Prince Hans

Usurp Arendelle by killing Elsa and Anna, and be considered as a "hero" (failed)

### Hobbies

Dating with Anna (formerly)
Finding ways to compete with his brothers

### Skills

Swordsmanship
Manipulation
Charisma

### Type of Villain

Charismatic Traitor

**Prince Hans** is the central antagonist of Disney's Frozen franchise.

He is a young prince from the Southern Isles, who fell in love with Anna. However, developing ambitions to compete with his brothers, he would later betray Anna and Elsa for the throne of Arendelle.

He was voiced by Santino Fontana.

## History

### Background

#### Abused by his Family

In the tie-in novel *A Frozen Heart*, it's revealed that Hans was one of the thirteen princes of the Southern Isles, and being the youngest of the brothers, he was thirteenth in line. Because of this, he was constantly bullied, abused, and played cruel pranks on by his most of his twelve older brothers (excluding Lars); three of them even pretended that he was invisible for two years.

His father, the King of the Southern Isles, was a ruthless and abusive ruler who believed in the survival of the fittest and even encouraged his twelve older sons to constantly abuse Hans. Hans even ran his finger through an old table and got a splinter, and the physical pain he felt was better than the emotional pain his brothers put him through. The only ones he felt close to were his mother (the Queen of the Southern Isles) and Lars (the only one of his brothers who did not put him into harm).

Because of the mistreatment that he went through and the fact that he would never be king of his own kingdom, Hans concocted a scheme to marry into the throne in another kingdom and took the chance when he found out about Arendelle.

### *Frozen*

#### Arrival to Arendelle

Hans comes to Arendelle with a friendly attitude. After his first meeting with Anna, he falls in love with her without knowing she is a princess, or her sister is about to become queen. He is later seen in the coronation catching Anna's hand when she almost falls on the floor, and dances with her. Anna and Hans start talking to each other, and are attracted to one another. Hans then talks about his twelve older brothers, revealing that a few of them pretended that he was invisible for two years, and Anna tells about her thoughts of being close to Elsa until she was suddenly shut out by her. In confidence, Hans says that he will never shut her out, not realizing he has a city to protect. In the middle of the song "Love is an Open Door", Hans is revealed to be fond of sandwiches. Hans says goodbye to the pain of his past because he doesn’t have to feel it anymore, and because of that, he wants to marry Anna, and then invite his twelve brothers to stay in Arendelle and live a happy life.

#### The Deadly Winter

However, Elsa, for fear of them discovering her snow powers, tells Anna that she can't marry a person she has just met. Anna, thinking it is true love, gets the feeling that Elsa doesn’t understand the meaning of true love, but only about shutting people out. When Elsa reveals her snow powers, Hans gets shocked, and after Elsa runs away from fearing the Duke of Weselton who chases her away according to his evil plan, Hans runs after Anna, and tries to save her from Elsa. Later, Anna slips, and he tries to pick her up, worrying about her and the fjord. After the winter started, Hans then tries to convince the Duke that Anna isn't a monster either, and when Anna looks at him, he says that she is ordinary in the best way, in order not to hurt her feelings. When the Duke tries to chase them away from Arendelle like he chased Elsa, by mentioning she almost killed him, Hans told the Duke that she only slipped on ice. Anna then said it was an accident, and orders Hans to bring her the horse so she can go and find Elsa. Hans then says that it is too dangerous, but Anna replies that Elsa is not dangerous, so he suggests Anna take him with her, but she instead puts him in charge of Arendelle because she needs someone to protect it.

#### Handing the Tradable Goods

Hans accepts it, but instead of taking advantage of being in charge, he attempts to give Arendelle's citizens Arendelle's tradable goods. The next day, he starts to think that Anna might be dead. Later on, after giving the hard-working citizens many tradable goods, the Duke comes to him, telling him to hand the tradable goods to him and to stop giving them to the citizens. When Hans replies that Anna has given him the order to protect Arendelle, the Duke tries to manipulate him into believing that Elsa is a monster, and Anna is her evil minion. However, Hans replies that he will not hesitate to protect Arendelle from treason. When Anna's horse comes back, Hans realizes Anna is alive, but still in trouble. Because he loves Anna so much, he decides to leave Arendelle and rescue her from danger. He asks people to volunteer to rescue Anna, including the Duke's two thugs, who got the order from their boss to kill Elsa.

#### Attempting to Rescue Elsa

When Hans gets to Elsa's castle, he orders the guards and the two thugs to look for Princess Anna and fight evil enemies, but not harm the queen. While fighting Marshmallow, he sees the two thugs going into Elsa's castle in an attempt to kill her. Then when he runs in to see what is exactly happening, he sees Elsa fighting with the guards, and tells her not to be the monster they think and fear she is. When Hans sees one of the thugs trying to shoot Elsa with a bow and arrow, he tries to save her by shooting the bow and arrow onto the crystal lamp. However, by mistake, the arrow hits the crystal lamp, and the lamp almost falls onto Elsa's head, the impact causing her to be unconscious.

From fear, Hans then takes her to the prison of Arendelle while she is unconscious. When Elsa awakes, he tries to reason with her about stopping her winter spell, but she replies that she can't stop the winter. Hans feels sad, and replies that he will do what he can, but he schemes with the Duke of Weselton afterwards.

#### Betraying Anna

Hans later almost goes out to look for Anna again, just in order to tell her that they can't be together, but when she came, the Duke gives him the signal by one look. Hans says that something is wrong, while he meant he had to pretend to care about Anna. Suddenly, when everyone is out of the room and he and Anna are alone, he reveals his other side. He mentions that he has twelve princes, and is thirteenth in line for the kingdom of the Southern Isles. Hans then tells Anna that although she was so desperately in love with him, he realized that in order to be a king and a hero, he has to marry Elsa; his first plan was first to marry Elsa and then rule with her and do his heroic act by killing her and freeing the country from the winter spell, but a second after he realized Elsa doomed herself, he intended to kill Elsa and bring back summer by a heroic act. Although Anna mentions it is a bad act by saying "You won’t get away with this," Hans replies, "Oh, I already have," meaning that he didn't care because he thought about doing a good act. He then locks Anna in the fire room, and later with a signal from the Duke, he pretends that Anna was dead.

#### Attempting to Kill Elsa

The conversation ends when the dignitaries accept that Hans had to kill Elsa, and save Arendelle. He later went to the prison cell to kill Elsa, but he discovered that she had already escaped, and that made him worry that his plan would fail. He then attempted to go and kill Elsa with a sword; he lies to Elsa about what happened to Anna, making her collapse, and then tries to strike Elsa with his sword. However, at the last moment, Anna stands in front of Elsa, and when she turns into a frozen statue, Hans’s sword shatters when it hits the statue's hard ice, and Hans falls unconscious.

#### Getting Sent Back to the Southern Isles

When Hans comes back to his senses, he starts to worry about Anna again, possibly regretting his actions because summer came back, and his throne plan was failing anyway. So, he tries to show that he cares about her again by mentioning that Elsa froze her heart, but Anna tells him that, "The only frozen heart around here is yours," and knocks him into the water with one big punch. He gets arrested together with the Duke of Weselton, but on another ship, as the dignitary mentions that Hans will face punishment for his actions by his twelve older brothers.

### *Frozen Fever*

#### Working in the Southern Isles

In *Frozen Fever*, he found a job in the stables and was ranked there as the cleaner due to being poor. However, Elsa threw a giant snowball on him, while he was working far away in the Southern Isles. This made him tragic once again due to past incidents.

### *Frozen II*

Hans makes a brief appearance in the film Frozen II, despite being mentioned several times. When Elsa remembers her past through guiding spirits, one of the spirits appear in the form of Hans introducing himself to Anna. Elsa is unable to forgive him or simply forget him, so she uses her powers to wipe out the Hans part of the story.

## Personality

At first, Prince Hans was a nice, caring, supportive, and hearty gentleman who loved Anna with intentions to live a happier life with her as a love interest. Hans seemed to care about the citizens of Arendelle more than anything else, as he took care of them while Anna was away from her kingdom, and even though he later took the opportunity to kill Elsa and usurp her kingdom, he did consider the fact that Elsa is a monster, and that by killing her, the kingdom would be saved once and for all from the deadly winter.

However, near the end of the film, Hans does become somewhat aggressive and treacherous, as he would lock his own ex-girlfriend in a freezing room, and then rush to kill Elsa with no remorse, even lying to her that Anna died to reach her goal. This ruthlessness was likely stemmed from years of being treated cruelly by his brothers under his father's encouragement because he would never be able to rule his own kingdom.

## Trivia

* It was speculated that Prince Hans would redeem himself in *Frozen II*, which was hinted by his actor, Santino Fontana. However, Hans himself never appears in the film though he is mentioned by other characters, meaning he has not been redeemed.

## Gallery

***The Great Villains Wiki*** presents a gallery for Prince Hans.