Disney

By now, you've seen and loved Disney's Best Animated Feature winner "Frozen," you've watched all the parodies of "Let It Go," and you've decided pretty definitively which of your friends are Annas and which are Elsas.

What you don't know, however, is the touching real-life reason that Princess Elsa is how she is.

We know that Elsa (perfectly voices in the film by Idina Menzel) was originally meant to be a villain, shooting ice every which way in a frostily malicious manner. In a new Wired feature, it's revealed exactly what inspired Elsa's transformation from villain to the misunderstood, scared and defensive character who comes into her own during the film's runtime.

John Lasseter, the head of Disney and Pixar, emphasized the need for extraordinary characters with ordinary struggles and problems in the studio's films.

"The connection you make with your audience is an emotional connection,” Lasseter said. “The audience can't be told to feel a certain way. They have to discover it themselves."

Related: Disney’s ‘Frozen’ Follow-Up Looks Freakin’ Gorgeous

Indeed, the emotional connection that Lasseter felt during the notes sessions while developing the story of "Frozen" came from inside his own family. The sweeping ice princess in the movie was in part inspired by Lasseter's son, Sam. When he was 10 years old, Sam was diagnosed with Type I diabetes and was sad, feeling that he'd been singled out and chosen for this lifelong fate that he had no choice in.

Likewise, Elsa struggles with the ice powers she was born with, the ways to regulate and manage them, and her lifelong struggle to "Let It Go."

So the next time you're belting "Let It Go" in the shower, you can add this behind the scenes story to the long, long list of reasons that "Frozen" is amazing.