Wait, we're talking about Frozen again?
Ugh, can't we just "let it go"?
*Holiday Intro Starts (Holiday Music Theme)*
Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory!
The icy cold heart bringing a chill to the Disney canon.
Case and point today, Frozen.
You know those movies you love to watch over the holidays?
For Steph and I, it's always "The Nightmare Before Christmas" around Thanksgiving.
And then "Lord of the Rings" and Disney leading up to Christmas.
And with my tryptophan induced napping and Black Friday shopping behind me,
It meant that it was time for my yearly viewing of "Frozen."
And you know what? It's still a really good movie.
I know it's easy to hate on it because of all the over-exposure it got,
but in all honestly the characters are great, the songs are great, it's really funny.
So, Dear Internet, stop hating on popular things just to be all edgy and anti-culture. Ok?
You know, I say that, but then you gotta consider that a huge part of this movie's success was Disney's own willingness to hate on it's own established tropes.
No one is saved by true love's kiss,
Everyone dismisses the idea of love at first sight,
And the dreamy "Prince Charming" turns out to be the villain.
But ever since I watched the movie the first time, it's always been that last point that bothered me the most.
Because for as much as I loved Prince Hans' turn to the dark side in the final moments of the movie,
It just felt like it... came out of nowhere.
And of course, part of that is the point of the twist,
it's a surprise,
like that ream of printer paper your Aunt got you as a Christmas present that one time...
Man, you think reacting with enthusiasm to an ugly Christmas sweater is hard, try that one.
But, if you actually stopped to watch Hans' behavior and the flow of his plan throughout the movie...
Nothing adds up...
Which means either,
A. Disney writers knew they wanted a big twist and used Hans to shuffle pieces around without much concern over how it played into his larger character arc.
Or B. There's something much more sinister going on in this world...
And while A. is probably the factually correct choice,
B. is the more fun choice,
and to me that means...
it's the right choice.
So let's dedicate an episode to unearthing the secret conspiracy that clears Hans' name...
Once and for all.
So let's first look at his motive for this big murder plot
He says himself,
"As 13th in line in my own Kingdom, I didn't stand a chance, I knew I'd have to marry into the throne somewhere"
Which on the surface would seem to make sense.
He wants to rule the kingdom and he sees an opportunity with Arendal.
Marry one of the two princesses and boom!
He's in the running to be wearing the crown.
And he gives us a little bit more detail in his next line:
"As heir, Elsa was preferable, of course, but no one was getting anywhere with her.
But you, you were so desperate for love, you were willing to marry me just like that."
So option one is marry Elsa and fast-track your way up to the royal throne,
but since she tends to give people a bit of the old
"COLD SHOULDER"...
*comic rimshot*
I don't hear your raucous laughter, so let me shout it louder...
COLD
SHOULDER
BA DUM TS
He went for the next best thing:
Anna, next in line to be queen, should Elsa die.
And he knows this.
"I figured after we married, I'd have to stage a little accident for Elsa..."
Which anyone who's ever heard an evil monologue before those means
Giving her the old stab and a half,
Throwing her in front of a rogue snowplow
Or the classic bloodless Disney death of just
throwing her off a tall cliff, she's gone,
and Anna with Hans in tow ascent to the throne.
"All that's left now is to kill Elsa and bring back summer."
This is the moment where things start to go off the rails.
So his plan involves killing Elsa.
He is so enthusiastic about it,
He mentions it TWICE in that little monologue we just went over.
And yet, when he and the guards come to Elsa's ice palace, looking for Anna,
Hans expresses his intention to do the exact opposite: Protect Elsa.
"We're here to find Princess Anna, be on guard...
...but no harm is to come to the Queen."
Later in a scene where a guard literally has Elsa is his crosshairs,
Hans runs over and diverts the shot.
If he truly wants Elsa dead,
Why not let the guard kill her right then and there?
I mean, maybe he just really liked that snowplow idea,
But seriously, when life hands you lemons,
You shoot a crossbow bolt through the heart of the woman standing between you and the throne!
Hans' hands would be clean, and to the rest of the world,
Including Anna, who just got herself ice blasted by dear ol' sis,
Elsa is a threat. A MONSTER.
But not only does he divert the shot,
He also offers her a nice bit of #MondayMotivation.
"Don't be the monster they fear you are!"
HANS! Is this what you say to the person you have a murder plot against?
He's helping her to become a better person.
Seriously! She is on the verge of murdering people!
And that's no exaggeration.
Look at this guard being shoved off the balcony by her ice wall.
Had it not been for Hans,
She would have literally killed this man!
Disney's most beloved princess be killing some peeps up in this icy hizzouse!
The script even confirms it.
Hans' line causes her to "snap out of her rage".
So WHY? Why would you help the woman you plan to eventually bump off,
When the problem solves itself right then and there in that moment?
And then again when they
bring Elsa back to Arendelle and put her
in prison he says once more- (Elsa): "why did you
bring me here?" (Hans): "I couldn't just let them
kill you"
"He's doing it to win on his trust" I hear
you say, but that's not it either! She's
already convinced she's in love with him.
In just a few scenes, she'll be begging
for Hans to kiss her. Anna: "Hans you have to
kiss me. Now!" And all through the
troll song both Christoph and Anna
continually assert that she's already a
taken woman; rejecting the idea that
there's any sort of romance there.
And here's the other thing, Hans is already
in charge of arendelle throughout most
of the movie. When Anna decides to run off
and bring back Elsa she puts him in charge.
Hans: "I'm coming with you." Anna: "No I need you here,
to take care of Arendelle. I leave Prince Hans
in charge."
And let's face it Anna is just a few days
away from rising to the throne. Based on
the sisters talk, the ice castle, Elsa
has zero intention of returning to the
city. Elsa : "Anna, please go back home, your life awaits. Go enjoy the sun and open up the
gates."
"Yes I'm alone, but I'm alone and free!" She's willingly abdicated the
throne.
She's saying that Anna now has the
power to keep the gates open because
she's the new decision-maker. Anna is
going to be the Queen. Elsa's happier
alone at the top of the mountain in her
fortress of solitude. Even when she
escapes prison, where's she running to? Her
safe space, the ice castle. So all Hans has
to do to accomplish his goal is to not
suck for the few days that Anna is away,
comfort her a bit when she returns home depressed
that Elsa is now ruling a private
snowman kingdom, and, you know make sure
that his future wife doesn't die. That's
all he has to do in order to achieve the
goal that he has set out to achieve;
literally do nothing. All the murder plots,
all the bringing Elsa back from the ice
castle,
none of it matters! But that last task is
important because let's actually talk
about his refusal to kiss Anna. So to recap:
Anna's heart has been frozen over by
Elsa's ice powers. She's about to die and
needs an act of true love in order to
save her. She thinks that this will be a
kiss from Hans because she's a Disney
character who was raised on Disney
movies apparently. But he refuses, making
it clear that he never loved her at all.
All he wanted to do was marry her for a
kingdom. He puts out the candle so she'll
freeze to death faster and then leaves
prematurely because every villain always
leaves prematurely, except it makes zero
sense. There is literally no reason not
to kiss her in this situation. If she
lives, great!
He's able to be married to her and
rise to power at her side like his plan
always intended in the first place. If
the kiss doesn't work, well she dies and
he can still play the whole marriage
charade off. Just like he does in the
actual movie, except with someone who is
literally dead and can't show up a few
seconds later to disprove everything
that he just said. In fact if he truly
cares about his goal, well then he chose the
riskiest move he could have because
letting Anna die puts it in serious
jeopardy. If she doesn't make it, his
whole plan literally
falls apart. To really
understand why, though, we have to quickly
talk about monarchies. I've been
binge-watching the crown on netflix and
doing a bunch of research on royal
succession. You know, since my chances of being
elected president here in the United
States getting pretty slim these days
-and hey why rule a united states when
you can rule a united kingdom? Anyway if
Arendelle is like most monarchies, Hans
would have to keep Anna alive in order to
help her rule the kingdom. You see in a
typical monarchy, like having Great
Britain, the crown gets passed around
based on the royal blood running through
your veins.
So if a king or queen dies, the new ruler is
the oldest child. That's why Elsa becomes
Queen. Her parents died, (maybe), but more on
that later....
So when she's of age, she ascends to the throne;
she's now the oldest blood relative.
If Elsa abandons the throne, or gets
herself thrown in front of that snowplow and has
no little Olafs of her own, it goes to
the next in line: Anna.
And that is what Hans should be
counting on. But if Anna dies like she's
literally minutes away from doing when
Hans decides to go all rogue, he doesn't
just remain on the throne and get to
rule because of blood.
Let me explain. Although many people
consider every King to have a queen and
vice versa,
that's not really the way it works. The
one who possesses the royal blood is
called the monarch; that's the one who's
in charge. Their sexy Sven in the sheets
then is known as their royal consort and
are in no way in line for the throne. For
example, just look at the British line of
succession. The Queen's husband, Phillip,
isn't even in the top 50 when it comes
to waiting in line for the throne.
Mrs. Irina Walker Kruger who lives in
the U.S. is more likely to become the
next British monarch and she is
currently on probation for being
associated with illegal gambling and
cockfighting. That is no joke. That person
is more likely to become the queen of
England than Phillip, the current Queen's
husband. And based on how we see the
monarchy handoffs happening in Frozen
Arendelle would operate the same way.
Hans wouldn't even get the title of king
in his plan. Just like a deck of cards,
the royal consort can't have a title
that beats the actual monarch. So if
Anna is the Queen Hans can't be the
king.
It's the higher title.
So instead Hans would always have to remain
Prince Hans: royal consort to Queen
Anna .It's actually the same thing in
Britain right now. Queen Elizabeth is the
reigning monarch and her husband is
Prince Philip, even though he's a prince
who is currently 95 years old. So you see,
the crowd would go to literally anyone
with a drop of blood related to these
two and Hans has zero Arenedellian blood
blood. Get this, when it comes down to it,
Tarzan would be next in line. It sounds
like a joke, but interviews with the
creators of Frozen have confirmed that
Anna and Elsa's parents do survive their
shipwreck and give birth to Tarzan,
before of course they die from that
grizzly leopard attack. Man! First a
shipwreck, then mauled by a leopard.
Ho ho ho! (Christmas and all :) )Guess that's what you get for stifling
your child ice magic. Karma is BRUTAL!
if not Tarzan, then based on the
other theories about the movie, including
my last film theory about it, Rapunzel
could also be up for ruler of Arendelle.
Regardless, if Hans has any hope of
preserving a royal title and ruling the
kingdom in any way, he needs Anna alive;
making his evil turn here in the final
minutes of the movie make ZERO sense.
But lastly let's just dial it back and
look at how this guy behaves. When Anna
leaves him in charge of the kingdom, he
spends his time giving cloaks out to
people who are cold
Hans: "The castle is open, there is soup and hot
glog in the Great Hall." He threatens to
throw the Duke of Weaseltown- Duke:"Weselton"- in jail on
the charge of treason against Anna and
Elsa Hans:"I will not hesitate to protect
Arendelle from treason!" When the Duke
complains about dangerous Elsa is, Hans
corrects him saying: "You slipped on ice."
Even at the very beginning of the movie,
look at them look at each other, that's
genuine affection. And when Hans gets
knocked into the water a few seconds
later and is hidden under the boat,
smiles to himself. Not an evil grin or
sinister sneer it's just one of those
lovestruck goofy grins. In short, if this
is the guy who wants to rule Arendell and
kill Elsa,
he's just not doing a good job of it. What's
even stranger is that if there is a
Frozen II the writers intend on giving
Hans a redemption arc. No joke!
Santonio: "They're like, no no no, we have an idea. We
wanna bring you back, we wanna redeem you." No
other Disney villain has ever gotten
that sort of treatment. So what gives
here?
Well what if Hans was just a pawn in
someone else's game, collateral damage
for another's agenda? What if there's another
villain in Frozen? No not Sven, not even
the Duke of Weaseltown. It's Olaf. Nope!
No, it's not Olaf, that would be stupid. The true
villains and Frozen are... the Trolls? You heard
me, those cuddly little rocks that are
just randomly shoved into the movie may
just be the ones with the evil intent.
now that may seem like a stretch, but hear
me out here.
Let's start with their song "Fixer-Upper",
which at first seems like a
light-hearted comedy song, but when you
actually bothered to pay attention to
the lyrics, they contain some really
disturbing lines. Like i mentioned
earlier, Christoph is VERY upfront about Anna
already being engaged to Hans. Christoph: "She's
engaged to someone else,
okay?!" And yet despite this, the trolls
steamroll past that little detail saying
her "engagement is a flex
arrangement.." and "get the fiancé out of
the way and the whole thing will be
fixed." By the end of the song, the Trolls
are literally trying to trick Anna into
marrying Christoph. Pastor Troll: "Do you, Anna, take Christoph to be
your trollfully wedded-" Anna: "-Wait what?" Pastor Troll: "You're
getting married.'' Willfully ignoring that
she probably doesn't want to kiss a guy
who literally eats carrots that came out
of his reindeers mouth. But why would
they pushed so hard to see these two
married? Well remember, Christoph was adopted
by the trolls; he's part of the clan. So having
one of their own be a part of the noble
family is a huge deal, especially when
the nobles think you look like this.
That's some pretty sinister-looking imagery
right there, just saying. also ask
yourself this:
who were the first ones to scare Elsa
about her powers? The Trolls. Prior to
visiting them, Elsa was confident in her
abilities.
The only reason Anna gets injured at
the start of the movies is because she was
reckless, leaving Elsa as the one who has
to take all the blame.
Dad: "Elsa, what have you done?!" And yet when Mom Frozen
and Dad Frozen take their daughters to
see good old grandpappy, what's the
solution? He does the following:
"I recommend we remove all magic, even
memories of magic, to be safe." Remove all magic,
he said. Huh
Did Anna never have powers too? Strange.
Anyway, let me put that one of the old
list of potential theories to look
into.
Regardless what does erasing Anna's
memories do? NOTHING. Well, at least nothing
GOOD.
She becomes alone and alienated from
a sister for reason she can't fathom.
Meanwhile, Elsa is pushed into a kingdom
of isolation, where it looks like she's
the queen. Pappy blue ribbon over here
also ensures that Elsa is terrified of
herself. Grandpappy Troll: "You must learn to control it.
Fear will be your enemy." You sure about
that Grandpappy? You're gonna say that
fear IS the ultimate enemy and then
punctuate the moment by doing what now?
SCARING her with a spooky vision. Alright
Cool.
Good on you. To quote the script, "The
spikes turn into human form which
then attack the silhouette of adult Elsa.
This frightens Elsa." Grandpappy (MatPat's amazing impersination): "Fear is going to be
your enemy- BOO! Gotcha!" Good one grandpappy.
It's like the worst jump-scare ever. Should put you into FNAF
Sister Location custom night. All of
this even though, once again, Elsa was
fine and had perfect control of her
powers before this visit.
What else to the trolls do? Oh yeah! They
willfully mislead Anna into thinking that
she needs true love's kiss to survive
her frozen heart, despite them being love
experts and also completely wrong.
Woman Troll: "A true love's kiss, perhaps?" But here's the
big problem: Grandpappy is really good at
manipulating people's minds, and he does
it all the time.
Sure in Frozen, we only see it done once
to Anna, which as I said accomplishes
nothing good. But then Once Upon a Time's
Frozen themed season, we see him do it again,
and this time on a much larger and much
more catastrophic scale. when Gerta(I thought it was Iduna?),
eventual queen of Arendelle and mother
of Anna and Elsa traps her sister in a magical
urn, because that sister killed her
other sister- WORST DAY EVER -she asks
Grandpappy for help,
requesting that he erase the memories
of the ENTIRE kingdom of Arendelle to
never remember
her two sisters. And Pappy, he just does it.
He puts up no resistance, requests no
payment, he's just like, "All right let's
create some fake memories in these
peasants" And THEN he even lies to cover
it up! When Anna asks him about the
incident, he hides the fact that it was
Ana's mother who requested the memory
wipe in the first place.
He's protecting a legacy of lies. So what's to say
that the trolls couldn't - or wouldn't - do
some sort of memory magic on Hans,
the fiancé who just happens to be in the
way of their big plans for Christoph.
Remember what the trolls say over and over again, Grandpappy: "The head
can be persuaded,
but the heart is not so easily changed."
Long story short, Hans's plan makes zero
sense, especially considering all the
steps he makes counter to it earlier in
the movie.
All he needed was that final kiss, and he
was locked in, making his turn to be the
villain in that final moment of the
movie the complete antithesis of what he
was looking to accomplish. But it does
make sense if you consider the Trolls
wanted to throw that fiancé away and
get Christoph inserted in his place.
They've shown themselves to have the
means to manipulate unsuspecting
innocent minds, the cunning to conceal
their deeds, and the motivations to trick
people into getting what they want.
Maybe the redemption arc the writers
have planned for Hans in Frozen 2 is
less about a bad guy turning good, but
rather a good guy getting to reveal the
true villains acting behind the scenes.
But hey! that's just a theory. A FILM
THEORY! AAAAAAAAND CUT!
(OUTRO)
Thanks for reading my subtitles! ;)