Hey, brother. Jay can I do something crazy? You guys love crazy right?
Hans: I love crazy!
Perfect! How crazy is this?
What if Hans from Frozen, is
Actually a mirror
*Intro music*
Hey brother!
In case you didn't know, Frozen, like many Disney movies is based on a fairy tale.
The fairy tale in question is The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Anderson
Hans-Kristoff-Anna-Sven
Oh my God. If you're thinking, oh my gosh, I didn't know that. I want to go read it right now
Don't. It's not really that interesting and Frozen is way better and more entertaining and doesn't exactly resemble the original fairy tail
Now it should come as no surprise that disney takes many creative liberties when it comes to bringing a fairy tale to life
But however much they change they normally still keep the important plot devices
In the case of Frozen though, they left out maybe the most important device to the Fairy Tale
A mirror. In the original story a troll, creatively called the devil
Makes a mirror that reflects and magnifies the worst aspects of yourself when you look into it
He tries to bring the mirror to heaven to make fools of the angels
But, the mirror falls to Earth and shatters into millions of pieces
Some as small as grains of sand. One such piece of glass gets in the eye of one of the main characters of the story
Who begins to see the entire world in a terrible light, and solving this problem is the whole purpose of the story
A quick trip to the eye doctor probably would have solved everything
But of course it's a fairy tale so it involves all sorts of magic and snow bees and stuff
Wouldn't it have been perfect if that was the hero of Frozen. Oh man another eternal winter, better call the eye doctor
Frozen leaving out the mirror is kind of like Cinderella leaving out the glass slipper, or Beauty and the Beast leaving out the rose
Or snow white leaving out, well, the mirror
They kind of leave out this important item
that sort of puts the whole fairy tale in motion. Maybe instead of having a literal mirror they turn the mirror into a character.
A character that features many different personalities that don't seem to match up
Now, do we remember any characters from Frozen that fit that build?
Hans: I'm so sorry! A-are you hurt?
Hans: She left me in charge
Hans: If only there was someone out there who loved you
Hans literally acts like a mirror, to everyone he comes in contact with
He never has any scenes by himself
And no matter who he's talking to, he always assumes
their mannerisms, motivations, fears, and personality and then reflects it back onto that character
This is why Hans comes across as so convincingly genuine
Because he's reflecting genuine people, and it happens in every scene
Take when he meets Anna. Anna has just finished singing a song about meeting someone
Ana: What if I meet THE one?
And boom, she walks right into someone who is exactly herself, in prince form
They have a funny exchange and both are a little bit awkward and nice and they both seem to have
just walked out of the same day dream about meeting someone
Anna leaves the scene looking dreamy-eyed
and Hans if you remember from last week
Last Week Ben: Why is he smiling? Is he smiling at the horse?
Nope, he's mirroring Anna. Because otherwise his dumb smile under the boat makes no sense
Here's the thing though, Ana remains awkward and silly and funny throughout the rest of the movie
Hans on the other hand morphs with each new person
But not before he sings a song with Anna that is just littered with mirror imagery
just look at how symmetrical the shot is in each scene
Walking in the garden
On the balcony
In the hallway
On the clock tower
on the bridge, where there is quite literally a reflection
And finally ending with two waterfalls, on either side of them
Hans: You Ana: And I In Unison: Were just meant to be
Ooorrrr he's just mirroring you. Even before the song starts how does he relate to Ana but by telling her
How he has been ignored by his siblings, mirroring exactly what he just witnessed
Elsa do to her at the ball. Anna had just attempted to rekindle a deep and meaningful relationship with her sister
Hans is ready to offer her exactly that. An open door relationship
Exactly the opposite of the closed door that Anna has been facing for years
Else: Go away Anna Anna: Okay bye
The first big shift in his personality that we see is right after Ana leaves him in charge of Arendelle when she goes in search of Elsa
At first he acts like a mirror to Anna, being super helpful to the people and offering them warm blankets and hot glogg
Hans: There is soup, and hot glogg in the great hall
I'm sorry, what is glogg?
Glogg aside, the people are grateful to him, and he is grateful back
Then the duke steps in and is assertive and tries to take command
Hans reflects him, asserting himself as the leader and demonstrating his own authority
Hans: She left me in charge, and I will not hesitate to protect Arendelle from treason
Up at the ice palace he later shifts again to mirror Elsa
While she is scared and afraid, he literally repeats back to her, her own worst fear
Hans: Don't be the monster they fear you are!
Then when she's in chains, he does it again. Saying aloud what she must actually be thinking
Hans: If you would just stop the Winter, bring back Summer
At this point he seems gentle, like Elsa, and like he's actually trying to help
Like, do you, do you see how he just keeps changing?
It's not unusual for a character to evolve over the course of a movie
but he changes in every scene
Right up, until he's with Anna in the library and finally reveals his true self
And what makes this scene so interesting
is that as he is revealing everything we have this moment, where he walks over to the window
and what is looking back at him? Himself
The other really interesting plot device that's being used in this scene is as Hans is removing his gloves
a gesture that was mirrored earlier in the movie as Elsa removed her gloves letting it go
Now, obviously Hans wasn't there to see Elsa do it
But I think as he's taking off his own gloves, he is also letting it go
Which is to say, embracing his true self
I think we've made a pretty good argument for this theory, but in case you still think that we're reading just too much into it
the movie starts to get a little blatant about it
like when Hans is literally repeating words back to other characters
Anna: Can I just, say something crazy
Hans: Can I say something crazy?
Anna: You're no match for Elsa Hans: No, you're no match for Elsa
If anything happens to her
if anything happens to the princess
It's almost like hans has no emotions of his own
He seems to be empathetic, but he's really just mirroring the feelings of others
He's very...unfeeling, or what's the word?
Cold-hearted
Anna: The only frozen heart around here, is yours
Oh my god. The opening song isn't a warning for Anna, it's a warning about Hans
About the guy who doesn't feel anything
Beware the frozen heart
For my question of the day, is Hans the mirror from the fairy tale?
Did we miss any reflections?
Leave your thoughts in the towel section down below
Guys thanks for watching this video! Be sure to like it and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already
If you'd like to see more Frozen action from us you can click right here for Frozen fast facts
or right here to find out who actually performed the act of true love to save Anna's life
Jay that is everything I've got for you today man, I will see you on Tuesday.