I do really like Frozen and Elsa in general (I'm generally pretty obsessed with Frozen 2 xD), so I dislike rating anything Frozen less than 3 stars, but this one is a solid 2/5 for me. I found the writing to be a bit two-dimensional and bland and well yes, obviously it is a short story aimed at children, same as many other Frozen comics I've read this year, but I do think the characterization could be a bit better anyway. However, that isn't the reason why I gave this a 2.
The main reason is that its treatment of social class and monarchy, a general pet peeve I personally have with Disney in general, is particularly atrocious in this story. I kept mentally ranting at the ebook nearly every single page because my gods, it's terrible. And the fact that it's a short story aimed at children kinda makes it worse, because well, making something 'easier' for children to read means that the writing style and the storyline are generally more simple to follow, it doesn't mean that they should be learning about backward gender roles (not an issue in this story, Frozen actually was a big improvement in this respect, thankfully), or about romanticized ideas of monarchy and class imbalance (which is a Disney trend). More of this below, because wow did this book deliver on this respect.
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| Social criticism incoming xD |
This review contains spoilers
-1 But even when it comes to Elsa's powers the story showcased them as wrong, in a way! Like, Elsa tries to make the villagers like her (or rather, does her job as queen for a couple of days until she falls ill from the exhaustion :S) by helping them out with her powers (the villagers themselves ask for her powers specifically for various needs), and Anna insists that she's exerting herself too much and that she should offer alternative solutions without using her powers so that the villagers like her for what she really is, not just her powers. But isn't the general idea of Frozen that Elsa learns to accept and love herself as she is, and hopes that Arendelle will do that as well, and a sizeable part of who she is *are* her magical powers, which she has had to repress and hide for so long?? To say that her powers don't define her is almost like the opposite thing, because that's like the main symbolism in the whole Elsa arch :S 🙃.
-1 And then there's the social class issue. I'm just gonna list a few examples of how it goes in this story, because wow:
- Elsa and Anna are royals living in a huge castle with servants and minimal obligations, right? Well, Anna spends the whole story being a quite insufferable entitled brat (I generally quite like her in the movies, but wow, I couldn't stand her here 😬). She insists that Elsa works too hard in her role as queen and should take a lot more time off to be with her and go on picnics and adventures and gallivant in the village eating pastries for free.
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| I did enjoy the description of the desserts they ate xD Puff pastry with cream, chocolate and fruit? Sign me up xD |
Elsa wants to be more focused on 'helping' the villagers to come to ask
her for help in the audience hall (it's rather called 'doing your job',
but hey, royals need to feel good about themselves by saying they're
helping the poor peasants out, I guess). But Anna keeps enabling her to
'take more time off' and go off with her on picnics, visits to local
bakeries, and so on, because they need to bond and stuff and she works
too much (yay for female bonding, but how entitled and irresponsible can you be lol). At
the end, Anna decides on the following timetable, and I kid you not, this is it: Elsa does her job as
queen (aka listens to the needs of the locals, aparently that's mostly it here) for 3 days a week, and
the rest of them they have 24/7 free time to do all the fun things in
Anna's bucket list. Um 😐🤪.
- Anna spends the whole story insisting on the idea that Elsa is exhausted for minimally doing her job as Queen for a couple of days, right, so she needs a lot of breaks from you know, her glorified royal job (why do we have royals again? I question this notion everyday). So, she says, 'she has given the villagers the day off' *so that the Queen can rest* 😨. Oooh, the benevolent princess has given the villagers the day off in spite of them not being able to do that because they have to work daily for a freaking living, be they shop owners, merchants, ice gatherers, sewists or what have you! 😑
And do you
know what Elsa replies to this? Literally that 'The villagers don't need a day off'
🙃 (but, Anna, says, Elsa totally does because she worked herself to
exhaution for two days while helping them out in the audience hall with her
powers!). I was just facepalming so hard at that moment. The royals who
live in a castle with servants and nice clothes and food they don't have
to sweat for are saying the villagers who work daily for a living don't
need a day off, but they sure do!! Do Arendelle's working classes even have days off, then?? Seriously, WTF. Am I
the only one who thinks children shouldn't think these concepts are
OK??
- There's also this emphasis on the fact that the villagers keep queuing up in the audience hall to ask Elsa to use her powers to help them with various things, and they frame this, I kid you not, as if the villagers are exhausting Elsa by asking her favour after favour all day, but she doesn't want to say no because she doesn't want to let them down. So it's almost like the Queen is doing them 'favours' and being super benevolent by wanting to 'help them out' (it's her job!) while the villagers are being too 'greedy' and 'taking advantage of her' because she has magical powers....I don't know, the setting was really, really cringy for me, the fact that these villages don't only not need a day off, apparently, but they're also exerting their Queen with their uncontrolled wishes to help them have working plumbing systems, iceboxes and efficient transportation. How greedy the working classes are! (but not the royals living in actual castles 🧐).
And I mean, it seems to me that Disney often seems to have this conception with monarchy where their role as "benevolent providers of the people" is focal, be the story set in the Middle Ages or the 1830s (a conception that seems a bit obsolete to me in the 1830s - I mean, there's little mention of a Council of State, a Privy Council or a Cabinet in Frozen, right? I mean, there must be one, and if I remember correctly, Cabinet members or similar do appear in some comics when it comes to treaties, delegations, visits of state and such. But Elsa in her throne working as Queen by 'granting favours' or 'looking after her people' in this way kinda reminds me more of feudalism (which isn't all that great, but theoretically) or 'ring giving' thanes of Anglosaxon society, more than anything else :S xD Granted that I'm not a monarchy expert either xD). So, with this conception in mind, wouldn't it be, like, Elsa's 'job' to also help organize and/or provide all that, and not just benevolent favours you do a couple of days and that's it? (in exchange for, you know, your whole life in a luxurious castle with super nice clothes, good food and riches). And why are the villagers suddenly queuing in their dozens to ask for all that two days in a row when the Queen should be working on that kind of stuff more or less routinely as part of her freaking "job"?? 🤔
Like, I get it that Elsa doesn't have a
calling for ruling and queendom and tries hard to make people accept her
and her powers and so on and forth and the whole thing is just not for
her (she's still privileged af because of her social class status and
position, tho), but this sends a whole different message. And Anna's
supposed to be way more into caring about the ruling parts and the
village, so much more that she ends up being the queen in Frozen 2, but
that most certainly doesn't show here at all either.
- The story does mention that Elsa has been working on some plans for a more functional plumbing system and she offers that as an alternative solution to her magic near the end of the story (yeah, that theme that using her magic is not as good or something). Which involves she, the Queen, in her dress, and Anna, the princess (also in her royal clothes, I guess), actually working elbow deep in setting it up 🤣. What? Like, yes, we have magic in this universe, so why am I talking about things being realistic xD, but talk about realistic. This is extra cringy because it's one of the classic Disney moves glorifying just how good royals and rich people are, willing to dirt their hands and clothes *one day* (mind you) so that the whole village cheers for them and all the things they do for them (it's.their.freaking."job" and it comes with a hugely unfair class imbalance all the same!). And so the royals work hard one day, and gain the everlasting adoration of their subjects and all is well, and we continue to romanticize the redundant institution that is monarchy and the social class imbalances. In stories for children of the 21st Century 😕.
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| Olaf and Elsa's powers are more realistic than this scenario, tbh |
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| An accurate depiction of my reaction |
- But this is not all. I'm not letting this go (lol 🤣) just yet. Because a major storyline of this book is Anna taking Elsa on fun outings, like I said, and these involve the whole team (Anna, Elsa, Olaf, Kristoff also appears) literally messing everything up for the hard working locals. And of course, because they're the royals, the locals laugh it off, and actually thank them in adoration when they "help them" out of messes *they themselves created in the first place* by butting into working people's businesses!! This was so frustrating to read 😑.
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| Let's play at being working people for a day! |
Like,
they get pastries for free in a bakery (because the royals get everything
for free, of course, paired with special treatment in everything,
salutations and adoration). And then they dabble in trying out what it
is to be a baker (for a day, mind you) and Anna - who's just too
obnoxious in this story, complete with loud belchs wtf 😣 - freaking
destroys the whole kitchen. But the baker, although rightfully angry,
has to laugh it off because it's Anna, the princess, and she's so
charming and good with people no one can stay mad at her anyway! 🙃
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| Still thinking you shouldn't teach children that this is OK |
This trend continues a lot. Elsa accidentally makes a fisherman drop all his fish on the ground, and then the fisherman has to literally thank her for helping him to pick them up instead of her being angry at him for being in her way (wtf 🤨). They also make a huge mess at the ice gatherers' and go on a lot of stupid shenanigans trying to 'help them out' (maybe don't interfere in the first place with people who are working for a living) until Elsa realizes she can easily do so with her powers. Cue all the cheers and adoration from the ice gatherers, and Elsa the day afterwards still feeling the high of having 'helped' them save the day's work, conveniently forgetting that she and her friends were the initial reason why they nearly lost a day's work. And so on and forth. Also, isn't Kristoff supposed to be a professional ice gatherer? Because he sure seemed pretty inept at it in this story :S xD Like, they favoured *Olaf* trying to lift heavy ice blocks (and obviously failing) as a first option over Kristoff or Elsa doing it! 🤦♀️ Where are everyone's brain cells?
The story does specify that there are women working as ice-gatherers and fisherwomen and so on, so I guess there's that another one for the (kinda scarce :S) pros list.
- And finally, there's this scene when Anna is having a picnic with several female friends, who are middle class (daughters of merchants, fisherpeople, farmers, etc), and said friends are commenting on how Anna lives on a big palace with servants and probably doesn't even have to make her bed ever (I mean, true), and how that's amazing (it's 100% correct to call out class imbalances, but can we also stop glorifying monarchy and high aristocracy as the ultimate goals thanks). And Anna retorts with something along the lines of 'Living in a castle is not so different as living in a farm, I guess. It's not the house that counts, it's the people that live in it' 🙄🙃 (aka 'Oh no, I don't have it better than you'). Also, she says, their servants 'help us take care of the castle, but we still have big responsibilities'. Sure thing, Anna, sure thing, keep on not being aware of your privilege. Sigh.
And in this scene it is interesting to note that Anna totally sidesteps and derails the comments of her middle-class friends on how she lives in a castle and has servants with the classical Disney theme of 'It's not the actual house that matters, or my social standing, it's the people who love me and my family that make the castle a home, so *we are equal after all*'. To which her friends readily reply that yes, they wouldn't envision their boats, farms and middle-class homes without their families either. That's all very well (apart from the fact that we're now in the let's glorify the family unit area now as well, another classic Disney staple xD), but this way Anna has successfully navigated the conversation and surfaced victorious without having to address her class privilege at all, with the result that the story makes it seem like this way they're all equal because they all value their families and 'a home is just a home when your family is in it', so it doesn't matter if huge class and wealth imbalances exist as well.
So yeah, I began reading this series as a way to catch up on my Goodreads yearly books with some short, light, simple reads (lol), but yeah, this wasn't a lot of fun. I'm really hoping the rest of short Frozen stories are not like this, tbh, although quite a lot of the comics did veer in this direction :S
