Elsa (Frozen)

**Elsa** **the Snow Queen** is the deuteragonist of Disney's 2013 animated feature film *Frozen*and the protagonist of its 2019 sequel. Born with the power of ice and snow, Elsa is the firstborn daughter of King Agnarr and Queen Iduna, the older sister of Queen Anna, and the former queen of Arendelle. Throughout most of her young life, Elsa feared that her powers were monstrous. Therefore, she isolated herself from the world as a means of protecting her family and kingdom. Elsa's anxieties would eventually trigger a curse that plunged Arendelle into an eternal winter. Through Anna's love, however, Elsa was able to control her powers and live peacefully amongst her people with a newfound self-confidence.

Three years into her reign, Elsa is called forth to Ahtohallan to assume her rightful place as the **Fifth Spirit** of the Enchanted Forest, whose purpose is to bridge the magic of nature and people. She thereby abdicates the throne, allowing Anna to rise as the new queen of Arendelle.

Elsa is loosely based on the titular character of "*The Snow Queen*", a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Though pivotal to its events, the character had little presence in the original story. The Disney adaptation expanded the Snow Queen to serve as a villain initially, but the advent of “Let It Go“ inspired the filmmakers to rewrite the character as a tragic heroine.

## Background

### Official Description

*From the outside, Elsa looks poised, regal, and reserved, but in reality, she lives in fear as she wrestles with a mighty secret - she was born with the power to create ice and snow. It's a beautiful ability, but also extremely dangerous. Haunted by the moment her magic nearly killed her younger sister Anna, Elsa has isolated herself, spending every waking minute trying to suppress her growing powers. Her mounting emotions trigger the magic, accidentally setting off an eternal winter that she can't stop. She fears she's becoming a monster and that no one, not even her sister, can help her.*
### Development

After the success of *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs* in 1938, Walt Disney sought out new fairytales to serve as the basis for future productions. Marc Davis, one of Disney’s key animators, traveled to Scandinavia on Walt’s orders to research the region’s books and stories. Davis was enraptured by the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, and proposed they be adapted to animated shorts at the studio. Walt Disney’s adaptation of *The Snow Queen* was given a production number in 1939. There were talks regarding a live-action biography on Hans Christian Andersen, which would have featured animated segments based on his works. It is believed by historians that *The Snow Queen* was intended to be one of the project’s animated sequences, but there is no evidence of creative work for the proposed feature.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s original story, the Snow Queen abducts a young boy named Kai, who had fallen victim to the machinations of an evil mirror. The Queen promises to break the mirror’s spell, if Kai can spell “eternity” with pieces of ice in her palace. Kai’s disappearance leads his childhood friend, Gerda, to embark on a quest to find him. In the tale, the Snow Queen resides in an ice palace coated in permafrost and guarded by such animals as polar bears and porcupines.

Disney's decades long efforts to adapt *The Snow Queen* generally shared a common thread of trying to find a way to expand on the role of the title character and make her a more active presence in the story. A common theme in adaptation attempts in the late 1990s and early 2000s was to reconfigure the story into a romantic comedy about the Snow Queen's ice-cold heart-melting as she learns to love. One of these attempts almost went as far as to pair an aged-up Kai with the Snow Queen while vilifying Gerda.[5]

A common consensus was that Disney’s iteration of the Snow Queen would be portrayed as a villain. Early concept art and visual development depicted the character—eventually named Elsa—as being a ruthless, bitter, cold-hearted tyrant who had an entire army of giant snowmen as henchmen. Designs for this version of Elsa resembled such figures as actress Bette Midler, and the late singer Amy Winehouse. These designs depicted Elsa with spiky black or dark blue hair (and even blue-gray skin), a more angular body (as opposed to the final, heroic Elsa's curvaceous body) and a constantly malicious smile. Some concept art depicted her with a group of pet ermines who scurried up and down her body and formed themselves into a cloak for her.

Instead of being fearful and insecure about not wanting to reveal her powers, Elsa would have been very hostile and bitter toward others, especially Anna, whom she was incredibly jealous of because of the royal status she held. According to songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Elsa's original motivation throughout the film was to freeze Anna's heart and take over the kingdom.[6] As stated by producer Peter Del Vecho in a 2017 interview, Elsa was originally unrelated to Anna, and she was originally a scorned woman who was left single by her would-be fiancé at her own wedding day and froze her own heart in order to never love again. She would have been misunderstood as "Arendelle's bane" in the original prophecy and would have redeemed herself at the last minute to save all of Arendelle from an avalanche caused by Prince Hans (the real bane of Arendelle in the prophecy).[7]

Despite these developments, there were still concerns that the Elsa character was cliché and unlikable. According to Del Vecho, there was no emotional connection to Elsa, which ultimately made for a dissatisfying story. Someone on the writing team proposed rewriting Elsa and Anna as siblings. In doing so, the filmmakers found their emotional hook. Del Vecho explained, “Making them related led us to the idea of her living in fear of her powers. What if she’s afraid of who she is? And afraid of hurting the ones she loves? Now we had a character in Anna who was all about love and Elsa who was all about fear.”[7]

Elsa became increasingly sympathetic as development continued on. Regardless, she was still largely conceived as a villain, albeit three-dimensional. Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez were penned to write the songs for the film. Among the soundtrack was a “villain song” for Elsa, in which she forgoes her personal connections for the sake of embracing her true-self as the Snow Queen. As the songwriters delved into Elsa’s personal turmoil, they felt an empathy for the character that drove them to compose a song that was tragic, yet empowering. Within a day and a half, the Lopez couple wrote “Let It Go” as Elsa’s anthem, and sent the demo to the studio. The song was praised, and inspired co-director and screenwriter Jennifer Lee to rewrite the entire movie with Elsa as a heroine, rather than an antagonist.[6]

Lee would explain that Elsa is largely driven by fear throughout the film. Producers identified the scene in which Elsa sings "Let It Go" as a pivotal point in the character's development, as the scene depicts her choice to "let go" of her fear of using her powers and be herself. Character design supervisor Bill Schwab said, "Before 'Let It Go', Elsa is really buttoned up, her hair is up - everything is perfect. During the song, she gives herself permission to be who she is and everything changes - her hair is wilder, her gown is magical. She's finally free - even if she is all alone." Lead writer Paul Briggs explained that Anna's support is what Elsa needs most when her secret is exposed. "The strength of the family bond is what makes this story so powerful because it's her sibling who's willing to look beyond her powers and stand between her and the world if that's what it takes."

### Voice

Actress and singer Megan Mullally was originally cast to voice Elsa,[8] but was replaced by Broadway actress Idina Menzel, best known for performing Elphaba from *Wicked* when the story changed. Menzel had previously auditioned for a lead role in the 2010 Disney animated feature film, *Tangled*. She was not cast for the part, but the casting director recorded her singing and later showed the recording to *Frozen*'s film executives. Menzel was surprised when she was subsequently asked to audition, and she received the role after reading the script out loud.[9]

Director Chris Buck believed that Menzel's vocals would help in the portrayal of the character, saying, "Idina has a sense of vulnerability in her voice. She plays a very strong character, but someone who lives in fear - so we needed someone who could portray both sides of the character, and Idina was just amazing."

In an interview with Menzel, she acknowledged the similarities between Elsa and Elphaba. She mentioned they were both very powerful and misunderstood individuals, and she herself could relate to the characters, having hidden her singing talent from her peers at school. "I didn't want to alienate anyone," she explained. "If everyone was singing along in the car to a Madonna song, I didn't join in because when we're younger we're afraid of sticking out or showing off when in fact we should own those things that make us really unique."

### Personality

As the queen regnant of the kingdom of Arendelle, Elsa appears calm, reserved, regal and - unlike her sister - graceful and poised. Beneath this cool and collected appearance, however, Elsa is quite turbulent; in truth, the Snow Queen was, for a majority of her young life, troubled by her abilities, a feeling which stems from a traumatic incident as a child. When she was younger, she had cared strongly for Anna and, despite being the more mature and cautious of the two sisters, Elsa was still quite playful and used her magic to have fun and goof off.

However, after witnessing her magic cause her sister harm, Elsa lived in fear and trauma for a great amount of her life as she became too terrified to let her powers overdevelop. She consequently chose isolation from everyone she cared for, including Anna, out of the presumption that her isolation would protect them from her power. This would eventually result in years of loneliness, misery, bitterness, and grief. Regret would gradually take its toll on her as well when tragedies struck throughout her life from the accident with her sister to the death of her parents, leaving them both to mourn and grieve alone.

Elsa's damaging experience through the crucial stages from childhood to adulthood caused her personality to shift. She became reclusive, insecure, emotionally unstable, anxious, and depressed. For Elsa, her powers and nature grew more restrained as the years passed, slowly molding her into the cold-hearted queen others saw her to be. When given the chance to rest and relent, however, Elsa's true, warm, kind, fun-loving, and innocently mischievous personality came about - but only briefly, and with restriction, as seen on the night of her coronation.

Elsa also has an altruistic disposition that contributes to her compassion towards her people. Throughout the entirety of the film, the Snow Queen's actions are driven by the desire to protect her kingdom, and more intimately, Anna. Unfortunately, that comes with a price, as Elsa's upbringing would lead her to believe that, for the safety of her loved ones, and for the sake of remaining true to who she is as a gifted person, she is a living disaster that must be removed from society. Even with Anna's persistence to help end the curse, Elsa's method of solving the problem - enforced isolation - would remain prevalent. Her determination to solve her problems through singularity is Elsa's greatest flaw, driven by her anxiety and traumatic childhood experiences.

Though a benevolent and giving person, Elsa suffers from emotional instability due to years of keeping her emotions bottled up. When her strong emotions are triggered, Elsa often loses control over her emotions which can create dangerous situations for herself and others around her. An example of this is when Anna informed her that she had unknowingly plunged Arendelle into an "eternal winter", she began panicking as she realized she had brought harm upon her kingdom, which made her lose control of both her emotions and powers, resulting in ice bursting from her chest and striking Anna in the heart. But perhaps the prime example of this was when the Duke of Weselton's guards attempted to assassinate her and Elsa realizes she has no choice but to fight back, and, unable to control her fury, goes from self-defense to fighting back more aggressively, nearly pushing a man off the edge of her ice palace and pinning another to the wall with icicles, ready to kill him before Hans intervened and talked her down from committing cold-blooded murder to protect herself.

During "Let It Go", however, Elsa reveals a liberated side to her personality. Without stress, responsibilities, or the fear of hurting others, the queen is strong and unafraid, yet with an air of elegance still surrounding her. Based on this fact, she has confidence in her abilities and accepts them as a part of her, no longer worried or daunted by her restraints. In the segment, which was entirely about letting go of her fear of using her powers and embracing herself, Elsa decides to abandon what she was made to be so that she can be free to be herself. While expressing this, Elsa proves that she is notably creative and strong in geometry (her ice palace is made entirely out of geometric figures), and a daring young woman willing to reject her own fate as Arendelle's queen for the choice of her own personal freedom as well as to protect the people in Arendelle from her powers.

Following her return to power as Arendelle's reigning monarch, Elsa's original personality, long dormant since her childhood, makes a return. With a warm, welcoming aura, Elsa rules her kingdom with a genuine smile and spends most of her spare time using her abilities for the pleasure of herself, her sister, and the entire kingdom. As seen in *Frozen Fever*, this aspect of Elsa's personality has not only remained, but strengthened, as the short heavily showcased Elsa's lighter side as fun-loving, and extremely devoted to her sister, yet retained her sense of elegance, vibrancy, and compassion. In spite of this, Elsa continues to feel guilt for the past, which manifests itself into a personal mission to ensure that Anna is content at all times; in *Frozen Fever*, she goes to great lengths to give Anna a memorable birthday and is dedicated to ensuring that even the slightest detail is perfect. During their first holiday season as a united family, Elsa comes to realize that she and Anna have no family traditions to share with one another, for which she openly blames herself.

In the sequel, Elsa seeks the truth about the source of her powers as well as who she really is. She begins to question her place in Arendelle as Ahtohallan calls for her every night until she answers it during "Into the Unknown". Upon entering the Enchanted Forest, Elsa becomes more confident with her abilities and heroic protecting her family and the Northundra from the wind and fire spirits. She has since become more heroic, promising the Northundra that she will do what she can to break the curse and free the forest. This drives her to seek the truth of the past by journeying to Ahtohallan despite the dangers it presented, as well as great strength and determination fighting and taming the Nokk. After witnessing their parents' deaths through a memory stored in ice, Elsa blames herself, and refuses to let Anna follow her into the Dark Sea. She finally finds Ahtohallan and recognizes herself as the Fifth Spirit, recognizing that her powers were indeed a gift and not a curse, no longer feeling restricted in using her powers. Having found her place among the spirits, she passes the position of Queen of Arendelle onto Anna, and stays behind to live with the Northuldra as the forest's protector, finally at peace with herself and with both the freedom she’s always wanted and her bond with her sister stronger than ever.