Keep Your Hands to Yourself
In Frozen, we see that Elsa occasionally displays a nervous habit of holding herself by placing her hands on her elbows and positioning them inward towards her. Most of the time, she creates ice and snow from her hands, especially when she extends them out in front of her. The appearance of Elsa’s creations relate to her emotions, and she has trouble maintaining control of her magic whenever she feels scared, angry, panicky, or any other strong negative emotion(s). So whenever she experiences said emotions, Elsa assumes this posture to reduce the chances of releasing ice unintentionally or accidentally, and subsequently losing total control of her magic.
But the other major reason why Elsa holds herself is that it has become a gesture of comforting herself of sorts, one that no one else could do. If you remember, when she is 12, Elsa is still struggling to control her powers, especially when her negative emotions run rampant. When Agnarr tries to reach towards and comfort his terrified daughter, Elsa pulls away, refusing to be touched. By now, Elsa has become deathly scared that she might gravely harm or kill anyone who comes in contact with her, with her biggest concerns being aimed towards her family. Unable to bear the thought of harming them due to the instability of her magic through her anxiety and fear, Elsa refuses to let her father touch or hug her. This scene is so heartbreaking because Elsa clearly needs a hug here, but to her, it’s no longer an option.
By the time she is 18, Elsa has completely banned herself from having any physical contact with her sister and parents. Before Agnarr and Iduna leave for their trip, all Elsa does to bid them goodbye is curtsy. No physical contact is initiated between either party. After the couples’ death and funeral, Elsa is seen alone in her room, which is frozen with ice and snowflakes hang in the air, suspended by her grief.
Although it’s short, this is the first moment in the film where Elsa displays the posture of holding herself. This scene subtly reveals that when she holds herself, she is actually “hugging” herself as a means of comfort in her time of mourning. Since Elsa no longer allows anyone to hug or affectionately touch her to ease her when she feels sad, worried, anxious, or scared, “hugging” herself is the only option she has left.
The second scene, but the first major one, in which Elsa holds herself is after she tells Anna “Then leave”, and she continues to do it when she walks away and says, “Enough, Anna!”, while Anna badgers Elsa with questions about why she coldly closes herself off from her (Anna) and the rest of the world. Anna’s nonstop persistence of questioning her sister culminates with Elsa’s agitation reaching its tipping point when she unleashes a barrier of ice spikes from her hand upon turning around and shouting, “I said, ENOUGH!”
Immediately before all of this happens, Elsa orders the gates to be closed, and Anna objects by following Elsa, grabbing one of her gloves (though she was actually trying to take Elsa by the hand instead), and desperately pleading for Elsa to realize that she (Anna) can no longer live her life being cut off from the people of Arendelle and the rest of the world. Elsa assumes this posture because she is growing agitated by Anna’s demanding persistence of her distant behavior. This scene shows perfectly that Elsa has trouble maintaining control of her powers when experiencing negative emotions, and especially so when Anna is around to spur them. Elsa doesn’t want things to get out of hand (no pun intended, of course! 😆😝) and attract unwanted attention, so she tries to walk away and keep her hands closed in to prevent any magic from being let loose…which is ultimately unsuccessful by the end of this scene.
Then later, after Elsa runs away following her secret being exposed, Anna comes to find her sister at the ice palace. Although both girls are initially delighted to see each other, after Anna says they can be close again like they were as children, Elsa becomes consumed by anxiety and fear because she cannot forget the horrible childhood memory of when she nearly killed Anna. Like the earlier scene, Elsa wants to avoid taking a chance of losing control of herself and making dangerous ice, so while saying they cannot be close again, Elsa assumes her posture as she attempts to bid Anna goodbye and walk away from her.
After throwing Anna, Olaf, and Kristoff out of her palace, Elsa’s fear intensifies because she has learned of the fate she has brought upon Arendelle. Not only does she briefly fold her arms inward and hold herself again, but she paces back and forth around her palace while telling herself “Control it” and “Don’t feel.”
In the six years since Frozen came out, we had the shorts Frozen Fever and Olaf’s Frozen Adventure take place after it. Both films depict Elsa being happier and much more confident in herself, her magic, and in her role as the queen of Arendelle. So perhaps some fans thought that by the time that Frozen II takes place, which is three years after Frozen, Elsa would be so happy and confident that we would never see the habit of her holding herself again.
But no, that does not happen; Elsa resumes this posture a few times in Frozen II. Seeing her do it in this film made me realize a few other reasons of why she does it in the original film that I didn’t realize when I first saw it years ago.
Elsa is first seen with this posture when she finally tells Anna about the voice, which is immediately after the people of Arendelle have been evacuated from the kingdom. Then she does it a couple more times when she and Anna discover the wreck of their parents’ ship and how they died.
The fact that Elsa holds herself in these scenes tell me that, despite the obvious progress she has made about herself since the end of Frozen, like the one song says, some things have not changed. Elsa still exhibits this habit because she has been doing it for years; 13 years, in fact. Doing any nervous habit like this for such a length of time is EXTREMELY hard to break. At the end of the first movie, Elsa was only just BEGINNING to gain confidence in herself because she realized that love is the key to controlling her powers, and her people have accepted her once they see the good things she can do with them. But these sudden changes, no matter how optimistic they would be, would NOT make Elsa instantly gain confidence and think nothing but positivity about herself and her magic. When you spend so many years thinking pessimistically about yourself, it can take many more years to be completely convinced to think just the opposite. Lots of positive reinforcement is always a good start, but it is easy to slip up and fall back into bad habits, and Elsa proves this by resuming the posture in the aforementioned scene.
So even after three years, Elsa has not grown confident and happy enough to change her old ways.
Two realizations I had about Elsa assuming this posture in the original film is that it emphasizes her having feelings of guilt (in which she takes any and all blame on herself) and reluctance. These feelings are further stressed during the scenes in Frozen II because Elsa barely makes eye contact with Anna. In the scene following Arendelle’s evacuation, Elsa’s posture and avoidance of looking at Anna implies that she is feeling guilty, not just about not mentioning the voice sooner, but also about having wakened the spirits and forced the citizens to evacuate after Arendelle’s elements were disrupted. Her actions also shows that Elsa is still very reluctant to open up about her feelings and admit things to Anna, especially anything secretive, anything that bothers her. This makes a lot of sense to me since Elsa spent more than a decade being taught to conceal her emotions and feelings in order to control her magic. Guilt was another negative emotion Elsa had felt for years and struggled to control, especially after Anna’s accident. And now, as the sole ruler of Arendelle, Elsa carries the weight of the kingdom on her shoulders. She assumes the responsibility of the safety and well-being of her people. When she causes problems or misfortunes in Arendelle that affects many, if not all, of its citizens, Elsa either carries large amounts of guilt and blames herself for them or feels tremendous amounts of worry and anxiety about how to resolve them. She is VERY hard on herself, and like her posture, shedding strong feelings like guilt and learning to not take all of the blame are not things that Elsa would be able to do in a snap.
So again, even after three years, being more optimistic, less guilty, and open about her feelings are things that are not particularly easy for Elsa to do.
For the entire scene with their parents’ shipwreck, Elsa holds herself when she and Anna watch the water memory of Agnarr and Iduna’s final moments, when she heartbrokenly walks away and assumes responsibility for their deaths, and then finally after she sends Anna and Olaf away in the ice canoe.
Like earlier, Elsa does her posture while and after watching her parents’ final moments. She realizes that Agnarr and Iduna died while they were searching for answers about her powers, and so she guiltily pins herself as the sole cause for their deaths. When Anna tries to get Elsa to see that it is not her fault at all, Elsa again (initially) refuses to make eye contact with her sister as part of her guilt. Again, Elsa’s guilt is emphasized here like the earlier scene because she assumes responsibility for the well-being of her family just like she does with her kingdom. Anything her family members do that relate to her makes Elsa believe that she holds all the responsibility for their decisions, and this is why she believes she alone is the reason her parents are dead. This is perhaps the only moment in the whole film where Elsa reverts back to her old beliefs that her powers make her a danger, burden, and curse to her family and the world. Although Elsa begins to regain her faith when Anna says that Elsa is a gift because of their mother’s good deed of rescuing their father and that she (Anna) believes in her (Elsa) to free the forest and save Arendelle, it would be Elsa’s eventual discovery of her purpose as the fifth spirit that would make her gain ultimate confidence in and acceptance of herself and her powers. 😉😊
The last moment in the film that shows Elsa holding herself is when she sends Anna and Olaf away in the ice canoe. Before this moment, Anna insists on coming with Elsa to Ahtohallan to keep Elsa safe, to keep her from dying. But Elsa adamantly refuses to let Anna come, knowing that they would both perish trying to cross the Dark Sea. After saying she can’t lose Anna and hugging her, Elsa creates the boat and watches Anna and Olaf slide away down the bank until they are out of sight. Now Elsa’s face in this moment shows that she does feel guilty and unhappy what she did, but she had to do it anyway. As I said here, Anna could not come with Elsa to Ahtohallan because the perils of the Dark Sea could have killed them both, and then they would have been unable to complete their mission. For now, Elsa may have broken her promise that she and Anna would do their mission together. But even though they weren’t physically together the whole time, they did do it together. So in the end, Elsa still kept her promise.
But these two scenes aren’t the only times since the original film that Elsa has exhibited these actions to show her guilt about something. In Frozen Fever, when Anna holds the sick, weak Elsa as they walk back to the castle together, Elsa folds her arms in and doesn’t look Anna in the eye as she apologizes for her belief that she ruined her sister’s birthday.
Like I said before, some things did not change between Frozen and Frozen II, and these are two things that Elsa did not change about herself following 13 years of repression and isolation to three years of no longer hiding from the world.
The other realization I had about Elsa’s posture, particularly with these two scenes in Frozen II and the scene in Frozen Fever, is that it is a clear sign of her introversion, and so is her reluctance to make eye contact with Anna. These are things to which I can strongly relate because I am also an introvert. We introverts do not always like to be open about our feelings, particularly whenever something is bothering us. It’s only after encouragement from the people to whom we are the closest, be it family members, friends, or both, that we are more willing to be honest and less reluctant about our feelings, and share them rather than hide them.
By the end of Frozen II, and I can’t stress this enough, Elsa finally knows exactly who and what she is, has discovered her true calling in life is, and knows why she has magic. And by finally having all of the answers to what she has wanted to know all of her life, Elsa can definitely change her actions of holding herself and not making eye contact when feeling guilty, as well as learning to be less reluctant to hide her feelings and admit them. Like any habit that is practiced for years, changing them would be a gradual practice for her, not instant. But I have every confidence in my girl that she can do it. 😁😄❤️
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