Beware the frozen heart

When listening to the Frozen Broadway cast recording the other day it really got me thinking about the original fairy tale of The Snow Queen and how the two compare. This isn't anything I've done any research on as I want it to be my own theories without outside influence, and I'm sure it's not a new topic at all but it's something I wanted to share my own thoughts on anyway!

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen is probably my all time favourite fairy tale, and it's something I go way back with. I'm Danish and grew up on Andersen's works as a child and so they hold a lot of personal significance to me, and when I was in my foundation year of art school for my big final project I decided I wanted to illustrate my own version of The Snow Queen.



The artwork is really old and kind of embarrassing to me now (I actually plan on redoing it entirely as a personal project for my portfolio) but it was a labor of love as The Snow Queen is an epic in length for being a fairy tale, and a lot of background research went into everything and it got me one of the highest grades in my class. Which is all to say that I'm intimately knowledgeable of the original story.

I've been a huge fan of Disney my whole life and was hugely involved in the fandom in the early '10s when it was all forum based (I love forums, I wish they'd come back! They were so perfect for fandoms as they were so community driven but had the benefit of being moderated by people and not automated systems so no one could be an asshat or unfairly censored). I knew Disney had a long history of trying to adapt The Snow Queen dating back to the 1930s, and multiple times it had come into production only to be shelved due to the dark and episodic themes of the novel. So when it was finally released in 2013 (after I'd already completed my own illustrated book!) I could hardly wait and went to the very first screening that I could. And I hated it!! Yeah, big twist - what is now one of my favourite movies I did not get along with on first viewing. I remember people gushing about it and I just did not get the hype as all I could see was a bastardisation of my favourite story.

Obviously I expected Disney to alter the source material but I couldn't see any of the original tale in Frozen and that was what put my nose so out of joint. It wasn't until I saw it again by chance in 2015 that it really hit me emotionally and I was able to separate it entirely from the source and appreciate it as it's own thing. Since then I've collected all kinds of merchandise, cosplayed as Elsa at cons and at the Disney parks, Disneybounded as the characters and collected limited edition dresses based on their costumes, and travelled all of the way from the UK to see it on Broadway (OK it wasn't my main reason for going to NYC, Aaron Tveit in Moulin Rouge was, but I still paid an obscene amount to see it!) In fact it's probably fair to say at this point that Frozen has come to mean more to me than the original Andersen tale which just feels nostalgic to me now more than anything else.



Despite my love of both, I haven't really thought too much about how the two stories cross over and share similarities as like I said, I prefer to keep the two separate as they're so different. Other than Elsa being a Queen with ice powers, two of the background servants being named Gerda and Kai, and there being a reindeer as a main character, there really isn't anything immediately obvious that points it as being an adaptation. Even the overarching themes aren't really the same; in The Snow Queen the main message is good verses evil and the importance of innocence - the Snow Queen represents temptation, and Kai only becomes vulnerable to her when the mirror shards have entered his heart and eye and changed his view of the world to a more adult, cynical version. This is hugely important, and actually really relevant to Frozen upon closer inspection, but Frozen is generally about true love and the effects fear and isolation can have on both a person and a community. The Snow Queen also has a lot of Christian influence, but I'm not mad that Disney took that aspect out.

The Snow Queen (which can be read here) actually begins with a magic mirror that distorts everything it reflects by reducing everything pure and good into nothingness and magnifying everything ugly and evil. A group of trolls (!!) try to fly the mirror up the Heavens to "make fools of the angels" (like I said, there's a heavy handed Christian element that's as subtle as a brick) but as the mirror gets higher and higher into the sky it shatters and falls back down to Earth.

Kai and Gerda are child neighbours who have grown up playing together and are as close as brother and sister. Shards of the magic troll mirror fall onto Kai, one piercing his heart which turns it to ice (!), and another that gets caught in his eye and distorts his view of the world into something ugly and contemptible. He's mean to Gerda and is generally a bit of an asshat for seemingly no reason, which is possibly why no one but Gerda seems to care when he suddenly goes missing. When Kai is out playing on his sled by himself, the Snow Queen pulls up in a carriage and kisses him so he can no longer feel the cold and takes him to her palace in the North. This is the only real appearance of the Snow Queen in the whole story and her motives are completely ambiguous. In her palace she gives Kai a puzzle of broken ice shards and tells him that if he can spell out the correct word then he can become his own master, so he settles down on the frozen lake and gets to work.


Gerda's distraught at the loss of her friend and decides to go find him. She begins by boat but soon loses her paddles and is left to float until she meets land and is greeted by an old woman who erases Gerda's memory of Kai so that she'll stay with the woman as an adoptive daughter. Which works well, until Gerda spots a rose which reminds her of playing in the flowers with Kai and she bursts into tears, but the flowers confirm that Kai can't be dead as they haven't seen him in the Earth so Gerda runs away. Next she meets a crow who thinks Kai may have married a local princess which turns out to be a false alarm but the Prince and Princess are kind enough to provide Gerda with a carriage to take her on her journey, but it results in Gerda being taken prisoner by a band of thieves further along. The Robber Girl forces Gerda to be her friend by holding her at knife point which upsets Gerda alot, but the Robber Girl's captive pigeons tell Gerda that Kai has been taken by the Snow Queen, and the captive reindeer Bæ tells Gerda that he knows where the palace is located. The Robber Girl lets Gerda and Bæ go free and he carries Gerda to Finnmark, meeting the Lapland Woman and the Finn Woman along the way, but Gerda must make the remainder of the journey alone as otherwise she won't be able to enter the palace. Kai is unable to recognise Gerda as he's obsessed with the ice puzzle and has turned black with cold, and the sight of him in that state reduces Gerda to tears and she tries to hug him. The warmth of her tears melts the ice in his heart, and now able to feel again Kai weeps as he recognises his closest friend and his tears dislodge the shard in his eye. They leave the palace and travel home together, and although they are now grown they retain the innocence and optimism of youth in their hearts which is what saved them.

This is a very abridged version of the tale, and you can tell that it's very different from the plot of Frozen which I'm not going to detail as I'm assuming that you already know it, but I wanted to give some background of the original in case you're not familiar.

At first glance there don't seem to be many similarities. It's kind of obvious that Gerda and Anna could be said to be the same character - Anna retains her innocence, which often comes across as naivety in her agreeing to marry Prince Hans and charging off into the wilderness alone to look for her sister, but it's very clear that her heart is in the right place and like Gerda she meets people that help her along the way even if the cast of characters look a bit different. I've seen Kristoff compared to the Robber Girl which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth - the Robber Girl literally murders people and rubs a knife along the throat of the reindeer to stop him from running away. I can't imagine Kristoff treating Sven like that, and as Kristoff is directly inspired by indigenous Sámi cultures comparing him to the Robber Girl starts to jump headfirst into blatant racism so please consider don't.

For me, it's actually the character of Kai that I find the most intriguing in all of this and how he fits into the cast of Frozen. I've seen people say that Elsa is both the Snow Queen and Kai combined, but that never sat right with me as I don't see any of Kai in Elsa - she has no sudden switch of personality, no task she obsessively feels she must undertake, so I really don't see what that comparison is even based on. But as I was sat listening to the Broadway soundtrack on the train and listening to John Riddle enthusiastically sing Love Is An Open Door with Patti Murin it suddenly struck me - Hans is Kai (I know, several paragraphs in and I finally get to the point of the post, but I had to set it up!)


Hans is a very complex character within Frozen, I'd argue the most complex and it's why he's my favourite as there's so much to unpack and interpret with him. I've always been of the opinion that Disney did him dirty in the movie as one of the reasons he's so complex is because he wasn't originally written as the villain - Elsa was. But after the songwriters wrote Let It Go and discovered Elsa's motives they couldn't comfortably place her as the villain anymore, so made a last minute decision to switch it to Hans. That's why there is no foreshadowing and it's really poor writing and he's generally considered to be such a weak character (which has been analysed many times before and I won't go into, but you can read more here if you need the receipts). With the release of Frozen II Disney made it pretty clear that they now want to portray Hans as a simple black and white villain by calling him an "irredeemable monster", which is sad as it turns his backstory from something complex that could of opened a discussion about his descent into the Freudian Excuse trope and jeering at him. This feels incredibly tone-deaf to me considering the story arcs of Elsa and Anna and the main themes of personal growth in Frozen, and even goes directly against statements made by writer Jennifer Lee.

If you're not a fan of Hans and aren't fully aware of his backstory, he grew up the youngest of 13 sons and was abused throughout his childhood. He states this himself in a throwaway comment to Anna about how his brothers "pretended I was invisible, literally, for two years.", which has been followed up in official releases by Disney such as a comic strip and a book called A Frozen Heart which also shows his father as an abusive sociopath. This isn't sympathising a villain or trying to excuse his actions, but it does add to the layers of his character. It's exceptional and unheard of for a Disney villain to display any degree of self-doubt or ambiguity, so why did Disney originally go to such lengths to give him a traumatic back story just to make him a throwaway villain? Because he wasn't the villain.

There's long been a theory in Frozen fan circles that the trolls are the true villains of the story. They're the ones who encourage Elsa's parents to hide her away and force her to conceal her feelings which leads to her own traumatic experiences, and while they heal Anna they state "the heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded." This is an example of genuine foreshadowing, and could point to why Hans does a complete 180 after Anna meets the trolls with Kristoff and they sing such choice lines as "Her quote 'engagement' is a flex arrangement" and "Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed!". Also remember the magic mirror in the original Snow Queen belonged to the trolls!

Which brings us back to Kai. Sweet, kind, innocent Kai who got a frozen heart and a distorted view of the world when two pieces of troll mirror fell onto him from the sky. Who could no longer see goodness and acted selfishly and obsessively until Gerda melted his frozen heart. As Anna states to Hans towards the finale of Frozen:


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I'm not saying for definite that the trolls had any part in it but it's definitely interesting, and there are certainly a lot of parallels between the characterisations of Kai and Hans and how it changes their behaviours. One of the aspects of Hans' character that I've always been intrigued by is how it parallels Elsa - a character who also grew up in an abusive household, although not through malicious intent like Hans experienced, but rather due to over protection and shortsightedness by her parents - and how they both show how abuse can shape a person. For Elsa it caused low self esteem, isolation, and self punishment, whereas for Hans one could argue it made him act outwards and present himself as he thinks others want him to be seen whilst being emotionally volatile. Or maybe he was just genuinely trying to make a better life for himself away from his abusive family and sensed Anna was looking for the same deal and was happy to marry her until his heart and eyes were frozen by magic trolls which distorted his view and made him behave like a jackass. Maybe.

I guess we'll never truly know, but it's fun to mull over and I enjoy any links I can find between my favourite movie and my favourite fairy tale. And it's why I'll forever be mad that Hans got such a rush job treatment as he has the potential to be an amazing character. He’s emotionally damaged and an arrogant and vindictive dick, but that doesn’t make him evil. I like that he's ambiguous and morally grey and how that forces the audience to question whether they can trust him. As in reality, most people are like that.

Yet another scene that parallels Kai and Hans - at the beginning of The Snow Queen Kai looks out of the frost covered window and sees the Snow Queen beckoning to him, and here we have a big pointed scene of Hans looking out of the frost covered window at the storm Elsa created - whilst being an ass to Anna, much like Kai was to Gerda (who we've already established is Anna!).

Frozen II (2019)

Wow, long time no post, huh! I kind of forgot about this blog for a long time, I guess as back when I started it I wasn't buying much as I was saving to go to New York, and then quite honestly I was so disappointed with Frozen II when it was released that I needed a break. Which is kind of where this post comes in really, as I felt like I should finally post my thoughts on my actual Frozen blog. I still really love the original movie and nothing will ever take that away from me, I've just chosen to completely disregard the sequel as canon as it feels very much more like AU anyway. I saw it once, at the cinema on it's release day, and these are my initial thoughts. The fact that it came out in November 2019, and I'm writing this intro in April 2020 and haven't seen it again since should be a big spoiler as to my feelings about it! And I know I wasn't alone in my disappointment as most of the hardcore Frozen fans I speak to on a regular basis all had the same hang ups.


I want to stress that it's not a bad film, and if it wasn't related to Frozen and told it's story with it's own set of characters I'd probably enjoy it. And it feels like they have done that to an extent as the characters are so far removed from everything set out in the first movie and there's so many plot holes that just don't add up, particularly the whole story with their parents and how and why they died and outright blaming Elsa for her parents deaths which was such a cheap shot. And there's a lot of cheap shots in this movie, and I don't understand why? Are Disney trying really hard to be 'ironic'? If so it doesn't work. They make several jokes about Elsa's Let It Go scene, and even show Elsa cringing at herself during a flashback. Yes that song is overplayed, but it got overplayed because it resonated with a lot of people and it was a key part of the first film and Elsa's growth, and so why would she cringe at that part of herself? Nor does it make any sense how Olaf and Kristoff would have any idea of what Elsa looked like in the part Olaf renacts in the charades scene as neither of them were with Elsa during Let It Go. It was just an excuse to take yet another swing at their most successful movie to date, and speaking as someone who owns a large Frozen collection and has invested a lot of my time and money into things surrounding the film it just felt really tacky.


There were several cheap shots at the character of Prince Hans too, which I knew about before going in but they were just...odd? There was literally no reason to mention him as he didn't fit into the script in any way, so it felt like a direct attack at the fanbase who have been pestering Disney for his return and better character treatment. Not even necessarily redemption, we've just wanted him fleshed out more as he's such an interesting complex character who was canonically abused as a child by his family and they saw that as a reason to make him "an evil sociopath" (which he's not, he's a WEAK ASS villain with shaky motive who gave up without any resistance) and now he's the butt of every joke and it's like, what kind of message is that for Disney to send out about victims of abuse? Elsa and Anna spent years yearning for acceptance themselves and literally the entire message of the first movie is "love thaws a frozen heart" - unless you're called Hans and then you'll just get thrown under the bus at every available opportunity. (And just for reference he was never originally supposed to be the villain in Frozen, it was a last minute decision which is why he's so weak and there's zero foreshadowing and it makes NO sense as a 'twist', and the original script of Frozen II focused on Hans and redeeming him and even had a hinted romance between him and Elsa, so to do this complete 180 on his character has left fans angry and confused)

The animation of this film was really beautiful, I especially enjoyed the scenes of Elsa in the water with the Nokk and her taming him, and I liked that the film didn't dumb anything down and actually dealt with adult themes of loss and grief without glossing over it. The kids in the movie theatre were really aggravating me as they were all restless, and it's probably because they didn't have a clue what was going on on screen because it's not a dumbed down kids movie. Not only is there the death of the parents brought back up, but Elsa dies which is quickly followed by Olaf dying in Anna's arms, Anna singing an entire song about her grief and feelings of abandonment, plus the murder and quarantine of indigenous people, and that's heavy going for Disney!

I'd heard a lot of good things about the soundtrack, and I'd avoided it despite it being all over YouTube as I wanted to wait to hear the songs in the context of the movie before I made a decision on them. And I thought they were all really weak, I couldn't hum you a single one as they were so forgettable. Maybe they'll grow on me, but I just didn't even care when they were singing and as a hardcore fan of musicals that's a pretty major thing for me to say! I'd heard a lot of 'Kristoff's 80s power ballad', and didn't realise that it was literally an 80s power ballad that the entire plot grinds to a sudden halt for and embarrassingly plays out like a bad music video and it was just really odd and clearly just there to give Jonathan Groff a song and no other reason, Kristoff doesn't even serve a purpose for most of the movie. Olaf was fairly pointless too, and he's been infantalised to such a degree that he's kind of annoying. I always defend him in the first movie as he represents the love Anna and Elsa shared as sisters and he saves Anna from being locked in the library and moves the plot forward, but he does nothing in this at all besides some lame comic relief.


My biggest issue with this movie though is simply how much it retcons the original, and takes its themes and messages and just tosses them away. Although the entire first movie was about Anna and Elsa reuniting, by the end of this film they're entirely separated. Elsa follows a voice in her head that only she can hear which leads her North, actively pushing Anna away, and after dying by freezing to death (even though "the cold doesn't bother her", guess we're going back on that!) she's brought back by becoming the fifth elemental spirit - as encouraged by the trolls, and there's long been a theory in Frozen fan circles that the trolls are the true villains and this just reinforces that. At the beginning of the original movie the trolls state "the heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded", and it's after Fixer Upper with an actual lyric of "Get the fiance out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed" that Hans does his complete 180 which allows Kristoff, the trolls adopted son, to date the princess of Arendelle. Now the trolls actively encouraged Elsa to abdicate and become the elemental spirit and leave the throne to Anna, which makes Kristoff, aka their adopted son, KING OF ARENDELLE. I smell several rats!!

Anyway, trolls aside, Elsa gives up her life to become the fifth elemental spirit and becomes some kind of Goddess of the North riding through the lands on Nokk, and it's like...the WHOLE ENTIRE first film is about Elsa's humanity, and then you take that away from her at the first opportunity?!? She spends the whole first movie trying to prove that she's a person no different from any other and just happens to have these powers she doesn't understand and that she doesn't need to isolate herself, but now according to this sequel she's always known that she was meant for bigger, better things and is better off alone? None of this film makes any sense in the context of the first movie, and it changes so much of the characters to make them fit this plot that they're barely recognisable. And it's such a shame, because if they weren't so busy making cheap shots at their own success and taunting fans then they could of expanded on these characters and made a film just as meaningful as the original but without the rushed plot changes. And as it is, we've ended up with a film that adds nothing to the development of these characters or their story, a flat plot line, and a forgettable mediocre soundtrack. Watching it, it seriously felt like the creators just don't care about Frozen anymore and that they tried to write something to end it with some finality, and I just find the whole attitude Disney have towards it extremely odd when you consider what a cash cow it is for them and how it revived the whole company when the first movie was released. They could at least show it some respect, but apparently that's too much to ask for.

The only thing I did kind of like from the whole mess was when Elsa was in Ahtohallan it finally felt like she was truly becoming The Snow Queen from Hans Christian Andersen's novel, and I could picture her taking Kai there to rebuild the mirror and that was kind of cool. There was also a throwaway comment in a flashback scene where it shows Agnarr reading a book and he says it's "some new Danish author", and I just appreciated them touching on the source material like that as it did feel so far removed in the first movie.

Frozen Broadway

Last week I was in New York, which even now feels like a surreal sentence to say and now I'm home it half feels like it was all a dream. I've always wanted to visit New York and see a show on Broadway. I don't know if I've got a 'bucket list' per se, but it's just always been a life goal of mine. I've been a fan of musical theatre for most of my life, since I saw the Oliver! revival on the West End as part of a school trip when I was 7 years old. I grew up just outside London and each year my school would trek into the city centre for a matinee performance, a privilege which I took for granted. I was probably about 16 when it went from being something I casually enjoyed to something I was passionate about, and I had wanted to make it my career but life had other plans (which looking back I'm thankful for as I prefer just being a fan, it keeps the magic alive).

I regularly travel into London to see shows, and of course New York has always seemed like the bigger, brighter option. Last November I decided that I'd had enough dreaming and wanted to put things into action. Moulin Rouge had premiered for a limited run in Boston earlier that year, and I was really excited at the prospect of it being adapted to the stage as it's always been one of my favourite movies. I had already felt a little envious watching everything unfold second hand through my computer screen, and decided to turn those negative feelings into something positive. I promised myself that when Moulin Rouge opened on Broadway, I'd be there and would see it with it's original cast. It didn't have a date at that time so I still had the comfort of it feeling a way off. For about a week anyway, and then the dates were announced and panic set in! I realised that I was going to have to buy a ticket on a random date and hope that I could scramble together a trip around it. And that's basically what I did, buying bits of the trip as and when I could afford it and hoping it would all come together. And I did it! And although Moulin Rouge was the catalyst for finally getting me to actually make the trip a reality, obviously seeing Frozen adapted for Broadway was high on my priority list - I never even expected to have the opportunity to see this show, so you can imagine how excited I was!



The set design was really amazing, there was so much detailing in the wood carving around the stage and I loved how the lighting effects made it look like it had been frozen. So much of the design, both stage and costume, was inspired by traditional Norwegian and Sámi designs and I really love the whole vibe it gave the show. Because it's such high fantasy it gives it a grounded sense of realism. I sat first row of the mezzanine, right in the centre, which felt perfect as I was close enough to get the detail but far enough away to appreciate all of the lighting and staging effects, of which there are A LOT to create Elsa's powers.

Although I hadn't seen Frozen on stage before, I'm very familiar with the soundtrack as I listen to it more than the movie version (is it some kind of blasphemy to admit I perfer Caissie Levy to Idina Menzel? 😬) and it was such a buzz getting to see something that I know so well and hold so dear to me unfurl on stage in a new but familiar way. When Vuelie started, and for most of Let The Sun Shine On and Do You Want To Build A Snowman? I was actually crying because I just love Frozen so much and hearing and seeing it live just completely overwhelmed me.


(Obviously I had to wear my Hans dress!)
Caissie Levy wasn't on that night and Elsa was performed by the understudy Charissa Hogeland. Her Elsa was very timid and soft spoken and it suited her perfectly (she also looked perfect in the costume, which I know isn't super important but I believed she was Elsa). Otherwise it was the regularly billed cast, and it was a real thrill seeing Patti Murin as Anna - she seems so much like Anna in real life and is so perfectly cast. From what I've seen of pictures and videos I wasn't sure how I felt about Olaf and Sven, but I have to say actually seeing it on stage it totally works. Olaf was really endearing and Ryann Redmond completely disappeared, I kept trying to watch her but my eyes kept drifting to the snowman she was operating.

My only gripes were with Kristoff and Hans, which is a shame as I'd had high hopes from listening to their additional songs on the soundtrack that they'd been better developed (and I must add that my disappointment had nothing to do with the actors who were both amazing, but the way the characters have been written for the stage). The reason why the characters in the movie are so popular is because they're so complex and realistic for it. Kristoff is kind of an asshole to Anna when he first meets her and really doesn't care about her plight - and when you consider that he's a indigenous Sámi man who's been ostracized his whole life, why would he? Him gradually learning to care for Anna is his main character development, and so it just felt really out of character in the musical for him to almost force Anna into accepting his help, and they just tried too hard to make him the typical 'Prince-Charming, look-how-helpful-I-am-there's-nothing-bad-about me' character and so he lacked any depth and didn't really develop as a result. He was just boring.

And then there's Hans. 

Prince Hans, along with Elsa, is my favourite character from Frozen. He is one of the most intriguing yet cheaply used characters Disney have ever created, which is a big part of why he's so polarising to audiences. I could write a whole essay on how complex a character Hans is due to him being morally grey, a victim of abuse, and Elsa's one true equal. 

I love the song's they've given Hans in the musical which I think is what got me so hopeful he'd had a better treatment than the movie gave him, and I fully accept that there's many subtleties that can be provided in film that just won't come across on stage and so things need to be stripped back. I get that. BUT HE HAD NO GLOVES. I know how absurd that sounds, but it was the first thing I noticed when his character came out on stage. Gloves are huge symbolism in Frozen: Elsa is forced to wear them to conceal her powers and true feelings, it's Anna removing Elsa's glove that causes her to freak out and freeze Arendelle, and Elsa then removes her final glove as she's liberated in Let It Go. All of these details are still in the stage show!! It's still important symbolism!! So why isn't Hans wearing his freaking gloves??? Hans is the only character other than Elsa to wear gloves, and the only time he removes one is when he reveals his true intentions to Anna and thus shows his true self like Elsa does earlier in the story. His gloves are a major part of the plot!! Of his character development!!! 

Also his coat bothered me too. It's basically the same as the Arendelle guards, just with extra cape layers to single him out from the ensemble. In the movie he wears his own coat in Southern Isles colours with Southern Isles insignia, which marks him as the outlier. It just felt really lazy from the costume department and direction, and it hurt a lot as he's a character that means so much to me. His parts felt really rushed too and wasn't really resolved at the end as he just disappears, and it was such a letdown as his additional songs are so awesome and I had such high hopes. 

I must stress that it was an amazing show though! The whole cast were fantastic, and if you're not as emotionally invested in Hans as I am I'm sure you won't even understand what I'm upset about!

It's time to see what I can do

At the end of May I went down to London for MCM Comic Con, which I hadn't been to since 2011 I think? Cosplay is something I've often been intrigued by and dipped my toe into now and then, I think it's an obvious hobby with me being a bit of a nerd about my interests and being a dress maker and overall crafty type. Confidence is what I lack, but I figured I'd never have any if I didn't force myself out of my comfort zone, so that's what I did.


I had intended to go as Coronation Elsa, but the weather ended up being far too warm so last minute I switched to a more casual Elsa look with my Secret Honey set and a wig I styled myself. I think it was a good choice as having a more casual outfit stopped me feeling quite so anxious about the whole thing, but it was obvious enough as a cosplay that little girls gasped when they saw me (always a wonderful feeling that makes me truly feel like the character!)

I came home brimming with future cosplay ideas, including cross-play which isn't an idea I'd even really thought of before for some reason? I don't know why, I guess I just felt like because I'm a girl I have to stick to female characters, but I saw some wonderful female cosplayers convincingly portraying male characters and felt inspired! It's definitely brand new territory, but something I'd really love to explore as a lot of my favourite characters are male. Wonder if I could make a convincing Hans XD

Hello!!

I decided to set up a space to talk about Frozen, as I have a blogs to talk about everything else!

As my blog name suggests, I enjoy collecting Frozen merchandise. But I'm also fussy - I won't collect any old thing, I subscribe to the idea of only owning things that bring me joy, and let's face it, there's a lot of Frozen related tat about!! But I'm really passionate about the things I do own, and I love geeking out over little details and differences and wanted to create a space for myself where I can do just that without boring my usual blog readers (although I do still post about Frozen there too, just in less detail!) I don't pretend to be an expert on anything, I never collected toys or anything before I started collecting Frozen so with a lot of these things I'm still learning.

Everyone always rolls their eyes when I say my favourite movie is Frozen because it’s so popular, but I can’t tell you how much this film means to me. I always loved The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated a whole 32 page book based on it when I was at art college, so I was really excited to see Disney’s adaptation before it even came out. And it’s just a film that’s taken on so much personal meaning to me and I relate to certain characters, mostly Elsa, so much and I can’t tell you how important that feels when you’ve been made to feel like an oddball most of your life to then have that kind of representation. I’ve always loved Disney my whole entire life, but Frozen itself had kind of grown into something beyond even Disney to me. It’s just pulled me out of some really dark places and it’s more than just a film to me at this point.

Elsa and Hans are my favourite characters and who I enjoy collecting things of the most, especially Hans as, being the antagonist, he doesn't get included in as much merchandise as the other characters. So there will no doubt be a lot of him! I really love all of the characters though, there isn't anyone I dislike (except maybe Weselton...)

I actually received a new Hans though the post today, so it feels like a good place to start!



It's a plushie keyring that was released for Anna and Elsa's Frozen Fantasy at Tokyo Disneyland. Isn't he great?? I've wanted one for the longest time, but being from Tokyo their obviously quite difficult to get hold of for me in the UK. I bought him from a Japanese auction website (Mercari) and it cost a small fortune for it is with all of the shopping service and import fees, but it's worth it to me! He's a soft minky fabric, and he's so well crafted which plushie humans usually aren't. All of the main Frozen characters exist in this form, but obviously being me I wanted Hans the most.

He's about 17cm tall, and has both a saftey pin aswell as a keychain (although I think I'll be replacing this with something more strudy). Mine came with it's original tags, which it almost feels a shame to remove but I can't wait to use him! The details are just exquisite, and I love that decorative elements such as on his jacket are embroidered rather than printed like they probably would be if this was released in the West. Japanese merchandise is often much superior quality which is why I'm happy to pay for it.



Until next time!