The Snow Queen's Sin

            I’ve always been a huge Disney fan.  I grew up with it, I went to Disney World every few years, and it stills holds a special place in my heart.  With that in mind, it’s not all that surprising that one of my favorite films of the modern day is also a Disney film.  Yes, I’m sure several of those reading this are cringing in fear when I say that I really like Frozen, but I bear no shame in this as it was a very good film.  I enjoyed the music, the animation, and most importantly the characters.

            In the event that you have been in a coma over the past three years, left the Amish life recently, or were born yesterday and somehow managed to get on a computer, I will give a brief synopsis of the film (which means there will be spoilers for the rest of the blog post).  The story primarily follows two sisters, Elsa and Anna, who are princesses of Arendelle.  Elsa was born with the power to make snow and ice appear, which she uses for her and Anna’s enjoyment.  Unfortunately, during one of their playtimes, Elsa accidently hurts Anna which almost costs the poor girl her life.  As a result, Anna’s memory is erased while their parents essentially have Elsa shutting herself away from the world as she grows more fearful of hurting those around her.

            Time goes on and the parents die, resulting in Elsa (the older sister) becoming Queen of Arendelle as a result.  During the coronation celebration, Anna accidentally reveals her sister’s powers which results in the public fearing Elsa and her running far away into the mountains to get away from the world that fears her.  Finally free from the restrictions of the world back in Arendelle, she lets her full powers come out.  The problem is that that results in most of Arendelle being frozen over completely with Anna chasing after her sister to stop her and hopefully save their kingdom.  I’ll touch more on the ending later, but this is what you essentially need to know going in before we can continue.

            Admittedly, one of the characters in the film with the biggest fanbase was not Elsa or Anna.  My sister and my mother were huge fans of the character Olaf, the “cute” snowman comic relief.  Going by the number of friends I had who would share memes relating to him, the amount of merchandise I saw being sold based on him, and the fact that he was the one everyone in my circles of friends would say he was their favorite character, he was definitely the one who got a sizeable fanbase.  However, my favorite was actually Elsa, the “Snow Queen”.  I found Elsa’s story to be amazingly relatable, easy to understand, and have a much deeper message.

            I find Elsa’s story to be the very story of sin.  This was most likely not intentionally done, but we see Elsa’s struggle with her powers, who she is, and what she’s capable of.  Hers is a journey into self-identity as well as right and wrong while failing to understand either.  It’s mankind’s own search as well.  In this post, I hope to highlight how Elsa’s story relates to sin and what sin is here.

            To start off with the definition of sin, it is not merely evil of its own merit but instead is the absence of good.  Good is something that has to be chosen for evil to cease.  As St.Augustine noted:

For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,—the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else.

Put another way, C. S. Lewis noted:

There is none of our impulses which the Moral Law may not sometimes tell us to suppress, and none which it may not sometimes tell us to encourage. It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses—say mother love or patriotism—are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad. All we mean is that the occasions on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire need to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love or patriotism.

So sin becomes not that which is inherently bad, but that which is used incorrectly for not good purposes.  Throughout the story that becomes Elsa’s biggest problem as we shall see.

            After Elsa hurt Anna (completely by accident), she spends her early life completely shut in her room, afraid that she is a monster that could hurt the ones she loves.  Terrified of the powers she has given, her parents have her hidden away so that she reveals nothing.  Unfortunately, this grows only worse as she runs from it as her room freezes over.  The more this happens, the more fearful she grows of herself and of hurting everyone around her.  As a result, she’s quite miserable.

            And yet, Elsa is not doing anything actually wrong nor are her powers inherently bad.  Initially they were used for playtime with her sister which was a fun recreational activity, but then an accident happened that resulted in her sister getting hurt.  The powers themselves are not bad, merely their misapplication.  However, they are treated as bad which results in her being shut up like she is.

            It’s not all that surprising then that she comes to hate herself and believes that everyone is looking for a reason to hate her.  I know from personal experience that this type of repression only makes things worse.  Solely focusing on the evil one can do with something results in them viewing themselves as evil.  She has talents, but the fear she is shown ends with her coming to hate herself.  This is no different than when we focus on our own impulses or talents as evil and hide from them.  It’s a lot like that bible story where the scared servant hides his talents the master gives his servants talents to invest them which results in nothing being accomplished.  Nothing good comes from it.

            Things change though when her powers are revealed.  After being exposed to those at her coronation celebration, Elsa runs off into the mountains where she will hopefully be free from persecution and hatred.  Away from the world that does not understand her, hates her, and keeps her from being free.  Alone in the mountains, away from civilization, she can finally be free and be herself.  In response, she lets her powers go to their fullest use as the snow surrounds the mountains and she even builds an ice castle.  For the first time in her life Elsa is free.

            This is a lot like when people run away from God or dogma in the belief that then they can find true happiness.  Often humanity does this under the belief that it can find better things away from his will.  This is what led Jonah to run from God to getaway from going to Nineveh (although Jonah was fleeing in dereliction of his duty while Elsa is fleeing perceived hatred which is much more sympathetic).  We see the modern day with people criticizing religious dogma or saying there is no point to following God’s will instead focusing on their own selfish pursuits.  This is especially common in relation to sex, gender, or abortion (I’d provide a link, but if you haven’t seen one by now then it should be really easy to find one).

            Of course, Elsa is not truly free as her actions start to impact others.  As her snow spreads, it starts to cover all of Arendelle in snow and ice, resulting in the fjord near the city she lives in freezing over preventing anyone from leaving and the people start freezing.  It gets even worse as blizzards finally come.  The city freezes over and the people suffer.  The result is her powers not merely impact her own life but those around her as well.

            In a defense of confession, Pope Francis once said, “someone can say, ‘I confess my sins only to God.’ Yes, you can say to God, ‘forgive me,’ and say your sins. But our sins are also against our brothers, against the Church. This is why it is necessary to ask forgiveness of the Church and of our brothers, in the person of the priest.”  Elsa suffers from the same problem.  She is under the impression that her sins are not hurting anyone as she is far off in the mountains away from anyone else where she can be whatever she wants to be.  Unfortunately, her actions spread far beyond her own scope and impact her kingdom.  As Pope Francis notes, our sins not only impact ourselves but those around us.  Theft is taking from someone else, affairs are done against the committer’s spouse, and murder impacts both the victim and their families.  Sin is bad primarily because it is disorderly and it not only does this for ourselves but for those around us.

            Of course, Elsa is not fairing much better personally.  Initially Elsa is happy to finally be gone from her the world around her away from the world. Yet when Anna finally catches up with her sister, we see a scene where Elsa is rather meek and sad.  She still wants to be with her sister so much, but can’t.  In the end she can’t have what she wants and there is no truth in her supposed “freedom”.  She is miserable for this reason and cannot have what she truly wants.

            This is similar to when we try to leave God’s plan.  We seek out different things to give our lives purpose and yet in the end we can’t.  Staying away from what we are designed for ends in turmoil and pain.  Elsa bears the worst in the story as she abandons not only what she hates about the world, but the good of it (especially her sister).  In the end, what she actually has is hollow and empty.

            One of the things though that drives Elsa away from her kingdom is hatred.  Not Elsa’s hatred but the hatred from others of her.  She gets called a monster, a sorceress, and they send a party to kill her.  As a result, Elsa only comes to hate herself and fear her subjects even more than she already did.  In the end, she loses the will to live and becomes resign to her fate.  Nothing remains for her beyond her fear because of all the hatred she was shown.

            Unsurprisingly, this is an easy way to lose people.  Dale Carnegie noted in “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that the easiest way to drive someone away is to show anger and hatred.  To win someone over, they don’t want to be attacked, they want to be shown respect and compassion.  I know from personal experience that someone who berated or insulted me only made me get angry at myself and that person.  So a different way is necessary to address these feelings.

            As Elsa has finally accepted her situation, she turns herself over to be killed by the movie’s villain as he raises his sword to finish the job.  However, Anna gets in the way to stop that and almost dies in the process.  From this, Elsa finally realizes that she is loved and that her hatred of herself is unfounded.  From there her heart starts to warm as she finally clears her head and starts to take control of her powers.  The villain is defeated, the storm finally ends, and Elsa is free to be with the ones she loves.

            Most people want to be a part of something, they want community and companionship.  As we discussed in a college class of mine, the Beatles gained a lot of popularity because they offered community.  The song Yellow Submarine says “We” quite often which is meant to include the listener, Eleanor Rigby focuses on loneliness, and the video to All You Need is Love had the Beatles singing while their fans surrounded them .  In the end, all people want to have a connection to someone (especially Elsa) and offering this is what can win people over and get them to leave behind something.  Everyone wants to be a part of something more and offering them that is how to spread your message.

            It is not that surprising that sacrificial love frees Elsa as that is Christ’s story as well.  In the end giving his life took away our burden and freed man from his own sins so that he may have a relationship with God.  God himself offers this love and it is what can get mankind free from its bondage.  So similar to Elsa being set free by Anna’s love, we are set free by Christ’s love for us.  Of course, how it is shown is also important.

            So in the end Elsa is freed by love.  She’s no longer a shut in and uses her powers for what she used to.  The film ends with her and Anna going ice skating with their subjects on the palace grounds as they are finally where they want to be.  We see that Elsa is using her powers correctly which is good for her and those around her.  So sin is the same way.  We all have impulses and talents, but it is what we do about them good or bad.  Right does exist but it is something that must be chosen or pursued.  In Elsa’s case, she learned that in the end and it was only after being showed something good in her life.  I hope we can take that message to heart and learn from it, for that will be what sets us free.