Reply To: Emma + Baelfire = Swanfire

[Slurpeez]

In many ways, Frozen just did things other Disney/Pixar films did. Spunky, active heroine? Yes, look at Tangled and Princess and the Frog, and the Pixar Brave. Romance isn’t the love story? Yes, I mentioned Brave already, all about the mother and daughter relationship. What it did though was combine things so there was the music and beautiful 3D visuals, the romance and the strong family story about sisters. Little girls didn’t want to dress up as Queen Elinor–but Queen Elsa? They like her much more, want to identify and be her more than Anna even.

See, I watched Brave and thought that it was a nice twist on the classic princess tale. Then when I saw Frozen, I thought the plots were pretty similar. Enchanted queens, fractured family, and finally, familial love is a form of true love. I thought Princess Merida was pretty similar to Queen Elsa, both were misunderstood and single. I couldn’t help but compare the mother/daughter story to that of the sister story. It’s all endearing, yet both stories still seemed to be lacking in plot development…neither story managed to hold my attention and I found myself growing bored during the movies. I actually liked Tangled more than either Frozen or Brave, which were both just average in my opinion (with the exception of Frozen‘s music). In my estimation, I thought Tangled had much more interesting characters, and I didn’t find my attention drifting as it did in Brave and Frozen. Other than the song “Let it Go” being quite catchy and there being some funny lines in the movie, I didn’t get why Frozen was considered to be so much better than the other princess movies of the last 10 years. Maybe it comes back to the sisterhood theme, which sort of appeals as in the classic “female” novels such as Little Women.

There’s a quote from Jane Austen that fits the writing and fan view of this story very well. “With a perversity of judgement, which must be attributed to his not having by Nature a very strong head, the Graces, the Spirit, the Sagacity, and the Perseverance, of the Villain of the Story outweighed all his absurdities and all his Atrocities with Sir Edward. With him, such Conduct was Genius, Fire and Feeling. It interested and inflamed him; and he was always more anxious for its Success and mourned over its Discomfitures with more Tenderness than could ever have been contemplated by the Authors.” ― Jane Austen

There is a reason Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors ever.