day when Queen Elsa causes trouble after being crowned queen — in part because she is able to perceive that Elsa is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood, even in the midst of the Endless Winter that descends over the entire kingdom after Elsa reveals her powers and runs away. The majority of the harm Elsa does mostly has to do with not knowing yet how to handle her power. However, Hans plays on this trope when he tries to get the throne by vilifying Elsa and claiming to be be married to the tragically dead Princess Anna.
• Gorgeous Garment Generation: As Elsa reinvents herself as the Snow Queen, she uses her ice power to turn her restrained coronation dress into a magnificent, flowing ice-blue number.
• Grand Staircase Entrance: Elsa appears at the top of a staircase when Anna finds her in her Ice Palace. Anna even has the traditional "Whoa, Elsa, you look... different! It's a good different!" reaction in regards to Elsa's Snow Queen outfit.
• Grim Up North: Being a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to the Nordic Countries, Arendelle is very cold but it's a Played With example — it's a pretty positive portrayal. After Elsa leaves the kingdom in an Endless Winter, she makes her stronghold on the North Mountain. However, this is shown to not be entirely bad — once she's away from people, Elsa finally feels free to be herself for the first time in years, and in doing so, is able to create wonderful things again, including Olaf and a gorgeous ice palace. It also turns out Elsa truly isn't malicious; the Endless Winter is a result of Power Incontinence. Still, Elsa remains more isolated than ever, and doesn't realize how much the kingdom is suffering, while she appears to the people as likely having cursed them on purpose. The script highlights this nuance: "The place is beautiful, but also eerie."
• Grief Song: The first two-thirds of the song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", are a downplayed version, a grief song about an unexplained separation. The tune is fairly fun and upbeat, although the lyrics are sad. The last verse, however, is about Anna mourning the death of her parents and desperately trying to reach out to her sister, her only remaining family, one last time.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Elsa and Anna. Elsa has Mystical White Hair to go with her ice magic, stoicism, and Emotionless Girl façade, while Anna is a Fiery Redhead, outgoing, energetic, and warm-hearted.
• Hakuna Matata: "Let it Go", sung by Elsa where she believes that she can finally use her ice powers without harming anyone and live with no worries or responsibilities by going on a self-induced isolation in her Ice Palace. Unfortunately, what she doesn't realize is that she accidentally plunged the kingdom into an Endless Winter and upon being informed, she goes right back to square one and panics, accidentally striking her sister in the heart. Her Character Development involves learning to face her problems instead of simply avoiding them, in the end controlling and using her powers around others instead of repressing them or hiding.
• Hammerspace: Where did Hans get his sword when he's about to slice at Elsa out on the fjord? When he catches up to her, he is not wearing his sword or the scabbard to holster the sword in. We hear the shing of his sword being drawn while Anna is on screen, and when we next see Hans, he has his sword in hand but still no scabbard. This is in contrast to the attempt to capture Elsa at her ice castle, where Hans's sword and scabbard are clearly visible.
• Hand Behind Head: After he blurts out that he could kiss Anna, Kristoff rubs the back of his head in embarrassment.
• Hand Gagging: Kristoff covers Anna's mouth with his hand in an attempt to keep her quiet while he scans the surroundings for wolves.
• Happily Adopted: Kristoff and Sven are adopted by the trolls that act like doting parents.
• Harmless Freezing: Generally averted. Elsa's powers are scary because freezing is far from harmless.
  • Slipping into a winter creek wearing only a summer dress is a painful and dangerous situation. It's a good thing Anna found Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna very shortly thereafter.
  • Played straight at the end of the movie. Anna is fine after being an ice sculpture, but this was not a mundane freeze, nor was it a mundane thaw. The same applies to the plant life seen magically springing back to life when Elsa undoes the Endless Winter.
• Harmony Versus Discipline: Of the Emotions vs. Stoicism variety. Elsa has spent years trying to master her Emotional Powers through Discipline and attempting to be an Emotionless Girl, staying in a carefully controlled environment and trying to avoid strong feelings. It turns out that they are better controlled through a selective use of Harmony. While acceptance doesn't cure her Power Incontinence, too much discipline and attempting to completely suppress her emotions and her powers often makes it worse, prevents the benefits of the magic, and isn't healthy for her. Embracing her emotions and magic allows her to harness and enjoy it, is healthier for her, and mitigates Power Incontinence. In fact, it's The Power of Love that's the key to thawing unwanted effects, shown through Anna, the more emotional red oni to Elsa's more stoic blue.
• Heal the Cutie: Anna and Elsa go through a lot of hardship, what with them being separated for 13 years due to Elsa's Power Incontinence. It only gets worse when Elsa accidentally creates an eternal winter everywhere and fatally freezes Anna's heart. Then Anna is betrayed by Hans, who deceives Elsa into thinking that she killed her. Then he tries to kill her, but Anna rescues her. Anna's Act of True Love thaws her heart, the two are reunited, and Elsa realizes she can undo the eternal winter. As it turns out, love is the ultimate salve for cuties.
• Held Gaze: Anna and Kristoff have more and more of these as the journey progresses.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Happens with Elsa twice in the film. First during the final verse of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" when she discovers that her parents have been killed in a storm, and then later when Hans makes her believe that Anna has frozen to death. On both occasions, the snow stops moving in the air as a visual cue to Elsa's mental state.
  • Kristoff gets one when Anna freezes solid. He mentally shuts down to the point that he just stares at the ground with a blank expression on his face. His mental detachment from reality is to the point that when she starts to thaw, he doesn't even notice until Sven nudges him to snap him out of it.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • When Anna sees Hans about to kill Elsa, she steps in front of her to stop him — just as she freezes solid, shattering Hans's sword. Making it even more of this is the fact that Anna does this instead of trying to get a kiss from Kristoff, which would save Anna's life but cost Elsa hers.
  • Sven shoves Kristoff off of the cracking ice onto (more) solid ground, falling into the freezing water himself. Only played with, as he scrambles out of the water himself shortly afterwards.
  • Olaf helped Anna and Kristoff bring back summer, even as he came to realize—if he didn't realize all along—that this would ultimately kill him. Ultimately averted though by Elsa's creation of a special cloud for Olaf.
  Olaf: Some people are worth melting for.
• He Was Right There All Along: When Hans' group approach Elsa's ice palace, there's a new pile of snow next to the staircase that we didn't see the evening before when Marshmallow was tossing Anna and Kristoff out. Turns out the pile is Marshmallow sitting down with his back to the camera to catch them off-guard.
• High-Class Gloves: Elsa and Hans, the more formal main characters, generally wear gloves regardless of the weather, while the less formal Anna and Kristoff either go barehanded or use mittens when the weather gets too cold to do so. Played with:
  • In the case of Elsa, who uses gloves as a Magic Feather to keep her powers controlled. When she opens up the gates for the day during her coronation, she has to take them off to accept the scepter and orb, and is visibly uncomfortable without them because she is having such a hard time keeping the regalia from icing over. When she fights with Anna over their isolation, one comes off and she loses control of both her powers and herself. When she flees the kingdom, she discards the other one and decides to completely let go and stop pretending to be The High Queen.
  • In the case of Hans, he takes off his gloves once, during The Reveal of him as Evil All Along. Like Elsa, the gloves represented him not being himself.
• Hollywood Costuming: The film is supposedly set somewhere in the 1840s (as implied by much of the wardrobe and architecture), yet the skirts of both sisters' costumes don't even show a hint of crinoline. They either fall in tight folds that flounce nicely when moving, like Anna's ballgown, or they fall straight down, like Elsa's coronation dress. A scene from an earlier draft showed the sisters together in a dressing room where Anna tries on a dress spoofing the increasingly large crinoline skirts around that time, with a comment made about it being a gift from "one of the bigger countries", suggesting it may be a deliberate example to highlight the girls' isolation. However, the dresses of the coronation guests also lack the expected stiffness.
• Hollywood Law:
  • While there are precedents for revolutionaries to charge monarchs with treason against their own countries and sentence them to death (e.g., Charles I in the English Civil War), it's hard to interpret Hans, a representative of a foreign nation, judging and carrying out such a sentence as anything other than an act of war.
  • Hans' scheme to become King of Arendelle couldn't possibly work in any European monarchical system. If Elsa dies and he marries Anna, he'd only be Prince Consort, and if Anna dies the throne should pass to her cousins, no matter how distant they might be.
• Hood Ornament Hottie: Spoofed. When Kristoff's sled is replaced, Sven does a pose on it similar to this trope.
• Hope Spot:
  • A subtle one for the audience — during the last verse of "Do You Want To Build a Snowman", Anna asks "do you want to build a snowman" for the third time, as a desperate and ironic callback to the first two verses, which took place in her youth. The rhyme scheme and meter is such that for a few long moments, it feels as if Elsa might respond with "yes, I do". Instead, we get quiet sobbing from Elsa as the last few chords just hang quietly.
  • During the ball, Anna is happy when Elsa is finally talking with her again, and they seem to get along as well as before. But Elsa shuts her down hard when Anna suggests that things could be like this every day, and because Elsa still wants to hide her powers, she can't tell Anna why. This only makes Anna more depressed than before.
  • During "Let It Go", Elsa embraces her powers; she believes she won't hurt anyone anymore and will live happily by herself. Then, she learns she unwittingly set off an Endless Winter in Arendelle, and she still has no idea how to undo her magic.
  • Anna gets a perfect opportunity for her True Love's Kiss, only for Hans to make the reveal.
  • Subverted when Anna gets another opportunity for a True Love's Kiss, only for Hans to succeed in pushing Elsa over the Despair Event Horizon. This leaves Elsa vulnerable to his attack and halts her magical storm, which allows Anna to see him about to strike the mourning queen. Anna then turns away from Kristoff to use the remainder of her strength to take the blow for her sister. Her Heroic Sacrifice turns out to count as the Act of True Love that breaks the curse, thus saving her as well as Elsa.
• Horseback Heroism: Subverted twice.
  • Sven is a huge reindeer but he is treated much like a horse in this way, and Kristoff dramatically rides him to help Anna during the whiteout at the climax until he's separated from Sven and Anna sacrifices her life for Elsa's.
  • When Anna sets off on a mission to save Elsa and the kingdom, she does so riding on a horse. Said horse later gets spooked and runs off, and she then continues on foot.
• Horse Returns Without Rider: Soon after Elsa accidentally sets of an Endless Winter and retreats to the North Mountain, her sister Anna sets off riding Prince Hans's horse to find her, only for said horse to abandon her midway through her journey. When the horse manages to find its way back to Arendelle, Hans takes it as a sign that Anna is in danger and mobilizes a search party to find her.
• How Do I Shot Web?: From the age of eight until she flees her coronation at twenty-one, virtually every time Elsa's powers have manifested, it's been an accident spurred by emotions. Only in "Let It Go" does she start to experiment and quickly realizes just how much control she actually has over them if she puts her mind to it.
• Huddle Shot: The trolls have a brief one during "Fixer Upper".
• Humans Are Bastards: Kristoff believes this, as detailed in "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People":
  Kristoff: Reindeers are better than people / Sven, don't you think that's true?
  Kristoff (as Sven): Yeah, people will beat you and curse you and cheat you. / Every one of them's bad, except you [Kristoff]!
• Hurricane of Puns: During a few of the lines in "Let It Go", Elsa makes several ice/snow puns as she makes her ice palace (e.g. in the line "A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the queen," she stresses the first syllable of "isolation"). Likewise her thoughts "crystallize" (a wordplay not all of the dubs manage to translate).