I. Our Flag Will Always Fly
At multiple points, both my son and my daughter have been obsessed with Frozen 2. I’ve heard the soundtrack and seen the movie hundreds of times, and each listening and viewing only brings up more questions.
For instance, there’s a line in the song “Some Things Never Change” where Elsa says, “And I promise you the flag of Arendelle will always fly.” At first, I didn’t notice the line. Then, Bailey (my wife Borat voice) pointed out how she thought the line stood out from the rest. Over the next few listens, we couldn’t help but hone in on the line.
We built up two opposing views: It’s foreshadowing for what’s to come at the end of the film, OR, Arendelle’s nationalism was rising in step with Elsa’s growing powers. Were the Arendelleians getting bolder now that their queen was a weapon, or is it just a hint of things to come? We debated it back and forth for a bit, but eventually, foreshadowing seemed the most likely answer.
But then I started writing this issue and I thought I’d explore the idea again. I felt like since Elsa saves Arendelle from destruction at the end of Frozen 2, it’s hard to say if the line is 100% foreshadowing because the flag was never destroyed.
With my doubt renewed, I felt I could write a silly bit where I treat Elsa as though she were the nuclear bomb. Arendelle starts getting cocky, soon they take over Weselton, then The Southern Isles before the trolls step in and give the secret of Elsa’s magic to Hans’ family to level the playing field.
I wanted to see if anyone else had ever written something like this, so I did some searching to see if there was some simple explanation for the flag line in the song and found no one has talked about it in any meaningful way. But then I was unsettled that there wasn’t a direct answer to whether or not it’s foreshadowing, so I asked Kristen Anderson-Lopez on Twitter (she and her husband wrote all the songs for Frozen I & II) and to my surprise, she actually responded.
“Foreshadowing. When we wrote this we knew the kingdom would be destroyed and need to build back better.”
Now that I know it’s foreshadowing and not growing nationalism, I don’t feel like writing out that big long bit where she’s a weapon because the shred of doubt I was going to exploit is gone. I did this to myself.
I never expected to be reporting Disney news in this newsletter, but here we are. There have been rumors of a test screening where Elsa maybe died or at least didn’t get back in time to save Arendelle before it gets destroyed, but as far as I can tell, no one from Disney’s side had confirmed it until this Twitter exchange.
So there you have it. Confirmation that Arendelle was supposed to be destroyed at the end of Frozen 2. I’m a serious journalist breaking huge news stories. Now, while I await my Pulitzer, I would like to share a fake play where Elsa finds out using her powers has drastic consequences.
II. Elsa Finds out about the Butterfly Effect
Anna: Elsa, did you see this?
Elsa: See what?
Anna: The paper. Here, take a look. It’s terrible.
Elsa: Unprecedented hurricanes appearing around the world, extreme heatwaves, tornados ravaging America. This is horrible.
Anna: It gets worse. Look at the dates.
Elsa: Every event started a few hours after any time I used my powers.
Anna: Every single time. Your ice castle set off a lightning storm in Argentina that hadn’t stopped as of four days ago.
Olaf enters and picks up a newspaper.
Olaf: Oooo news, I love news, it’s always so fun! Oh no, this is bad, very bad. All these words are making me feel reverse happy.
Elsa: But how could bringing Olaf back to life cause a tornado to destroy the entire kingdom of Boston? It doesn’t make any sense?
Olaf: Sounds like the butterfly effect?
Anna: The what?
Olaf: The butterfly effect. You know how I love watching butterflies flutter? Well, I wanted to know more about them and one of the books over there talked about how all the weather may be connected. I don’t remember the theory exactly, but you know how the butterfly wings are mirror copies? Well, if you change one part of a butterfly’s wing, something changes on the other wing. Maybe that’s what is happening? Except instead of wings, it’s weather.
Anna: That doesn’t sound correct.
Olaf: It is.
Elsa: So every time I use my powers, something bad happens somewhere else on Earth?
Olaf: Bad is subjective. If you’re an Argentinian who loves lightning storms, then you did them a favor, so let’s not focus on the negative.
Anna: Olaf’s right. Every time you use your powers something happens, but who is to say this Boston kingdom wasn’t being controlled by an evil spirit?
The door opens. Kristoff, all smiles, leans in and shakes his glass of water.
Kristoff: Hey Elsa, my drink is getting warm, can I get a couple more ice cubes?
Elsa: No problem.
Anna: Wait, Elsa, don’t!
With a wave of her hand, four ice cubes appear in Kristoff’s drink.
Elsa: Oops.
Olaf shrugs.
An hour later, the United Kingdom floods and thousands of lives are ruined.
Fin
III. A Closer Look at Olaf’s Anatomy
Olaf is alive. He’s a living, breathing, conscious being. How do I know he breathes? Well, he takes giant breaths while he talks, and… he talks. The fact that he talks and breathes means he must have lungs and vocal cords. The fact that he thinks, means he must have a brain (or some snowy approximation of one), and the fact that he walks means there must be some kind of icy bone structure.
Thinking about Olaf’s anatomy is fascinating, but also, funny. I mean, look at that picture. It’s wonderful and makes me giggle every time I look at it.
Yes, Olaf is a digital cartoon and not real. “Magic” can explain everything. I get it. Ignore that for now. Instead, imagine Frozen is real and you’re in Arendelle standing next to Olaf. Aren’t you curious how he works?
If Anna said, “Oh, he’s made out of snow.” I’d venture to say, you, a curious person, wouldn’t accept that. You’d watch his cold breath in the air and think, “Wait a second, if I can see his breath in the cold, then there must be heat inside him. And he talks, so aside from the lungs and vocal cords, he must have muscles, and those muscles need blood, so he must have a heart, and his body needs some kind of structure to be able to move like it does, otherwise, he could be any size he wanted to be. How does he work? And am I stuck in a fictional universe forever? Will I live in the castle or will I have to start with nothing and work my way up?”
None of this explains how he can separate. I assume that the muscles, veins, lungs, fat, esophagus/bowel combo, and bones are all self-healing ice. They can attach and detach like frozen K’NEX. I don’t know, don’t overthink it.
Good luck unseeing that image.
IV. Subtitle Suggestions for Frozen 3
Frozen 3: The Frozening
Frozen 3: Freeze Harder
Frozen 3: Froze Protocol
Frozen 3: The Coast is Toast
Frozen 3: Even Colder
Frozen 3: Ice Has Lost Its Nice
Frozen 3: It’s Getting Cold In Here
Frozen 3: Hans’ Revenge
Frozen 3: Cruise Control
Frozen 3: Freezing Never Sleeps
Frozen 3: The Legend of Elsa’s Cold
Frozen 3: Arendelle Freezes Over
Frozen 3: I Know What You Froze Last Summer
V. Elsa Is One of the Most Powerful Superheroes in the Marvel Universe
That’s right, I said it. Elsa could take out a vast majority of the most powerful Marvel heroes and villains in the Marvel Universe and everyone is afraid to acknowledge it.
Two things most Marvel characters have in common:
They breathe oxygen.
They have blood.
When you have the ability to freeze air and manipulate water, then you can stop the blood flow of anyone, freeze the air in their lungs, or rip their body to shred by turning their blood to ice and flinging it across the room. That alone should be able to stop most anyone, regardless of power. There’s also the fact that even if she can’t kill them, she can freeze even the biggest heroes and villains with mountains of ice indefinitely.
Then there is her ability to create sentient life. That’s the power of a god right there. She creates creatures of snow that will live, learn, adapt, and show their personality. She can create armies of incredibly intelligent, virtually unkillable ice beings, ready to take out any existing army the Marvel writers could send her way. She makes Thanos look like a baby.
“But what about fire characters?” I imagine you screaming, cereal spittle landing on your screen. What about them? Do they not breathe and have blood? Fire needs oxygen, so if she can freeze all the air around a fire foe, then they’re just a foe.
So, unless they’re a bloodless, eternal god, made of light, or Molecule Man, Elsa (and by proxy, Iceman as well) could take out most of Marvel’s pantheon of characters. Whether she would do this… it’s doubtful, but the fact that she won’t do it when she can only makes her powerful. It’s high time we all respect the ice characters because Elsa and Iceman are OP.