Elsa Inspired Q Speedpaint by Toodles
How Would Elsa Survive in Her Ice Palace?
Although the film Frozen suffers from numerous shortcomings and deficiencies in logic, one question that comes up with surprising frequency among viewers has a fairly straightforward answer.
How would Elsa survive in her ice palace?
First of all, it is worth pointing out that Elsa likely doesn’t consider this question when she exiles herself from Arendelle. She is, as far as she knows, sacrificing her life to keep the people of Arendelle safe from her life-threatening magic.
However, after a few hours’ reflection, it would become obvious to Elsa (who is consistently intelligent and rational throughout the film, despite her brief moments of emotional stress) how she could, in fact, sustain herself indefinitely on the North Mountain.
For the solution to the supposed dilemma of Elsa’s sustenance, we hardly even need to make up overly elaborate headcanons. The answer is readily available within the content of the film, just as we have it.
Drinking-water is obviously not a problem, as it is in plentiful supply everywhere around Elsa. If you have snow, you have water. She could easily fashion a large ice lens to melt snow in large quantities, via sunlight, as well as to light a fire.
And yes, Elsa could easily have a fire going in her ice palace. Not for her own warmth – as the cold does not bother her – but to melt water and to cook. The Inuit keep fires blazing in their igloos, and the igloos are surprisingly resistant to these heat sources. And of course, with her magic, Elsa could perpetually refashion any segment of the ice palace as it begins to soften in the fire’s heat.
Yes, she could easily fashion an ice hearth for melting water and for cooking.
But cooking what, you ask?
Whatever wild game exists in the woods around her mountain, along with fowl and fish.
How would she obtain this game?
As soon as Elsa discovers that she can create sentient life, she can give birth to any manner of sentient snow creatures — in the manner of Marshmallow — that can execute her will; creatures all tailor made for whatever task they would be required to perform.
Smaller creatures could easily gather nuts and berries, while snow predators with Marshmallow’s ferocity would have no trouble hunting down larger prey and bringing such provender back to the ice palace.
Likewise, ice-fashioned birds of prey would be effective fishers in the fjord, or in other bodies of water.
But how long would it take Elsa to discover that she does possess this power of life-creation?
Likely not very long at all. Anna finds Elsa after only a day and a half, whereupon Elsa is introduced to Olaf. But factoring out that event, Elsa’s express purpose in exile — after fleeing from Arendelle to protect the citizens from her magic — is, as she states, to “test the limits” of her power. She would discover that she can create sentient creatures soon enough.
This means that, when it comes accounting for Elsa’s food sources, we only need to consider the time period between Elsa’s exile and the moment when she discovers that she can create sentient life forms. Once she discovers that she has this ability, then those snow creatures can track down whatever she needs.
So how would Elsa obtain sustenance during this intermediary period?
By using her magic to hunt.
This would be remarkably easy for her to do. All that it would require of her is that she occasionally leave her ice palace to make forays into the woods around her mountain.
In the film, it takes Elsa just a few moments to learn how to use her magic to fend off assassins via the creation of ice walls, and to discover just how lethal she can be via ice spikes.
With these skills alone, ice walls and ice spikes, and just a few hours’ practice, she could easily take down any wild game.
The moment that she would spot any prey – from wild deer, to hares, to boars, to wolves, to bears, to any other animals of the forest – these creatures would be hers for the taking, in a simple, two-step process:
1. Cast ice walls to corral them.
2. Use ice spikes, like spears, to take them down.
Remember: with her magic, Elsa possesses the finest tools that any hunter could ever ask for: built-in projectile weaponry that can be as lethal as she needs it to be, plus the ability to corral animals with ice barriers.
She is thus fully equipped to easily herd and put down any animals that she sights, even from a great distance.
And having brought down whatever game she wishes, how would she transport it back to the ice palace?
Simple: slides of ice would make any route frictionless, while her own power of propulsion (seen even as a child, as she propelled herself and her sister across the ice floor) would whisk her, and any hoard of game that she might pile up, back to the ice palace with little effort.
Would Elsa be squeamish about hunting?
Not likely — especially not for survival needs. In the 19th century, the European aristocracy, even monarchs, were still inclined to hunt for sport. The men would engage in this practice more than the women would, of course, but it is not impossible that Elsa would have been taken along on hunting journeys as a child. At the very least, she would have been brought up with a favorable view of hunting, and without our 21st-century stigma against it.
Again, once Elsa discovers that she can create sentient life forms such as Marshmallow to do her bidding, she can create however many, and in whatever form, she requires to provide her with sustenance, via both hunting and gathering. Until that time, she would merely need to occasionally venture into the woods to hunt, and with her magic, doing so would be quite elementary.
(Adapted and expanded, with permission, from a forum post.)
(An accurate account of Elsa’s motivation in the film appears [here].)
(My own extended review of Frozen appears [here].)
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