The Good and Flaws of Elsa’s Magic

As a queen, Elsa acts like a typical one by being calm, reserved, and regal, with great experience in grace and poise. She is most iconic in being the Snow Queen, and with her magical abilities, Elsa can conjure up various things from snow flurries to blizzards. Most of her powers are unleashed from her hands, and their appearances are represented by her emotions. If she’s happy and at peace, her powers are under her complete control and can create beautiful work. This especially shown in “Let It Go," when she creates her ice castle, a staircase for entrance, Olaf, and her signature ice gown. These examples make it seem as if Elsa can create whatever she wants with her powers and how they appear is done through her imagination, including how her movement of her hands manages to create the appearance of the ice palace. The only apparent way to conceal her powers is by wearing gloves on her hands and even covering her entire body with clothes, since they appear to keep her magic from forming snow or ice on other objects whenever she touches them.

But if Elsa is stressed, nervous, or fearful, her powers lose control, take on menacing appearances, and cause great harm to those around her. When she mourns the deaths of her loved ones, all the snow particles in the air stand still as if time has stopped (such as when she is alone in her room after her parents’ funeral and out in the fjord when she believes that she had killed Anna with her magic). Since the night Elsa’s magic nearly killed Anna, Elsa lived in fear for a great amount of her life, worrying that she will never be able to completely control her powers. As a result, Elsa became very pessimistic and desired isolation from everyone she cared about, including Anna, out of fear that she could hurt them. She also chose to keep things to herself rather than communicate with them, most especially with Anna.

Despite her fear, Elsa is shown to be a very caring and selfless person who cares about the well-being of others, particularly her family, and sees her kingdom as more than just a position, as she was evidently frightened when she realizes that she had created a winter over her kingdom when she had tried so desperately to avoid them from her danger. Yet the influence of Elsa’s magic is dominant and constantly causes her fear and uncertainty to completely overwhelm her. This shows that she does not like to confront things she has caused, for she has always believed that she can only create winter, not remove it, and thinks that just running away from her problems is the best solution.

These emotions make Elsa sensitive towards other people and their well-being, always feeling that she had to be far away from people as much as possible in order to keep them safe. As such, she felt that she could not truly rule a kingdom due to this flaw. This would also be a direct cause to her interaction with Anna being cut, as she especially could not control her abilities due to the powerful emotions she would experience when Anna was around to provoke them.

At the same time, Elsa loves Anna dearly and never stopped loving her during the years they were separated. Initially, though, her desire to keep Anna safe appears to be her downfall as well, since she constantly pushes Anna away and is very uncommunicative towards her, which only makes Anna more upset every time Elsa does this. Although she feels responsible for the chaos she has caused, the bond Elsa shares with Anna is stronger than she knows, as if the feeling itself is her reminder that she is not truly alone when there is someone else who cares for her as well. With love, the thought allows Elsa to have a stronger control over her abilities in order to save those she cares about. From this, Elsa confronts her fear, and learns how to use her powers for good instead of bad or imbalance, and in doing so, she gains the will to control it.

While Elsa had originally thought she could not undo the frosty effects she creates, it is revealed that that she is capable of removing such curses through her love for others, since it is (in this case, quite literally) the warmest emotion of all. It was because of Anna’s sacrifice that Elsa was able to remove the winter, and that especially helped to prove how love, even love between family members, truly does conquer all.

