This morning I saw a blog post about Frozen that was called 19 Things That Make No Sense About ‘Frozen.’ I was expecting it to be really interesting, axiomatic, and insightful, but instead it was trite and petty. But I shouldn’t have expected much–it’s Cosmopolitan after all. Still and all, I couldn’t help but form a verbose response, point by point, addressing each one. So here goes, Amy Odell, let’s do this.

Winter powers. Really, really powerful winter powers. She’s like a fucking Winter Goddess/Enchantress. Snow, cold, ice; get it together. Did you even watch the movie?

Because there’s an intrinsic relationship in most fictional magical worlds between your emotional state and the outcome of your magic. It’s a kind of “you put in what you get out” deal. I like to think of it as an analogue for everyday life–if you go into something with a negative attitude, you’re more likely to have a negative experience. Think Kiki’s mom’s potion spoiling in Kiki’s Delivery Service because she was emotionally distraught (the entire movie is about this, really). Or Harry Potter’s Patronus.

Magic is a practice of the mind, so your emotions are going to greatly affect whether or not you light a fire in your fireplace or blow up your house.

The gloves don’t. They’re a magic feather. See above about how magic is a practice of the mind and is linked to psychology. Apply the placebo effect to that, and there you go.

I’m beginning to suspect that you’ve never seen a fantasy movie before, Amy. That may be a leap of logic on my part, but I’m going to roll with it because you seem to fundamentally misunderstand exactly how these universes work. For a long time, humans thought that the heart was the center of everything that we were. Like, for a long, long, long time. Did you know that Egyptians used to pull brains out of the dead and discard them because they thought they were worthless junk? Weird shit. Anyway, since people basically thought this way for thousands of years, the notion of the “heart” being where the “soul” of a person lives kind of seeped into our culture. We know better anatomically, but our language still reflects this symbolic relationship between the heart and emotions (“she has a big heart” “you broke my heart” etc.)

This idea is especially common during fairy tale settings, and to see it reflected in a world of winter magic and stone trolls should be surprising to literally nobody. Anatomy has never mattered to fiction, least of all one with a reindeer that acts like a dog.

Good question. The impression I got while watching the film was that magic in humans was pretty rare–and if it’s not super rare, then it’s stigmatized (as evidenced by how every human seems to react to magic in general.) The Trolls, on the other hand, seem to be inherently magical creatures, and have a more normalized relationship (RING-A-DING-DING, we’ve hit upon one of the major moral themes of the movie!) with magic. Still and all, it’s not ALL the trolls who know, it’s their religious leader. Even among magical creatures, he was something of a specialist. It’s kind of like how a doctor actually knows why you’re sick, but your friends keep telling you to try oil pulling.

Another good question–actually better than the previous one. It may even be a genuine plot hole. Mostly I think it has to do with the aforementioned Magic Stigma. As for why Elsa’s parents know about them when nobody else does, a plausible explanation is that they’re royalty and have access to greater knowledge because, duh, they’re royal. Also, it’s bad form to be the king of a Magical Disney Country and not know all of your magical residents. I mean, otherwise what do you do if someone shows up with a poison apple?

Heheh, you’re a fashion blogger, I get it. Well done! That was funny.

I don’t know where you live or what you eat, Amy, but typically in most places in the world that are any measurable distance away from the equator only have a limited time in which to plant, cultivate, and harvest food–particularly in any period set before globalization (I.E. basically any setting before the 1950s). This food is supposed to last you through the winter months. In a place like wherever-the-fuck Elsa’s Kingdom is, winter is, you know, kind of long; therefore, the window for growing food for the year is significantly shorter than it is elsewhere. Late frosts can be damaging to crop yields, and even in this day and age farmers spend most of their time focusing on when to plant to time their crops properly to avoid frost. So when a random full-blown magical winter shows up with no end in sight sweeps the nation, yeah, it’s a cause of some alarm.

Another decently good point–but her “love” (if you can actually call it that) with Kristoff is way more measured. She learned from her previous experience. Note that she’s not asking him to marry her right away. She’s eased up on the gas. She’s moving more slowly. She still has the eagerness of youth, sure, but she’s not leaping into making bad personal decisions over this guy, which is a far cry better than whateverthefuck she was thinking previously.

Wow, okay, um, I guess I can explain this one to you. This is a Disney movie, right? A modern one at that. They’re trying to illustrate that Magic Powers (personal quirks, mental illness, introversion, homosexuality, ANY sexuality, [insert whatever you want here]) aren’t to be a cause of stigma and fear, but acceptance and understanding. Is it realistic? Probably not–but neither is shooting fucking ice out of your fingers. It’s a movie, it only has so much time, and it can’t devote months and months to showing people eventually coming around to understand magic better. This is for children, after all, and we’re trying to teach them to not suck.

BECAUSE ONE OF THE MAJOR THEMES OF THE MOVIE IS ABOUT HOW STIGMATIZING AND SUPPRESSING WHO YOU ARE EVEN IF YOU’RE DIFFERENT IS A BAD THING. Holy Christ. It’s there as a foil–it’s to set up contrast for the character development and the ultimate ending tone of the movie. Also Elsa’s parents kind of made bad decisions.

I don’t know, and I think you’re literally the only person who cares.

I googled “How old is Anna in Frozen” and they told me she was 18. 18 and awkward because of not being socialized. Furthermore, one of the OTHER major overarching themes of this movie was that it wanted to go against the typical Disney trope of True Love being the Boyfriend/Girlfriend->>>Marriage thing. It wants to highlight how that line of thinking has problematic elements. Furthermore, Anna is young and stupid. She made bad decisions in a panic because, duh, that’s what we do. She trusted a total stranger too much and it ended up badly. And then it ended up goodly. Because it’s Disney, and “sad ending” isn’t in their vocabulary.

We don’t actually know that for certain. They’re the only magical ones in the movie because it wasn’t important for there to be any other magical people. Maybe it’s the advent of a whole new magical age, and Elsa will found a Magic School for Gifted Youngsters. Maybe all the other magic people are in hiding because of the ignorant, superstitious attitude that most of the commoners seem to have.

OH MY GOD IT’S MAGIC. Please, for the good of the rest of us, never watch another fantasy film ever again, I’m begging you.

If you’ve ever owned a small business or known a small business owner, you’d know that the successful ones are obsessively watching market trends so they can keep a barometer on how their business is going to last in the long term. “Magical Winter That Came Out of Nowhere And Has No End In Sight” is probably at the top of Kristoff’s “If This Happens My Business is Fucked” list.

Hey, Amy, did you ever read The Odyssey? I’m not trying to be a douchebag here, I’m actually curious. If you haven’t, that’s fine, John Green did a really fantastic Crash Course on the poem. The Odyssey is about many things, but one of its major themes is about how difficult it is to end a cycle of violence–you kill one guy for revenge, and his family kills some of yours, and then you kill some of theirs, and it goes on forever until everyone forgets why they were feuding anymore–they only know violence. More examples: Romeo & Juliet, The War of the Roses, Hatfield & McCoy feud, and it’s a major reason why it’s so difficult for Israel and Palestine to reconcile. A non-violent solution not only fits into the general direction that children’s entertainment seems to be taking, but it’s also the politically sound decision. The last thing a country that was recently thrown into economic, military, and political turmoil needs is a bloody war (something that it seems to be on the brink of if the Duke of Weselton is any indication.)

I’ll give you that one. The intro was a complete non sequitur. But I also liked the song, so eh, fuck theming.