I know it's a little bizarre to see me not posting about dark things like dark fantasy or best friends fighting. I figured I would shake things up with one of the best things 2013 gave all of us (along with, you know, the announcement of a Batman vs Superman movie): Disney's Frozen! And of course, there are SPOILERS for the movie if you've not seen it yet (why haven't you?), but much less than usual! I'm learning control, guys, I promise.
Most of the time Disney's animated adventures have a theme to them. Frozen did not fall short this, in fact, it shook it up. It did not have the usual love interest tale--or at least, it did not focus on that. For those of you who, somehow, don't know, Frozen is about the queen of the kingdom Arendelle, Elsa, who leaves to the mountains and her younger, quirky sister Anna goes on a daring adventure to bring her back and patch up the frozen kingdom (hence the title...probably). What ensues is a funny, heartwarming adventure full of great music and Olaf.
Just the other day I was leaving my College Algebra class (math sucks, by the way) and I was listening to the song "For the First Time in Forever." When Anna is singing about there being brand new things she's never seen in the castle, it gave me the feeling of freedom, as it should. But then I realized something.
The characters actually left.
Conversely, in Disney's Tangled, Rapunzel sings about wanting to leave, then leaving. Anna sings about getting to leave and then actually does. Thus, in this blog, I will be doing character studies that will, hopefully, give an overall view of why Frozen is similar to going to college. So let's start with Elsa. Wouldn't you?
Elsa: Following the scene at the beginning of the movie where Elsa accidentally blasts Anna (still don't get why she just didn't make a pool of snow for Anna to fall in instead, but, details), we see Elsa as a shutout. An introvert, really. Once the parents die like they do in every Disney movie, we are left to assume Elsa essentially rules the kingdom from her room. However once she accidenally unveils her powers after her coronation, she runs away. At first afraid, Elsa realizes that her solitude is her freedom, that she can finally be herself (this all occurs while she sings the song of the movie, "Let it Go").
Like I said, Elsa's an introvert, basically. That's how she's introduced to us, and that's how she stays until she leaves. Yet I also feel like she's constrained by the rules laid down by her parents. Now I'm not saying that your parents have to die due to an impossibly large tidal wave out at sea (by the way, I have a fun fan-fiction theory that the mom and dad are like Oliver Queen and Sara Lance on the Queen's Gambit), but, the fact that they left Elsa and Anna left Elsa in charge.
But when it comes to college, it's almost as if it isn't the parents who leave, it's the child. So when Elsa leaves the safety of her home, of course she's going to be nervous. This is like going away to college. She's nervous, she's never really been anywhere else. Yet once she settles into the mountain, or her "dorm room," we see Elsa transform. She leaves her shell and finally becomes the Snow Queen we'd all been waiting for. It's like this in college, for most people. Introverts can become extroverts when exposed to things they are not used to, or, when they are left to their own will. Maybe they do built giant snow castles, I don't know.
But there you have it. Elsa is the frightened child who does not want to leave home, yet when she does, she couldn't be happier. When she returns home, too, like she does in the movie, we see that the change is permanent and for the better.
Next up, we have Anna:
For the purposes of my character study, I feel like I have the traits of Anna and Kristoff. But we're just dealing with Anna for now, so, yeah.
Anna sticks around Arendelle longer than Elsa does. By like, five minutes, but whatever. Anna, though, is like the college student who can't wait to leave him, as evident in "For the First Time in Forever." When she leaves Arendelle, she takes off crazy fast and without looking back.
Since Anna is younger, probably, than Elsa, I saw her as more of a high-school girl, the girl that just wants to leave town and head out on a grand adventure, to show the world how awesome she really is (and Anna is pretty awesome). The problem with that is Anna was not ready for everything she thought was ready for. She thought she had found true love, she thought she could brave the wilderness, but when you never experience any of this, it becomes extremely difficult to deal with.
We see this in Anna. She goes out on the adventure, dedicated to it. Yet the entire time, it's all about home. She wants Elsa to come back home. Anna did want to leave, but at the same time she didn't. It isn't like Eren Jeager in Attack on Titan who wants to go beyond the walls and never come back. Anna would want to go beyond the walls to reclaim her sister then come back.
To put it in relative terms, Anna wants to spend a semester or so away then come back home where there is order. School is fun, but dangerous, and home is where the heart is. I could be completely off, but, these are my thoughts and I told you to bear with me through this.
That's not to say Anna is a strong-willed girl. I mean, she fell in a frozen river and was able to walk it off in a short-sleeved dress. You try it, I dare you. She is, though, a girl who only wants the best experience she can have. Though there is no sequel for Frozen...so far...we can assume that Anna gains the courage to leave the boundaries of Arendelle like she so wishes, maybe with Elsa. In that way, she can go to college without worries about her family and be more like Elsa was.
Now, we have the character who makes the movie what it is. The character whose greatness knows no bounds. The character who thought his nose was like a baby unicorn.
Ya boy Olaf:
In terms of a collegiate life, Olaf is that friend. He might even be the roommate. But if you're in college, you've probably met your Olaf by now.
Olaf is the free-spirited, happy-go-lucky, what-is-sadness? snowman/ friend. Above all else, though, he is a fun person to be with. There's never a dull moment, the situation is always interesting or at least has a fun vibe to it. And he has no filter, in a good way. He says what he thinks, even he has no idea what's going on.
In the movie, he provides comic relief. In life, he would provide comic relief. In a college setting, he provides a stress relief. If you're freaking out about a big exam coming up, your Olaf would cheer you up.
However, this can also be a bad thing. With such a relaxed attitude, the Olaf of your life might drag you down. Hopefully not, hopefully he can only raise your spirits and turn your frown upside down, but, it is a possibility.
The way you meet your Olaf might be the same way as it is in the movie. Anna and Kristoff just happen to run into him, no real purpose to his being around. Similarly, the way you meet your Olaf might be the same way. Colleges can be a big place, and they are chock full of interesting people for you to befriend. Some of us have not really had that luxury (hi), though.
There really is not much to say about Olaf, or about the next character on my list,
Kristoff:
You could make two arguments for Kristoff in this study: that he is the chill friend who never stresses or that he is the true love of your college life. The problem is that Kristoff's role in the story, as I saw it, was not as Anna's love interest. I saw him as Anna's ally in the quest, not the potential groom. They did click together, but, I just didn't really feel the romance. Even it were given to us, like it was in Tangled, I feel like it would have been forced (though in Tangled it wasn't forced, it was done greatly).
So instead, Kristoff shall be portrayed as the chill friend. Everyone has one. I feel like I am that friend sometimes. Kristoff may have a huge exam facing him, and he always feels prepared to take on the challenge. He also thinks reasonably (okay, now him and I are different). When Anna, Kristoff, and Sven are escaping the wolves, he is both dealing with the situation at hand as well as reasoning with Anna about Hans...HANS!
Sorry about that. Continuing...
Despite being all relaxed and not stressed, he is a helpful friend. Kristoff is able to recognize a tense situation when it arises and is able to help. He's the quick-thinking friend. "Oh shoot, I forgot my calculator in the library and it's closed!" would say friend A. "Hey, here, let's go down to Tech Commons and see if they have one or if they're open!" would say Kristoff. Bam, solution solved. Or he would just fork over his own calculator, but, I'm trying to use a more dramatic example here, people.
Kristoff is an easier friend to find, probably, than a friend like Olaf because not all people like warm hugs. I don't. Sorry. But I don't like stressing and I'm sure a lot of people don't like that either. I feel like it's a waste of time. Don't stress, just focus. That's how Kristoff works, and that would be the kind of guy he would be in college. No, he probably wouldn't be a druggie...probably.
And last but certainly least we have the damned fool that I could like nothing more of than to throw off a cliff:
Hans.
You know Hans. You've never met him. But you know him. Or her, because in way I shall be exemplifying Hans, I use gender-equality (1920 FOR THE WIN).
Hans comes off as the handsome, dashing, intelligent yet quirky prince Anna instantly falls for. Right there I had a problem. No handsome, dashing guy is ever that awkward. That's not allowed, it's not in the rules! Hans had me convinced, though, that he would be Anna's love interest through the song "Love is an Open Door." I liked that song when I first saw it, I really did.
We don't see much of Hans throughout the movie as it mostly focuses off of Arendelle, but what we do see of him we see him being a great guy to the elderly, leaving us to believe that someone else is the main villain of the story. Lo and behold, though, when Anna is dying and needs just a moment of true love, Hans quickly turns around and reveals he played Anna into getting rule of the kingdom, even kidnapping Elsa.
That DEMON.
For the sake of a character study, Hans will serve two purposes. He can either be a friend or boyfriend/ girlfriend. Hans is the first friend that Anna makes in the movie, and at first you buy into him. You like him. Similarly, you might make a friend in college that you like, you really enjoy being around this person.
But when you're on your couch dying and only their action can save you and it turns out that they were only using you to get control of your kingdom, that's when the tables are turned. That's when you call in your Kristoff friend to take out the trash...the trash being Hans. Now of course, maybe those stakes aren't very high. Maybe Hans is cheating on you with someone else or maybe he's only hanging out with you because he has nothing else to do and just wants to humor himself while abusing your things. I don't know.
The point is, the Hans person is the fake person you meet and is one of the first social lessons you learn in college. Like I said, college is a big place, there are a lot of characters. There's room for the Olafs, the Kristoffs, and the Hans...s. The Hans might say they're a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z but really just turn out to be some dirt-bag that only likes you for your stuff and because they feel sorry for you (that's never happened to me, but, I just needed to throw DBZ in here somehow). After the Hans lesson is learned, you grow a lot as a person, you're able to see whose who easier.
And you hate them for probably the rest of your life and every time you hear their song, you wish to set fire to their bones. Hans...grr...
So that's my thoughts on how Frozen is like college. Really it's about the people you meet or the person you are. Maybe you don't meet the people I've mentioned or you're not like the people I've said. That's good, it makes you, well, you. Unique is good, even if you can't say "unique New York" five times fast. This was all just something I thought of and found it interesting. Like I said, most of the time Disney movies have specific themes, so, for me to find a way to create a new spin on my favorite Disney movie was just something I had to take advantage of.
If you liked what you read here and want to read more, like perhaps that story I'm writing whose first arc just wrapped up, go ahead and check out some posts over to the left! And if you want to stay up to date on when I post, be sure to follow me on Twitter @seanovan13 and on Instagram @seanovan10. Thanks for reading!
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