page_title: Elsa (Frozen)
section_title: Origins and concept
hierarchical_section_title: Elsa (Frozen) / Development / Origins and concept
caption_attribution_description: English: Elena Ringo's Illustration of the Snow Queen by H.C. Andersen Русский: Снежная Королева, художник Елена Ринго Deutsch: Gemälde der Schneekönigin von Elena Ringo Português: Ilustração de A Rainha da Neve por Elena Ringo.
context_page_description: Elsa of Arendelle is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Animation Studios' 53rd animated film Frozen and its sequel Frozen II. She is voiced primarily by Broadway actress and singer Idina Menzel. She is voiced by Eva Bella as a young child and by Spencer Ganus as a teenager in Frozen. In Frozen II, young Elsa is voiced by Mattea Conforti and Eva Bella.
  Created by directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Elsa is loosely based on the title character of "The Snow Queen", a Danish fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. In the Disney film adaptation, she is introduced as a princess in the fictional Scandinavian Kingdom of Arendelle, heiress to the throne and the elder sister of Princess Anna. Elsa has the magical ability to create and manipulate ice and snow. She inadvertently sends Arendelle into an eternal winter on the evening of her coronation. Throughout the film, she struggles first with controlling and concealing her abilities and then with liberating herself from her fears of unintentionally harming others, especially her younger sister.
context_section_description: Attempts were made as early as 1937 by Walt Disney to adapt Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Snow Queen", into a film. The tale focuses on two children, one named Gerda, who served as the basis for Princess Anna, and the other named Kai, who is "cursed with negativity" after his eyes are pierced with shards of glass from an enchanted mirror and is later kidnapped by the Snow Queen. However, Disney struggled with creating a believable, multi-dimensional adaption of the fairy tale's title character, who was intended to be a villain. In the story, she is described as "a woman, dressed in garments of white gauze, which looked like millions of starry snow-flakes linked together. She was fair and beautiful, but made of ice—shining and glittering ice. Still she was alive and her eyes sparkled like bright stars, but there was neither peace nor rest in their glance." Disney was unable to find a way to make the Snow Queen more real and eventually abandoned film plans.
  Several film executives later made efforts towards the project, including Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, Dick Zondag, Glen Keane, and Dave Goetz. In 2011, director Chris Buck began work on another attempted adaption and also faced challenges with the Snow Queen character. Producer Peter Del Vecho explained that this was primarily because she was not relatable and too isolated, having no personal connections. As a result, they could not explain her motivations. After several changes were proposed, someone on the writing team suggested making the Snow Queen Anna's sister. "Once we realized that these characters could be siblings and have a relationship, everything changed," Del Vecho relayed.
  The Snow Queen, now given the name Elsa, continued to be cast as a villain, and Disney released the following synopsis for Frozen in May 2013:
  When Anna is cursed by her estranged sister, the cold-hearted Snow Queen, Anna's only hope of reversing the curse is to survive a perilous but thrilling journey across an icy and unforgiving landscape. Joined by a rugged, thrill-seeking outdoorsman, his one-antlered reindeer and a hapless snowman, Anna must race against time, conquer the elements and battle an army of menacing snowmen if she ever hopes to melt her frozen heart.
  Earlier manuscripts included more antagonistic actions by Elsa, such as intentionally cursing Arendelle with an eternal winter. Additionally, she is shown creating an army of snowmen similar to the original Snow Queen's army of snowflakes; the comedic character of Olaf was at the time written as a smaller snowman who was cast out by Elsa for being too unintimidating. Within two months, however, scripts were altered to give emphasis to her lack of control over her powers. Olaf was reduced to the only snowman created by Elsa, and he instead serves as a reminder of the sisters' childhood friendship. In the final version, Elsa creates a single giant snow creature that Olaf nicknames "Marshmallow" to act as a guard after being branded as a monster for her powers. According to director Jennifer Lee, the character ultimately became more of a composite of both Kai and the Snow Queen, enhancing her increasingly sympathetic portrayal. Del Vecho added, "There are times when Elsa does villainous things but because you understand where it comes from, from this desire to defend herself, you can always relate to her."
caption: An illustration of the Snow Queen, the character Elsa is based upon.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2013:09:16 16:32:56", "Image ExifOffset": "220", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "886", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8105", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "360", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:09:16 22:35:50", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:09:16 22:35:50", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "4906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "361471/100000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "37/10", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "67/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2912", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2128", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}