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Discourse About Elsa’s Behavior in Frozen II

I re-watched Frozen II the other night with my mom since she hadn’t seen it yet. This was very difficult for me for a few reasons, and one realization that basically punched me in the face as I watched it was particularly hard to bear.

I’ll preface this by saying that I really fucking love Elsa. I understand her struggle and I sympathize with it. She has her priorities set straight and ultimately, she is always honest with herself no matter how painful it is, at least to the extent that she can be. (People can’t be honest with themselves if they haven’t put two-and-two together and come to certain realizations themselves, so for this reason, I added the clause to the end of my previous sentence.)

However, there is absolutely one thing that fucking infuriated me about her, probably because this thing has been permeating itself into every corner of my consciousness for the past few days and will probably continue to do so. What I hate about Elsa is how she infantilizes Anna.

I wish I had the time to add gifs and a more thorough analysis, but unfortunately this post will be the best it can be for at least a few more days as I have two exams on Monday and Tuesday that are taking precedence in my life right now. That being said, I will do my best to illuminate this issue as thoroughly as possible for the time being.

Elsa, despite the journey that her and Anna persisted through in the first movie, doesn’t trust Anna, and she places this distrust under the guise of wanting to “protect her”. Repeatedly in the second movie, we see Anna becoming increasingly angry and frustrated each time Elsa goes off on her own/puts herself in danger/forcibly pushes Anna away, and justifiably so. I would say that this crescendos during the scene in which Anna makes a heartfelt appeal to Elsa to let her help, to walk the journey alongside her, etc., and Elsa betrays her (and Olaf) by building an ice canoe and sending the both of them off into the river. It is presented that Elsa does this so that she can make the dangerous journey of finding Ahtohallan without having to worry about protecting Anna in the process. However, in my opinion, this is just a guise for what Elsa truly wants, which is to go on this journey alone, but by doing so she hurts Anna in--if I were Anna--an irrevocable way.

Elsa very much could have communicated to Anna that this journey is of extreme personal importance, and she feels that it would be best for her to forge this path on her own. I understand that Elsa probably believes that Anna would have refused her and insisted on the fact that she is more than capable (as she did in one part--I will return to this) of aiding her sister in this journey. I believe that Elsa also should have known that Anna would have gladly given Elsa the space to navigate her journey on her own if she had just communicated that that was what she needed. Anna is extremely loyal and loving, she only insists on making the journey alongside Elsa because she knows the mortal danger that Elsa is putting herself in, not for her own personal journey, but also for their kingdom. Of course there are many more reasons that Anna is being so protective, one of them being that Elsa is the only blood-family she has left, but those reasons aren’t as relevant to this problem that I have with Elsa as the ones I am talking about. I wholeheartedly believe that had Elsa maturely communicated what she was struggling with and how much personal importance she placed on finding answers about her magic and who she is, Anna 100% would have let Elsa do her thing.

Going back to the point of Anna being extremely capable that I said I would return to, I have a few additional points to make. 1) Yes, in the scene in which Anna defends her capabilities by elucidating everything that she managed to accomplish without magic, she advocates for herself more eloquently than I ever probably could. 2) Even though Anna repeatedly asks Elsa for clarification and communication on what’s bothering Elsa, she is continuously shrugged off and placated, with no real communication about what is truly weighing on Elsa’s heart. 3) Despite this frustrating re-occurrence, Anna stands by Elsa’s side. However, she experiences internal conflict over what about herself is deficient each time Elsa rebukes her attempts at support. I imagine that her internal dialogue goes something like this: “If I know that I am capable, and Elsa recognizes this, what else is wrong with me that she refuses to confide in me?”

--As an aside, I recognize that at this point I may be projecting some of my own inner turmoil onto Anna, partially because I really relate to her and this situation. However, I plan on re-watching the movie to bring in some sources from the movie’s canon to support/revise my hypotheses.--

4) We know that Anna has what it takes to carry on despite lacking all but a spark of hope, um, hello, “The Next Right Thing”, anybody? This song is the strongest proof of her capability. Moving back to my last point, how can she possibly see Elsa’s betrayal as anything but due to some deep flaw within herself? She knows she’s capable, she knows Elsa knows she’s capable, so why on Earth isn’t Elsa allowing her to support her and journey with her? She has no clue, but it would be hard for anyone in this situation to not attribute the reason for Elsa’s behavior to be a result of some flaw within themselves that they cannot see.

And lastly, for now at least (I’m fairly certain I’m missing a few points that I wanted to make seeing as I didn’t write any of them down and am just writing off the top of my head) 5) By forcibly removing Anna and Olaf “for their own good/protection” she unknowingly sends them to an arguably even more dangerous situation (facing the earth giants that are sleeping in/along the river.) Of course, much of this happened because the story needed to continue moving forward. In real life, on the other hand, it just testifies to the gravity of the mistake that Elsa made, and the mistakes of people who have behaved similarly to Elsa in this situation, have made. By taking away a persons’ agency because you thought you were doing what was best for them, you cause great harm to them.

Like I said earlier, I would have an extremely difficult time forgiving someone who did this to me. Anna is nobler in that way, partially because she has more reasons that encourage her to forgive her sister, especially considering that everything worked out in the end--but real life isn’t that neat and pretty. Most of the time when shitty things like what Elsa did to Anna happen in real life, there is no closure or reparation to the individual that was harmed. And when that happens multiple times to an individual over the course of their life, just stop and imagine for a minute how that individual’s life would be like.