YMMV / A Frozen Heart

• Cry for the Devil: Hans is depicted in a more sympathetic light despite his actions.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Lars is a minor character who only appears briefly at the beginning of the book, but is well-liked by readers for being the only brother who cared for Hans, and there is art of the character on Tumblr despite no information on what he might look like.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Because we see the story from the perspective of Prince Hans, the ending, which follows that of the original Frozen film and has Hans sent back home after his plot is exposed, doesn't feel completely happy in this book. Our heroes are completely unaware they just sent him to a living Hell on Earth, and given the things he did to them probably don't even care to know what happened to him.
• Fanfic Fuel: Hans' siblings and family life are given more detail here than in any other official media. It's unknown if Disney will deem them canon in future media (if they're referenced at all), but many fans don't care if they're semi-canon or not and create much fanwork exploring the Southern Isles and its inhabitants as written in A Frozen Heart.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Hans was already considered this in the film due to Word of God confirming his family was awful to him, but this book goes further. Behind his seemingly suave and smug attitude was a young man who wanted to be loved by his abusive father while trying to leave his home for a better life. Unfortunately, years of his father's cruel criticism and most of his brothers bullying him to make their father happy made him too desperate to get what he wants. So much so he decided to become what he hated, and as a result, it's made his life worse with little to no chance of things getting better.
  • Helga is unpleasant, but she was married off to a man she doesn't like, shipped off to live in a place she hates, having zero say in the matter. And now she's trapped in an absolutely nightmarish Big, Screwed-Up Family. She may have gotten off luckier than her sisters-in-law, being married to the Token Good Teammate, but she's still clearly miserable. One can only hope she and Lars raise their baby better than the King raised his sons, and manage to find some peace that way.
• Moral Event Horizon: The king of the Southern Isles willingly has his other sons torment Hans, seeing his youngest son as a "weakling" who needed to be "toughened up" through violent and cruel means.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While Hans is still a major Base-Breaking Character, A Frozen Heart humanizes him and allows some to see him more of a Jerkass Woobie than just a one-dimensional villain.
• The Scrappy: While Hans's father is supposed to be hated, the fact that he not only gets off scot-free but also continues his tyranny against his family and subjects still rubbed quite a few readers the wrong way.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Hans' family is barely seen, despite being the driving force behind his evil. While his father might be scary because we see so little of him (and what we do see is horrifying), his brothers get basically no page time, when it would've been interesting to see their individual personalities and dynamics with one another and their parents. It's also a damn shame Lars and the Queen show up so little, since they're the only two people Hans actually loves and love him, which gives him more depth.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The book has a Time Skip of three years early on, from the time Hans learns the King and Queen of Arendelle have died to the start of the movie, and then the book from there covers the events of the movie. This means that the vast majority of Hans' descent into evil occurs offscreen, which could've been fascinating to read. (Probably too dark for the intended age group, though, given that he's heavily implied to have been forced to kill people for his father.)
• The Woobie: The Queen of the Southern Isles. Her husband is an emotionally abusive sociopath who turned most of their children into his devoted enforcers, while she was forced to watch them torment their youngest to fit their father's standards. She's unable to do anything but give small smiles to Hans as he's mocked and ridiculed his whole life. Worse still, nobody knows how she reacted to news of her youngest son's crimes.

---