The true villain of Disney’s Frozen (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The true villain of Disney’s Frozen (2019)

pixelatedgeek.com

154 pointsxivzgrev80 comments

I've seen this movie 500 times at least (young daughters/nieces).

The first mistake made here is, Disney plots are their own genre, and have been for many years. This plot does break some Disney tropes, but if you look closely, all the beats are there still. As a father and uncle, I appreciate this movie that is less male-centric.

There is a lot of subtly in certain places-- the song between Anna and Hans, "Love is an Open Door" -- while the trap set is abhorrent-- if you understand the lyrics, these characters are not talking about "love", they are talking about second order effects of running from their (psychological) problems. In the song, nobody says the only thing that someone should say, "I love you because you are you." Rather, the song is purposefully shallow, "This is how you make me feel, about me."

Moving on...

The Trolls are equivalent to the "prophecy" trope we see in so much bad entertainment nowadays. They essentially lay out the entire movie for you. This is frighteningly common but one could argue in a movie for children it might be good to let them know whats going on. The Trolls just tell us the prophecy in an amusing manner, instead of being some boring scroll that was found or exposition that was told to us. They get a silly musical number, and honestly why are you watching a Disney movie if you didn't want a silly musical number by cute anthropomorphic, marketable things?

The Trolls advice is indeed baffling... but the motivation to hide Elsa's powers are very well established-- magic is feared and punishable by death, and its even playful use directly harmed Anna. You could probably overlay real world problem here as a metaphor... The fact that the article misses this obvious point makes me wonder about the authenticity of the authors intent at all.

The Trolls are a plot device in a movie that, was overall pretty-ok. They're not evil, they're just an escalator that moves the plot along.

I like that the movie deviated slightly from Disney-standard plots. I don't want my kiddo to think a man needs to save her... we have a rule around here, "She can have as many Barbies as chemistry sets."

Overall, it was a decent film. Fantastic movie, fantastic animation, and an "ok" plot. :-)

Frozen 2 was more... wonderful and silly. I liked the film, the set piece at the denouement was wonderful, but we have to explore that Anna is obviously the spirit of fire, which wasn't broached.

> , "She can have as many Barbies as chemistry sets."

Why? A chemistry set has 50 pieces. A barbie is 1.

I take it you haven’t played with many Barbies.

I think it was "I am feminist dad who make sure girls have educational toys too" statement rather then something meant to be taken literally.

50? You must have had nicer chemistry sets than I did. Also, less worn-out Barbies.

Frozen 2, in my opinion, takes a calculated risk in world building for a young audience. They literally force the characters into a larger world to learn new cultures and how these natural forces effect the larger world. Ahtohallan is a giant abstract metaphor for self improvement, confidence, and self actualization. Again, it's in the lyrics of the song.

I'm all for these nuanced layers of messaging that tweak the standard tropes.

Frozen 2 felt like it was written for three different audiences - the usual suspects of parents and young children, but in this case (and somewhat novel) for kids that were young children for the first movie six years earlier and it was a really important movie in their lives. If you say that those kids were approximately 6 years old in 2013, they are 12 and entering adolescence by the time Frozen 2 comes out. You look at the child psychology of early adolescence (physiological changes, anxiety, insecurity, and so on) the thematic changes make lots of sense.

I don't think this analysis was meant to be taken completely seriously. At least, I read it as more of a tongue-in-cheek "This plot is frustratingly incoherent, how can we reinterpret it to make more sense?"

> Frozen 2 was more... wonderful and silly.

I fully agree with you there (although my family is split 50-50 on the question ;-) ). As I wrote below, Frozen 2 has a lot more depth. Its whole theme of growing up is handled in a beautiful and mature (un-Disney-like) manner, with a lot of points I felt I could relate to. Not introducing any new infatuations left the script writers a lot more space to explore friendships, sibling relationships, and more "serious" romantic relationships; all to great effect. At the same time, you still have Olaf being Olaf, Elsa singing her songs, and some stunning landscape animations...

Frozen 2 had more depth, but unfortunately I think that made it harder for my then-5yo to relate to.

Perhaps my literal reading of the article was naive. It is difficult sometimes to tell the difference between, parody and simplicity.

I agree F2 tackled some big ideas. I liked that about it... What I specifically hated was-- how the movie backtracked on the relationships (I'd love to hear your thoughts on this?).

At the end of F1, we establish that Anna and Kristof are dating, and that Anna saves Elsa, then Anna is separated from them both and they're both off doing things necessary to the plot that inconvenience Anna emotionally, and this felt like very old territory.

> I don't want my kiddo to think a man needs to save her...

I've also seen frozen more times than I'd like to admit and have to disagree with this conclusion. Anna would've died multiple times if Kristoff wasn't around.

> I don't want my kiddo to think a man needs to save her

yes, but I think it's teaching this the wrong way. Here is a quote from Hiyao Miyazaki, who is famous for having female leads in animated films.

> "That song ‘Let it Go’ is popular now. It’s all about being yourself. But that’s terrible — self-satisfied people are boring. We have to push hard and surpass ourselves."

I think it's right, instead of an IDGAF attitude, it's better to highlight hard work.

Yeah, we should make kids feel bad about themselves in cartoons. Only adults and teenagers should be allowed the movies that makes them feel good about themselves.

(tongue firmly in cheek) Not sure how many teenagers you've met... are you sure you want to encourage that? And don't even get me started on adults...

More seriously. Moderation in everything, but we're in a society and there will always be people arguing for one pole or another. Most people recognize a need for balance, but to attain balance they pick the pole they see as insufficiently represented in society... and tend to ignore the other(s)

If we all agree "rest is for the wicked" we end up with suicidal geniuses. If we all agree "chill out, it's cool man" then real progress is impossible. People advocating a reasonable mix can't summarize their position quickly enough to get attention

I did not found above quote to be moderation. It is literally complaint about how a single sonf let it go is terrible, because lyrics are about being self-satisfied.

There are songs and movies about trying to improve things, about being sad about being aggressive and so on. The one popular song about 5-7 years old crowd about being self satisfied doea not mean anything terrible.

implying that cartoons that inspire one to rise above can't also make you feel good, optimistic, or inspired?

I can't think of a miyazaki film that would make a kid feel bad about themselves.

I am reacting to above quote. I think that it ok to be self satisfied. I dont find self satistied people boring in general either.

It is fine and good to be in peace with yourself.

You're right of course. But the hero of the movie isn't Elsa. It's Anna-- who believes unswervingly in familial duty and responsibility, and who rehabilitates her sister and thus the remnants of her family through nothing more than her determination (and a call to action).

This is the role model. Not the chick with the super powers.

Having listened to the b-side of the Frozen soundtrack a few too many times where the original composers talk about earlier versions of the plot that were changed. Such as increased conflict between Anna & Elsa where Anna wanted Elsa to go back to suppressing her powers and a kid's pageant about a curse of ever lasting winter and sword sacrifice let me just say that I think the original plot would have been more interesting. In addition the original Elsa sketches were much more frightening. So I think Elsa is actually the true villain grappling with her powers and alienation from society and the Hans thing is just a bad plot point.

Exactly - it’s an Elsa story and the villains are just “triggers” in Elsa’s story. She’s a classic “redeemed villain” arc - just with the story focusing on her.

Well, it’s very loosely based on the Hans Christian Anderson story about an evil Ice Queen, so it makes sense that the early iterations had a fairly sinister Elsa.

According to Wikipedia:

> The 2013 Walt Disney Animation Studios film Frozen was inspired by "The Snow Queen", and closely followed the original Andersen story early in the film's development.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen

Fun fact: They're both named "La Reine des Neiges" in French. Imagine our confusion when we got the wrong one (a Russian studio made a pretty good movie of Anderson's story: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen_(2012_film))

A Soviet Union studio made a pretty good movie of Anderson's story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen_(1957_film)

A meta comment. When I read this article, I don't learn anything at all about Frozen. I do get some insight about how we can, or even like, to rationalize ideas (vs. reasoning about them). In this context it's harmless and maybe entertaining.

Where rationalizing becomes a problem is when you rationalize what is real; to many rationalizing is in appearance not so far from reasoning that it's easy to confuse the two if you take too much for granted or assume too much trust in a speaker. Not always easy for even the most rational amongst us to differentiate. Failing to be conscious of this one fact, in my opinion, leads to many bad outcomes like believing in conspiracies, ignoring uncomfortable challenges to our beliefs, and otherwise pollutes the marketplace of ideas.

I guess the points of the comment are to urge you to be always mindful of the distinction between rationalizing and reasoning and to always vigilant to the point of self-examination when the distinction may really matter.

A shame it’s down, because the article mostly points out how strange and off Frozen is as a movie compared to Disney’s more archetypical offerings of fairie tells and princesses that they’re known for. It has a tone where it’s trying to make sense of what’s actually a pretty confusing and bad plot line.

Yes, it's an interesting take, but I'm afraid that plot is beyond redemption :D

Frozen is a great movie for its characters, its world animation, and of course its songs. But the betrayal at the end just makes zero sense (and might arguably rank as the greatest Disney plot fail of all times?).

I actually thought Frozen 2 was a much better movie - one of the rare cases of a sequel being better. Same characters, same animation, same quality songs; but an unusual plotline with well-executed twists and a much greater "depth" to it than normal Disney movies.

My understanding is that Disney struggled for a movie adaptation of The Snow Queen for decades, and the breakthrough was having two sisters as the protagonists one who would be the Snow Queen that fled into hiding when her powers were revealed.

It seems that fairly strong opening plot was enough to convince Disney execs to proceed and the writers filled in the blanks.

Frozen makes a lot more sense if you consider the hero AND the villain to both be Elsa.

The apparent “villains” in the movie are just plot advancement tools and don’t bear looking too deep at.

The movie would work pretty well if Hans was well intentioned and just felt he just had to kill Elsa in the end to save everybody. I think there was an interview where the creators said the real villain is fear- but that's not really the movie they made. They got close to making that movie but blew it with Hans's mustache twirling villain revelation scene.

> But the betrayal at the end just makes zero sense

It's more surprising than we expect from Disney: there's no 'villain song' explaining the villain's private intent.

I liked it that way. It felt real to me. I felt that I had been tricked, even after the naivety of the love/relationship was heavily foreshadowed. (I felt that) we experience the scene more exactly as Anna does.

The song in the position of the Villain Song is "Let It Go". Which is quite remarkable.

The ways that Frozen breaks the expected beats make it a lot of fun -- the "twist" is genuinely unexpected because the story isn't following the tropes. But those tropes exist for a reason, and Frozen feels a little disjointed for failing to follow them.

You feel tricked because you were tricked. And yet it works, if for no other reason than the way a magic trick is fun. It has strong performances, great animation, and a positive message about the power of sisterhood.

A good twist/betrayal certainly requires it catch you by surprise, but relatable villains can add a lot to a story.

What doesn't make sense about it? The only thing that makes it a surprising twist is that it's a Disney movie where we expect our villains to wear cloaks and fur coats and twirl their mustaches and explain their motivations in Act 1.

Otherwise the seeds are all there. He's an ambitious thirteenth son of a king, literally ignored by his brothers and likely neglected by his own parents. He has no future in his own land. He says outright that he's "been searching [his] whole life to find [his] own place." After just one night he's trying to marry the naive young princess desperate for love (which was, btw, already established). He jumps at an opportunity to take charge and win the hearts of the people when Anna rides off.

If this were anything but a Disney movie, by that point everyone would be asking themselves what he's really up to.

This is always my take on Hans. If anything, this is Disney subverting their own trope of "instant true love". They literally make fun of it for the entire movie. I think every single major character has either a serious (Elsa) or flabbergasted (Sven [sic]) response and openly and directly derides her for it.

> If anything, this is Disney subverting their own trope of "instant true love".

Oh, absolutely. And that's one of the plot's redeeming features in my eyes. But it's a long stretch to get from the lovesick princeling to the ruthless, sinister usurper.

At the start of the movie, Hans is naive and/or willing to capitalise on Anna's naiveté, but there is no indication whatsoever that he is actively evil. And as the OP showed, there would have been ample opportunities for the scriptwriter to foreshadow any such negative side to his character; and there would have been much better opportunities for Hans to carry out his evil plans.

Hans is simultaneously trying to destroy the older sister, woo the younger sister, while also making the people think he's a good person who should lead them. That's a very tough line to walk on so I don't think he had better opportunities.

And yet the end up giving in to it in the end, with Anna marrying Kristoff. That plot line follows a pretty standard trope. It felt a little pasted on.

I think the movie would have been slightly more successful (to me) by eliminating Kristoff, so as to not lose its core focus on Anna and Elsa. Elsa's decision to be a hero or a villain, to face or run away from her fear, is the real core of the film.

You'd still need to find a way to keep Sven. The prince for the princess should be optional (as it was in Moana); the animal companion is not.

This isn't criticism, just a thought experiment. I have genuine criticism of the sequel, which I felt undercut the themes much more strongly.

While Kristoff and Anna do stay together, fall in love, and get engaged (spoiler alert Frozen 2!), the writers continue to play with the love at first sight trope with their relationship.

His "act of true love" (as pointed out by Olaf) does not thaw her heart. It isn't true love, not yet. Only the love between the sisters is enough to heal her in the end. It goes a little deeper than that, but that's how I rationalize it at least :)

Which is why I found it disappointing that the entire point of Frozen 2 was to separate the sisters, and undermine their love. It felt like the sequel missed a lot of what made the first one tick.

I was a bit surprised to see several commenters in this thread saying they preferred it. I suspect that they're people who weren't moved by the first one, and found the backstory aspects of the second more interesting. But that's just a guess.

Agreed. They even animated him to noticeably look up at the chandelier before he pushes the crossbow away from Elsa (https://youtu.be/afnhCvicqdI?t=141), clearly intending to drop it on her and arrange the accident. They drop other hints. I mean, the whole "you can't fall in love with someone you just met" is a bit of self-referential subversiveness to more traditional Disney plots, and implies a separate motive. It's a bit subtle for kids, but I didn't think it was unsurprising.

My beef with Frozen 2 is it basically is homeopathy as a fairy tale. And homeopathy bothers me.

> There is a glaring problem with his plan. His plan involves gaining power to the throne by marrying and murdering the rightful heir. However, monarchies determine who rule based on blood relatives. On the Norwegian royal court website family tree, the only people eligible for the crown were direct descendants. If both sisters die, then the heir to the throne is most likely a distant cousin way before Prince Hans could claim the throne.

This person is overthinking this Disney movie more than a little bit.

They can't possibly believe their argument right, it's just a joke? Arendelle isn't a real kingdom. You can't cite the real world except as a joke.

Norway also didn't exist as an independent kingdom until 1905 (instead being ruled by the king of Sweden) so using the current rules of succession don't make much sense. Actually if the royal family in one of the Scandinavian countries died out, it would be more than likely a king or prince from another Scandinavian country that's next in line for succession (like Prince Carl of Denmark became the Norwegian king Haakon VII in 1905), so pretty much what Hans was planning.

Although a Norwegian, I had to look this up. The line of succession in Norway is limited to the descendants of the living king, so as a result the list is fairly short with just 7 eligible candidates.

If all those were to die, the Norwegian parliament would (in theory) select a new king or queen. In practice though, I suspect that we'd simply end the monarchy.

This is unlike other monarchies where the line of succession is a bit larger. According to Wikipedia, the line of succession in the UK has more than 5000 entries. [1]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succession_to_the_British_thro...

Norway became a unified independent Kingdom in 872 and entered a union with Sweden and Denmark in 1397. Sweden left the union in 1523, leaving Norway in union with Denmark until 1814 when Norway was transferred to a union with Sweden as a part of the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Norway regained full independence in 1905.

I am not sure which year Frozen is supposed to be set in, but I would assume either before or just after the Unification in 872.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Norway

>I am not sure which year Frozen is supposed to be set in, but I would assume either before or just after the Unification in 872.

Yeah no. Frozen was set in the mid 19th century in terms of technology and fashion, not in the early Viking Age.

Not only that, but in the movie when Hans tells everyone that Anna was dead but they had time to say their vows they seemed to accept his claim without questioning right of succession.

The troll theory presented is pretty fun, and after 100+ viewings I'm all for new ways of looking at the movie, but building it off a real-world fact that is barely relevant and easily explained away is tenuous.

Seems to be down. Wayback machine link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201031003357/https://pixelated...

The author makes some interesting points, and I like the idea of "a Disney song never lies to the audience". But I don't agree with their statement here:

> “Love is an Open Door” is a love ballad between Anna and Hans where they reveal their love and romantic chemistry for one another. This musical number exists as a genuine love song that is never re-contextualized later to fit an alternate meaning. Hans reveals that he wants to fit in and find his place, and that Anna is what gives him purpose. There are no hints or double meanings to grab onto in the lyrics. If these songs reveal the true intentions of these characters, all of Hans’ feelings are genuine.

Specifically "no hints or double meanings to grab onto in the lyrics". This is one of the exchanges in the song:

Hans: "I mean it's crazy"

Anna: "What?"

Hans: "We finish each other's--"

Anna: "Sandwiches!"

Hans: "That's what I was gonna say!"

My question is, was Hans telling the truth here? Was he actually going to say "sandwiches?" Or was he lobbing a softball for her to finish, and she said something unexpected, and he pretended that was what he wanted to say? Because it really doesn't feel genuine on his part. I think he wanted her to say "sentences" because of course that's how you finish that sentence. He's trying to build rapport, and rather than responding genuinely to what she said, he lied about it.

So no, I don't think "Love is an Open Door" is a love ballad. I think it's Hans trying to manipulate Anna's feelings. It's him leaning into what Anna was looking for, which was to be seen and accepted instead of ignored and pushed away.

I'm honestly baffled that anyone sees this any other way. It didn't even occur to me as a possibility. The whole betrayal was not just telegraphed, it was directly shown in every aspect of how Hans interacted with Anna.

Agreed. And I think the lines "But with you ... I found my place" are also quite double-meant.

Even the song title works well in that way—"Love is an Open Door" to Anna means "I will finally be seen and accepted", whereas for Hans it means "Anna's love will let me walk in and do whatever I want".

Like other middle-aged men with young daughters, I have seen this movie probably 50 times now. It’s a great movie with a touching story and a clever plot, but the analysis is wrong and convoluted. The trolls were a plot device, plain and simple. Assigning further meaning to their role is pure speculation.

Plus, I think that their wrong advice simply represented "common sense" wrong advice all of us get from various people in the course of our lives.

It is much more simple and plausible explanation, "they were wrong" then trying to make ma big manipulation.

I just read the article to my 4 year ar old daughter and asked her, so what do you think, this article says the trolls are bad. "Do you think they were bad or good?"

"well in the movie they were good, they only helped people and played"

I think the trolls were bad and I felt hans significant character shift is better explained by troll magic than bad story telling.

Fun read though!

I don't know... there are parts where it seems like Olaf was edited in after the fact... so don't discount bad storytelling :)

Olaf was added because they got Josh Gad and needed a funny man role.

Gad would have just finished up with BoM when they started doing voice recordings for frozen. Knowing nothing about the background, I'd bet gad was a pretty late addition to the cast.

Knowing Disney, they are trying to make Gad the new Robin Williams. If you look for the advertising around Frozen there is a TON of focus on Olaf even though his role is really minor in the first movie.

Same thing happened with Aladdin and the Genie.

I dont think there was significant character shift in Hans. He was charismatic but sleazy kind of person whole time. He was having the "this is dude is love bombing you but dont trust him" vibes all over him.

The major flaw in this article's analysis is that in the opening scene with the trolls, the Papa troll tells Elsa to use her powers wisely and not give into fear, etc. It's Elsa own father who instills the fear.

I thought this article's theory might help explain the Hans weirdness, but now I'm just more convinced the plot is a mess.

I've had a long running pet theory that while the trolls aren't the villains per se, they do want to have Kristoff hooked up because he's part of their family.

This part of the song is particularly telling:

///

So she's a bit of a fixer-upper, that's a minor thing

Her quote 'engagement' is a flex arrangement, and by the way I don't see no ring!

So she's a bit of a fixer-upper, Her brain's a bit betwixt

Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed

///

With that said it doesn't quite jive with Hans' betrayal (you could argue the Trolls made him do it but there's no support for that claim). But I think there was a potential to find out that the Trolls were manipulating things behind the scenes to get Kristoff and Anna together.

Some of the comments here are unintentionally hilarious. The original article is a pretty good attempt at creating an alternate interpretation of the story (akin to, say, Grand Unified Pixar or Darth Jar-Jar). This is its own genre and some such reinterpretations are more successful than others and all will likely fall short insofar as they attempt to overlay an interpretation on a story that was not intended by the authors and necessarily are running contrary to authorial intent, with narratives that are richer in content and ambiguity being the most successful in allowing for this sort of reinterpretation (and that's leaving out intentionally ambiguous narratives like Total Recall).

What about the role of the parents? (the king and queen?)

IMO they handle Elsa's powers in the worst way possible. The trolls sublty hint at what not to do: "fear is the worse you can do"; then they do exactly that. She's taught to deny and hide everything by her parents. So when they tragically die, she just keeps on the same self-repression path until it gets real bad.

Yes, The Trolls give some advice that the King and Queen completely mis-interpret.

They think "Control her powers" means "Lock powers away"

It's clear that they don't know how to handle her powers and are doing the best they can, albeit yes, it was probably the worst way to handle it. They were scared that someone would get hurt by her powers (check) and that, if discovered, she would be deemed a monster (check).

Furthermore, the troll king's advice was that Anna could not know about her powers or the damage from being struck in the head would return. So their only choice was to isolate the two sisters from one another.

There was nothing intentionally villainous with the parents.

This how it should have ended from 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dach1nPbsY8

That the trolls didn't reveal the past to Anna when she visited them always strikes me as odd. They're definitely playing for their own interests.

And for that matter, why didn't Kristoff ever tell her that he'd seen her as a child and that she'd gone to the trolls before.

Kristoff is brainwashed. Remember when he saw the trolls and the royal family? A troll show up beside Kristoff and said "Cuties! I'm gonna keep you!" (That's the weirdest line, I've ever heard in that movie). After that, the troll do its magic brainwash to Kristoff. The trolls motive is to keep their power in secret.

And Kristoff is just a kid, it is possible that his father is one of the iceman(the opening scene cutting ice).

I did think it was weird that they abruptly adopted him. He didn't seem like an orphan.

In Disney movies, that's easily remedied.

I've had the trolls pegged as evil since the first viewing for one specific reason: "Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart".

That was what sent Anna off to find Hans, but also the key for Elsa.

Love is at the heart of her control of her powers, not fear. The trolls knew, but instead of teaching her this and helping her learn how to control her powers, they taught her to fear them.

It's pretty clear the real villains are the king and queen, their complete lack of accountability to their kingdom and their practically grown daughters is mind boggling.

Also, as someone pointed out on Reddit, Hans may have put Elsa in those power-sapping handcuffs in the castle prison,but he sure didn't build them.

Her parents were totally willing to Bertha Mason her if things went south.

Google cache:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...

Another alternative look at the Frozen story is in Disney's Twisted Tales version ( https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Conceal,_Don%27t_Feel_(A_Twis... ) which shows an alternative way that the parents could have dealt with the situation. Still not ideal, but better that the canon version in terms of the mental impacts on various characters!

This is canon to me from now on. The original story is such a disappointment. It's like they ran out of funding after two thirds of the movie.

How did this get published in 2019 and shared in 2021? This analysis was done by "How It Should Have Ended" in 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dach1nPbsY8

This is interesting, but a little weak.

It reminds me of this other,10-year-old post about Tom Bombadil from the Lord of the Rings: https://km-515.livejournal.com/1042.html

I read an interview where the screenwriter said Hans is a sociopath who mirrors people, and the screenwriter said mirroring people's body language is something she does herself in real life!

I think the article is "trolling".

Startup idea: Create a winter cloud that floats above your head in summer to keep you cool (or cold, or even frozen). Would be a blat to have one of these at a beach resort.

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