Unlike a lot of other Disney films, Frozen II actually went into a territory I would deem myself somewhat familiar with. To me Frozen II deals with colonialism and the result from it, how colonialized groups interact with their colonizers and even how one can break free from the bondage that comes with it.

I just need to make this quite clear: Northuldra is based of the Sámi people. It is quite evident from the homes they live in (quite similar to lávvos and goahtis), their herding of reindeers (a livelihood exclusive to the Sámi on the Cap of the North) and their clothes (resembling gákties). They have further cooperated with the Sámi Parliament for the movie which like yeah… they’re Sámi.

It should therefore also be quite obvious that the Arendellians are synonymous with the Norwegians.

So basically, spoilers for Frozen II y’all! Arendelle didn’t like the Northuldra doing magic so they built a huge dam to disrupt their connection with magic, as this magic was seen as a threat to Arendelle. This leads to a conflict in which the Northuldra are painted as the aggressors within Arendellian history and their existence is just left at that.

Probably the largest conflict to occur between the Sámi and the Norwegians where the Alta controversy in which the Norwegian government wanted to build a dam at the Alta river. The river itself was a known salmon river, and the artificial lake the dam would form flood the Sámi village of Máze. This would cause a disruption of the natural reindeer migration routes, as well as disrupt the general nature of the Alta canyon. The riots that followed were some of the largest ever to take place in Norway. The dam stands to this day,but was down-scaled so to not flood Máze. Some activists who participated in the riots claim to this day that the building of the dam remains a monument to the Sámi loss of the conflict which like duh.

So, clearly, dams are like a huge deal for the Sámi.

Further, magic also serves as a form of “indigenous-ness”. I can justify this with soft magic being an important part of old Sámi lives. The earliest churches in Norway used to prohibit their followers to seek Sámi magicians in the mountains, and old tales from Scotland depicted the Sámi as form shifters, able to appear and travel in the form of whales. In should also be noted that all men burned for witchcraft were Sámi, and a lot of the women burned were Sámi, though a large part of the victims were Norwegian women as well.

Keeping this in mind, Agnarr actively tries to stop Elsa from using her powers and teaches her to fear them. This further gives Elsa a lot of, er, problems along the road. To me, this seems similar to Sámi-Norwegian children in which one (or both) of their parents can work in order to keep their children colonized and try to make them stray from their indigenous selves. The suppression of Elsa’s powers is a way for Agnarr to make Elsa as much Arendellian as possible it could be concluded (though I know this can be interpreted differently).

The Northuldra are themselves essentially colonized where the actions of Arendelle has left them harmless, unable to move freely and even unable to see the sun in which they claim to be the children of (btw the Sámi also claim to be the children of the sun).

Within Norway a lot of the story of the colonization of the Sámi is left unknown to the majority, and leaves only the Sámi with despair, anger and sadness for what happened. In a sense only via learning the truth about our history is it possible to also get past the burden colonization has left us. Only via decolonization can we return to our natural state.





Anyway, I can’t be bothered to write anything else. I liked the movie. It gave a fair representation of Sámi struggles while still existing well within the Frozen universe, and to me gave a new dimension to the main characters.