Frozen with Fear

Love is the major theme in Frozen, and it is proven to be stronger than fear, a theme that is also very prominent throughout the movie. While Anna is shown to be very fearless, she does fear being alone and unloved. At first, Kristoff doesn’t seem to be scared of anything, either. But as he falls for Anna, he worries about losing her due to her frozen heart curse. And as for Hans, he seems so overly confident in himself and his plan to take over Arendelle that nothing seems to scare him at all. However, I am sure that on some level, he does fear that his plan will fail, since he has to change it accordingly over the course of the film. As an example, he appears afraid when Anna volunteers to go after Elsa, and tries to talk her out of it. However, he is only concerned for himself, not her, because if anything happened to Anna, his plan to become king would be ruined, since he hadn’t married her yet.

So while these three characters do have some level of fear within them, Elsa is by far the one who has it the most. It all revolves around her powers, which are represented by her emotions. The first event is when she is playing with Anna, and falls behind in keeping up with catching her. Elsa slips and falls, and then, worried that she won’t catch Anna in time, she shoots ice from her hand, which accidentally strikes Anna in the head. Afterwards, when Pabbie tells Elsa, “Fear will be your enemy,” he is referring to her own fear, since it causes danger and chaos with her abilities. However, her parents misinterpret it, believing that Pabbie meant that people would fear Elsa and her powers. They become afraid of Elsa endangering herself and harming others, especially Anna again, so they keep them inside the castle, away from people. At the same time, Elsa is consumed by fear of harming Anna, and others, so she conceals her true nature, wears gloves to suppress her powers, and spends a lot of time in her room, refusing physical contact with Anna.

Other scenes that display the appearances or results of Elsa’s magic in response to her fear include the following: