I don’t know… At least in the film, it looks like it’s Anna’s ”act of true love” (her saving Elsa at the expense of her own life from the curse) that ultimately saves the day.

In my interpretation of the movie, the act of true love sits mostly on Anna’s shoulders because a lot of the things she does are for her own benefit rather than Elsa’s. I’m not saying that Anna doesn’t love Elsa, but she’s more centered with her own happiness than Elsa’s seeing as their relationship to each other is pretty much dead (listen to For the First Time in Forever). The sacrifice she makes is really the only thing she does solely for Elsa’s sake; everything else is for the sake of preserving her own happiness (even going after Elsa isn’t truly about Elsa’s well being, but rather just fixing the problem of the frozen kingdom). Granted a lot of it is because she’s ignorant of what was truly going on with Elsa and their parents,

Now with Elsa, I think a sacrifice for Anna would have worked, but only if she were the antagonist. As it is, Frozen doesn’t really present Elsa with an opportunity to sacrifice anything because she’s already given up so much- mainly her relationship with Anna. Also, because Elsa is such a reactionary character, a sacrifice on her part wouldn’t fit. Anna is a much more active character so narrative wise it makes more sense.

As for Elsa crying over Anna… I blame that on the animation. Her emotions are just so subdued and held back it really takes away from the punch of the moment (compare that with the scene in Tangled where Rapunzel cries over Flynn to see what I’m talking about).

-pink