Children respond to stories that employ magical realism, so Elsa—as a superhero with what one of our daughters (Maryam's) and her friends call “ice powers” (the ability to create a whole castle of snow and ice using only her fingers)—has special appeal.
Beyond that, Elsa is a very relatable person. While young children might not be able to appreciate the complex past that molded her character, they can understand that Elsa is overall misunderstood, and this makes her a super interesting character. Her development in Frozen II is even cooler.
Elsa, princess of Arendelle and heiress to the throne, is born with the ability to create and control ice and snow. As a child, she uses her abilities to create a winter wonderland to play in with her younger sister and best friend, Princess Anna.
Be Bold. Perhaps the most obvious message in Frozen is that it's good to be courageous. Elsa fleeing her home to live on her own was bold; Anna following her was even more so. Having a feisty streak can be a very good thing!
Boys, girls, and their parents had to have loved it after its theatrical run for it to become the best-selling home-owned movie of all time. Boys particularly appreciate the numerous action scenes that in the film.
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Is Frozen about autism?
Although Elsa's disability is encoded as a magical ice power, the language the film uses to talk about her condition maps on to the experiences of people with physical, mental, and intellectual disabilities in recognizable ways.
In Frozen, Hans goes from a courtly charmer to a power-hungry villain. According to Hyrum Osmond, one of the supervising animators for Hans, Hans initially appears as a handsome, dashing character. The crew wanted the audience to fall in love with him and the relationship he could have with Anna.
The explanation? Frozen is not meant to be a heartwarming tale of two sisters bonding and saving each other. It's actually a story of how abuse and neglect during your childhood can screw you over into your adult years.
Elsa, however, is risk-averse, anxious, and self-doubting. This is her biggest test. She must accept her crown and scepter with ungloved hands. Should she slip up or let her emotions overwhelm her, she may let the magic out, revealing who she really is.
Elsa's goal is to learn the truth of who she is and to make her peace with it, no longer denying her magical abilities or trying to shove them down out of fear. She's only just learned how to let people in, a huge step for anyone; now she needs to learn how to live for herself and not simply for everyone else.
Anna's parents rush her to the sacred realm, where discussions with the trolls reveal that Elsa was born with her powers/ depigmentation and deafness, rather than them being due to illness or accident. Grand Pabbie troll heals Anna but removes her memories of Elsa's magic.
In some way or another, people felt like she represented them. Whether they were gay, transgender, had mental illness or felt outcast in their family/society, they felt like Elsa was a character that understood that struggle. And the fact that she represents so many of us is what makes her so appealing.
These strong female characters certainly have their weaknesses; they wouldn't be very interesting characters if they didn't. Elsa can be distant to the people she loves, she has trouble accepting help, and she fails to recognize her own limitations.
Elsa has magic ice powers which automatically makes her cooler than Anna on so many levels. She created an entire ice castle for herself because she wanted to, and there is no fan in the world who could say they wouldn't want this ability.
Elsa fears she will not be accepted by her sister or her town. This feeling worsens as her parents pass away. Now with no one having knowledge of her powers the pressure increases for her to stay hidden. As she becomes required to attend her coronation, she begins overthinking how she will keep her powers hidden.
The Snow Queen of Arendelle is too busy for romance, writer and co-director Jennifer Lee told Entertainment Tonight. "For this film, we spent a lot of time journaling and we said we took these pretty intense personality tests (for each character). We found this is a woman who wasn't ready for a relationship at all.
She glorifies her new found freedom as she tests the limits of her powers, something forbidden as a young princess. Elsa no longer has restrictions and can claim her own actions. She has a moment of self discovery and identifies herself.
Elsa demonstrates powerful magical abilities from a young age. In Frozen, it's clear that Elsa's control over her power is directly related to the amount of control she has over her emotions. If Elsa is in a heightened emotional state, she can freeze entire landscapes without even being aware of what she's done.
In the film Frozen, the main character, Elsa, suffers from Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder. This stems from an event as a child in which she accidentally hurt her sister, Anna, when they are playing together.
“'Frozen' uses the idea of magic powers as a metaphor for coming of age, a time when feelings are raw, unpredictable, terrifying and new,” writes Britt Hayes at ScreenCrush.
What sets Elsa apart from the mass array of Disney princesses is her inner battle with mental illness, anxiety and depression. In Frozen II, Elsa is the only person who can hear a voice but everyone couldn't.
As well as struggling to come to terms with the emotional turmoil of puberty, adolescence, and, indeed, sexual development, Elsa must also negotiate her chaotic magical powers and assume the very adult responsibility of ruling a kingdom.
Olaf the snowman is known for his comedic love of summer, his childlike innocence, and ever-cheerful demeanor. However, he was originally conceived as one of the evil Elsa's snowman guards, with an attitude befitting an evil minion.
Elsa from Frozen was originally intended to be an evil queen with an army of snow monsters. That's according to the animated film's producer Peter Del Vecho, who says they completely re-wrote the ending. "When we started off, Anna and Elsa were not sisters," he told EW. "They weren't even royal.
Encanto, a movie about the magical Madrigals, doesn't truly have a bad guy, but one theory speculates that Dolores was the villain all along. Disney's Encanto, which tells the story of the magical Madrigals, doesn't have a bad guy, but one theory speculates that Dolores was the secret villain all along.
