Wait, we're talking about Frozen again? Ugh, can't we just "let it go"? *Holiday Intro Starts (Holiday Music Theme)* Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory! The icy cold heart bringing a chill to the Disney canon. Case and point today, Frozen. You know those movies you love to watch over the holidays? For Steph and I, it's always "The Nightmare Before Christmas" around Thanksgiving. And then "Lord of the Rings" and Disney leading up to Christmas. And with my tryptophan induced napping and Black Friday shopping behind me, It meant that it was time for my yearly viewing of "Frozen." And you know what? It's still a really good movie. I know it's easy to hate on it because of all the over-exposure it got, but in all honestly the characters are great, the songs are great, it's really funny. So, Dear Internet, stop hating on popular things just to be all edgy and anti-culture. Ok? You know, I say that, but then you gotta consider that a huge part of this movie's success was Disney's own willingness to hate on it's own established tropes. No one is saved by true love's kiss, Everyone dismisses the idea of love at first sight, And the dreamy "Prince Charming" turns out to be the villain. But ever since I watched the movie the first time, it's always been that last point that bothered me the most. Because for as much as I loved Prince Hans' turn to the dark side in the final moments of the movie, It just felt like it... came out of nowhere. And of course, part of that is the point of the twist, it's a surprise, like that ream of printer paper your Aunt got you as a Christmas present that one time... Man, you think reacting with enthusiasm to an ugly Christmas sweater is hard, try that one. But, if you actually stopped to watch Hans' behavior and the flow of his plan throughout the movie... Nothing adds up... Which means either, A. Disney writers knew they wanted a big twist and used Hans to shuffle pieces around without much concern over how it played into his larger character arc. Or B. There's something much more sinister going on in this world... And while A. is probably the factually correct choice, B. is the more fun choice, and to me that means... it's the right choice. So let's dedicate an episode to unearthing the secret conspiracy that clears Hans' name... Once and for all. So let's first look at his motive for this big murder plot He says himself, "As 13th in line in my own Kingdom, I didn't stand a chance, I knew I'd have to marry into the throne somewhere" Which on the surface would seem to make sense. He wants to rule the kingdom and he sees an opportunity with Arendal. Marry one of the two princesses and boom! He's in the running to be wearing the crown. And he gives us a little bit more detail in his next line: "As heir, Elsa was preferable, of course, but no one was getting anywhere with her. But you, you were so desperate for love, you were willing to marry me just like that." So option one is marry Elsa and fast-track your way up to the royal throne, but since she tends to give people a bit of the old "COLD SHOULDER"... *comic rimshot* I don't hear your raucous laughter, so let me shout it louder... COLD SHOULDER BA DUM TS He went for the next best thing: Anna, next in line to be queen, should Elsa die. And he knows this. "I figured after we married, I'd have to stage a little accident for Elsa..." Which anyone who's ever heard an evil monologue before those means Giving her the old stab and a half, Throwing her in front of a rogue snowplow Or the classic bloodless Disney death of just throwing her off a tall cliff, she's gone, and Anna with Hans in tow ascent to the throne. "All that's left now is to kill Elsa and bring back summer." This is the moment where things start to go off the rails. So his plan involves killing Elsa. He is so enthusiastic about it, He mentions it TWICE in that little monologue we just went over. And yet, when he and the guards come to Elsa's ice palace, looking for Anna, Hans expresses his intention to do the exact opposite: Protect Elsa. "We're here to find Princess Anna, be on guard... ...but no harm is to come to the Queen." Later in a scene where a guard literally has Elsa is his crosshairs, Hans runs over and diverts the shot. If he truly wants Elsa dead, Why not let the guard kill her right then and there? I mean, maybe he just really liked that snowplow idea, But seriously, when life hands you lemons, You shoot a crossbow bolt through the heart of the woman standing between you and the throne! Hans' hands would be clean, and to the rest of the world, Including Anna, who just got herself ice blasted by dear ol' sis, Elsa is a threat. A MONSTER. But not only does he divert the shot, He also offers her a nice bit of #MondayMotivation. "Don't be the monster they fear you are!" HANS! Is this what you say to the person you have a murder plot against? He's helping her to become a better person. Seriously! She is on the verge of murdering people! And that's no exaggeration. Look at this guard being shoved off the balcony by her ice wall. Had it not been for Hans, She would have literally killed this man! Disney's most beloved princess be killing some peeps up in this icy hizzouse! The script even confirms it. Hans' line causes her to "snap out of her rage". So WHY? Why would you help the woman you plan to eventually bump off, When the problem solves itself right then and there in that moment? And then again when they bring Elsa back to Arendelle and put her in prison he says once more- (Elsa): "why did you bring me here?" (Hans): "I couldn't just let them kill you" "He's doing it to win on his trust" I hear you say, but that's not it either! She's already convinced she's in love with him. In just a few scenes, she'll be begging for Hans to kiss her. Anna: "Hans you have to kiss me. Now!" And all through the troll song both Christoph and Anna continually assert that she's already a taken woman; rejecting the idea that there's any sort of romance there. And here's the other thing, Hans is already in charge of arendelle throughout most of the movie. When Anna decides to run off and bring back Elsa she puts him in charge. Hans: "I'm coming with you." Anna: "No I need you here, to take care of Arendelle. I leave Prince Hans in charge." And let's face it Anna is just a few days away from rising to the throne. Based on the sisters talk, the ice castle, Elsa has zero intention of returning to the city. Elsa : "Anna, please go back home, your life awaits. Go enjoy the sun and open up the gates." "Yes I'm alone, but I'm alone and free!" She's willingly abdicated the throne. She's saying that Anna now has the power to keep the gates open because she's the new decision-maker. Anna is going to be the Queen. Elsa's happier alone at the top of the mountain in her fortress of solitude. Even when she escapes prison, where's she running to? Her safe space, the ice castle. So all Hans has to do to accomplish his goal is to not suck for the few days that Anna is away, comfort her a bit when she returns home depressed that Elsa is now ruling a private snowman kingdom, and, you know make sure that his future wife doesn't die. That's all he has to do in order to achieve the goal that he has set out to achieve; literally do nothing. All the murder plots, all the bringing Elsa back from the ice castle, none of it matters! But that last task is important because let's actually talk about his refusal to kiss Anna. So to recap: Anna's heart has been frozen over by Elsa's ice powers. She's about to die and needs an act of true love in order to save her. She thinks that this will be a kiss from Hans because she's a Disney character who was raised on Disney movies apparently. But he refuses, making it clear that he never loved her at all. All he wanted to do was marry her for a kingdom. He puts out the candle so she'll freeze to death faster and then leaves prematurely because every villain always leaves prematurely, except it makes zero sense. There is literally no reason not to kiss her in this situation. If she lives, great! He's able to be married to her and rise to power at her side like his plan always intended in the first place. If the kiss doesn't work, well she dies and he can still play the whole marriage charade off. Just like he does in the actual movie, except with someone who is literally dead and can't show up a few seconds later to disprove everything that he just said. In fact if he truly cares about his goal, well then he chose the riskiest move he could have because letting Anna die puts it in serious jeopardy. If she doesn't make it, his whole plan literally falls apart. To really understand why, though, we have to quickly talk about monarchies. I've been binge-watching the crown on netflix and doing a bunch of research on royal succession. You know, since my chances of being elected president here in the United States getting pretty slim these days -and hey why rule a united states when you can rule a united kingdom? Anyway if Arendelle is like most monarchies, Hans would have to keep Anna alive in order to help her rule the kingdom. You see in a typical monarchy, like having Great Britain, the crown gets passed around based on the royal blood running through your veins. So if a king or queen dies, the new ruler is the oldest child. That's why Elsa becomes Queen. Her parents died, (maybe), but more on that later.... So when she's of age, she ascends to the throne; she's now the oldest blood relative. If Elsa abandons the throne, or gets herself thrown in front of that snowplow and has no little Olafs of her own, it goes to the next in line: Anna. And that is what Hans should be counting on. But if Anna dies like she's literally minutes away from doing when Hans decides to go all rogue, he doesn't just remain on the throne and get to rule because of blood. Let me explain. Although many people consider every King to have a queen and vice versa, that's not really the way it works. The one who possesses the royal blood is called the monarch; that's the one who's in charge. Their sexy Sven in the sheets then is known as their royal consort and are in no way in line for the throne. For example, just look at the British line of succession. The Queen's husband, Phillip, isn't even in the top 50 when it comes to waiting in line for the throne. Mrs. Irina Walker Kruger who lives in the U.S. is more likely to become the next British monarch and she is currently on probation for being associated with illegal gambling and cockfighting. That is no joke. That person is more likely to become the queen of England than Phillip, the current Queen's husband. And based on how we see the monarchy handoffs happening in Frozen Arendelle would operate the same way. Hans wouldn't even get the title of king in his plan. Just like a deck of cards, the royal consort can't have a title that beats the actual monarch. So if Anna is the Queen Hans can't be the king. It's the higher title. So instead Hans would always have to remain Prince Hans: royal consort to Queen Anna .It's actually the same thing in Britain right now. Queen Elizabeth is the reigning monarch and her husband is Prince Philip, even though he's a prince who is currently 95 years old. So you see, the crowd would go to literally anyone with a drop of blood related to these two and Hans has zero Arenedellian blood blood. Get this, when it comes down to it, Tarzan would be next in line. It sounds like a joke, but interviews with the creators of Frozen have confirmed that Anna and Elsa's parents do survive their shipwreck and give birth to Tarzan, before of course they die from that grizzly leopard attack. Man! First a shipwreck, then mauled by a leopard. Ho ho ho! (Christmas and all :) )Guess that's what you get for stifling your child ice magic. Karma is BRUTAL! if not Tarzan, then based on the other theories about the movie, including my last film theory about it, Rapunzel could also be up for ruler of Arendelle. Regardless, if Hans has any hope of preserving a royal title and ruling the kingdom in any way, he needs Anna alive; making his evil turn here in the final minutes of the movie make ZERO sense. But lastly let's just dial it back and look at how this guy behaves. When Anna leaves him in charge of the kingdom, he spends his time giving cloaks out to people who are cold Hans: "The castle is open, there is soup and hot glog in the Great Hall." He threatens to throw the Duke of Weaseltown- Duke:"Weselton"- in jail on the charge of treason against Anna and Elsa Hans:"I will not hesitate to protect Arendelle from treason!" When the Duke complains about dangerous Elsa is, Hans corrects him saying: "You slipped on ice." Even at the very beginning of the movie, look at them look at each other, that's genuine affection. And when Hans gets knocked into the water a few seconds later and is hidden under the boat, smiles to himself. Not an evil grin or sinister sneer it's just one of those lovestruck goofy grins. In short, if this is the guy who wants to rule Arendell and kill Elsa, he's just not doing a good job of it. What's even stranger is that if there is a Frozen II the writers intend on giving Hans a redemption arc. No joke! Santonio: "They're like, no no no, we have an idea. We wanna bring you back, we wanna redeem you." No other Disney villain has ever gotten that sort of treatment. So what gives here? Well what if Hans was just a pawn in someone else's game, collateral damage for another's agenda? What if there's another villain in Frozen? No not Sven, not even the Duke of Weaseltown. It's Olaf. Nope! No, it's not Olaf, that would be stupid. The true villains and Frozen are... the Trolls? You heard me, those cuddly little rocks that are just randomly shoved into the movie may just be the ones with the evil intent. now that may seem like a stretch, but hear me out here. Let's start with their song "Fixer-Upper", which at first seems like a light-hearted comedy song, but when you actually bothered to pay attention to the lyrics, they contain some really disturbing lines. Like i mentioned earlier, Christoph is VERY upfront about Anna already being engaged to Hans. Christoph: "She's engaged to someone else, okay?!" And yet despite this, the trolls steamroll past that little detail saying her "engagement is a flex arrangement.." and "get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed." By the end of the song, the Trolls are literally trying to trick Anna into marrying Christoph. Pastor Troll: "Do you, Anna, take Christoph to be your trollfully wedded-" Anna: "-Wait what?" Pastor Troll: "You're getting married.'' Willfully ignoring that she probably doesn't want to kiss a guy who literally eats carrots that came out of his reindeers mouth. But why would they pushed so hard to see these two married? Well remember, Christoph was adopted by the trolls; he's part of the clan. So having one of their own be a part of the noble family is a huge deal, especially when the nobles think you look like this. That's some pretty sinister-looking imagery right there, just saying. also ask yourself this: who were the first ones to scare Elsa about her powers? The Trolls. Prior to visiting them, Elsa was confident in her abilities. The only reason Anna gets injured at the start of the movies is because she was reckless, leaving Elsa as the one who has to take all the blame. Dad: "Elsa, what have you done?!" And yet when Mom Frozen and Dad Frozen take their daughters to see good old grandpappy, what's the solution? He does the following: "I recommend we remove all magic, even memories of magic, to be safe." Remove all magic, he said. Huh Did Anna never have powers too? Strange. Anyway, let me put that one of the old list of potential theories to look into. Regardless what does erasing Anna's memories do? NOTHING. Well, at least nothing GOOD. She becomes alone and alienated from a sister for reason she can't fathom. Meanwhile, Elsa is pushed into a kingdom of isolation, where it looks like she's the queen. Pappy blue ribbon over here also ensures that Elsa is terrified of herself. Grandpappy Troll: "You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy." You sure about that Grandpappy? You're gonna say that fear IS the ultimate enemy and then punctuate the moment by doing what now? SCARING her with a spooky vision. Alright Cool. Good on you. To quote the script, "The spikes turn into human form which then attack the silhouette of adult Elsa. This frightens Elsa." Grandpappy (MatPat's amazing impersination): "Fear is going to be your enemy- BOO! Gotcha!" Good one grandpappy. It's like the worst jump-scare ever. Should put you into FNAF Sister Location custom night. All of this even though, once again, Elsa was fine and had perfect control of her powers before this visit. What else to the trolls do? Oh yeah! They willfully mislead Anna into thinking that she needs true love's kiss to survive her frozen heart, despite them being love experts and also completely wrong. Woman Troll: "A true love's kiss, perhaps?" But here's the big problem: Grandpappy is really good at manipulating people's minds, and he does it all the time. Sure in Frozen, we only see it done once to Anna, which as I said accomplishes nothing good. But then Once Upon a Time's Frozen themed season, we see him do it again, and this time on a much larger and much more catastrophic scale. when Gerta(I thought it was Iduna?), eventual queen of Arendelle and mother of Anna and Elsa traps her sister in a magical urn, because that sister killed her other sister- WORST DAY EVER -she asks Grandpappy for help, requesting that he erase the memories of the ENTIRE kingdom of Arendelle to never remember her two sisters. And Pappy, he just does it. He puts up no resistance, requests no payment, he's just like, "All right let's create some fake memories in these peasants" And THEN he even lies to cover it up! When Anna asks him about the incident, he hides the fact that it was Ana's mother who requested the memory wipe in the first place. He's protecting a legacy of lies. So what's to say that the trolls couldn't - or wouldn't - do some sort of memory magic on Hans, the fiancé who just happens to be in the way of their big plans for Christoph. Remember what the trolls say over and over again, Grandpappy: "The head can be persuaded, but the heart is not so easily changed." Long story short, Hans's plan makes zero sense, especially considering all the steps he makes counter to it earlier in the movie. All he needed was that final kiss, and he was locked in, making his turn to be the villain in that final moment of the movie the complete antithesis of what he was looking to accomplish. But it does make sense if you consider the Trolls wanted to throw that fiancé away and get Christoph inserted in his place. They've shown themselves to have the means to manipulate unsuspecting innocent minds, the cunning to conceal their deeds, and the motivations to trick people into getting what they want. Maybe the redemption arc the writers have planned for Hans in Frozen 2 is less about a bad guy turning good, but rather a good guy getting to reveal the true villains acting behind the scenes. But hey! that's just a theory. A FILM THEORY! AAAAAAAAND CUT! (OUTRO) Thanks for reading my subtitles! ;)
Honestly this is one of the best theories in a while. Makes sense in the context of the movie, explains why the trolls' advice is so terrible and Hans' sloppy writing all in one fell swoop. Also works with the fact that the trolls kidnapped Kristof as a child and brainwashed him. They've been raising him specifically to take control of the throne for them.
Hope you guys like the xmass version of the theme song ;) not sure what happened with Matpat his keyboard when he wrote the description but the remix was, just like the original, 100% me.
Ninja edit: here we go, full version has been released into the wild! Enjoy and happy holidays! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRKFQDw_OXA&feature=youtu.be
OR, and hear me out, Elsa was originally intended to be the villain, but when the writers heard her actress perform "Let It Go" they did some quick and sloppy rewrites
EDIT: this is my least favorite kind of fan theory because it ultimately excuses poor writing
Two things.
Despite showing it on screen Matt doesn't acknowledge Han's quick glance upwards at the chandelier right before he tackles the crossbowman.
Blood means absolutely nothing to a kingdom where you're the hero. While I acknowledge that early on it doesn't appear that Hans has any nefarious schemes, once Elsa's storm sweeps in he basically takes full advantage of it to look as good as possible.
Anna places him in charge, so the royal family has ceded some power to him already
He's openly going about and caring for the common people and standing up to the greedy and selfish nobles.
At the same time he's getting the other visiting nobles to acknowledge him as being Arendale's hope (they even say as much later on)
And both Elsa and Anna basically end up unable to rule with no direct action taken him. His hands are entirely clean up until the point where he has "no choice" but to kill Elsa to save the kingdom.
While obviously not his original plan it certainly seems like he's able to adapt and improvise pretty well and get everyone on his side. Once the crisis is over, who would object to him remaining in power? He's the guy who did everything to shelter and save them.
Or, on Hans's actions, he's playing a different game. The country doesn't know about Tarzan (they think the King and Queen died when the ship sank), if there is any connection to Rapunzel, and we don't know if there are any other eligible blood relatives. So we can rule that part of it out.
Next is courting Anna. He would need to win her affection to have any authority at all. Once he becomes trusted and Elsa does the ice thing, he starts gaining the trust of the people. With no one apparently in close succession, there would have to be a council that decides who would be the next ruler. If the people like him, apparently the former queen (Anna) loves and supports him, and he has been shown to be trying to save the people who should be running things; this would be a GREAT basis for a claim to the thrown.
He saves Elsa for the reason of keeping peace. If you can take the crown in a period of civil peace, you want to. If she were to have an accident later on, it would be a passive turnover to Anna. Then if Anna were to have an ill turn, he could have a good chance with the council.
Throwing the Duke in prison? Who would allow someone arrested for treason become monarch over someone loved by the people and the former ruler?
He's not trying to take over by fear or conquering, he's trying to win the country by affection.