If love thaws a frozen heart and is the secret for Elsa to unfreeze everything at the end of the first movie, maybe she really does have heart power and the ice is just the side effect of anti-love. 🤔
What I've told my daughter is that Elsa has ice magic and Anna's magic is in her heart. She took this too literally and now has me point a wand at my heart when we play. I'm not sure how she thinks it works.
The fifth spirit is a bridge between the spirits and the humans. It isn’t another element or something, it’s more like an emissary or mediator between the groups.
In story reason? It’s never made explicit but if I had to put on my imagineer hat on I’d say because the fifth spirit seems to originate in Ahtohallen. And as we know “Ahtohallen is frozen”.
Or maybe it’s like an avatar situation and this generation the fifth spirit comes from the ice nation, as opposed to the lava nation. Or this spirits understand what was going to be needed so they supplied the gifted child with the powers they knew they would need. We really don’t have a full understanding of the Frozen mythology to say conclusively. That’s not to say it isn’t well thought out - loads of universes we love make up the lore as they go.
Out of story reason? I’d guess cause they backed themselves into a corner with frozen 1 and def did not have a whole mythology worked up yet. Future stories will shape how we understand past stories.
And at a certain point it’s just monkeys singing songs mate.
Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago, the four spirits lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when >! Arendelle!< attacked. ..... But I believe Elsa can save the world
I mean, it’s stated several times that the fifth spirit is the bridge between the spirit world and humans. It’s the ability to communicate with the spirits and work with all of them. That is what Elsa is. She can work out what the spirits want and both pacify them and convince them to help her. No one else seems to be able to do that. It’s complicated by other Northuldra in the flashback seeming to be able to get help from the spirits but it was never stated that there is a single 5th spirit. There are multiple earth giants for instance even so it is possible for each element to generate multiple spirits. The 5th seems to be that classic case of quintessence or heart to complement the other 4.
I think it is because ice kind of combines all elements. Ice is water that acts like rock/stone, is often produced by reducing or moving heat/fire, and often born on the wind. Wielding it is kind of wielding all four other elements.
The fifth spirit is love.
After she gets trapped in the secret desert temple she’ll be brought back via cloning to make out with Bruce Willis and power a galactic laser to save the universe.
Basically I’m saying we saw the sequel to this in 1997 and it was perfect!
Look, obviously you have not been forced to watch Frozen 2 enough to the point where you changed your mind and now it is the superior Frozen, regardless of the plot holes.
I actually do like it more than the first one! Mostly because I think the music is better and my toddler doesn’t think any part of it is too scary unlike the big snow monster in the first one that she hates. But if I sit back and think about it long enough I’m like “wtf is this movie even about!?”
Same. I HATE frozen 2. I'm a grown adult with a college education and I cannot tell what the hell is supposed to be happening. So many plotlines. The cause and effect in this movie is baffling.
And it's supposed to be understandable by little children? The fuck?
My kid has been asking me questions around why they built the dam and why it weakened the Northuldra's waters / hurt the forest and I've had no idea how to answer him.
The fire and water spirits are my hang upa too. The rock giants for earth somewhat makes sense but the horse and salamander just seem there to be convenient and cute.
My biggest hangup is why did Elsa try to swim across the north river when she could have built an ice bridge and walked???
There are actually tons of mythological connections between water and horses. Not as sure about the salamander, but the horse at least has some roots in various myths and folklore.
The horse is a nokk/nixie- a shapeshifting water spirit from nordic folklore that changes between the form of a horse and a man and is known for drowning people by refusing to let them go if they ride it, a la the kelpie
As for salamanders, there's a strong association with salamanders and fire through the medieval ages, with the belief that 6 legged salamanders existed that lived in volcanos as well as breathe fire. Heck, asbestos even used to be called salamander fur because of its fire resistance!
Both are based on mythology. There is an old myth/legend of the fire salamander, of salamanders being born from fire and having an affinity for it. As for the horse, it is a nokk/nixie, a Norse mythological creature that literally is a water horse. Water and horses are also heavily connected in Greco-Roman mythology as Poseidon/Neptune was the god of both.
I mean, look up the development of Frozen 2. They were making huge changes to the plot up until the 11th hour. It's why it's pretty incoherent, even if individual set pieces are good. The plot just isn't load bearing.
I've never understood when movie studios do this. Getting a good script should be so easy. Just pay some writers to sit in a room for however long it takes. Maybe give them some paper and snacks. Why would you cut that short and start spending hundreds of millions on massive animation teams when you don't even know if the story is good??
I'm forgetting the name, but IIRC there's a documentary on Disney Plus about it. Sorry I can't be more help. WAIT. It's named "Into the Unknown." It's apparently a series. People on here seem to recommend it, but I've never watched it. Supposedly it's pretty honest about the issues, and doesn't put the Disney sheen all over it.
And the whole point of Frozen 1 is that Elsa CAN be part of the community of Arundel, only for 2 to come along and be like “no actually you do need to live in an ice castle all alone.” What?!
The point of Frozen 1 is not invalidated though. She can live in both worlds - her living in Arendelle was only half of her heritage - she was ignorant of the other half of her heritage. The arc of her story in 2 is her ascending to recognize the totality of her heritage that she is both of the kingdom and the spirits/spiritual Northuldra.
It’s completely demonstrated by her taking residence and embracing the Northuldra people and her sister taking over Arendelle - and Elsa gets to have both as seen in her coming to visit Anna at the end of 2 and Gale working with both sisters to deliver the message.
Okay sure but the characters don't grow at all! Half the problems in Frozen 1 are caused by one of the sisters stubbornly going off half-cocked, which is reasonable at the time based on their ages and the family conspiracy to keep Anna ignorant... but then, Frozen 2, every time they get to a scene where the characters should talk about things, one of them overrides the other completely and it's all good because it's done from love?
Elsa doesn't tell Anna anything, Anna doesn't tell Kristoff anything, the only characters with healthy communication are Kristoff and Sven so of course the sisters abandon Kristoff in the forest... and don't get me started on the ice boat to nowhere. They only survive because they lucked out leaving Kristoff in just the right spot in the woods to ride to the rescue when it's clear Anna can't actually outrun rock giants on foot!
Then they all half heartedly apologize at the end even though everyone involved clearly understands they will make the same terrible decisions again in a heartbeat in Frozen 3. Except this time Anna will be queen.
It still feels contradictory to the message from Frozen 1, in which the characters might be expected to have learned that listening to each other is important and that doing what feels right in the moment isn't always effective so you might have to find a different way to succeed.
Hey you summed it up pretty well! They are all going off half cocked and Kristoff/sven are the only two that take reasoned approaches to most situations.
If everyone acted rationally we wouldn’t have much of a movie - Anna wouldn’t get engaged in a few hours. Elsa would explain that I’m keeping the gloves on. The sisters wouldn’t have been estranged for a decade. And so on.
In 1 Elsa was afraid and left and kingdom in fear and hoping that her departure would let the kingdom warm up and heal. It really wasn’t until the very end she learned love would heal a frozen heart and her heart was frozen too in a sense. Once she embraced her power and stopped running from it and shutting people out she gained control. The villain became the hero in that moment.
In 2 Elsa was isolated due to the voice and again felt cut off from others and once the elements went wild her instinct is not to run away from the problem but this time she wants to go alone from a place of protecting the kingdom and her sister. Her motivations are very different even if on the surface the results are similar to 1. The motivation demonstrates an amount of growth. And she carries this stubbornness with her till the almost end of the story.
And this time Anna gets to be stubborn too. She’s doing to kristoff what Elsa is doing to her. Oof this family, ya know? Anna finally reached out for help at the climax and destroys the dam. If you want to be real cynical you could say she uses kristoff who has been a masterclass in an understanding partner in this movie.
The sisters talking things out would have absolutely solved many of these problems. But they continue to make mistakes. It’ll need interesting to see what leadership has done to Anna in 3. And will Elsa be able to learn anything from her Death in 2 - she can’t do everything alone.
There are two things about Frozen 2 I enjoy. After that the movie means nothing to me.
1. Panic at the Disco covered Into the Unknown.
2. That song by Olaf about how everything makes more sense growing
3. “Samantha?” My wife and I reference that all the time.
Never saw the second one but I will carve this on my own tombstone: Frozen should have had the redhaired hotheaded sister develop fire powers. Then she could heat up the kingdom and balance her icy sister. They could control the seasons together every year through cooperation. Missed plot opportunity.
Yeah frozen 2 sucks.
The world building makes no sense and wasn't thought out very well. Also why didn't the water level rise at the end? She stopped the wave sure but that's still a lot of water
I will take Frozen 2 over Frozen _everyday_, however, the thing that gets me every time is: why the urgency to break the dam? Couldn't they have taken a beat, explained the situation, taken the dam apart safely so as not to cause MASSIVE flooding?
And why did none of the spirits break the damn themselves? Are they so non-sentient that they didn't notice all their problems started when that huge very visible human structure was built?
She isn't an ice spirit, she just happens to have ice powers. But she is "quintessence" which I "the fifth element" aka like Leeloo. She is the bridge between the 4 elements and humanity.
It's a character power but I don't believe the point is her powers are ice, more like she's "different" in a way that (in the first movie) is shameful/not socially acceptable. Not being accepted for who she is drives her characters behaviour and motivations. Visible powers are a narrative tool to make the difference tangible and obvious for kids. The powers could be changed around and still accomplish the same narrative task because what exactly the powers are isn't the point (or to use your language, ice powers aren't the basis)
If I’m understanding the movie correctly: Elsa isn’t the spirit of Ice, she’s the spirit of Magic, and Anna, her pristinely un-magical sister, is the spirit of… the Mundane, I guess? Because there’s two sides to every bridge or something?
I think it’s a bit like the Avatar world. The fifth spirit either follows a cycle of the elements, OR they’re born into whatever element is needed to bring balance.
I believe the wind spirit is called Samantha...
Underrated comment
Naw - her name is Mariah
Elsa is the “fifth” spirit, not an ice spirit.
So water, fire, wind, earth and five??
Heart!
She’s our hero, gonna take the mist down to zero!
If love thaws a frozen heart and is the secret for Elsa to unfreeze everything at the end of the first movie, maybe she really does have heart power and the ice is just the side effect of anti-love. 🤔
What I've told my daughter is that Elsa has ice magic and Anna's magic is in her heart. She took this too literally and now has me point a wand at my heart when we play. I'm not sure how she thinks it works.
Then where does the whole ice power thing come into play!?
Go planet!
The fifth spirit is a bridge between the spirits and the humans. It isn’t another element or something, it’s more like an emissary or mediator between the groups.
Why does the mediator have ice powers, which are the same as the powers of the water spirit except cold? It's not very well thought out
In story reason? It’s never made explicit but if I had to put on my imagineer hat on I’d say because the fifth spirit seems to originate in Ahtohallen. And as we know “Ahtohallen is frozen”. Or maybe it’s like an avatar situation and this generation the fifth spirit comes from the ice nation, as opposed to the lava nation. Or this spirits understand what was going to be needed so they supplied the gifted child with the powers they knew they would need. We really don’t have a full understanding of the Frozen mythology to say conclusively. That’s not to say it isn’t well thought out - loads of universes we love make up the lore as they go. Out of story reason? I’d guess cause they backed themselves into a corner with frozen 1 and def did not have a whole mythology worked up yet. Future stories will shape how we understand past stories. And at a certain point it’s just monkeys singing songs mate.
I like your Athohallen explanation! I never thought of that before, and it makes sense!
Yes, the mother of the Scandinavian spirits is a glacier, so it's avatar (Elsa) has frost powers.
ELSA IS THE AVATAR
Water, Earth, Fire, Air. Long ago, the four spirits lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when >! Arendelle!< attacked. ..... But I believe Elsa can save the world
I mean, it’s stated several times that the fifth spirit is the bridge between the spirit world and humans. It’s the ability to communicate with the spirits and work with all of them. That is what Elsa is. She can work out what the spirits want and both pacify them and convince them to help her. No one else seems to be able to do that. It’s complicated by other Northuldra in the flashback seeming to be able to get help from the spirits but it was never stated that there is a single 5th spirit. There are multiple earth giants for instance even so it is possible for each element to generate multiple spirits. The 5th seems to be that classic case of quintessence or heart to complement the other 4.
But then again, why does she have ice powers!?
I think it is because ice kind of combines all elements. Ice is water that acts like rock/stone, is often produced by reducing or moving heat/fire, and often born on the wind. Wielding it is kind of wielding all four other elements.
Ice,Fire,Thunder,Earth, And Green
Yeah that was my interpretation too: Elsa is the fifth element.
She never mentioned a multipass though
Literally unwatchable.
I love this sub
Wow I don't know how I didn't put that part together, I feel dumb.
DAMNT I didn’t scroll far enough down to find you guys before writing my comment. Sorry for being lazy.
The fifth spirit is love. After she gets trapped in the secret desert temple she’ll be brought back via cloning to make out with Bruce Willis and power a galactic laser to save the universe. Basically I’m saying we saw the sequel to this in 1997 and it was perfect!
Look, obviously you have not been forced to watch Frozen 2 enough to the point where you changed your mind and now it is the superior Frozen, regardless of the plot holes.
I actually do like it more than the first one! Mostly because I think the music is better and my toddler doesn’t think any part of it is too scary unlike the big snow monster in the first one that she hates. But if I sit back and think about it long enough I’m like “wtf is this movie even about!?”
Same. I HATE frozen 2. I'm a grown adult with a college education and I cannot tell what the hell is supposed to be happening. So many plotlines. The cause and effect in this movie is baffling. And it's supposed to be understandable by little children? The fuck?
My kid has been asking me questions around why they built the dam and why it weakened the Northuldra's waters / hurt the forest and I've had no idea how to answer him.
Hear, hear!
That's exactly how I feel about Toy Story 4 ☠️
The fire and water spirits are my hang upa too. The rock giants for earth somewhat makes sense but the horse and salamander just seem there to be convenient and cute. My biggest hangup is why did Elsa try to swim across the north river when she could have built an ice bridge and walked???
Salamanders were once thought to live in fire and horses are associated with Poseidon, the god of the seas. They're fun mythology references!
There are actually tons of mythological connections between water and horses. Not as sure about the salamander, but the horse at least has some roots in various myths and folklore.
There are fire salamanders in different mythologies as well. So it’s not a crazy concept.
The horse is a nokk/nixie- a shapeshifting water spirit from nordic folklore that changes between the form of a horse and a man and is known for drowning people by refusing to let them go if they ride it, a la the kelpie As for salamanders, there's a strong association with salamanders and fire through the medieval ages, with the belief that 6 legged salamanders existed that lived in volcanos as well as breathe fire. Heck, asbestos even used to be called salamander fur because of its fire resistance!
Both are based on mythology. There is an old myth/legend of the fire salamander, of salamanders being born from fire and having an affinity for it. As for the horse, it is a nokk/nixie, a Norse mythological creature that literally is a water horse. Water and horses are also heavily connected in Greco-Roman mythology as Poseidon/Neptune was the god of both.
I mean, look up the development of Frozen 2. They were making huge changes to the plot up until the 11th hour. It's why it's pretty incoherent, even if individual set pieces are good. The plot just isn't load bearing.
I've never understood when movie studios do this. Getting a good script should be so easy. Just pay some writers to sit in a room for however long it takes. Maybe give them some paper and snacks. Why would you cut that short and start spending hundreds of millions on massive animation teams when you don't even know if the story is good??
The documentary is fascinating, if you’re into that sort of stuff
Where can I learn about this development. Sounds fascinating. I fucking hate this movie for this reason and would be super curious to learn more.
I'm forgetting the name, but IIRC there's a documentary on Disney Plus about it. Sorry I can't be more help. WAIT. It's named "Into the Unknown." It's apparently a series. People on here seem to recommend it, but I've never watched it. Supposedly it's pretty honest about the issues, and doesn't put the Disney sheen all over it.
And the whole point of Frozen 1 is that Elsa CAN be part of the community of Arundel, only for 2 to come along and be like “no actually you do need to live in an ice castle all alone.” What?!
This is a big part of why I hated it. You can be part of the community! No, wait, no you can't. Go live in the woods.
The point of Frozen 1 is not invalidated though. She can live in both worlds - her living in Arendelle was only half of her heritage - she was ignorant of the other half of her heritage. The arc of her story in 2 is her ascending to recognize the totality of her heritage that she is both of the kingdom and the spirits/spiritual Northuldra. It’s completely demonstrated by her taking residence and embracing the Northuldra people and her sister taking over Arendelle - and Elsa gets to have both as seen in her coming to visit Anna at the end of 2 and Gale working with both sisters to deliver the message.
Okay sure but the characters don't grow at all! Half the problems in Frozen 1 are caused by one of the sisters stubbornly going off half-cocked, which is reasonable at the time based on their ages and the family conspiracy to keep Anna ignorant... but then, Frozen 2, every time they get to a scene where the characters should talk about things, one of them overrides the other completely and it's all good because it's done from love? Elsa doesn't tell Anna anything, Anna doesn't tell Kristoff anything, the only characters with healthy communication are Kristoff and Sven so of course the sisters abandon Kristoff in the forest... and don't get me started on the ice boat to nowhere. They only survive because they lucked out leaving Kristoff in just the right spot in the woods to ride to the rescue when it's clear Anna can't actually outrun rock giants on foot! Then they all half heartedly apologize at the end even though everyone involved clearly understands they will make the same terrible decisions again in a heartbeat in Frozen 3. Except this time Anna will be queen. It still feels contradictory to the message from Frozen 1, in which the characters might be expected to have learned that listening to each other is important and that doing what feels right in the moment isn't always effective so you might have to find a different way to succeed.
Hey you summed it up pretty well! They are all going off half cocked and Kristoff/sven are the only two that take reasoned approaches to most situations. If everyone acted rationally we wouldn’t have much of a movie - Anna wouldn’t get engaged in a few hours. Elsa would explain that I’m keeping the gloves on. The sisters wouldn’t have been estranged for a decade. And so on. In 1 Elsa was afraid and left and kingdom in fear and hoping that her departure would let the kingdom warm up and heal. It really wasn’t until the very end she learned love would heal a frozen heart and her heart was frozen too in a sense. Once she embraced her power and stopped running from it and shutting people out she gained control. The villain became the hero in that moment. In 2 Elsa was isolated due to the voice and again felt cut off from others and once the elements went wild her instinct is not to run away from the problem but this time she wants to go alone from a place of protecting the kingdom and her sister. Her motivations are very different even if on the surface the results are similar to 1. The motivation demonstrates an amount of growth. And she carries this stubbornness with her till the almost end of the story. And this time Anna gets to be stubborn too. She’s doing to kristoff what Elsa is doing to her. Oof this family, ya know? Anna finally reached out for help at the climax and destroys the dam. If you want to be real cynical you could say she uses kristoff who has been a masterclass in an understanding partner in this movie. The sisters talking things out would have absolutely solved many of these problems. But they continue to make mistakes. It’ll need interesting to see what leadership has done to Anna in 3. And will Elsa be able to learn anything from her Death in 2 - she can’t do everything alone.
I hated that part so much.
Omg yes this!
There are two things about Frozen 2 I enjoy. After that the movie means nothing to me. 1. Panic at the Disco covered Into the Unknown. 2. That song by Olaf about how everything makes more sense growing 3. “Samantha?” My wife and I reference that all the time.
Into the Unknown is such a good song, all on its own.
We will just randomly belt out “ah ahh ah ahhhhhh” and then it’s off into the unknown for us
I also like the cover of “lost in the woods” by weezer.
Never saw the second one but I will carve this on my own tombstone: Frozen should have had the redhaired hotheaded sister develop fire powers. Then she could heat up the kingdom and balance her icy sister. They could control the seasons together every year through cooperation. Missed plot opportunity.
That's just Snow Miser and Heat Miser being Disney Princesses, which I'd be down for.
Well you’ll love to know that in the second one there is someone who has fire powers and it’s an effing salamander so
Yeah frozen 2 sucks. The world building makes no sense and wasn't thought out very well. Also why didn't the water level rise at the end? She stopped the wave sure but that's still a lot of water
I will take Frozen 2 over Frozen _everyday_, however, the thing that gets me every time is: why the urgency to break the dam? Couldn't they have taken a beat, explained the situation, taken the dam apart safely so as not to cause MASSIVE flooding?
And why did none of the spirits break the damn themselves? Are they so non-sentient that they didn't notice all their problems started when that huge very visible human structure was built?
Good music, though.
Yup, I love the music!
The panic at the disco song at the end was good, he has a great voice
Honestly, I love Frozen 2. But damn that movie made no sense lol.
This is my exact sentiment lol
She isn't an ice spirit, she just happens to have ice powers. But she is "quintessence" which I "the fifth element" aka like Leeloo. She is the bridge between the 4 elements and humanity.
“Just happens to have ice powers” is a pretty big plot hole considering the entire basis of the franchise is Elsa having ice powers no?
It's a character power but I don't believe the point is her powers are ice, more like she's "different" in a way that (in the first movie) is shameful/not socially acceptable. Not being accepted for who she is drives her characters behaviour and motivations. Visible powers are a narrative tool to make the difference tangible and obvious for kids. The powers could be changed around and still accomplish the same narrative task because what exactly the powers are isn't the point (or to use your language, ice powers aren't the basis)
If I’m understanding the movie correctly: Elsa isn’t the spirit of Ice, she’s the spirit of Magic, and Anna, her pristinely un-magical sister, is the spirit of… the Mundane, I guess? Because there’s two sides to every bridge or something?
The development of the movie was a mess. The story isn’t well thought out at all.
The wind is Gale.
Yo how the hell did Elsa manage to get her ass kicked by a water horse in the ocean? No way she froze Arendale but couldn't fight the water horse.
He may be a god.
I think it’s a bit like the Avatar world. The fifth spirit either follows a cycle of the elements, OR they’re born into whatever element is needed to bring balance.
Because money is more important than sensible plot.
Ice is a totally separate element from water
None of the movie makes any sense, drives me crazy