Disney’s Frozen is supposed to be loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, but, sorry to mix metaphors, “loose” is a pretty big “stretch” in this case. Aside from some overlap with their symbolic use of coldness, there is not much else in common between them. Both are good stories in their own right, though, so why try to connect them in the first place?

The only explanation I can come up with is that Disney values being able to trace its movies back to the original fairy tales, full of history and tradition and that extra something special they have. After all, what better way to produce an instant classic than to hang on the coattails of a true classic? Nevertheless, “classic” is no more than a stamp on Frozen because it is so far removed from the original.

So what, then, is so wrong with The Snow Queen by modern standards that Disney had to discard essentially the whole thing? Let’s first look at the plot and then try to figure this out.

PLOT ANALYSIS

Exposition – Background

The Snow Queen begins with a story behind the story, one that has many similarities to the fall of man in salvation history and serves as the premise: A mischievous sprite seeks to create discord in the world, so he makes an evil mirror that can distort the appearance of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth. Some of his sprite buddies get their hands on the mirror and shatter it into a million pieces that spread across the world, each separately retaining the power of the whole.

Inciting Incident – The Problem

One of those pieces falls in the eye of a good little boy named Kay, and another takes hold in his heart. The glass, which symbolically represents sin, turns him cold to the warmth of love and friendship and makes him a stranger in his own garden. He no longer sees the flowers as God made them but as the evil sprite wants them to be seen.

Rising Action – The Build-up

And so Kay grows apart from his best friend and playmate, a little girl named Gerda, and starts getting into a lot of trouble.

A wicked Snow Queen, presumably born out of the mirror somehow, eventually lures him away to her palace where he turns black with cold. So blinded is he by the glass in his eye, though, that he does not even feel the coldness that grips him. He spends his days as a prisoner, listlessly playing with blocks of ice and arranging them into all sorts of different patterns. He hopes in his own numb way to form them into a magical word that will set him free, a word the Snow Queen wants to keep hidden from him

Meanwhile, Gerda sets out to find Kay. She gets carried from one place to another, each offering her a different path for her own life. She turns down the comforts of a never-ending childhood, the splendors of life in a royal court, and the thrills of banditry all in favor of finding Kay. The further she travels, the colder it gets and the more difficult her journey becomes. Yet, the warmth of Gerda’s goodness and her frequent prayers protect her from danger, even when she ends up barefoot in the snow. 

Climax – The Breaking Point

At long last, Gerda arrives at the palace of the Snow Queen and sees Kay playing with the ice blocks, but he is completely unaware of her presence. Gerda goes to him and sheds “burning tears” that melt the lump of ice in his heart. She then sings a song from their childhood:

“The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet, The Child Jesus is there the children to greet.”

The song awakens his conscience, and Kay weeps so much that the glass rolls out of his eye. Next, the ice blocks form themselves into the magical word that can set him free—eternity.

Falling Action – The Unraveling

Kay and Gerda then travel back over the lands from whence they came, seeing everything anew with unblemished eyesight. Flowers and verdure awaken in their path as they find their way home.   

Resolution – Happily Ever After

They return both changed in age and wisdom. Kay and Gerda have grown up, not just literally but also spiritually, for they have learned to see the world as God does, to embrace Goodness, Beauty, and Truth with childlike simplicity.

In connection to salvation history, the story has come full circle. Kay and Gerda have gotten their innocence back by overcoming the sin in the world. As such, they have been figuratively readmitted into the eternal garden that is Heaven.

THE DISNEY EFFECT

It’s little wonder Disney changed the story so much given all the Christian messages. Some fairy tales, like Cinderella, only have Christian undertones, but The Snow Queen is much more overt. While it might be nice for a major filmmaker like Disney to keep those intact, it’s not surprising they don’t since their audience has all sorts of religious affiliations. More viewers equals more sales.

What does surprise me is that Disney made Frozen so exclusively about girls. Sure, I understand the “girl power” idea, but I actually think transforming Kay into the far-off character of Elsa (the older sister) weakens that message. After all, Gerda saves Kay, not the other way around. Hans Christian Andersen had already turned the knight in shining armor archetype on its head.

What’s more, Gerda does it out of the purest love there is—sacrificial love. We can infer that she and Kay will live happily ever after as husband and wife, but Hans Christian Andersen leaves out any hint of romance. His really is a story for kids because it celebrates childhood as the goal of life, not marriage or some other grown-up ideal. After all, Kay and Gerda learn that they must be like children to enter into the Kingdom of God. 

Another big difference with Frozen is that it is set against the backdrop of royalty whereas Kay and Gerda are common folk. Once again, I get it. Princess themes sell lots of movies.

But in my view, Gerda could hold her own with the best of the fairy tale princesses and the princes, even without a crown. That’s the beauty of The Snow Queen. Its heroine is a real-life character who overcomes the dangers in the every-day world. Gerda could be any little child, girl or boy, rich or poor, who brings the warmth of love to others.

CONCLUSION

Hans Christian Andersen may have liked Frozen, but it’s doubtful he would have found much in common with his own story. In either case, Disney breathed new life into The Snow Queen for a new generation of children, including my students.

They always enjoy comparing the versions and learn much about the differences in our world today and that in which Andersen lived. By examining the cold and ice imagery, they also come to a better understanding of the dangers of sin.

As I frequently tell my students, the more one sins the more he becomes desensitized to sin. That’s a pretty difficult concept for them to understand on its own, but it makes perfect sense when they hear a story about a little boy who gets glass in his eye and eventually becomes a prisoner of the Snow Queen without even realizing it.

Now, that’s something kids can imagine and understand and even relate to.