Frozen 2013 / Tropes I to Z

Main | A-H | I-Z

Tropes I-O

• I Am a Monster: Elsa thinks this of herself because of her ice powers.
• "I Am Becoming" Song: "Let It Go", sung by Elsa as she transforms herself into the Snow Queen and creates an ice castle after running away from Arendelle. It works as a I Am What I Am as well.
• Ice Breaker: When the icy curse completely overwhelms Anna, the extreme cold shatters Hans' sword.
• Ice Crystals: Elsa's ice palace seems an exercise in just how crystalline the animators could make ice look. It probably helps that it's magical, and with a mind guiding it, the ice would of course be able to do a stunning crystal palace. The crystalline ice chandelier she creates sure seems deliberate. Later on, when she begins to use ice to attack people, the ice is polished, but still more jagged and less crystalline than her castle is. Some crystalline ice she creates appears to be accidental, but it's still magical and tied to her emotions, which seems to explain it. As a general rule, when Elsa makes ice accidentally, its form tends to reflect her emotional state, and that includes the ice getting spikier when she's upset.
• Ice Palace: Elsa, the Snow Queen, lives in an ice palace she created.
• If Only You Knew:
  • Inverted when Hans mocks, "Oh, Anna... If only there was someone out there who loved you", having picked up on how unloved Anna felt. In truth, Elsa does care about Anna but attempts to be an Emotionless Girl in order to keep her powers controlled, creating an appearance of aloof jerkass in the process. Kristoff and Olaf also care about her, but Anna doesn't know it yet.
  • Later played straight. Elsa asks Hans, "Just take care of my sister", not realizing that Hans was Evil All Along and wants both sisters dead.
• Ignorant About Fire: When Olaf sets the fireplace alight to warm Anna up, he gets quite curious about the fire itself. He gets close to it, not knowing that as a snowman, he could very easily melt from the heat.
  Anna: Olaf, g-get away from there!
  Olaf: [amazed] Whoa. So this is heat. [he puts his hands in front of the fireplace] I love it! [his hand catches on fire and he waves it, putting the fire out] Ooh! But don't touch it!
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Averted. Elsa is never shown to resent her abilities and just accepts they are part of who she is; she's just afraid that she or someone she loves will get hurt as a result of them. The times she is shown to be happiest are when she is free to use her powers to their limit.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Hans knocks one of the assassin's crossbows up, preventing it from directly hitting Elsa, but the bolt shoots up and hits the narrowest part of the icy chandelier, dropping it on Elsa and knocking her out. If that was intentional, it certainly qualifies. Implied to be intentional with his glance up at the chandelier before rushing to the goon.
• Improvised Lockpick: Olaf uses his carrot nose to unlock the door behind which Princess Anna is dying of her frozen heart.
• Improvised Weapon: While being chased by wolves, Anna drives one off by swinging Kristoff's lute at it like the lute's a baseball bat.
• Inexplicably Awesome: Elsa's the only human character who has supernatural abilities in the film. Why? Because the plot requires that Elsa has ice powers. It isn't explained in the movie itself.
• Inspiration Nod:
  • Recursively: In "For the First Time in Forever", Anna jumps in front (and assumes the pose of)◊ this◊ painting, which was the basis for the art style of Tangled.
  • In the script, there are minor characters called Gerda and Kai, the names of the main characters in the Andersen tale that inspired the film. Both work at the castle. Gerda is a portly servant, while Kai is the servant who introduces the sisters at the coronation ball.
  • The names of four of the leads? Hans, Kristoff, Anna, Sven.
• Inspired by…: The credits say the film is "inspired by" Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. Both of these works feature a queen with ice powers and a girl who goes on a dangerous journey through a winter landscape to find the Snow Queen in order to save an estranged and depressed childhood friend, but reasons why the friend has to be saved, how the girl saves them, how the two characters had come to know each other and how they came to be estranged, the course of the heroine's journey, and the characters she encounters all differ significantly.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Elsa's powers are revealed to the world only during her coronation, while they have been central to the plot since the beginning.
  • Elsa only discovers that her powers have triggered an Endless Winter two thirds of the way through the film, when Anna arrives to tell her during "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)".
• In the Style of: "Fixer Upper" sounds a lot like the kind of songs that appeared on Fraggle Rock. The songwriters, husband and wife couple Robert and Kristen-Anderson Lopez had initially become famous for parodying Jim Henson in Avenue Q.
• Ironic Echo: Kai mispronounces Weselton as "Weaseltown" the first 2 times it is said. The third time, it's deliberate.
• Irony:
  • When Anna tells Elsa that "I can't live like this anymore!" Elsa responds by telling Anna "Then leave!" Moments later, it's Elsa herself fleeing the castle after accidentally displaying her powers in front of all the guests.
  • "Let It Go" is about how after years of being forced to isolate herself, Elsa finds happiness and freedom... by isolating herself further.
  • Olaf's entire song about what he'll do in the summer is completely riddled with irony and black comedy because everything he daydreams about is something that will only melt him faster. And Kristoff almost contemplates interrupting the song to tell Olaf this, only for Anna to say, "Don't you dare!"
    Olaf: Just imagine how much cooler I'll be in summmerrrr!!!
  • Both the first and last time Hans encounters Anna, he ends up in the water.
  • Kristoff bases his disparagement of Anna's Fourth-Date Marriage on him having friends who are love experts. When we meet said love experts, they immediately try to get him and Anna, who have known each other for about a day, married on the spot.
  • In "For the First Time in Forever", Anna wonders if that night she'll meet the one, thinking he'd be "a beautiful stranger, tall and fair". While she initially thinks it's Hans, Kristoff is the "tall and fair" one (being a husky blond), and she does meet him that night. See Exact Words for more detail.
  • When Anna tells Hans about her tragic childhood and being shut out all these years, he promises her he'll never shut her out. After his true nature is revealed, Hans leaves Anna to die by shutting her in a room.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Played with.
  • A platonic and unusual variation with Elsa. As she becomes more afraid of her powers, Elsa worries about the harm they can do to other people, including Anna, and so avoids her. Exposited at the ice castle, when Anna tries to reach out to Elsa and Elsa declares that she thinks it's best if she stays alone in her ice palace, "where I can be who I am, without hurting anyone." However, Anna has to tell Elsa that despite her distance, the kingdom is in an Endless Winter and that they need to find a way to thaw it. Elsa panics at the news and tries again to protect Anna by summoning a giant snowlem to throw her out. While the story explicitly supports this trope, declaring "Love is putting someone else's needs before your own," Elsa's fear - both of and for others - makes things worse. In the end, Elsa realizes that love itself is the answer and that it's safe to be with her other loved ones without repressing her powers.
  • Played straight with Kristoff towards Anna near the end, thinking that bringing her back to Hans will save her life, despite his own growing feelings towards her and that he may never see her again afterward. Sven tries to get Kristoff to defy this.
• It Was with You All Along: Anna spends most of the story longing for love. Then at the climax, her heart is frozen and she needs an "Act of True Love" to break the curse. Naturally, she goes to her fiance for a True Love's Kiss, only for the act of true love to be her own act when she sacrifices her life for her sister. All she needed was her own love.
• "I Want" Song:
  • "For the First Time in Forever" for Anna as it talks about the companionship (romantic and otherwise) that she craves.
  • "Do You Want To Build a Snowman?" is a sadder "I Want" Song for Anna, as she just wants her beloved sister back.
  • "In Summer" for Olaf describes all the things he wants to do in summer.
• Jerkass Has a Point: The Duke. He's prejudicial and a definite jerk, but when he worries, "If we don't do something soon, we'll all freeze to death", it's part of the ramping up of the emotions in anticipation of the climax, reminding viewers of how high the stakes are, as Anna is on her deathbed and Elsa's fear is growing stronger and stronger. There are a ton of innocent civilians who are going to freeze or starve to death if summer never comes back, especially with the frozen fjord and blizzard-wracked mountains making evacuation unlikely.
• Job Song: The opening song "Frozen Heart" is sung by ice harvesters and poetically describes their job.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Subverted. Elsa almost does this when she nearly kills the Duke's men, but Hans points out that she's on the brink of becoming the monster that people fear her to be. By the end of the movie, she remains on the side of good.
• Just Between You and Me: Hans tells Anna of his Evil Plan to leave her to freeze to death while he executes Elsa in public. This way, he will be seen as the hero who saved Arendelle from the evil Snow Queen who brought eternal winter and killed her own sister. Then, he can rule the kingdom with both sisters out of commission. It's implied he pulls this because he thinks that it'll break Anna and the despair will speed up the freezing process.
• Kick the Dog: When Anna needs an "act of true love" to live, the characters assume this act would be a True Love's Kiss. Her supposed True Love Hans, rather than attempting a kiss in case it might be helpful or to keep the act up as part of common decency or to cover his tracks in case she survives, picks up a Villain Ball and reveals that he was Evil All Along, gloating about his Evil Plan to to manipulate Anna, murder her sister, and take over their kingdom in a sadistic monologue. He extinguishes all warmth in the room, even though speeding up her death has little benefit for his plan, and to twist the knife further, he leaves her to die alone before she's finished freezing. He veers into Bond Villain Stupidity territory in the process, since had he waited to watch her die, he might have prevented her from escaping with Olaf, and had he kept the act up and pretended to be at least well-intentioned, even if not actually her One True Love, he could have kept his Villain with Good Publicity status.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Elsa fights the Duke's two guards while wearing a flowing gown and high heels. Justified Trope in that she's the only magic user in the battle and doesn't need to move around very much at all.
• Kill It with Ice: Subverted, although it was a very close call for Anna. The movie makes it crystal clear that if Elsa wanted to kill someone with her powers, she could easily do so.
• Knife Outline: Elsa does this to one of Duke of Weselton's bodyguards using icicles.
• Lampshade Hanging: While Kristoff and Anna are chased by wolves:
  Kristoff: [smacks away a wolf with his foot] Who marries a man she just met?!
  Anna: [picks up Kristoff's lute] It's true love! [Anna hits another attacking wolf with the lute]
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Rugged mountaineer Kristoff has a strong square jaw and is a powerful and heroic man while Hans' jaw is a bit narrower.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the prologue, after Anna is almost accidentally killed by Elsa, Grand Pabbie heals her by readjusting her memories of Elsa's magic; she still remembers the events, but as just mundane winter days.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The Duke of Weselton loses his trade treaty, and is hit with an outright embargo, for his little attempt to have Elsa shot with arrows.
  • Hans is sent home to be judged by his brothers. Royals throughout history have taken a dim view of family members A) trying to take shortcuts to a throne, any throne, especially without clearing it through them; and B) failing spectacularly at doing so, leaving the crowned head in question in a position to demand restitution.
• Last Note Nightmare:
  • The reprise of "For the First Time in Forever" is shut down abruptly by Elsa's scream of "I can't!", then shifts to a minor key when the results become apparent.
  • And "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" has a downer ending, listed under Hope Spot above.
• Last-Second Word Swap:
  • From "In Summer", we have this gem:
  Olaf: [singing]
  Winter's a good time to sit close and cuddle
  But put me in summer and I'll be a...
  [stares at, then jumps over a puddle in front of him]
  Olaf: [brightly] ... happy snowman!
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • On one version of the DVD cover, Hans is nowhere to be seen making it obvious to people watching for the first time he's not the nice guy he seems.
  • The "Making Frozen" documentary that aired on TV 10 months after the movie's release doesn't attempt to avoid spoiling that "the handsome prince is the bad guy".
  • Trailers made Elsa look like a villain instead of one of the heroes. Since she became the Breakout Character, virtually every bit of marketing and licensed item has been very open that she's a good person.
• Laugh of Love: Anna tends to sigh and giggle a lot around Hans from the moment they meet, at least until he reveals his true colours.
• Leave the Two Lovebirds Alone: When Anna comes back and asks Hans to kiss her after being accidentally struck with ice in the heart from Elsa, the other people in the room excuse themselves with "we'll give you two some privacy".
• Left for Dead: Hans does this to Anna by leaving her in a cold room so Elsa's ice magic can kill her and removing all sources of heat and light.
• Leg Focus: During "Let It Go", tellingly in the line when Elsa sings about not being a good girl any more, the camera pans up her newly created dress which has a split up to the thigh on the right side.
• Leitmotif:
  • The five-note theme representing Elsa's magic is first heard in a major key when Elsa and Anna play as children. After the accident, the motif is transposed into minor keys for the rest of the movie until Elsa thaws the ice at the end, where it returns to a major key.
  • Kristoff has his own five-note motif, which is heard most strongly when he kisses Anna at the end of the movie.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: Hans's original plan would have taken at least a couple years, but the Endless Winter allows him to speed those plans up to only a couple of days.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Elsa's first instinct is to run away from Weselton's goons, but then they corner her...
• Letting Her Hair Down: Elsa unravels her bun into a French braid and changes her outfit when she sings "Let It Go"; this signifies how she finally feels free to do what she wants with her ice powers and doesn't have to hide her emotions anymore.
• Light Is Not Good: Elsa's magic manifests as a bright white glow, even as it freezes people's heads and hearts.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Inverted, as Anna's frozen body is so cold that it breaks Hans's sword.
• Literal-Minded: When Anna tells Kristoff and Olaf to wait a minute, Olaf starts counting. Olaf then barges in exactly one minute later.
• Littering Is No Big Deal: Elsa throws her cape and glove into the wind after embracing her ice powers. Not that the cold is a problem. Those two things are never seen again. She also tosses her tiara away just before the third running of the chorus, and during the post-credits stinger, Marshmallow picks it up and dons it himself.
• Little "No":
  • Elsa utters a barely audible "no" when Hans tells her that Anna is dead because of her.
  • Anna utters one of these when she starts to see visible signs of her skin turning to ice.
• Locked into Strangeness: When they are playing as children, Elsa accidentally hits Anna in the head with a blast of her magic, and a lock of Anna's hair turns platinum blonde; due to Grand Pabbie wiping her memories of Elsa's powers to heal her, she thinks she was born with it. The platinum blonde streak persists as she grows up, but is gone after she is fully unfrozen at the end.
• Lonely Piano Piece: "Let It Go" starts off as this, reflective of Elsa's self-imposed sorrow from isolation (the tune is the same one that plays when the King and Queen die). The percussion then builds as she realizes that this isolation is liberating for her and that she doesn't mind it.
• Love at First Sight: Downplayed when Anna and Hans agree to a Fourth-Date Marriage after spending the day together, as well as deconstructed as part of the film's exploration of the power and nature of love.
• Love Epiphany:
  • Kristoff is utterly in denial about his developing crush on Anna even despite Sven's efforts to turn him back around...until he sees the huge snowstorm gathering in the area where just he dropped her off, and he immediately rushes to help.
  • A non-romantic example comes when Elsa realizes that love is the key to controlling her powers.
• Love Floats: During "Love Is an Open Door," Hans and Anna dance on the balcony of a lighthouse and their shadow is projected onto the sails of a ship in the harbor. However, they are seemingly dancing in mid-air as there is no shadow of the floor they are dancing on nor the railing of the lighthouse balcony.
• Love Revelation Epiphany: Olaf tells Anna that Kristoff is in love with her. This coupled with Hans's betrayal also makes her realize it's mutual.
• Love Theme: "Love Is an Open Door" is set up as one, but it's downplayed and subverted in that while Anna is sincere about her verses, Hans is later revealed to be Evil All Along and is just using that time to get Anna to fall for him.
• Love Triangle: Downplayed and subverted. Anna and Kristoff bond throughout their journey to Elsa's Ice Palace, and by the time Kristoff's Shipper on Deck family tries to push the two together, it's clear to the audience that he's starting to see her in a romantic light, although the two both quickly try to explain that they are not a couple to the trolls and that in fact, she's engaged to Hans. Then Hans is revealed to be a Gold Digger who never cared and was manipulating Anna into a relationship so he could gain access to the throne. Both Anna and Kristoff don't realize their feelings for each other until Hans is already out of the picture and become an Official Couple in the film's epilogue.
• Lyrical Dissonance: "Let It Go" has gained a reputation of being an Empowerment Anthem. While it technically is about Elsa finally accepting her powers, it's also about her choosing to live a life of isolation away from everyone else.
• Madness Mantra:
  • When her skirt freezes like ice after falling in a river, Anna repeats: "Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold! Cold!"
  • After learning that her escape to the mountains actually brought on an Endless Winter, Elsa repeats: Don't feel, don't feel, don't feel, don't feel!
• Magic Feather: Elsa's gloves don't actually hold back her powers, but her confidence in them to do so helps give her a measure of control over them. This also means that deliberately covering her hands to keep her from breaking out of a prison cell is only temporarily effective at best.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Twice with Olaf:
  • His reaction to accidentally being split by an icicle is "Oh look at that. I've been impaled." in the most casual tone you can imagine. Being made of snow, it's a mild inconvenience, and actually amuses him, if anything.
  • He's placid even while he starts melting at the end.
    Olaf: Hands down, this is the best day of my life! And quite possibly the last...!
• Malicious Misnaming: Unlike at Elsa's coronation, Kai deliberately refers to Weselton as "Weaseltown" as he announces the placement of a trade embargo.
• Manly Tears:
  • Kristoff's reaction to seeing Elsa's ice castle:
    Kristoff: Now that's ice. I may cry.
    Anna: Go ahead. I won't judge.
  • Invoked by Hans when he announces his marriage to Anna followed immediately by her death, without adding that he did all he could to finish her off.
• Match Cut: There's a subtle one where Anna is shown outside and everything around her changes so she's now inside.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • When they're little girls, Elsa builds a snowman and names him Olaf, and manipulates his arms while telling Anna "Hi! I'm Olaf and I love warm hugs!" Years later, she recreates him as she's leaving Arendelle, but unwittingly creates an anthropomorphic version who says this as his introduction. Fitting, as Olaf is a living symbol of the loving relationship Elsa and Anna shared before things changed between them.
  • Elsa refuses Anna's request to marry Hans by asking, pointedly, "Anna, what do you know about true love?" When Olaf finds Anna freezing in the library after Hans betrays her, Anna says "I don't even know what love is."
  • Elsa and Olaf make similar "I love you, so go" remarks to Anna: Elsa's "Just stay safe and you'll be safe from me" in "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)", and Olaf's "Because I love you, Anna, I insist you run" when he thinks Kristoff is going insane.
  • Anna's awestruck "And this place, it's amazing!" reaction upon entering Elsa's ice palace and seeing Elsa in her new dress mirrors her childhood shrieking of "This is amazing!" in response to Elsa making it snow in the ballroom.
• Meaningful Name: Four of the main characters' names, ("Hans", "Kristoff", "Anna", "Sven") combine to reference Hans Christian Andersen. See the character pages for the meaningfulness of the individual names.
• Meet Cute: Anna and Hans meet when he nearly knocks her into the water with his horse. Hans turns out to have exploited this trope as a way to get close to Anna and take advantage of her naivete. Turns out that he's just heartlessly using her and manipulating her into a quick engagement to get to the throne of Arendelle, and couldn't give two craps about her.
• Metaphorically True: The troll prophecy. While the verbal message is just a standard Self-Fulfilling Prophecy with a Prophecy Twist, he is simultaneously showing various images to go along with his words. It is later shown that "fear will be your enemy" refers to the emotion of fear in Elsa. However, he visually represents fear as a violent mob attacking Elsa, which is completely at odds with the intended message.
• Mickey Mousing: The song "Frozen Heart" consists entirely of action coordinated with the music.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The film starts with Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Sven as children, followed by a small montage which shows Anna and Elsa growing up.
• Mistaken for Insane: When Olaf first sees Kristoff talking to his troll family, he thinks he's crazy, since the trolls were disguised as rocks.
• Modeling Poses:
  • Spoofed when Sven did a hood ornament hottie pose to show off Kristoff's new sled.
  • Played with in "For the First Time in Forever." In preparation for the ball, Anna imitates poses in paintings, not experience or much other indication of how to act. She also attempts one while trying to emulate her sister.
• Moment Killer: A platonic version. Anna and Elsa were doing some much needed bonding during the coronation party when the Duke of Weselton, looking for a dance, interrupts. Notable in that he interrupts right when Anna has opened her mouth to speak.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • After the heartbreaking ending of the song "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" with the scene of the two sisters being orphaned and alone, the movie immediately time-skips to three years later where after some comments about the princesses being lovely and beautiful, we see Anna sleeping in a comical bedhead and drooling and cheerfully singing about how she could finally find true love.
  • The cheerful troll song "Fixer Upper" is followed by Anna collapsing due to her freezing heart, which causes a dramatic mood switch.
  • When Anna asks Hans for a kiss after Elsa freezes her heart, at first it seems all will go great, but then Hans stops and refuses, revealing his true nature, leaving not only Anna, but also the movie's audience, completely shocked.
• Mook Chivalry: One of the two mooks going after Elsa at her castle aims at her with his crossbow but waits to attempt to shoot until she is finished with the other mook and turns against him.
• Moral Event Horizon: An In-Universe example occurs when Hans begs Elsa not to "become the monster they think you are", as she is about to kill the two guys sent by the Duke of Weselton to shoot her, not knowing she that they attacked her first.
• Morality Kitchen Sink: The only true heroic characters are Princess Anna of Arendelle (who, is probably the most upstanding, noble, and moral character in the story and believes in doing the right thing no matter what, but as a Deconstruction of the typical Disney heroine, suffers a few Wrong Genre Savvy moments), Kristoff (who's gruff and standoffish, but turns out to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold) and Olaf (as a living symbol of the bond between the two sisters). Queen Elsa, a Deconstruction for the Evil Queen archetype, is a Dark Magical Girl of Mass Destruction who can create sentient life and declares herself Above Good and Evil. But she soon suffers a severe case of Power Incontinence that plunges her country in an Endless Winter that she eventually learns how to lift and has one Trauma Conga Line after the next. Anna and Elsa's parents, serving as a deconstruction for the typical Missing Parent, are just regular people who are Unwitting Instigators of Doom by isolating Elsa (and Anna) from the rest of the world for so many years. The trolls, despite their best intentions, are rather vague on their instructions and caused the above misunderstanding on the part of the Arendelle royal family. The Duke of Weselton is a Not-So-Harmless Villain who is very egocentric but he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to save Arendelle from the winter Elsa cast (if only for selfish reasons). And then there's the Deconstruction of Prince Charming, Prince Hans who is a manipulative would-be usurper but has a Freudian Excuse.
• Motif:
  • Locked doors, warmth/cold, concealing things, catching people, snowflakes, boats.
  • Paintings. Anna begins turning to paintings for company during her isolation in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", the passing of the girls' parents is marked by their portraits being covered, Anna models the behavior portrayed by the pictures in the portrait room portray as she prepares for the castle to open up again, and Elsa looks up at a depiction of her father's coronation as she practices for her own. The motif even shows up again in the sequel short "Frozen Fever" and Christmas Special "Olaf's Frozen Adventure," as well as Tie-In Novel A Frozen Heart.
• Mr. Exposition: Olaf, when discussing True Love with Anna:
  Anna: I don't even know what love is.
  Olaf: That's okay, I do. Love... is... putting someone else's needs before yours; like, you know, how Kristoff brought you back here to Hans and left you forever.
  Anna: Kristoff... loves me?
  Olaf: Wow, you really don't know anything about love, do you?
  Anna: [seeing Olaf's face melt] Olaf, you're melting!
  Olaf: Some people are worth melting for... just maybe right not this second.
• Murder by Inaction: Exaggerated Trope. Hans attempts this when he finds out his fiance is dying and needs an "act of true love", assumed by him and other characters to be a True Love's Kiss, to break the curse. 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 her Hero with Bad Publicity sister, 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.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Elsa when she sees the deep freeze that has affected her kingdom, and again when she thinks she killed Anna.
  • Anna gets through this when it takes Hans betraying her to realize Elsa and Kristoff were right about objecting to their engagement.
• Nature Is Not Nice: The storm at sea that kills the princesses' parents. Then the finale, with hero and villain alike all on the verge of dying from a massive cold front thanks to Elsa's powers growing out of control, is a stunning reminder of the impersonal, terrifying power of ice echoed in the middle of "Frozen Heart".
  Beautiful, powerful, dangerous, cold!
  Ice has a magic, can't be controlled!
  Stronger than one, stronger than ten,
  Stronger than a hundred men!
• Nature Tinkling: Nobody ever does this during the movie, but apparently, Kristoff likes to do it, as evidenced in Fixer Upper.
  Young Troll: Or that he only likes to tinkle in the woods?
  Anna: I did not need to know that.
• Nature Versus Nurture: Elsa's internal struggle. Her parents attempted to nurture her into controlling her powers and acting like a queen. But Elsa's true magical nature constantly pokes through this façade.
• Nervous Tics:
  • Elsa wraps her arms around herself whenever she's feeling stressed.
  • Anna brushes a lock of hair behind her ear whenever she feels nervous or embarrassed. She also tends to wring her hands together during a moment of anxiety.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • Olaf's melting scene.
    Olaf: Some people are worth melting for but just maybe not this second.
  • Early previews gave the impression that the film would be pure comedy (teasers usually focused on Olaf and Sven antics, neither of whom had a great deal of screen time), but the story itself is more a mixture of drama as well as comedy.
  • Some TV ads focused entirely on Olaf portraying him as if he was the main hero, not even acknowledging Elsa or Anna at all.
  • The first full trailer made it look like Elsa created the Endless Winter on purpose — all of her shots showed her using her powers aggressively, with an angry look on her face. In truth, the winter is purely an accident, and the scene where she is angrily using her powers, it's to defend herself from the Duke of Weselton's men who are trying to kill her.
    • One of these aggressive-seeming shots used comes from a test animation of the scene where Anna and Kristoff jump off the cliff to escape from Marshmallow, for an earlier draft where she had been a villain, but this was changed by the film's release, as were several other aspects of the clip also sometimes included in promotional material. This test animation is similar, but also very different from the final version: among other things, Anna looks scared shitless while preparing to jump off the cliff, Marshmallow is actively trying to kill Anna and Kristoff instead of just chasing them out of Dodge, and his arms are made from tree branches instead of from solid ice. Kristoff and Anna are caught in a driving blizzard and Kristoff shouts "Now we have to survive this blizzard!" Anna replies "That's no blizzard, that's my sister!" The camera then shows Elsa casting her ice magic at the tippy-top of the North Mountain.
    • It also gave the impression that Anna's relationship to Elsa would be a secret to the rest of the cast until a big reveal.
  • The American TV commercials make the movie look like Tangled... IN THE SNOW!
  • The movie's nature as a musical was also mostly hidden, with only one of the songs included in any of the pre-release trailers.
  • A lot of ads for the movie make Hans out to be one of the heroic characters by having him pictured along with Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff with a friendly look. This is ultimately revealed to be an act — and by the end, he has revealed himself as the film's most villainous character.
  • Elsa is portrayed all over merchandising and promotional material with a confident Dreamworks Face smirk... but that belies the tightly wound ball of neurosis that she really is.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Both the trolls and Elsa's parents try to protect her from Burn the Witch! treatment, but their attempts backfire. The trolls warn Elsa needs to learn to control her gift, and that "fear will be your enemy" while showing an image of an angry mob attacking her future self. Her father responds by vowing to protect her by isolating her while she is still learning control, but teaching her to hide it increases her own fear, which both hurts her and in turn exacerbates her Power Incontinence.
  • While healing Anna, the trolls remove her memories of Elsa's magic. The memory removal part isn't essential to the cure — they just do it "to be safe." This not only raises a host of ethical problems, but leaves Anna clueless as to why her beloved sister is suddenly ignoring her, effectively making Elsa's attempts to be an Emotionless Girl and Aloof Big Sister treatment of Anna look like she suddenly stopped caring, creating psychological damage that makes Anna vulnerable to Gold Digger Hans's manipulation.
  • Elsa's response to the eternal winter? Hiding in an ice castle, leaving the rest of the people to suffer. She chases away the one group of people who were trying to help her, arguing they're safer that way, by creating Marshmallow, who attacks them with a ferocity that endangers their lives and prolongs the discovery of the solution.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Hans tries to kill Elsa, meaning that Anna saving her would be an act of true love, thus saving Anna herself from the curse. In turn, said act also gives Elsa the inspiration she needs to realize that The Power of Love is the key to controlling her powers.
  • Just before that moment, when Hans lies to Elsa about her curse killing Anna, Elsa's fear gives way to despair, resulting in the raging blizzard her emotions had conjured to subside as she goes numb. This gives Anna a clear view of Hans about to kill Elsa, prompting her to rush to her sister's side to block the blade.
• No Antagonist: While Hans and the Duke are both villainous, neither of them actually causes anything to happen. Even though they both have evil schemes prepared, they only end up seizing on opportunities that present themselves. The real "villain" of the story is Elsa's Power Incontinence.
• No Cartoon Fish: Sven is depicted in a cartoony manner (as are the ducks and ducklings that Anna encounters in "For the First Time in Forever"), but the pickled jar of lutefisk at Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna looks very realistic.
• No Endor Holocaust: Once Elsa figures out the "undo" aspect of her powers, all the floral life affected by it is magically returned to a summertime state. Flowers exposed to the biting winter storm perk right up after the frosty wisps blow by them and whisk the snow and frost off, and the fairy tale color palette returns to the fjord (not to mention that just before, Anna turned from ice to normal, being just fine).
• No Flow in CGI: Averted as much as possible, with plenty of flowing hair and skirts. It becomes really noticeable in contrast, when Anna's dress for the coronation gets frozen stiff at the skirt when she falls into an ice-cold creek, and then she staggers like a Stop Motion cartoon the rest of the way to Wandering Oaken's Trading Post (and Sauna).
• No Ontological Inertia: Played with — the Duke of Weselton operates under the assumption that killing Elsa will automatically undo her winter. Hans, on the other hand, saves her specifically because he thinks they need her alive to stop the winter. Once she makes it clear she doesn't know how to reverse it, Hans concludes killing her is the best way to try to fix everything. Fortunately, we never get the chance to find out if this would have worked or not.
• Norse by Norsewest: Arendelle is basically Norway.
• No-Sell:
  • Anna throws a snowball at Marshmallow. Sure, it doesn't hurt him because he's made of snow, but, well, the giant snow rage monster in him comes out and he tries to chase her down.
  • Hans and the guards try to shoot arrows at Marshmallow. Since he's, you know, made of snow, it doesn't hurt him.
• Not Allowed to Grow Old: Elsa's and Anna's parents look to be in their mid-twenties in the prologue. At first it's understandable, given that the girls are about 8 and 5 at the time. However, they don't age a day by the time of their death, when Elsa is 18 and Anna is 15. Older Than They Look may be in effect by then, but at the time of her death, Iduna looks like the animation model used for Elsa at the coronation with brown hair and a different dress, which looks egregious when an 18-year-old Elsa is standing right in front of her.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • A mild example, when Anna and Kristoff confront Elsa in her ice palace. One of the first things Elsa does upon seeing Kristoff is to ask Anna, "Who's this?" in a suspicious tone that suggests Elsa thinks Anna has found another stud to have a whirlwind courtship with.
  • Anna's first meeting with Hans, as she crashes into his horse, then falls into a precariously positioned rowboat. Hans's attempt to apologize to her ends up with him falling on top of her, and then she falls on top of him.
    Hans: Oh, boy! Uh...
    Anna: This is awkward. Not you're awkward, but just because we're... I'm awkward — you're gorgeous. Wait, what?
• Obvious Villain, Secret Villain: The Duke of Wesselton is at first set up to be the main villain, calling Elsa a witch and calling on his guards to use deadly force on her. So when the real villain is revealed to be Hans, who is manipulating Anna and is willing to kill Elsa, the audience is taken completely by surprise.
• Odd Name Out: In a more subtle example, Kristoff is the only main character whose name is not four letters long, including even the Duke (of Weselton). It could symbolize his role as an outcast, but it's probably just a coincidence. Even the queen and king are only referred to as the four-lettered "Mama" and "Papa" in the film proper.
• Ode to Apathy: The song "Let it Go" is sung by Elsa and about how she doesn't care anymore about people finding out about her powers since now they know. She also mentions not being bothered by the cold.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Elsa has several of these, but her biggest one comes when she sees the ice chandelier falling towards her.
  • Anna has some too, her biggest one is when Hans, instead of attempting to help her when she's cursed, taunts her and reveals he only faked his love for her to seize the throne.
• One-Steve Limit: Played for Laughs. When Anna is introducing Kristoff and Sven to Olaf, Olaf asks "who's the funky looking donkey over there?" Anna thinks he's referring to the reindeer, Sven, and tells him Sven's name, only for Olaf to follow up with "And who's the reindeer?". Anna repeats the reindeer's name, leading to a Running Gag where Olaf thinks that Kristoff and Sven are both named "Sven" for much of the movie.
• One-Winged Angel: Downplayed with Elsa's ice creature "Marshmallow". Although he's already pretty intimidating, make him mad and he'll sprout giant ice spikes that make him look like Bowser if Bowser were made of ice, before attacking.
• One-Woman Wail: Used over the end of For the First Time in Forever (Reprise) after Anna is struck in the heart by Elsa's ice magic. It really drives home how screwed she is. Oddly, the wail is absent in the soundtrack version of the song.
• Only Six Faces: Elsa, Anna, and their mother all have the same facial structure. However, like many other Disney animated films, the basic reason is that they share a Strong Family Resemblance.
• Opening Chorus:
  • "Vuelie", sung during the opening credits and logos (including the Disney castle logo).
  • "Frozen Heart", sung by ice harvesters in the prologue, right after the opening credits.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Anna and Elsa's parents lose their lives in a storm on their way to visit a foreign kingdom by sea at the beginning of the film. This robs Elsa of the only two people who know what she's going through, Anna of the only people who seemed to care about her, strains Anna and Elsa's failing relationship further than it already was, and forces Elsa to become queen at the young age of 21, a responsibility that she is by no means ready for.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • Elsa is the only being with magical powers in the entire film, and even she doesn't comprehend how powerful she is, so when her magic sets off an Endless Winter, it comes as a shock to even her.
  • On the other side of the scale, Prince Hans comes completely out of nowhere as a scheming, politically-minded manipulator. In a story about magic and the bond between sisters, no one was expecting the villain to have based their plans on medieval laws of succession.
• The Outside World: Elsa and Anna both are trapped in the castle. They both emerge into the Outside World in two different ways. Anna goes on a journey searching for Elsa, who decided to let it go and stop holding in her powers by fleeing into the snowy mountains.

Tropes P-S

• Pair the Spares: Averted. Once Anna and Kristoff go on the adventure together — and especially after "Fixer Upper" — Hans seems to be the odd man out. Hans's apparent sympathy toward Elsa in the ice palace suggested a possible pairing, but Hans's later Evil All Along revelation upends this.
• Parental Abandonment:
  • The king and queen perish in a storm at sea.
  • The introduction shows Kristoff with a group of ice harvesters but by the time Anna and Elsa's parents run through the woods to seek the trolls, he and Sven are on their own, and are adopted by the same trolls not long after... without any parents nor even other ice harvesters anywhere to be seen. Kristoff later explains to Anna that "it was just [him] and Sven" before the trolls took them in but doesn't elaborate.
• Parental Bonus:
  • When bantering with Anna about her engagement to Hans, Kristoff starts asking her how much she knows about Hans. One of the things he asks is "foot size?" Anna quickly responds, "Foot size doesn't matter!" And you know the old joke. In fact, Kristoff looks a little... smug.
  • Anna also gives us this line when trying to open Elsa's eyes to the wintry predicament her magic has left the kingdom in.
    Anna: Arendelle's in deep, deep, deep, deep... snow.
  • The trolls insinuate that the relationship between Kristoff and Sven is not quite within "nature's laws".
• Parental Marriage Veto: In this case, Older Sister Marriage Veto. Elsa doesn't approve of Anna and Hans marrying when they've only known each other for a day. It also serves as a warning that Hans is not who he seems.
  Elsa: You can't marry a man you just met!
• Parental Neglect: In "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" Anna's parents seemingly never notice that their youngest daughter is Going Mad from the Isolation after the castle gates are closed, the staff reduced, and the people allowed in limited. She is seen lamenting "all these empty rooms," turning to paintings for company, and is alone for most of the song, the one exception when she hugs her clearly surprised parents goodbye. The sequence implies they're busy dealing with Elsa, who is struggling with dangerous levels of Power Incontinence. The younger princess is even seen alone as she rides a bike clearly meant for two. Down the stairs. Standing on the backseat. On one foot. ''Completely unsupervised.'' When we see the inevitable crash, there's no evidence anyone came to check on the kid, who's established to have extreme bravery to the point of recklessness as a strength but also as a Fatal Flaw.
• Parent Service: Elsa doing her Supermodel Strut in "Let It Go" in a slinky dress.
• Pent-Up Power Peril: Elsa has grown up fearing her powers and trying to avoid using them, which just causes the power to build up and leak out (which makes her even more afraid of losing control of her powers, so she clamps down even more, which only leads to an ever repetitive cycle). Things come to a head when she plunges the kingdom into an endless winter without meaning to. But when she stops worrying about being found out and starts using her powers deliberately, she quickly gains full control of them.
• Pep-Talk Song: Anna's part of the Dark Reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", showing she's confident that Elsa will control her powers and will use them to end the Endless Winter.
• Perpetual Storm: Elsa's Power Incontinence causes one. It gets worse when she gets agitated.
• Persona Non Grata: The Duke of Weaseltown^note WESELTON! IT'S WESELTON! becomes this in Arendelle at the end as a result of his shenanigans throughout.
• Personal Horror: Elsa freezing Anna while trying to drive her away to protect her.
• Personal Raincloud: Olaf gets his own personal snow cloud at the end of the movie, although it's not for grief; it's meant to keep him alive in summer.
• Phantom Limb Pain: Inverted and played for laughs. After a fall off of a cliff, Olaf worriedly states that he cannot feel his legs. Kristoff helpfully points out where are his legs.
• Pimped-Out Cape: A handful of pretty capes appear in this movie.
  • Elsa's rich purple coronation cape has lots of subtle trimmings.
  • When Elsa becomes the Snow Queen, she makes a lovely ice cape with snowflake patterns.
  • Anna gets a green cape decorated with rosemaling when she goes after Elsa. After she loses that, she gets a magenta cape lined with white fur on the collar.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Anna, Elsa, and their mother wear dresses with some highly elaborate and lovely Norwegian inspired rosemaling (easy to miss at a distance). Then, once Elsa reinvents herself as the Snow Queen, she conjures herself a stunning off-the-shoulder gown complete with ethereal cape out of ice.
• Platonic Declaration of Love: Near the end, Elsa asks her sister, Anna, "You sacrificed yourself for me?" Anna replies, "I love you."
• Please Wake Up: Elsa, for a moment after Anna is frozen solid, before she breaks down.
• Plummet Perspective: Some snow falls off a cliff when Anna and Kristoff are fleeing from Marshmallow.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • A lot of problems might have been avoided if the parents or Elsa had just told Anna about Elsa's powers when they felt she was old enough. Anna has no idea why Elsa has suddenly cut her off or why the gates have been closed, leaving her feeling unloved when she grows up and vulnerable to Hans's manipulation, believing the relationship between her and Hans to be "true love" after only a day. Given this belief and knowing that she only has one day of the gates being open to form and solidify relationships, she agrees to his proposal, but when she tells Elsa and starts talking about inviting more people over, Elsa panics and orders the gates immediately closed again. Anna, not knowing about the powers, doesn't understand why Elsa is continuing to keep the family isolated, resulting in a fight that ends with Elsa shooting ice spikes at Anna in the middle of the party.
  • Some of Elsa's repression after her parents died appears to result from misunderstanding. When Agnarr gives Elsa her gloves, he tells her "conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show", which suggests Elsa should hide her powers. Elsa later drops the "it"s, making the "conceal, don't feel" mantra she uses on her coronation day. She then simplifies it further, to just "Don't feel," which changes the intended meaning from "hide your powers" to "I must suppress all emotion so my powers can't flare up."
  • The trolls have no idea how to help Elsa gain control of her powers—only that "fear will be your enemy." The parents take this as meaning other people's fear, and worry about Elsa being attacked by mobs, so they close the castle gates and try to keep her powers hidden to protect her. Unfortunately, growing up hiding her powers exacerbates her fear, which in turn exacerbates her Power Incontinence, which then makes her more afraid, in a dangerous cycle.
  • After young Elsa accidentally strikes Anna in the head and calls their parents for help, the parents come into an ice-covered room to find their child with ice magic cradling their younger one, who is unconscious and suddenly has a streak of white in her hair. The father exclaims, "Elsa, what have you done? This is getting out of hand!" and when he takes her to the trolls, both he and Pabbie assume the problem was Power Incontinence. Pabbie tells Elsa her power is beautiful but also that it needs control and the father responds "She can learn to control it, I'm sure." Except that Elsa had been controlling her powers; she just tripped and misaimed when she accidentally hit Anna. If her parents had asked or Elsa had been able to articulate what really happened, the situation would've probably been handled differently because then the issue that needs resolving would be "Elsa and Anna need to exercise more caution when playing with Elsa's magic" than "Elsa needs to control her powers".
• Power Incontinence: Elsa is born with ice powers but a major plot point is that she (initially) can't control them well and that her ice powers sometimes manifest unintendedly and hurt others. Elsa accidentally hurts her sister Anna when they are small children, and later as a young adult she inadvertently puts the entire country of Arendelle in an eternal winter.
• The Power of Family: The "Act of True Love" that saves Anna's life turns out to be Anna sacrificing herself to save her sister Elsa.
• The Power of Love: A big theme for the film, but it also plays around with expectations on what love is. This is also what allows Elsa to finally control her powers.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Hans to the extent that there's a possibility he might not make a bad ruler had he succeeded (save for anyone he felt he could throw away). He's great at maintaining good publicity, and accordingly, will act perfectly nice to anyone who might be useful. When Anna asks him to take care of Arendelle while she's trying to get back Queen Elsa and return summer, he offers shelter in the castle and hands out supplies personally.
• Present-Day Past:
  • Olaf's Imagine Spot in "In Summer" shows picnic and beach scenes in the style of the 1940s and 1950s, especially the Mary Poppins reference where he dances with seagulls.
  • 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.
  • The word 'OK', which was invented in 1839, is used frequently throughout the film, especially by Anna. It works for post-coronation day events in the film, but Anna says 'OK, bye' to Elsa in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", which was before the word 'OK' was around.
  • Characters often speak in modern colloquialisms. For example, Oaken's "big summer blowout" sale, Kristoff complaining that he'd just paid off his sled, or Anna saying that the new sled is "the latest model" — "and, it even has a cup holder."
  • In "Let It Go" Elsa refers to frozen "fractals", a word invented by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975.
  • Chocolate sweets like the ones staked on the buffet were first manufactured in 1847, so they're not out-of-place, albeit as a very new and exotic treat, but chocolate fondue is still about 140-150 years off, though, alas.
• Princess Protagonist: The two main characters, Anna and Elsa, are both princesses, though Elsa becomes a queen early on. Anna thinks of herself as a Princess Classic who dreams of a life filled with balls and handsome princes, though that doesn't quite work out for her. Instead, the plot is dominated by Anna's quest to bring Elsa back home.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: The Duke of Weselton insists it is pronounced "Wessel-ton" when everyone pronounces is "Weasel-town". Once his treachery is exposed, Kai relays a message from Queen Elsa: "Arendelle will henceforth and forever no longer do business of any sort with Weaseltown."
• Prophecy Twist: "Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart" is assumed to refer to Anna's still beating, ice-cursed heart, and an act of another toward Anna, such as a True Love's Kiss. In the end, Anna's selfless act thaws Elsa's (figuratively) "frozen" heart and her own literal one, and Elsa's love for Anna unlocks the part of her magic that undoes the curse of the ice and restores spring to Arendelle.
• Pulling Your Child Away: After Elsa accidentally freezes the fountain and shoots ice at the Duke's guards while running from her disastrous coronation ceremony, the crowd backs away from her in fear, including a mother who clutches her baby closer (who had earlier asked her if she was alright) and a father who pulls his two children away.
• Purple Is Powerful: Elsa's coronation cloak is reddish purple. Her mother wears a purple dress.
• Race Against the Clock: The second half of the movie becomes this after Elsa strikes Anna's heart with ice magic. The countdown timer isn't a clock; it's Anna's hair.
• Rage Breaking Point:
  • The Duke of Weselton's two men come to kill Elsa. Elsa is afraid to use her powers and begs them to turn away but is forced to use them to defend herself, and when they continue to take shots at her, Elsa finally goes into a state of Tranquil Fury and nearly impales one and almost pushes the other right off the balcony of her ice palace.
  • Anna's years of frustration with Elsa boil over when Elsa orders the gates closed again and she then has at Elsa with that fateful fusillade of armor-piercing questions.
  • After the stress of being in public for a day while worried about her secret Power Incontinence, Elsa snaps at her Locked Out of the Loop sister's series of Armor-Piercing Questions and shoots an array of ice spikes at her.
• Ramp Jump: Dramatically subverted during the sled chase. Kristoff steers the sled across the canyon but it doesn't make the gap so he has to jump off to save himself.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: There's a reason why the sword shattering upon contact with the just-frozen Anna was listed under both Shown Their Work and Beyond the Impossible. Those unaware of the effect low temperatures have on steel will likely assume that The Power of Love (in a way, at least) was at work here.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Prince Hans, after revealing his true colors, taunts Anna for being naive and playing right into his plans by giving both him and Elsa a chance.
  • Anna gives a minor one to Hans at the end of the movie.
    Anna: The only frozen heart around here is yours.
  • Played for Laughs in regards to the trolls naming all of Kristoff's flaws, and doing so in order to get Anna to fall in love with him.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: This trope is implied to apply to the way the general public sees Elsa. It's implied in the beginning that they adore her, with crowds excitedly cheering her public appearance, but they become horrified and start doubting her when she creates a massive summer blizzard over the kingdom. When it turns out that it was an accident, their good opinion of her appears restored, with cheering crowds appearing once again in the epilogue, this time at her magic ice rink.
• Recurring Camera Shot: We get two shots set up with someone looking out of the study window. The first time, it is with Elsa during "For the First Time in Forever" number, where she is looking at the kingdom citizens waiting outside the gates. This is to show that's she nervous about opening up to all those people out of fear that her powers will be revealed to them. The second time, it is with Hans during his Motive Rant to Anna, where he looks out the window. Due to the blizzard outside, there are no people this time and he only sees his reflection in the glass, showing that he only cares about himself.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The wolves that ambush Anna and Kristoff's sled in the forest seem to have eyes that glow red as they stalk towards their prey.
• Red Herring:
  • The Duke of Weselton is made to appear to be the main villain when it is actually Hans. It helps that the audience may now subconsciously think they know what to expect when Alan Tudyk (previously King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph) voices a character.
  • Another red herring (within a red herring) is that "only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart." Hans is Anna's true love, right? So all she needs is a kiss from him and she'll be saved. Or so you would think. Hans never loved Anna in the first place, and is only using her status as Princess to get into the Arendelle royal family. Anna realizes that it's Kristoff who is her true love, so Anna tries to find him for his kiss. Unfortunately, her curse freezes her solid just as Hans is about to kill Elsa, which saves Elsa from Hans's sword. This counts as "an act of true love", thus reversing the curse. (As is usual for prophecy, everybody — including the Wrong Genre Savvy audience — overlooks an equally valid interpretation of the statement.)
  • The even number of human main characters is something of a meta one. A lot of fans were convinced that whichever man lost the Love Triangle and didn't end up with Anna would be paired with Elsa instead.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Played with. Anna is the Red Oni to Elsa and Kristoff's Blue, and the trope is deconstructed for all the characters, subverted for Kristoff and Elsa, as well as Double Subverted for Anna.
  • Kristoff is implied to have become a cynical but sensible loner due to a Dark and Troubled Past, while Anna is an outgoing Wide-Eyed Idealist who has had a traumatic past herself but is still more of a naïve, Sheltered Aristocrat^note  Kristoff's Establishing Character Moment implies experiencing violent encounters in his past, while Anna's trauma has been emotionally-based., and the two initially butt heads. Subverted over the course of their adventure. Kristoff begins to warm up, is inspired by her fearlessness and open heart. Anna meanwhile has her optimism and faith repeatedly tested and comes to have a more sophisticated and less naive worldview, but after a talk with Olaf helps her work through her Heroic BSoD, she retains her energetic nature and chooses to remain warm-hearted. And as Kristoff remains The Straight Man of the cast, by the end of the film, the two have come to better appreciate each other's personalities.
  • Elsa's a deconstruction and subversion of the Emotionless Girl trope, one who attempts to invoke it and be as emotionless as possible in order to suppress her Emotional Powers, but it's taken a massive emotional toll on her, makes her appear uncaring, and in fact exacerbates her Power Incontinence. She's not emotionless or as rational as she appears, but rather consumed by fear. (See Failsafe Failure entry and first Fatal Flaw entry). Anna's a bit of a wild child who is more prone to acting on her emotions without always thinking them through. Next to Elsa's façade of perfection, this contributes to Successful Sibling Syndrome. The low self-esteem and desperate need for a loving relationship that result from this and her neglect combined with her two Fatal Flaws of impulsiveness and naivete lead to serious problems, including a manipulative gold-digging fiance trying to murder her and Elsa in order to take over the kingdom. Eventually, the Trauma Conga Line pushes her into Heroic BSoD. However, she works through it and in the end, it's her choice to remain open-hearted that saves everyone and helps Elsa to work through her own fear and begin opening up again.
• Related in the Adaptation: In the original story, Gerda (on whom Anna is based) is unrelated to Kai and the Snow Queen (the characters on whom Elsa is based), at least by blood, although Gerda and Kai are said to be as close as siblings. Here, Anna and Snow Queen Elsa are blood-related sisters. This was done to strengthen the connection between Gerda/Anna and the Snow Queen.
• Repression Never Ends Well: The main conflict stems from Elsa being forced to hide her ice powers most of her life, leading to her unleashing them at her coronation party due to stress and plunging the kingdom into winter.
• Required Secondary Powers: Immunity to cold (and even the ability to keep ice in contact with her skin fully frozen) go with Elsa's ice magic.
  Elsa: The cold never bothered me anyway.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: In the coronation, Elsa is required to raise an orb and scepter in her bare hands while the bishop of Arendelle pronounces her queen.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • Hans' introduction and song with Anna. He systematically builds a fake personality designed to appeal to Anna through a mixture of standard manipulation techniques and cold reading, all while playing it off as "coming out of his shell".
  • When Hans prevents one of the Duke's henchmen from shooting an arrow directly at Elsa,Hans looks at the chandelier above Elsa's head before redirecting the Mook's arrow so that it would fall on her. Doubles as a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
  • Rewatching the film knowing Hans is the villain allows one to notice the darker subtext in his scenes, like how he gestures to the kingdom while singing "I've been searching my whole life to find my own place" during "Love Is an Open Door" and him getting progressively angrier at the Duke also subtly illustrates he never cared for the populace and was more concerned about his authority being preserved. Even his introduction scene with Anna gets more sinister, due to the ambiguous nature of it.
  • He's always seen wearing gloves, but removes his right glove during The Reveal to show his selfish side. As he leaves Anna to die, he puts it back on so he can keep up his farce and pretend to mourn her death.
  • He also downplays the prank where three of his brothers he was invisible for two years as "what brothers do," but while it's another case of siblings teasing one another, it also shows the inner anger he has against his family.
  • When the Duke asks Anna if she has powers as well, Hans is quick to parrot her when she describes herself as "completely ordinary", only to back-pedal and say that he means it in "the best way." At first, one might think he's clumsy given he doesn't match Anna at times, but in reality, he gives subtle nods that she's just that easy to dupe.
• Riddle for the Ages: Why was Elsa born with ice powers? How do her ice powers make clothes; are they made of snow or cloth?? The powers were going to be explained by one of the trolls in an earlier draft, but that scene was removed to keep the flow of the film. It's not until the sequel that the question is addressed.
• Right Behind Me: When Anna, Kristoff and Olaf are being chased by Elsa's new pet Marshmallow:
  Olaf: Hey, Anna! Sven! Where'd you guys go? We totally lost Marshmallow back there! [Marshmallow roars behind him] Hey, we were just talking about you! All good things, all good things....
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:
  • Anna personally sets out on a journey to save her missing sister Queen Elsa and their kingdom, rather than commission soldiers or risk the prejudicial Duke of Weselton sending his men, and makes sure there is someone left looking after the kingdom while she's gone. It's both deconstructed and reconstructed, since for all of her courage and heart, after being locked up for most of her life, she doesn't actually know what she's doing and doesn't have any magic powers or special training to help her. Her horse runs away, she starts to freeze, and when Elsa responds to hearing that the kingdom is under an Endless Winter not by thawing it, but by revealing that she doesn't know how and panicking, Anna finds herself kicked out of the ice palace with no solution to stopping the winter. However, she realizes she needs — and finds — warmer gear, transportation, directions, and a way to thaw by herself, which in turn shows Elsa how to deal with her Power Incontinence.
  • Elsa qualifies, as the Duke of Weselton's concerns with securing his trade interests in her kingdom make this one of the few Disney Princess movies where political diplomacy and international affairs are an explicit concern. At the end of the movie, Elsa cuts off trade between Arendelle and Weselton after the Duke tries to have her killed.
• Rule of Drama: At the climax, the realistic thing for Anna to do would have been to simply push Hans when he's raising his sword at Elsa which would have spared them both from being struck. Instead, she jumps in between him and Elsa to take his blow in order to serve the film's "act of true love" requirement.
• Rule of Funny: How else to explain both Anna and Kristoff looking shocked that they are suddenly inside Olaf's Imagine Spot.
• Rule of Glamorous: So how can the power to manipulate ice allow Elsa to reweave her cloth dress into ice? Simple, it's pretty.
• Rule of Symbolism: According to Paul Briggs, Olaf represents the love between Anna and Elsa.
• Rule of Three:
  • The Duke of Weaseltown ^note WESELTON! refers to Elsa as a monster three times: first after she knocks him over at the castle doors, again when he questions whether Anna has any powers, and finally after Hans tells him about Anna's "death".
  • Elsa makes an ice surface by stomping the ground on three occasions; once during her and Anna's Minor Kidroduction, again during "Let It Go" when she's making the ice castle, and finally during the ending, when forming the skating rink in the courtyard.
• Running Gag:
  • Olaf's constant Accidental Misnaming of Kristoff as "Sven."
  • Throughout the movie, people keep calling the Duke of Weselton the "Duke of Weasel Town."
• Sadistic Choice: At the climax of the film Anna is forced to choose between running to Kristoff, where a kiss from him might save her from her freezing heart but at the cost of her sister's life. Or she can run towards Hans and stop him from killing her sister but at the cost of her own life. She chooses the latter.
• Sanity Slippage Song: Anna admits over the course of "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" that she's going mad from the isolation.
  Anna: I think some company is overdue!
  I've started talking to
  The pictures on the walls!
  (Hang in there, Joan!)
• Savage Wolves: Anna and Kristoff are attacked by wolves at one point in their journey.
• Say My Name: All over the place, but it's justified when Anna and Kristoff are shouting each other's names on the fjord because there's a blizzard blocking their vision. They need to find each other so that Kristoff can save the dying Anna with true love's kiss.
• Scenery Porn: The ice and snow effects are particularly stunning, in a film already loaded with stunning visuals.
• Second Love: After Hans's betrayal, Anna ends up with Kristoff.
• Self-Deprecation: During the lyrics for "Reindeer(s) are Better Than People," Kristoff says that reindeer are better friends than people, but people smell better than reindeer — with himself being the human exception in both cases.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Pabbie's original warning to Elsa is that "fear will be your enemy", but he might as well have said "the only thing to fear is fear itself" for all it gets her stuck in a loop of being afraid of a part of herself in case she can't control it, trying to avoid it and getting even worse at controlling it.
• Self-Imposed Exile: Elsa retreats to the mountains and builds a "kingdom of isolation" when her ice powers are revealed to the people of Arendelle. When her sister Anna finds her and tries to bring her home, Elsa tells her "I know you mean well, but leave me be".
• Settle for Sibling: Hans initially planned to marry Elsa and only decided to court her sister Anna after realizing Elsa wasn't an option.
• Shaped Like Itself: "I'm never going back, The past is in the paaaasssst..."
• Shared Family Quirks: Both Anna and Elsa have a fondness for chocolate and even simultaneously do the "sniff in the air" motion when they smell it at the coronation banquet. On a more serious note, when Anna and Elsa are grieving for their parents' death, they sit down and hug their legs close to their chest in the same way.
• Shared Universe: With Tangled, apparently, if you catch Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert being among the coronation guests filing in during "For the First Time in Forever".
• Shave And A Haircut: The first two verses of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" start with Anna tapping this on Elsa's door.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Kristoff repeatedly tells the trolls that he's not in a relationship with Anna. He even manages to briefly cut off "Fixer Upper" when he tells them she is engaged to someone else, but the trolls decide that a fiancé is not a fixed thing — and by the way, they don't see no ring.
• Shipper on Deck: The trolls heartily support Kristoff and Anna together, to the point of trying to marry them on the spot.
• Ship Sinking: The sheer brutality of the main plot twist did this to the Hans/Anna ship, and by extension, every other Hans-related ship. Essentially, Hans reveals that he only ever cared about getting the throne, and Anna was the easier sister to seduce. He then explains how now that she's dying, all he needs to do is kill Elsa. Said Evil Gloating is done with a smug, satisfied smile.
• Sigil Spam: The crocus is part of the official crest of Arendelle and is seen adorning various props and official regalia, including the scepter and orb Elsa takes as part of her coronation ceremony, her gloves, her cape, both sisters' coronation dresses, Anna's necklace, wallpaper, and tablecloths.
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • Plucky Comic Relief Olaf follows Anna into the ice palace but not to the second floor where Elsa and Anna's conversation goes south and Elsa freezes Anna's heart.
  • While Olaf manages to help give some well-needed points to Anna, during the climax he is quickly blown away. Sven nearly drowns in the cracking ocean, but manages to resurface and climb onto a floating ice chunk. Both return once the danger is past.
• Short-Lived Leadership: Once Anna goes off to search for her sister, she names Hans regent. He very briefly is accepted as the king of Arendelle after Anna's supposed death, having convinced the diplomats that he and Anna had exchanged their vows before she turned to solid ice and that Queen Elsa is guilty of treason, sentencing her to death. His brief reign falls immediately when in an attempt to kill Elsa, Anna suddenly swoops in and shields her sister from being killed, causing his claims to be exposed as false, and he ends the movie arrested and caged while Elsa returns to reestablish her title as the queen.
• Shout-Out: Now has its own page.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming:
  • Say "Hans Kristoff Anna Sven" really fast and the theming should be apparent. Plus, Elsa's name is only one letter away from Elisa, the heroine of another Andersen tale "The Wild Swans."
  • A subtle one for the name Arendelle. To the south of Norway lies the port town of Arendal.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The ice harvesting techniques shown in the opening sequence are all historically accurate — and modern accurate, too, since many of the tools the ice harvesters use, like the hooks and saws they use to lift blocks of ice out of the troughs and load them on the wagon, are still used in modern ice harvesting. With one exception: If ice is thick enough to stand on like shown in the opening shot, you don't thrust the saw directly into it without drilling a hole first (as shown in the very next shot).
  • Someone spent some time studying the proper way to trim the mane on a Norwegian Fjord horse.
  • When the camera tracks through Arendelle prior to the coronation, you may see a few people raising a green Maypole with two big green rings/circles, famous in Sweden during "Midsommar", an event that celebrates the summer.
  • What would happen in real life if a wooden, freshly lacquered sled carrying a lit lantern and a heavy load of ice were to crash into a snowy ravine? Why, the lantern would break, the flaming oil would set fire to the sled, and neither the ice nor the snow would put it out. Even if Kristoff just paid it off.
  • Making a snow anchor is a legitimate rappelling technique — specifically here, a snow bollard. Not that it did them any good because of Marshmallow (and realistically, that fall should have killed them or at the very least broken a lot of bones) but they get points for trying.
  • The animators travelled to the Ice Hotel in Quebec to use it as a basis for designing Elsa's ice castle interiors.
  • A few of the movie's crew walked through snow in dresses. They then used this information to develop software for animating character movement through snow, in particular, Anna's attempt to trudge through ankle deep snow after her horse gets spooked.
  • Regarding the scene with a shattering sword, those who look closely enough will observe that Anna's frozen hand is so cold that frost forms radiating outward from her hand over the blade. Any metallurgist will tell you that extremely cold steel is as brittle as sugar glass, and solid ice as thick as the frozen Anna is as hard as properly forged steel. Reality Is Unrealistic, indeed.
  • The sun can be seen from the same balcony of Elsa's ice castle at both sunrise (in "Let It Go") and sunset (in "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)"), at the correct angle for summer in Norway. Putting Arendelle at about 63 degrees north.
  • While certain aspects of Sven's biology are suspect in a lot of ways, he does have his summer feet. Reindeer's feet spread in summer to cope with boggy tundra, and shrink again in winter. This might explain why he slips when he tries to climb the staircase to Elsa's castle.
  • Dr. Jackson Crawford, a lecturer on Old Norse at UCLA, provided consultation about the Norse language and runic scripts.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After seeing Anna alive after he had locked her in a room to die from a curse, Hans is flabbergasted at her survival because Elsa had frozen Anna's heart. Anna gives Hans a piece of her mind (and then some) once and for all.
  Hans: Anna? But... she froze your heart!
  Anna: The only frozen heart around here is yours. [punches him in the face so hard it knocks him off the ship]
• "Shut Up" Kiss: Anna gives Kristoff one when he starts babbling.
• Sibling Murder: Elsa nearly accidentally kills her sister as a child. They are playing with Elsa's ice powers when Elsa slips and hits Anna in the head, knocking her out. Anna is saved by trolls, but years later she does die when Elsa accidentally freezes Anna's heart during a panic attack. Anna turns to ice in the climax but comes back through The Power of Love.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Anna and Elsa. Anna is cheerful, extroverted and a Badass Normal while Elsa is stoic, introverted and very powerfully magical. This is highlighted by their hairstyles, with Elsa's hair in a single, lone French braid and Anna's in pigtails.
• Sidekick Song: "In Summer", sung by Olaf.
• Sigh of Love: Anna tends to sigh and giggle a lot around Hans from the moment they meet, at least until he reveals his true colors.
• Sitting on the Roof: Anna and Hans are seen sitting on the castle's rooftop as part of their Falling-in-Love Montage.
• Skewed Priorities: When Hans is distributing cloaks and clothes to freezing residents suffering in the magical July blizzard, the Duke of Weselton complains that Hans is giving away tradeable goods. Hans's response, repeatedly stressing that he was left in charge, displays more anger at the duke questioning his authority than his apparent lack of concern for the populace.
• Small Start, Big Finish: Elsa's "I Am Becoming" Song, "Let it Go", is a "Gaining Confidence" Song that starts out in low tones and with minimal accompaniment as Elsa observes the icy landscapes. However, as she realizes she is finally free to be herself, she sings louder, the background music gets bigger, culminating in her belting notes as she relishes in her new palace.
• Sock Slide Rink: During the "Love is an Open Door" song, Anna and Hans do this during their Falling-in-Love Montage. Sliding across one of the vacant halls of the castle in stockings and socks respectively.
• Snowball Fight: Anna lobs a snowball at Marshmallow. This only makes him mad.
• Snow Means Cold: Justified Trope. The story takes place at the height of summer, which means warmer air, which means a lot more moisture in the air (both from more evaporated water, and from warmer air simply being able to hold more moisture in it), which means a lot of raw material to make snow with. Accordingly, the Endless Winter makes it not only cold, but a foot or so of snow everywhere.
• Snow Means Death: Played with. Most of the film takes place during an Endless Winter, but when the film reaches its climax, as Elsa is imprisoned, Anna is dying, and Hans reveals he was evil, the landscape turns from a relatively benign winter wonderland to wracked by a harsh snowstorm. Justified as Elsa at this point is terrified out of her mind that Arendelle has taken on the appearance of a wasteland and Anna is missing, and her emotions are directly causing the raging storm. Once Hans lies to her about Anna's death, Elsa falls so deep into despair that she no longer cares about anything, and the storm subsides.
• Solo Duet: "Reindeers are Better than People," is a "duet" in which Kristoff is the lead and Sven is supposed to be the second part. Except, Sven is a reindeer and can't talk, so "he" is actually Kristoff singing with a goofy voice.
• Song of Many Emotions:
  • In "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?", Anna is confused and upset about Elsa shutting her out, happy when she hugs her parents, excited when she tries to play by herself, despondent when she realizes it's not the same by herself, bored and lonely in the empty castle without a friend, and time and again, she hopefully knocks on Elsa's door. At the end of the song, when she receives the news about her parents' deaths and Elsa still doesn't talk to her, Anna is devastated. Elsa doesn't sing with Anna but is prominently featured in the fragment, adding her sorrow and fear to the mix.
  • "For the First Time in Forever" is shared between Anna and Elsa. While the former is hopeful and excited, the latter is apprehensive and sad.
  • During "Let It Go", Elsa embraces her magic and all the emotions she has been suppressing for so long. She flips between sorrow about her isolation, anger at the circumstances that made her repress her powers and feelings, and joy and pride about using her magic and being finally free. Analyzed in detail here.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To the 1972 Swedish film Cries and Whispers. Both movies deal with estranged sisters attempting to reconcile. It's very easy to see Anna and Elsa as Disneyfied versions of Maria and Karin, respectively: Anna and Maria both try to find affection in people they shouldn't, while Elsa and Karin are averse to physical contact and suppress their emotions until they can't take it anymore and explode (parallels between "Let It Go" and Karin's self-mutilation). Both movies also climax with an Act of True Love, however C&W is considerably more cynical than Frozen, as unlike Anna and Elsa, Maria and Karin vehemently reject any participation in said act (it involves a third sister and a maid instead), ultimately go their separate ways without reconciling and continue their miserable lives.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To Tangled, from title to character design. This led many to believe it was just going to be Tangled IN SNOW before the film proved them very wrong.
  • The title is even worse in Chinese: only one character from the four-character title is changed, from "Tale of Magical Hair" to "Tale of Magical Snow" (or, slightly less obviously, "Tale of Ice and Snow" in some regions). Tangled's Chinese name was originally a pun on the translation for another Disney film, and it's lost on Frozen.
  • The same applies to the Vietnamese titles — "The Cloud-Haired Princess" (fancy term for someone with long, luxurious hair), and "The Ice Queen".
  • And the Swedish titles, "Trassel" and "Frost", or "Tangle" and, well, "Frost". Both are one-word titles resembling the English titles.
• Stealth Pun:
  • From the lyric "A kingdom of isolation / and it looks like I'm the Queen" from the song "Let It Go", Elsa stresses the first syllable in "ice-solation".
  • A great Woolseyism in the Finnish translation: "Let It Go" is translated as "Taakse jää", meaning something like "It stays behind". "Jää" here is a form of the verb "to stay"...but there's also a noun "jää", which means ice. Plus, "Taakse" can also be considered a command form of "back", so the phrase could be translated as something like "Stay back, ice", fitting with how Elsa wants to control her powers.
  • During "For the First Time in Forever," there's the line "Tonight imagine me gown and all / Fetchingly draped against the wall..." (this said while Anna has wrapped herself in the drapes)
  • In the Czech dub, Anna doesn't ask Elsa at the ball why she is shutting the world out, but rather why she is so cold (chladna) to the world.
  • Anna briefly holds three ducklings. Three is an odd number. Anna is the odd duck out.
  • Olaf mistakenly calls Kristoff "Sven" — he was referring to Kristoff with a pet name.
• The Stinger: Marshmallow finds the tiara that Elsa threw away and puts it on, and his angry spikes retract.
• Stink Snub: The trolls describe Kristoff as being smelly in the "Fixer-Upper" song and ask if that's why he and Anna aren't a couple.
• Stock Sound Effect: Baby Kate Cry.
• Stopped Dead in Their Tracks: Anna confronts Elsa in a very public manner as she walks away, her final Armor-Piercing Question "What are you so afraid of?" causing Elsa to turn back and unleashes a beam of ice, revealing her secret to everyone.
• Storming the Castle: Hans and a raid of soldiers invade Elsa's ice castle.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion:
  • "In Summer":
    Olaf: Winter's a good time to stay in and cuddle
    But put me in summer and I'll be a...
    [Olaf approaches a puddle, thinks for a moment, then jumps right over it, instead belting out...]
    Happpppppyyyyy snowman!
  • At the end of the second verse of "Let It Go", one expects her to say "The cold never bothered me anyway," like is done in verses 1 and 3, but Elsa goes straight into the bridge.
    Here I stand
    And here I'll stay.
    Let the storm rage on...
  • Played for Drama in the reprise of "For the First Time in Forever". The rhyming scheme sets Anna's final line up to be "everything will be all right". She gets to "be" before Elsa cuts her off with a Big "I CAN'T", a blast of Power Incontinence, and things getting much worse instead.
  • Subverted by the Last-Second Word Swap in the reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", where Anna sings that Arendelle is in "deep, deep, deep, deep...snow..." which does rhyme with the previous line, "I have a feeling you don't know."
• Subverted Trope: The film gained a lot of attention for subverting expectations and stereotypes associated with fairy tales.
  • Anna and Hans appear to fall in Love at First Sight, have a Dance of Romance and sing a cute duet together during a Falling-in-Love Montage, quickly become engaged and appear to be One True Loves headed toward the Fourth-Date Marriage trope so common in many films, and after Anna is accidentally cursed and only an "act of true love" can save her, all the characters assume a True Love's Kiss from Hans is the answer. Not only is it not, the film has Hans lean in as romantic music swells, only to pause, give a Slasher Smile, and deliver a Wham Line revealing himself to both Anna and the audience to not just be her One True Love despite all the love tropes that had been set up, but to have been Evil All Along.
  • The handsome prince riding in to save the day. Watch the Big Damn Heroes finale. While Kristoff is brave to ride on in, he has almost nothing to do with saving Elsa or Anna. Olaf saves Anna from freezing to death at the risk of his life and lets her out of that room. Anna sacrifices her life to save Elsa, which ends up being the Act of True Love that breaks the curse.
  • Villains being easily recognizable just by their appearance. We are reminded of this with the obviously greedy Jerkass Duke, and then it's flipped on its head with the gorgeous Hans. The Duke was a jerk, but he's not pure evil and is in fact a Red Herring, while apparent Prince Charming turns out to be a villainous Prince Charmless in disguise.
  • When Elsa runs to the North Mountain, she lets loose with her powers and sings what sounds like a Villain Song about she now sees "no right, no wrong, no rules for me," seemingly beginning a Start of Darkness and becoming an Evil Witch / Evil Queen. It's later shown she really didn't mean to curse the kingdom, and didn't even realize that it had happened Nor is she opposed to Anna's happiness, but rather was concerned about how quickly Anna and Hans were committing, and when that relationship does not work out, she shows no issue with Anna moving on and starting a relationship with Kristoff.
• Sunken Face: A blink-and-you'll-miss it moment, but Prince Han's face is briefly caved in when Anna punches him.
• Supermodel Strut: At the end of "Let It Go", Elsa sways her hips as she confidently struts to the balcony, as part of throwing away her old, proper life.
• Super Special Move:
  • During her iconic "Let It Go", Elsa assembles a small snowman with her magic, unknowingly giving it life. Later, when she becomes aware that she can grant life to ice/snow constructs, she forms a giant, monstrous guardian that is made of ice and snow. The snowman is harmless, small, and goofy while the guardian has ice claws, can easily throw two adult people around, and reacts badly to perceived threats.
  • Played for Drama with Elsa's ice strikes when directed at a human being. When Elsa is eight years old, she accidentally hits her sister with one of these, sending that person straight into a magical coma. As it struck that person's head, the mountain trolls are able to reverse it and the only lasting effect is getting a streak of platinum-blonde on her hair. By the time Elsa is eighteen, she accidentally shoots another ice streak at the same person, though at her heart. This proves far more dangerous as it eventually freezes that person alive. Now, it's a subverted example because it's as much a result of Elsa's ice powers getting stronger as it is of the fact the person is hit twice and that the second time it affected her heart, a weaker point.
• Survival Through Self-Sacrifice: Rather than getting a True Love's Kiss from Kristoff to thaw out her own frozen heart, Anna chooses to sacrifice her own life by throwing herself in front of Elsa just as Hans is about to kill her. She turns frozen solid moments after, however since it counts as an Act of True Love, she thaws out moments later and returns back to life.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: Early on, the ice workers sing the "Frozen Heart" song whose lyrics double as a statement about the fair and foul Elsa and foreshadow the movie plot:
  Born of cold and winter air
  And mountain rain combining
  This icy force both foul and fair
  Has a frozen heart worth mining.

Tropes T-Z

• Taken for Granite: The final effect of Elsa's magic striking Anna's heart is that Anna's entire body turns to ice from the inside out in the course of a few moments.
• Taking the Bullet: When Anna sees Hans about to kill Elsa, she tries to intercept his sword. Her body turns to ice just before the sword touches her, causing the sword to shatter.
• Taking You with Me: When Hans cuts Marshmallow's leg off and Marshmallow falls into the gorge, Marshmallow tries dragging Hans down with him, but Hans manages to grab hold of the icy staircase and get helped up by the soldiers.
• Tap on the Head:
  • Elsa gets one of these from a falling ice-chandelier, of all things (carefully dealt by Hans, though nobody realizes at the time). She's unconscious for what must be a few hours, but recovers very quickly after a few seconds of blurred vision.
  • The same happens to Hans in the climax via being thrown backwards with a magical shockwave — though he's only out for a few minutes and is visibly groggy afterwards.
• Tears of Awe: When Kristoff, an ice professional, sees the impossible fantasy of ice sculpture that is Queen Elsa's Ice Castle, he takes the time to stop and admire it with wide eyes, mentioning that he would cry (we don't see the tears though).
• Tempting Fate:
  • This happens to Anna when she bumps into Hans while finishing her "I Want" Song.
    Anna: For the first time in forever, nothing's in my waaaaay— [crashes into Hans's horse] Hey!
  • At The Reveal Anna says "You won't get away with this!" as Hans is about to leave her to die. His response? "I already have." It makes the punch that much more satisfying when it comes.
  • Hans, after having tried to kill Anna and Elsa, stays behind after Elsa thaws the kingdom out to exclaim his surprise to Anna that she is still alive rather than running away. That he's rewarded with a punch to face is letting him off way too easy.
• Terrified of Germs: Referenced, but averted. Anna suspected that Elsa's use of gloves resulted from a dislike of dirt.
• That Man Is Dead: In "Let It Go", it's clear Elsa feels this way regarding the persona she adopted while in the castle. Her complete visual transformation from "Queen of Arendelle" to "Ice Sorceress" really hammers this point home.
  Elsa: That perfect girl is gone.
• That's an Order!: Subverted when Anna's sweet, friendly nature makes her unable to go through with demanding that Kristoff give her a ride and she ends up convincing him instead of ordering, despite her being a princess.
  Anna: I want you to take me up the North Mountain.
  Kristoff: I don't take people places.
  Anna: Let me rephrase that. [tosses a sack at Kristoff containing supplies he had wanted] Take me up the North Mountain... please.
• That's What I Call "X"!: Kristoff's reaction to seeing Elsa's Ice Palace for the first time is "Now that's ice. I might cry..." Anna tells him, "Go ahead. I won't judge."
• They Died Because of You: During the climax, Hans tells Elsa that Anna is dead "because of you!", though he only thinks that's the case.
• Thinking Out Loud:
  • Kristoff likes to "speak for" Sven. Though Sven "agrees" with what's said, it's more so Kristoff can just tell us what he's already thinking. For some odd reason, "Sven" always "wins" the arguments.
  • Olaf does this to a lesser extent. This can be heard happening when Anna and Kristoff first meet him. Also, when Anna hesitates before knocking on Elsa's front door, he says, "Knock? Just knock. Why isn't she knocking? Do you think she knows how to knock?"
• This Cannot Be!: After seeing Anna alive after he had locked her in a room to die from a curse, Hans has this very revelation when he sees her and Elsa both alive and exclaims to Anna, "But she froze your heart!"
• Thwarted Coup de Grâce: Anna's Barehanded Blade Block to save Elsa from Hans's Coup de Grâce.
• Toilet Humor: Not blatantly but is still there:
  • Anna wondering if she's elated or gassy during "For the First Time in Forever".
  • Olaf is rambling a bit about yellow snow when he comes across Anna and Kristoff in the woods.
  • The "Fixer Upper" sequence has two:
    • One of the trolls says he passed a kidney stone.
    • One of the troll children mentions how Kristoff only tinkles in the woods, something Anna didn't need to know. ^note In case you're wondering, we're talking about him relieving himself near trees.
• Tongue on the Flagpole:
  • In the teaser trailer, Sven gets his tongue stuck on a frozen lake during a quarrel with Olaf over a carrot.
  • In the film proper, he does manage to get his tongue stuck to the rail of Elsa's ice staircase while Anna and Kristoff are inside talking to Elsa.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Anna and Elsa have a sweet bonding moment when they simultaneously smell out their favorite sweet, chocolate, complete with synchronized motions. It shows that the two still have a bond in spite of the isolation from each other.
  • Anna also has a love of sandwiches.
  • Sven loves carrots, to the point where he tries at least three times to steal Olaf's nose.
• A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: The "Party Is Over" scene that sets off the main events of the film is full of this, both sisters acting impulsively:
  • Anna asks to marry Hans, despite not having thought her decision fully through.
  • After Anna asks for Elsa's blessing and starts talking about inviting his family over, Elsa panics and orders the castle gates - which were only to be open for just that one day - closed again early.
  • This freaks out Anna, who is Locked Out of the Loop with all knowledge of Elsa's powers removed from her mind says she can't take living in isolation anymore, and she tugs Elsa's hand as Elsa starts to leave, which makes one of Elsa's gloves come off, freaking Elsa out further.
  • Elsa then snaps at Anna's begging for an explanation and impulsively shoots an array of ice spikes at her.
  • Elsa then immediately flees without trying to explain the situation first, contributing to a Hero with Bad Publicity situation and keeping her from realizing the kingdom's begun to suffer from what appears to be an Endless Winter in the middle of July, and it doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.
• Tragic Dream: Defied. Since he's a snowman, Olaf's dream of being out in the sun during summer would count as this. Fortunately, Elsa gives him a miniature snow cloud to let him live it out.
• Trailers Always Spoil:
  • The "Elsa" trailer briefly shows a clip of Elsa saving Olaf from melting. Although you could be forgiven for thinking it's when she creates him. She actually creates him during "Let It Go".
  • In the merchandise, notice how Hans is left out of the merchandise unless it's a set of the full cast, but Kristoff isn't, marking him as the male lead. Notably, Kristoff has a Mattel and Disney Store fashion doll, but Hans only has a Disney Store one. The Disney Store makes dolls of the villains, so the fact that a Hans doll is present isn't all that strange after you learn the twist.
  • Some of the trailers spoil the scene where Elsa thaws Arendelle at the end. In fact, the promos for Disney Channel and Freeform all play up scenes from the epilogue, spoiling the movie's resolution for those who didn't see it yet.
• Translation Convention: The characters are shown singing in their own language at the beginning of the movie, then sound as if they're speaking English throughout the rest of the movie.
• Trauma Button: When Anna tries to convince Elsa to come home with her, Elsa suddenly has a flashback back to the moment in their youth when she almost killed Anna with her powers, which Anna didn't remember due to Pabbie altering her memories.
• Trauma Conga Line: For both sisters:
  1. At a young age, Elsa inadvertently almost kills Anna, which leads to a warning from the trolls that makes her fear both the reaction of other people and the potential of her power to cause harm, and becomes afraid to show any emotion at all. She won't even let her parents give her a hug anymore, for fear of hurting them.
  2. Meanwhile, Anna is given Laser-Guided Amnesia and is left to wonder why her sister and best friend in the world suddenly doesn't want anything to do with her anymore.
  3. Then their parents die, leaving both of them utterly alone in the world.
  4. Elsa can't control her secret Emotional Powers in the aftermath of their death, and so can't even leave her room to attend their parent's funeral.
  5. Locked Out of the Loop Anna has no clue why Elsa is still avoiding her and leaving her to deal with the burden of their parents' death without any friends or family, as well as with the responsibilities involved in being the only living member of the royal family willing to leave her room at the time the previous monarchs are lost, including explaining the new queen's mysterious absence, without knowing why Elsa doesn't seem to care and wants to continue their parents' policy, started after the accident Anna had removed from her memories, of keeping the two of them as isolated as possible.
  6. Another three years of isolation go by and Anna finally finds someone she seems to connect with, only for Elsa, who's concerned about Anna entering into a committed relationship so soon (see first Decon-Recon Switch entry), to immediately close the gates again and tell Anna that she has to choose between a life beyond the gates or the only home she's ever known and her only remaining family.
  7. Elsa's secret is revealed when she snaps at an Armor-Piercing Question during the confrontation, and she faces calls of "monster" as her panic and Power Incontinence grow.
  8. As Anna deals with realizing that her family kept her in the dark about such a major secret, as well as feeling guilt for the confrontation, Elsa flees and the kingdom plunges into a magical blizzard in the middle of summer and the suffering people begin to express suspicion that her estranged but still beloved sister is doing it on purpose.
  9. Just when Elsa thinks she can live without any magic-related problems, she's informed about the Endless Winter, and she feels she has just doomed everyone in Arendelle and is powerless to stop it.
  10. Anna gets unintentionally shot in the heart with magical ice, which starts to slowly freeze her from the inside out.
  11. Elsa, meanwhile, feels even more guilty after Anna gets cursed.
  12. Anna then gets literally thrown out by her panicking sister's giant snow monster.
  13. Elsa survives an assassination attempt, only to be knocked out and imprisoned instead.
  14. Anna's one hope to save her, after she is left to slowly freeze to death when her sister once again accidentally hits her with ice magic, turns out to be a heartless manipulator who's only after the throne and leaves her to die after subjecting her to a sadistic monologue about how no one loves her.
  15. Elsa collapses in grief when she thinks her sister died because of her, only to be saved by Anna actually freezing to death, and looks up to see Anna's frozen body, as Anna had realized that her sister really was in danger and needed to give up her chance to live and to finally find love when she chooses Taking the Bullet for her sister instead.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Elsa takes apparently no more than a few hours to get from Arendelle up to the top of the North Mountain on foot. It takes about a day and a half to two days for Anna to travel up the North Mountain to Elsa's ice palace, first by horse, then by foot, then by Kristoff's sled, then by foot the rest of the way. This is likely because she was not initially traveling to the mountain specifically, but rather searching around for the missing Elsa — she may have been traveling away from the North Mountain until the scene at the trading post when she overhears Kristoff's remarks to Oaken about the storm coming from the direction of the North Mountain. Likewise, it appears to take Hans and the Arendelle soldiers roughly thirteen to eighteen hours to travel from the castle in Arendelle to the ice palace on horseback since they appear to leave in the early afternoon and are seen arriving at the ice palace just as dawn is breaking. The difference between the travel times of Hans and Anna could be explained by Hans and his team riding horses the whole way and with soldiers who may have known the terrain and/or been more experienced trackers, whereas Anna made the majority of the journey on foot and half of it unaccompanied, after spending most of her life in isolation, but no explanation is actually given how they found where to go.
• Triumphant Reprise:
  • "Eatnemen Vuelie", the chorale at the beginning of the movie, is sung again, this time with instrumental accompaniment, when Anna's Heroic Sacrifice breaks her curse and Elsa channels her love for her sister to thaw her Endless Winter and restore summer.
  • The "Epilogue" track, which is a reprise of "For the First Time in Forever" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?". For the first time in forever, Anna finally has the bond with her sister she had been seeking for years. Note that they're skating together with Olaf, just like in their introduction.
  • "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)" starts off as a Triumphant Reprise, but ends up becoming a Dark Reprise about halfway through.
  • The scene where Anna congratulates Elsa after she thaws Arendelle is accompanied by a brief instrumental reprise of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?".
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Some of the songs contain gear changes that are very noticeable.
  • "For the First Time in Forever" starts in F major and goes up a half step on each verse.
  • "Love is an Open Door" ends a full step up from the key it starts in.
  • "In Summer" ends a full key up from where it begins.
• True Blue Femininity: Anna and Elsa both wear dresses that are mainly blue, although Anna's other outfits incorporate a lot of green because she is both feminine and significantly cheerier than her sister. Meanwhile, Elsa's costumes all include some form of blue: her sky-blue ice dress, the blue dresses she wears as a child, her teal coronation dress and cyan-colored gloves.
• True Love's Kiss: Played with. Grand-Pabbie Troll tells Anna that only an Act of True Love can save her. The first idea that occurs to the other trolls is, "like a true love's kiss!", so off Anna goes to get a kiss from her beloved Hans who doesn't actually love her.
• Truth in Television:
  • Quick involvement in a relationship can be a sign that something's not right. Sure enough, the reason why Hans was so quick to ask Anna to agree to marriage when they barely knew each other was that he was a manipulative Gold Digger taking advantage of her naivete and emotional vulnerability.
  • Abusive partners are capable of acting perfectly nice and charming, both in public and in private.
  • Abusive partners will also often engage in Victim-Blaming, as Hans does in his Break Them by Talking speech — "You were so desperate for love, you were willing to marry me just like that!"
• Twirl of Love: Near the end, Kristoff twirls Anna after she shows him his new sled.
• Unimpressive Progress Reveal: When Anna and Kristoff reach the North Mountain. Anna begins scaling the rock wall as Kristoff teases her for her inability to climb. After a few shots, the camera pans out and we see Anna about 5 feet up the side of the cliff.
• Unknown Rival: Kristoff and Hans are both in the running for Anna. Kristoff isn't really aware he likes Anna until later, Hans doesn't even know Kristoff exists, and neither even are in the same place at the same time until the plot is resolved.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: During "For the First Time in Forever", Princess Anna dancing and singing her way down the railing of the road to the castle with the visitors taking little notice of her.
• Unwanted Assistance: Kristoff's response to "Fixer Upper". He doesn't want his family's "help" impressing Anna because all they do is talk about his flaws. Also, and far more importantly, it's preventing them from examining Anna and determining what Elsa's magic blast did to her.
• Uriah Gambit: Downplayed and inverted. When Queen Elsa flees and an Endless Winter sets in, Princess Anna volunteers to find her and help the kingdom. Hans initially protests that it's too dangerous for her to go alone and suggests he accompany her himself — until she says that there needs to be someone to stay and take care of Arendelle and asks him to do it. Once he's in charge, then he's happy to have her go off on her own, although he's careful to take soldiers with him on the "rescue mission" later on when her horse very publicly returns without her. In his Break Them by Talking speech, he implies that this trope was his intent, gloating that in order to take the throne, he had already been planning to kill Elsa, "but then she doomed herself, and you were dumb enough to go after her!".
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Anna punches Hans off the ship for lying to her, then he is thrown into a jail cell onto a ship back to the Southern Isles to face punishment for such.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • "Don't be the monster they fear you are!"
  • In his "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Hans mocks Anna for so quickly accepting his proposal. Elsa and Kristoff agree, and by the end of the film, Anna admits she was wrong and made a mistake. Also a Played With trope when he also mocks her for going after Elsa. The film emphasizes that this was a reckless move, but ultimately validates her choice to keep faith in Elsa.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Duke of Weselton has a minor one when, as he is forced to return home to Weselton in disgrace, he insists that he is the victim of fear. Not only is Elsa having all trade with his country cut off due to his blatant act of attempted regicide, but the messenger deliberately pronounces its name as "Weasel Town".
• Villainous Face Hold: Prince Hans holds a weakened Anna's chin up so she's looking him in the eye whilst he tells her of his plan to kill Elsa and usurp the throne.
• Villainous Valour: Despite Elsa's vast powers, the Duke of Weselton's guards are willing to attack her armed only with crossbows. They hold their own for a surprisingly long time.
• Villain Song: Played with, greatly.
  • "Let It Go" is an odd case. It was actually originally written to be one of these, but the writers realized the song was too inspiring for a villain. Rather than changing it to make it more consistent with the villainous direction they were originally going for with Elsa, the filmmakers were inspired by the song to change Elsa from a Tragic Villain to a Classical Antihero Deuteragonist. Despite no longer actually being one, in some respects it still retains some of the beat and feel of a villain song, and contains elements that would be quite at home in one, such as a powerful magic user conjuring a giant fortress for herself while singing gleefully about how she's not going to live by anyone else's rules anymore. The German translation of the lyrics makes it sound more of a villain song, with phrases such as "Die Kraft sie ist Grenzenlos" (The power is limitless), "Die Kälte sie ist nun ein Teil von mir" (The cold is now part of me), and "Nur ein Gedanke und die Welt wird ganz aus Eis" (Just a thought will turn the world to ice).
  • "Love Is an Open Door" is a Villain Song disguised as a romantic duet. It originally comes off as a triumphant "I Am Becoming" Song of the Power of Love to heal. However, after Hans reveals his true colors, the song transforms into a stealth Villain Song, in which Anna's naivete becomes an "open door" for Hans's plan to usurp Arendelle's throne. Anna and Hans's exchange of "We finish each other's — Sandwiches! — That's what I was going to say!" goes from being a Birds of a Feather moment to evidence of Hans's manipulative prowess. The paired singing of "You and I were just meant to be" becomes especially emblematic of the film's Deconstruction of Love at First Sight; real-life romance takes time to develop.
  • The Frozen OST contains an outtake called "You're You", which implies more of Hans's ulterior motives than "Love Is an Open Door" does.
• Visual Pun:
  • In "For the First Time in Forever", the second verse starts "Tonight, imagine me, gown and all/fetchingly draped against the wall," as Anna approaches a nearby drape, twirls, wraps herself up in it, and then dramatically leans against the column, and hits herself with the drawstring.
  • As Olaf once more starts to melt in the heat, he says "Hands down, this is the best day of my life..." Immediately, his left arm falls off before Elsa resurrects him. Hands down, indeed....
  • Snowlem Olaf laments "Man, am I out of shape!" as he runs from Marshmallow — while his body parts are literally out of order.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The trolls are a detour from the mountain and the plot. While trying to stop eternal winter, the pair are held up because the trolls want to wed Anna and Kristoff.
• Walk on Water: Elsa can achieve this by using her powers to freeze the water on which she steps completely solid. She makes good use of this ability during her escape from the castle after her powers are exposed, when she flees across the surrounding fjords. She doesn't stick around long enough to see the ice left behind quickly spread to freeze the entire fjord, disrupting the water currents, and causing the air temperatures to drop and snow to start falling.
• Warning Song: "Beware the Frozen Heart", which serves as both a warning and as Foreshadowing.
• Warts and All: A key theme of the movie. Anna has Big Sister Worship towards Elsa, insisting Elsa "would never" hurt her and blaming herself for everything that goes wrong in their relationship at first. By the end, she confronts the fact that her sister isn't perfect, admitting "I was wrong" when Hans reminds her "You said she'd never hurt you." She still loves her after having this recognition, and the unconditional love she shows for Elsa the human, not just for the perfect facade Elsa had worn for years, is what helps Elsa handle her powers.
• Weather Dissonance: It's supposed to be summer in Arendelle, despite all the snow around. We are treated to a few funny reminders, such as Oaken's big summer blowout sale (and having almost nothing left in the "winter department"), him and Kristoff exchanging some words about the unusualness of "a real howler" happening on the North Mountain in July, and Olaf's fantasies about summer.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Implied for Elsa. During "For the First Time in Forever", the way she looks up at the painting of her father while she is mentally preparing herself for her coronation, not to mention her coping mantra involves the phrase "Conceal, Don't feel", which has its roots in her father suggesting that to control her powers she "Conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show," and the way she interacts with her parents in "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" all seem to suggest that she fears being a disappointment to her deceased parents.
• Wham Line:
  • Isolated Princess Anna and Prince Charming Hans appear to fall in Love at First Sight, have a Dance of Romance and sing a cute duet together during a Falling-in-Love Montage, quickly become engaged and seem to be One True Loves headed toward the Fourth-Date Marriage trope so common not just in Disney movies, but many family-friendly films. To the surprise of many audience members, when Anna and Hans ask for her blessing, reclusive Queen Elsa neither approves nor refuses because of the God Save Us from the Queen! trope, but rather declines on grounds that are actually reasonable:
    Elsa: You can't marry a man you just met.
  • Near the end, when it looks like one of the major subplots is going to be solved. It's hard not to feel the impact when what you thought was the entire point of the movie starts falling around your ears... indeed, when one of the most famous and commonly-expected tropes in fairy-tale tradition is subverted in a single soft-spoken line:
    Hans: Oh, Anna... if only there was someone out there who loved you.
• Wham Shot:
  • Hans stopping inches away from Anna's lips and giving a wicked grin, which shocks the audience that something's not right.
  • As Elsa is bawling over the frozen Anna, her ice begins to thaw from the heart outwards, revealing she did the Act of True Love which in turn saves her.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Since Hans is being sent back to the Southern Isles for his crimes against Arendelle, the audience has no clarity over what becomes of his horse, Sitron.
• What's Up, King Dude?: Zigzagged. The castle doors were closed for thirteen years to try to hide Princess Elsa's ice powers. The plot is kick-started when the doors are opened again for Elsa's coronation ceremony. Once they do, Princess Anna rushes out among both aristocracy and villagers, eager to mingle with "everyone." The opening is only temporary, though, and Elsa continues to invert the trope so much that even her own sister, the usually bold Anna, awaits Elsa's permission to stand next to her - even after the royal steward physically moves her there, Anna steps back to try to give Elsa a respectful space until Elsa herself indicates her interest in speaking with her. However, Anna shows Elsa how to overcome her fear and the film ends with them opening the gates permanently and ice-skating together with the public.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Hans calls out Elsa for nearly killing Weselton's soldiers while they were defenseless. An unusual example in that from Hans's point of view, it also appeared as if Elsa had attacked first.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Parodied briefly; while going after Elsa in the snow, Anna briefly mutters to herself how it would have been nicer if Elsa had tropical-related powers as opposed to ice-related ones.
  Anna: She couldn't have had tropical powers that covered the fjord in white sand and warm... [sees the smoke coming from the chimney of Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna] ... fire!
• Wintry Auroral Sky:
  • There are green and purple northern lights in many of the scenes set at night. The plot even starts because, when they are kids, Anna wakes Elsa up not being able to sleep due to the lights.
    Little Anna: The sky's awake. So I'm awake. So we have to play.
  • Later, the lights appear to be something of an Empathic Environment as they illuminate the trolls' comedic "Fixer-Upper" song, then vanish at the moment Anna's frozen-heart condition suddenly worsens in a Mood Whiplash.
• Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: When the younger Anna wakes her big sister Elsa up to play in the middle of the night, Elsa grumbles at her to go back to sleep. When Anna says she can't sleep, Elsa tells her to play by herself. She brightens up when Anna asks her if she wants to build a snowman, though.
• Worse with Context: At some point, Hans tells Anna about how some of his brothers once pretended he was invisible. Classic case of older siblings teasing the younger one, except it lasted for two years.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • The trolls suggest that the "act of true love" needed to thaw Anna's heart is True Love's Kiss, and all the characters assume the same. In the end it's a Heroic Sacrifice that saves the day. Then it turns out, Elsa's platonic love also counts, as it was necessary to end the perpetual winter.
  • Anna adamantly believes in Love at First Sight with Prince Hans, and is tragically proven wrong when the latter reveals himself as a Machiavellian Gold Digger, with even the audience being fooled right up until the denouement, so good is his act.
• Wrong Guy First: Anna falls for the gentlemanly prince at the start and spends much of the movie engaged to him. He turns out to be a jerkass and she moves on to the sincere mountain man.
• Yellow Snow: In thinking about colors he'd like to see in snow, Olaf mentions yellow right before he realizes that is a terrible color for snow.
• You ALL Share My Story: After Anna's accident, she is healed by a bunch of trolls, who just so happen to be Kristoff's adopted parents.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Anna to Elsa, especially in the Dark Reprise of "For the First Time in Forever", as she expresses her confidence that Elsa can bring summer back so Arendelle will be fine. When Elsa successfully does such in the end, Anna says to her, "I knew you could do it."
• You Are in Command Now: Anna leaves Hans in charge of governing Arendelle, so that she can go look for Elsa.
• You Are Not Alone: A major theme is that no one should be forced to face their troubles alone. Be they political or supernatural in nature, you can lean on friends and family.
• You Monster!: The Duke yells that Elsa is a monster three times when he sees her ice powers. It's implied he is prejudiced against people who can use magic.
• You Must Be Cold:
  • Averted by Hans. As the snow starts falling and Anna still wears her ballgown that leaves her arms and shoulders bare, he only pulls his jacket tighter around himself. Serves as a hint that he doesn't really care about her.
  • Played straight by Kristoff. As they race back to the royal castle with Anna freezing because of the curse, he puts his hat on her head.
• Younger and Hipper: Inverted. Kai and Gerda, who were the child-aged protagonists in the original story, are replaced by the young adult protagonists in this version. Their names are given to a pair of middle-aged servants.