Arendelle

**Visitors** | * The Apprentice
* Belle

> I'm sorry, father. But I need to know what happened. And this is the only place where I'll find the answer. Arendelle.
>       —Belle to Maurice

**Arendelle** is a Fairy Tale Land realm featured on ABC's *Once Upon a Time*. It first appears in the first episode of the fourth season.

Arendelle is based on a location of the same name from the Disney movie, *Frozen*.

## History

### Before First Curse

Arendelle is ruled by a monarchy that goes back several generations. During one generation, Princess Ingrid manifests ice powers, and she fears becoming an outcast because magic is unheard of in Arendelle. Her sisters, Helga and Gerda, make a pact with ribbons to help keep her powers a secret, but throughout the years, Ingrid continues to feel she is a detriment to her siblings. In a desperate move to be normal, she and her sisters give up their ribbons to the wizard, Rumplestiltskin, and in exchange, he provides gloves to neutralize Ingrid's powers as well an urn to trap her if her magic becomes uncontrollable. While fending off the romantic advances of the Duke of Weselton, Ingrid accidentally uses her powers, to which he threatens to tell the kingdom about her abnormality. Out of anger, she blasts him, only to kill Helga, causing a horrified Gerda to trap her in the urn. Grand Pabbie, on Gerda's request, erases everyone's memories of Ingrid and Helga. *("The Snow Queen")*
Becoming Queen, Gerda marries and has two daughters, Elsa and Anna. Elsa inherits ice magic, like Ingrid, which troubles her parents. When the two sisters are older, Gerda and her husband go to Rumplestiltskin for a magical remedy to Ingrid's powers. Before the ship capsizes at sea, Gerda leaves a message in a bottle and tosses it into the ocean. Five years later, Elsa is now Queen. Anna, engaged to Kristoff, receives their mother's wedding dress from Elsa, who also discovers their mother's old diary. One written entry leads Elsa to believe her parents were frightened of her ice powers, but Anna takes her to Grand Pabbie, who admits their parents were going to Mist Haven on their ill-fated voyage. Since Elsa refuses to travelling there with her, Anna boards a ship alone while her sister is too late to stop her. *("A Tale of Two Sisters")*
Elsa, discovering Prince Hans wants to entrap her in an urn and seize Arendelle for himself, investigates the mysterious object with Kristoff. Under duress, Hans forces her to hand over the urn, which he uncaps and unintentionally frees Ingrid, who freezes him for his insolence. On return to the castle, the Snow Queen, Ingrid, reveals herself as Elsa's aunt. *("Rocky Road")*
During her stay in Mist Haven, Anna finds out her parents sought out Rumplestiltskin to get rid of Elsa's powers. Worried about hurting Elsa with the news, she doesn't tell her sister the truth. Suspicious of Ingrid's motives, Anna goes to Grand Pabbie, and she brings along a companion, Belle, who also needs his help. Once Grand Pabbie confesses Ingrid's relation to Gerda and Helga, Anna attempts to rush home to warn Elsa. However, Anna is knocked unconscious after a fall from a cliff caused by Ingrid's magic. While she is blacked out, Ingrid steals a sorcerer's hat, which Anna stole from Rumplestiltskin. She then whisks Anna away and locks her in a cell. Ingrid accuses her of planning to use the hat on Elsa, but Anna denies it and confronts the latter about their family's secrets. Instead, Ingrid reveals she had intended for herself, Anna and Elsa to be a family. Since Anna has no magical abilities, she dubs her niece the "odd woman out" and vows to find someone to replace her. *("Family Business")*
After burying the hat in a cave, Elsa goes to the Enchanted Forest and proposes the sorcerer's apprentice find a third sister to complete her family in return for the hat. Returning to Arendelle, Ingrid purports that Anna, intending to use the hat on Elsa, attempted it on her first. As Elsa is in doubt, Ingrid reveals Gerda trapped her in the urn and that Anna, like her mother, will never understand a person of magic. Instead of turning the two against each other, the girls conspire to entrap their aunt in the urn, but Ingrid captures Anna and casts the spell of shattered sight to make her turn against Elsa. This plan backfires when Anna, under the spell's influence, traps Elsa in the urn. After being released by the spell, Anna is confronted by an angry Ingrid, and while Kristoff defends her, the Snow Queen unleashes her fury by freezing the pair as well as all of Arendelle. As for Elsa, Ingrid erases her memories of recent events, and when Rumplestiltskin asks for the hat, but she claims to not know where it is. As a result, he takes the urn and promises to return it if she hands over the hat. When the apprentice locates the third sister, Ingrid gives him the hat and gains passage to another realm and a scroll to find the sister in due time. *("Smash the Mirror")*

### After Second Curse

Thirty years later, Ingrid's freezing curse wears off of Arendelle, though the inhabitants were unaware of the time that had past. Anna finds a strand of gold straw and realized that Rumpestiltskin had followed her back to Arendelle and had taken Elsa. Before she and Kristoff could make plans to rescue her sister from the Dark One, Hans and his brothers are revealed to have unfrozen as well, intending to imprison them for "treason" and to take over the kingdom, but the couple manage to escape the princes. As soon as they were far away from the royal palace, Anna recalled her mother's journals, stating that her parents once attempted to find a wishing star to try and remove Elsa's powers with the aid of the pirate Black Beard, and thus they could use it to release Elsa. However, Hans and his brothers made contact with Black Beard first and captured Anna and Kristoff and stuff them in a trunk to be thrown into the sea. However, Anna and Kristoff survive due to Elsa possessing the wishing star, transporting them to Storybrooke. *("Fall")*

Hans' rule of Arendelle is short-lived as Elsa, Anna and Kristoff return via a magic portal and dethrone him. After the two sisters restore everyone's memories of Ingrid and Helga to the kingdom, Anna readies herself to marry Kristoff. *("Heroes and Villains")*

## Inhabitants

* Anna
* Duke of Weselton
* Elsa
* Gerda †
* Grand Pabbie
* Hans
* Hans' brothers
* Helga †
* Ingrid †
* King Arendelle †
* King Harald
* Kristoff
* Oaken
* Sven

## Locations

*For detailed location information, please see the list of Arendelle locations.*

## Trivia

* Arendelle is located across the seas from the Enchanted Forest. According to Anna, it is a short journey. *("A Tale of Two Sisters")*
* The inhabitants are not familiar with the presence of magic outside of Arendelle, which is abundant elsewhere in their world. *("A Tale of Two Sisters", "White Out")*
* According to Ingrid, charlatans are severely punished in Arendelle. *("Shattered Sight")*

## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/JaneEspenson/status/529039288261177345