Sisterly Bond: Cold Snowman, Summer Heat

After Anna and Kristoff tell Olaf that they need to find Elsa in order to restore summer, Olaf tells them that he has always wanted to experience summer. So he sings “In Summer,” in which he lists all of the summer activities that he would love to do…all while being completely ignorant to the fact that the summer heat would make him melt! XD

Although sung by Olaf, his fascination with summer in the song subtly shows how he is the link between Anna and Elsa. Being Elsa’s creation, Olaf is naturally made of snow, which is cold, and Elsa initially seems to be a reserved, distant, and cold person (though it all just stems from her fear). On the other hand, Anna appears to represent heat because she is very energetic and impulsive. Olaf is a being of cold who desires to experience heat (which can be associated with Anna’s hotheadedness). This can be interpreted as Elsa and Anna’s desire to be with each other again, especially from the lines, “The hot and the cold are both so intense! Put them together, it just makes sense!”

Because Olaf was made by Elsa, “In Summer” could be interpreted as Elsa being the one who is imagining all of what Olaf is imagining. Since she is constantly exposed to ice and snow from her magic and has been isolated for much of her life, she wants to experience warmth for a change. This would be love, since it is, quite literally in this case, the warmest emotion of all. Olaf’s line, “And you guys will be there, too” could even refer to Elsa wanting Anna to be with her once more, for whatever she experiences. While Olaf is completely unaware of the repercussions for him being in the summer heat, Elsa is fully aware (or at least very convinced) that she will harm Anna if they are together again. Anna was the most important person in Elsa’s childhood, then tragically, she became the reason why their fun days together had to end.

In summary, if we see Olaf as a representation of the relationship between the two, we can see that his fascination with summer truly refers to the sisters’ mutual longing to be with the other once more, despite that it could cause potential (and severe, to the point of being fatal), physical damage.

As a whole, the song could be viewed as an ironic, black comedy because every single thing Olaf does is something that would only make him melt faster. There is even a little joke to his oblivion when he sings, “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a…happy snowman!” In this line, the rhyme is subverted, as it was almost said that Olaf would be a puddle, but when he comes across one, he instead pauses and jumps over it, finishing with “Happy snowman!” This indicates that he might know that he would melt and turn into a water puddle, but he just brushes that off by subverting the true rhyme.