As a child, my favourite fairy tale was The Snow Queen. And yet looking back, I still find the central character rather enigmatic and confusing. For those of you who remember the story, what does she really want? Why does she take the little boy?
I would call her merely the ‘title character’. The central character is arguably Kay (or Gerda, but more of the story focuses on him).
I used to think that maybe she’d been hit with a large piece of the mirror herself, and so became cold and cruel, although I don’t think that’s ever stated or implied. Certainly she isn’t entirely cruel, but in this view it seems to be merely a ‘misery loves company’. Or she is seeking subjects to rule (as in C.S. Lewis’s version of her, although the White Witch is more of a seductress).
As the story goes on it seems more like she is merely cold reason, unemotional and with no nefarious plan. I think that may be the better interpretation, especially given the Christian message in the ending. She then represents reason alone that blocks us from the childlike innocence required to understand salvation. Or also a period of a man’s life where he gives up looking for love and focuses on knowledge.
Her motives and actions in that case may be seen as simply logical. She claims those who have been hit by a shard, as they can only be content in her palace of cold. The kisses she gives Kay are not sinister, but merely to ease him into his new life.
I’m not sure I entirely buy that, though. The archetype of a child-stealing but semi-noble figure can be found in other European fairy tales and stories (the main example I can think of is Der Erlkönig), so it may just be filling in that role.
I think I dated her sister.
Point well taken that she’s the title character and Gerda is the central chracter.
I really like the interpretation of her making the judgement that the boy is only fit to cope with life in the cold realm. I think I’d forgotten what sounds a very important part of the story which is that she takes the little boy specifically because she rounds up people who have been maimed emotionally by the glass splinters. Part of the reason I found her so unsettling is that her motives seemed so unclear. As you say, she doesn’t seem cruel exactly but in a way, that would have made her more understandable and therefore maybe less menacing. Hmmn, stuff to think on, thank you!
As an aside, the malign mirror shards that got into people’s hearts and ensured that they would only see ugliness in the world and the people in it disturbed me greatly as a child. I think even then, as children tend to do, I dimly understood that it was describing something real in allegorical terms.
It’s been a while but I remember feeling that she did it for the company and to groom an heir.
The Snow Queen fairy tale has haunted me from the time I was a wee pigtailed thing with my nose stuck in a book. Other kids wanted to go waterskiing and play volleyball on their vacations in Florida. I wanted to visit the Snow Queen’s palace in the Cold Realm. Key word - visit. I had a feeling if such a thing was possible, I’d have wanted to cut short that visit real fast. Still wanted to travel north, though.
Sorry, I should have been a bit clearer that that was all speculation. I’m pretty sure it never says exactly why she picks Kay, or even if she ever picks other people. That was just part of that interpretation, which I think only sort of works. But I don’t think it’s necessary to have one motive for her that covers the whole character. She seems mainly to be a mysterious, slightly fleshed-out child thief. It doesn’t seem all that uncommon for Andersen’s more symbolic characters to change during the story (in her case, she is notable by her absence at the end; Gerta does not have to ‘fight’ her).
I’m glad I’m not the only one who found it compelling yet a bit frightening 
there were a lot of little details that did make the journey north seem rather appealing as well as alarming. Like I always remember the rather aggressive little robber girl that befriends the heroine and the animal skins she’s given to keep out the cold - it all sounded so vivid.
No, it’s cool. I got that you were just sharing a possible interpretation - it’s me that expressed myself poorly. As you say, I doubt there can BE a single right answer because as you say, such characters tend to be symbolic in their nature. Thank you for sharing your view!
I never thought she had motivation. She was cold. That is to say, she was more an anthropomorphic personification of the cold-that-steals-life, rather than anything human.
It always struck me as a parable about death coming without reason in a cruel and uncaring world, more than anything else.
A lot of people find “The Snow Queen” to be Andersen’s most frightening story. For example, my cousin had a multi-volume set of fairy tales and she always thought “The Snow Queen” was the scariest and most unsettling (although the creepy-looking illustrations of the title character that accompanied the story might’ve had something to do with it). I think the main reason why is the ambiguous nature of the Snow Queen herself. In most well-known children’s fairy tales, good and evil are presented in simple Manichean black-and-white terns, Evil characters (e.g., the Queen in Snow White, the Wolf in Red Riding Hood, and the Sea Witch from “The Little Mermaid”) might be scary to kids but their “bad” nature is so obvious that it installs a degree of familiarity. We clearly know what these characters are all about. The Snow Queen, on the other hand, has so many gray elements to her that children, upon first reading the story, don’t know what side of the ledger to put her on.
I’ll tell you one thing, she makes a pretty decent vodka.