# Frozen, did Elsa's parents mess up big time?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 25, 2014, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423 "2014-10-25T04:02:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/61 "2014-10-29T13:03:22Z")
> [@shantih](#):
>
> And, of course, Anna has the spunk but Elsa has the _powers_. Plus she has the sparkly icy dress complete with sweeping cape and real snowflakes in her hair. And she can create lovely ice chandeliers or scary ice spikes. Not only is hers the best song of the whole movie, she’s making a stunning ice palace while she’s singing – I think it’s not a stumper that little girls want a piece of that.
Hell, I want a piece of Elsa!
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### Author:  [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/62 "2014-10-29T16:53:56Z")
It struck me that it was a pretty close allegory to Prince Charles’ upbringing. Isn’t Prince Phillip supposed to have purposefully sent him to a harsh repressive boarding school, and to have insisted upon complete stoicism? And wasn’t he raised by a cadre of nannies with very little interaction with other children?
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/63 "2014-10-29T17:17:45Z")
> [@Fair\_Rarity](#):
>
> I saw a proposal today for a Halloween drinking game: have a drink every time an Elsa comes to the door. If I get kids this year (it varies wildly), I’d be hammered before sunset, I think.
Two shots for every boy Elsa.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/64 "2014-10-29T17:18:53Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#):
>
> Hell, I want a piece of Elsa!
Reported for desiring a love that can never be.
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### Author:  [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2014, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/65 "2014-10-29T22:57:53Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> 6-11 year old girls love the princess in the tower. Elsa puts herself in the tower, but she’s still the princess in the tower. I think it resonates with their growing awareness that there’s a big world out there that Mom and Dad are keeping them from. Anna is fun, but she’s pretty silly, she’s very young in spirit and she doesn’t have True Angst. Little girls almost always want to be the older girl.
>
> And, “Let it Go” is very conducive to wild arm gestures. 😉 Elsa gets the best song, by a mile, sung by the better singer, by two thousand miles. Kristen Bell is perfectly good, but she’s no Adele Nazeem\*.
>
> \*Poor Idina Menzel. That’s never going to stop being funny.
_snort_
I can totally see the angst thing for the older half of the audience - when you’re ten or eleven, sure, ‘intense and misunderstood’ is way better than ‘spunky and fun’. But these kids I saw last week were all under about seven. At that age, I would’ve thought Elsa was boringly grown-up. Maybe angst kicks in earlier these days.
> [@shantih](#):
>
> And, of course, Anna has the spunk but Elsa has the _powers_. Plus she has the sparkly icy dress complete with sweeping cape and real snowflakes in her hair. And she can create lovely ice chandeliers or scary ice spikes. Not only is hers the best song of the whole movie, she’s making a stunning ice palace while she’s singing – I think it’s not a stumper that little girls want a piece of that.
The powers make sense, too. You guys are gonna convert me to Elsa :-D. What baffles me isn’t that she’s got fangirls - it’s that such a vast \*majority \*of the kids are into her, over Anna. I would’ve expected it to be closer to half and half.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/66 "2014-10-30T01:43:42Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> Here is a better plot, after the king and queen who tried but failed to help Elsa die in a shipwreck, a top royal court official starts evilly manipulating and isolating Elsa in a bid to cause her to crack and make a scene or hurt people so he can use it as a pretense to steal the throne(and maybe marry Anna). Make someone with evil intent gaslighting Elsa and making her look like a villain the source of the problem.
Having an explicit evil that early would ruin the twist, though, wouldn’t it? I think it works a lot better without anyone involved being explicitly evil.
Now, if you want to have the parents know how to deal with her, but have them killed off, I guess that could work. But then why wouldn’t they have left explicit instructions? Or why wouldn’t others have followed them?
You can get it in there, but it makes it more complicated than it needs to be. Parents get spooked by trolls and overprotect her works better.
(And you need the trolls for the exposition about how everything works. They already removed explaining how she got the powers. I don’t think they can remove the whole thing.)
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/67 "2014-10-30T01:50:12Z")
> [@shijinn](#):
>
> reality is not always rational too, but a work of fiction needs to be… sensible? supposedly good, well-meaning parents do not imprison their daughter her entire life and expect her to rule the kingdom after that.
I disagree. It’s exactly how I’ve seen well-intentioned people react to fear. Heck, if you make the king and queen metaphorical, it’s what fearful people very often do. They wall themselves off from reality to deal with it.
Is it the wrong reaction? Sure. But it’s what we naturally do.
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### Author:  [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/68 "2014-10-30T03:47:41Z")
> [@eclectic\_wench](#):
>
> What baffles me isn’t that she’s got fangirls - it’s that such a vast \*majority \*of the kids are into her, over Anna. I would’ve expected it to be closer to half and half.
No way. Elsa has the magic! My (just a couple weeks from being a) three year old makes me play Frozen with her all the time. She is almost always Elsa and almost always “does the magic” where she circles her hands and throws them up in the air to create snow. The only time I am Elsa is whenever I go in a room and close the door she walks up to the door, knocks gently, and says, “Do you want to build a snowman?”
Og, we play frozen a lot! She makes her dad act out Sven and Elsa’s father (who she refers to as “King Daddy”) when he puts the gloves on her hands. For a while she made me be Anna when she freezes completely but she insisted that I lay down on the ground so she could sit on my butt and cry over my death so I quickly put an end to that.
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### Author:  [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/69 "2014-10-30T04:42:14Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> Reported for desiring a love that can never be.
"you’re as cold as ice, willing to sacrifice - "
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### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/70 "2014-10-30T09:44:33Z")
> [@pbbth](#):
>
> No way. Elsa has the magic! My (just a couple weeks from being a) three year old makes me play Frozen with her all the time. She is almost always Elsa and almost always “does the magic” where she circles her hands and throws them up in the air to create snow. The only time I am Elsa is whenever I go in a room and close the door she walks up to the door, knocks gently, and says, “Do you want to build a snowman?”
>
> Og, we play frozen a lot! She makes her dad act out Sven and Elsa’s father (who she refers to as “King Daddy”) when he puts the gloves on her hands. For a while she made me be Anna when she freezes completely but she insisted that I lay down on the ground so she could sit on my butt and cry over my death so I quickly put an end to that.
I love this post just because it captures how nutty sounding it is to be a parent to young kid.
Makes me feel better for the fact my son asks me to chase him and eat his belly lol.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/71 "2014-10-30T10:24:08Z")
I just now asked my daughter why kids want to be Elsa instead of Anna for Halloween.
_“Elsa’s the magical-power one. Anna isn’t.”_
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/72 "2014-10-30T18:15:22Z")
> [@simster](#):
>
> "you’re as cold as ice, willing to sacrifice - "
The cold never bothered him anyway.
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### Author:  [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/73 "2014-10-31T04:16:03Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> The cold never bothered him anyway.
Is he one with the wind and sky?
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/74 "2014-10-31T04:24:38Z")
Let it go.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/75 "2014-10-31T04:26:45Z")
This thread is getting stale, anyone wanna build a snowman?
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### Author:  [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/76 "2014-10-31T11:14:15Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> This thread is getting stale, anyone wanna build a snowman?
It doesn’t have to be a snowman.
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### Author:  [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/77 "2014-10-31T11:15:44Z")
Okay, bye.
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frozen-did-elsas-parents-mess-up-big-time/702423/78 "2014-10-31T14:35:21Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> I disagree. It’s exactly how I’ve seen well-intentioned people react to fear. Heck, if you make the king and queen metaphorical, it’s what fearful people very often do. They wall themselves off from reality to deal with it.
>
> Is it the wrong reaction? Sure. But it’s what we naturally do.
i thought i should let it go but, i guess i should answer this. **WhyNot** already mentioned this the previous page, and i agree with both of you. however, my point was that a story (unlike real life) is usually expected to be neatly tied off with a ribbon. jarring literary shortcuts with two dimensional parents oblivious to the terrible injustice and difficulties faced by their charges are more suitable in a cartoon for children.
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