Here's something odd that I found out today. Ever since I saw Disney's Frozen over winter break, there was something that nagged at me about the film. Not its similarities to Disney's Tangled, not its harshly feminist tone, and not its award-winning music either. Just something.
Well today, inspired by a Reddit post that talked about how Elsa was originally intended to be the villain of the movie, I decided to take a look at the story that inspired Frozen: a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen called the Snow Queen. My journey, which brought me to a hopefully accurate Wikipedia page, garnered some unexpected results.
The story of the Snow Queen revolves around two childhood friends named Gerda and Kai (picture a young Anna and Kristoff I guess) who are destined to fall in love. However, Kai is struck by a piece of an enchanted troll mirror (that's part of an earlier part of the story which really has nothing to do with the rest of the plot besides the mirror shard. Roll with it for now and I'll come back to it later) and his heart grows hard towards everyone, including Gerda. Kai is subsequently captured by the Snow Queen (picture an older much more frigid Elsa) who is not repulsed by Kai's frozen heart. Taking him to her castle of ice, the Snow Queen forces Kai to solve a puzzle box made of pieces of ice from which solving the puzzle will gain him his freedom. Meanwhile, Gerda has not lost hope of finding her one true love and has begun to search high and low for Kai. Her journey takes her to a silent river to which she gives her red shoes, a sorceress of summer who keeps Gerda trapped in her garden, and a majestic reindeer which gives her transportation to the Snow Queen's castle. Gerda, with the power of her love and innocent heart, is able to remove the shard of the troll's mirror from Kai with a kiss and together they solve the ice puzzle, gaining Kai his freedom. They return home to find that they have both aged to adulthood and now can live happily ever after.
Yeah so, you can clearly see some of the elements that went into making Frozen here in the story. It was interesting to see how the writers of Frozen clearly spun these elements into different directions. The trolls, the personification of evil in the original story, become the wise and sage givers of advice and Kristoff's surrogate family. Gerda/Anna are both desperately try to find true love and discover a power within them that ends the major conflicts of the story. The Snow Queen herself is changed from an icy sorceress to a misguided and disillusioned princess who believes her own magical powers to be too dangerous. Both stories involve the themes of love conquering all, the dangers of magic, and the power of innocent triumphing over greed and hatred.
So, what was so interesting about my discovery, besides the parallels between the fairy tale and the movie? Well, I discovered what had been bothering me about the film ever since I saw it. From somewhere in the recesses of my memory, I somehow recalled that I had seen a fairly crappy adaptation of The Snow Queen many, many years ago on some VHS from some odd relative's house. At the time, I thought it was some lame rip-off of the Chronicles of Narnia (although, now that I think about it, that was probably the other way around in reality) but several elements of Frozen jumped out at me that triggered the memory. For me, that was an interesting discovery as my memories of a lot of my childhood are anything but clear.
So, what if Elsa was the villainous Snow Queen instead of the sheltered princess? Honestly, it is not too hard to see how that would work. After nearly killing her sister in a freak accident, Elsa could've easily been pushed much further in reclusion by her parents' and her own fears, causing her backlash against the community to have been much more dramatic and devastating. Anna's mission to save her sister could've ended up with Kristoff taking the ice blast to the chest for her and Anna's lover for him is what could've saved the day. Alternatively, and fortunately, the directors of the film decide to take the much more creative and irregular route that we all know and have coming out of our eyeballs.
Anyways, I'm not the biggest fan of Frozen. It's a beautifully animated film that does have some killer songs (and some clunkers). However, as far as the writing goes, the movie take too many convenient short cuts and is too obvious with its intended message. We get it. Love at first sight is stupid and all men are inbred, greedy, or stupid. Girls rule, sisters rule, magic is awesome. Let's sing Let It Go! However, the fact that the writers and directors are taking a step away from convention is a huge weight off my chest because, as you know, where Disney goes, everyone follows.
So, I know this blog started from less than interesting origins but thanks for sticking around and reading everyone!
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