It’s Written All Over their Faces

I’ve been wanting to discuss this moment for the longest time but kept putting it off. To make a long story short, the expression Anna wears in this scene, which is just after Elsa flees from the ballroom after accidentally revealing her powers, tells me A LOT!!

After Elsa accidentally swings her arm out in front of her, she creates a barrier of sharp ice spikes. Everyone is unquestionably shocked, then they become terrified, but especially paranoid, hostile, and irrational in the case of the Duke. But while Anna is genuinely shocked at first, like everyone else, the look on her face in the first gif tells me that fear is the farthest emotion from her mind.

In my opinion, Anna is not only feeling shocked right now, but also a great deal of pain, sadness, and regret, and not for herself, but for Elsa.

I think by this point, upon seeing just what Elsa has been concealing for all these years, Anna finally gets it. She immediately realizes why Elsa had always pushed her away, because she (Elsa) worried what would happen if Anna, who no longer remembered that Elsa had powers, learned her secret.

In feeling pain, I think Anna has now completely forgotten about the fight (or at least feeling upset on her part during their fight) she and Elsa had only seconds earlier, and instead feels sorry for Elsa. She’s probably also sad that Elsa just took off and ran, because I know Anna just wants to talk about this.

And in terms of feeling regret, now that Anna knows that Elsa had been keeping such a big secret, she regrets arguing with her. She realizes that arguing just caused her to spur Elsa’s emotions, which subsequently made her sister lose control of her powers.

Now while you can determine how Anna is feeling in this moment, take a look at Hans next to her in the second gif. His expressions can tell a very different story.

If you remember this one analysis I made before, the first facial expression seen by Hans after Elsa accidentally reveals her magic made me suspicious of his character. Like everyone else in the room, he is no doubt shocked, though to maintain his charade, he remains calm, cool, and collected, very differently from the Duke. So much happens so quickly in the scene, but maybe Hans wonders if he has to change his plan again now that something even bigger and completely unexpected has occurred. He probably also realizes that this was why he could not get too close to Elsa. And of course, I’m sure he wonders if Anna knew about this and did not say anything just to protect Elsa. But the next major expression Hans makes is right after Elsa runs off. If he was thinking that Anna knew about Elsa’s powers and was secretly protecting her sister, all of his doubts seem to disappear based on the way the expression he makes when he glances towards Anna and notices HER face.

So while Anna and Hans’s expressions reflect their very different thoughts on this situation, we know that they also have very different ideas on what to do about it. Anna just wants to reach out to Elsa, to bring her back, to talk to her, to help her and assure her that she doesn’t have to be afraid. But Hans just wants to let Elsa go (no pun intended XD) and not go after her since her own exile grants him another easy step towards taking control and becoming the ruler of Arendelle.

gifs belongs to arendellekingdom