fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2679 ]

[ SECRET POST #2679 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2679 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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I completely agree. They probably should have cut Kristoff out of the story completely. I think the whole plot with Elsa and Anna would have had much more of a significant impact if it was just Anna alone (maybe with Olaf, I dunno) going after Elsa. Hans and the twist would still stay, but Kristoff, no.

Mind you, I didn't mind Kristoff's character, but having his relationship with Anna take up most of the screen time really made me wonder why they even made Anna and Elsa sisters in the first place if their sisterly relationship barely got much development in comparison.

Yeah exactly.

The conspiratorial side of me likes to think Disney didn't actually give a shit about changing up the formula and put in an honest effort into the film.

They stuck to the original formula, changed one or two things because they knew people would eat it up like candy, and put the bare minimum effort into story telling. Slap on the Disney label? Instant profit.

Let's be real here, if this movie hadn't been a Disney production, I have a hard time believing it would've gotten as much popularity as it did.

What does Kristoff even DO in this film that Hans and/or Olaf couldn't have done with minimal plot changes? For a film that purportedly is about familial love and subverting past idea about romance, he's a pretty damn blatant love interest and he hogs a lot of spotlight that could've been used on giving the other two relationship some much needed depth.

Edited 2014-05-04 22:17 (UTC)

I thought a lot of his role was to shake her worldview up and teach her that love is about putting someone else's needs before your own wants. Because Anna at the stand of the movie is a deeply (understandably) self-centered person. She uses all I phrases. "It's my sister's coronation" vs. "It's Elsa's coronation" "I am going to speak to my sister." I'm going to stop this, I'm going to get what I'm dreaming of, I I I. She orders people around, she makes demands, she's Thor pre-getting kicked out of Asgard and learning humility.

And in contrast you have Kristoff who is wary around other people, but is fundamentally a selfless person. When they come to the cliff, he doesn't stop to to think, he makes sure Anna and Sven can make it across and puts himself in the more dangerous position. And this is a short time after they met, he risks his life for a stranger. He catches her when she jumps. He's protective of Sven. He loves his family, even when they're annoying, and he tries to do what's best for Anna even if it's dangerous.

I may be entirely wrong, but I took the scene where Olaf says "Love you enough to leave you behind forever" as talking about Elsa, because she sounds so confused when Olaf says Kristoff instead. Elsa was the one who was willing to give up everything and leave her behind forever, to keep her safe. And that's when it clicks with her that Elsa truly does love her, and she loves Elsa. So then she's willing to leave Elsa behind forever and sacrifice herself in order to save her and keep her safe. Kristoff serves as an example for her that you can look out for others, and yourself at the same time.

Hans couldn't have filled this role because, er, yeah, obvious reasons, no actual healthy loving the other person role there. And Olaf was comic relief and represented their simple childhood love, not their more complicated adult love.

And I'm pretty much using all love in the platonic sense here. Not pantsfeelings love. And yes, I utterly agree that love is putting someone else's needs before your own wants. It's getting up at 4 in the morning because your kids have started spewing out of both ends and getting them cleaned up and taken care of is more important than getting more sleep. It's sitting through boring school recitals because it makes them happy, it's sitting worried in a hospital waiting room, it's carrying spiders outside in a cup, it's watching Disney moves for the 50th time instead of a Saw movie.

Well said.

It was hard for me to see him as a selfless person considering the initial reason he goes with her is that she can repay him for destroying his sled...

Err... His sled is necessary for him to make a living. He can't exactly afford to waste time helping a total stranger when he has to work to feed himself and Sven.

Selfless doesn't necessarily means "to the extent you'll ruin yourself and your family for someone who requests your help even though you don't know if their drama story is true".

I thought a lot of his role was to shake her worldview up and teach her that love is about putting someone else's needs before your own wants.

If that was what they meant, then they're being absurdly subtle about it. I mean, compare this to the way he tears into her for the idiocy of getting engaged to a guy you've known for all of six hours: both Kristoff and Elsa chastise her for it, and it comes back to bite her in the ass. There's a moral here for all to see. But the film never comments on Kristoff being particularly selfless; we can only surmise he's not as crude as he seems initially because he treats his friends decently, and there's preciously little selflessness in his initial motive for helping Anna, as above anon points out.

eta: point being: If they wanted Kristoff to teach Anna a lesson about selflessness, then why doesn't he DO it? Why isn't there a song with his family explaining that he's a good guy because he keeps putting others before himself, instead of a song with his family explaining why Anna should ditch her fiancé for him?

Edited (eta) 2014-05-05 00:55 (UTC)

I didn't find him at all to be a selfless character actually. Anna bribes him to help her in the beginning by buying him the pickaxe and he still doesn't want to go with her immediately in search of Elsa despite the fact that the kingdom is freezing over at the time until she throws him the carrots he wanted. Then he spends the initial part of the journey belittling her for her judgement (which is fair okay, but Elsa had already done that) and then when his sled is destroyed he doesn't go with her immediately. Which is fair okay I could understand him not wanting to go with her after having his life endangered and Anna even states that she understands it if he doesn't want to go with her. What bothered me is that his reason to go with her IS that she can repay him for his sled and he didn't seem bothered at all about the possibility of Anna dying on her trek since his "conversation" with Sven stated "She'll die on her own." "I can live with that." He seemed in it for his business from the entire beginning. Which again, I could understand it since it was his way of life. But he only seemed to be looking out for himself and didn't seem to care that the kingdom was freezing over and that other people could possibly be suffering. When he asks her for what she plans to do and she says "I am gonna talk to my sister" he says "That's your plan? My ice business is riding on you talking to your sister?" and not "The kingdom is riding on that?" He didn't seem very selfless to me. Quite the opposite actually, so if Disney intended him to show Anna about selflessness, they did it poorly IMO.

I actually believe they were being semi-subtle about it, yes.
But I seem to recall a lot of lines making quite clear it was their intention.
Maybe I saw the movie with rose-tinted glasses because it was a Disney, but for me when he accepts to help Anna it's not just for the money, it's him pretending to not care but ending up doing the right thing once Anna shows herself to not be the complete brat she's behaved like until then.

But he is selfless. He displays it very early on - he barely even knew Anna, yet he was willing to risk his own life to make sure that she and Sven got across that gorge safely. There was a very real possibility that he could have died doing what he did if the sled hadn't made it far enough across for him to jump.

I thought the song DID do that, pretty clearly. I have my complaints about the song's timing and such, but I thought it was perfectly clear in conveying Kristoff's character. It actually says "Is it the way he covers up that he's the honest goods?", which underlines (1) his differences with Hans character-wise (see other, more articulate posts about the juxtaposition and why it's relevant to the plotline), and (2) that EVERY time the chips are down he put others before himself without flinching, despite being generally gruff. And you get another example of that like thirty seconds later- he sees her in the trolls wedding garb and is all "Wow, she's gorgeous and I'm obviously developing feelings for her." but doesn't think twice about getting her to Hans despite his own feelings and doubts.

This, all of it. Anna was painfully naive throughout most of the film - she thought love was some sort of magical, wonderful thing that could fix everything simply by existing. She wanted to get married to Hans despite barely knowing him because she thought that everything would work out if it was true love and that her problems would all just go away. Then she thought that she could fix everything just by talking to Elsa, because they were sisters and they could just work things out, right?

Then when Elsa kicks her out, she has absolutely no idea what to do next. She's at a total loss because, in her mind, that wasn't what was supposed to happen. Love was supposed to fix everything, and it didn't, and she can't understand why.

Later on she said it herself: that she didn't know what love really was. And it came back to bite her, hard. She doesn't really grasp what love is until she realizes that both Kristoff and Elsa left her behind because they loved her, and that sometimes true love means making sacrifices for someone else's sake.

Also, Kristoff serves as a contrast to Hans. She "fell in love" with Hans because he was handsome and charming and perfect and pretty much a storybook prince. Kristoff, on the other hand, can be kind of grumpy and blunt and is most definitely no prince, but he's also a genuinely kind and selfless person on the inside, like you said.

For my money, the most important thing Kristoff does is drag her away from Elsa's castle. that was honestly the most awkward thing to me - Anna assuming that because she wanted to be there and talk about it and frame the problem in a specific way heedless of her sister. She wouldn't have left by herself, let's be honest. She would have tried to get back in to see Elsa, not least reason being she was now freezing to death. there would have been no sacrificing herself to save Elsa from Hans because they never would have gotten back down to the castle. Anna would have been dead out in the snow long before. Elsa had no idea what to do to save her sister until she saw Anna's sacrifice. she wouldn't have been able to save Anna herself, and Olaf wasn't in any situation where he could have gotten her help. Kristoff basically keeps Anna alive long enough to learn the Lesson.

I was sorely disappointed that Anna wasn't the sole person to go in search of Elsa. Olaf going with her would have been fine too, since he is the representation of their childhood bond. I just thought more quiet scenes involving Anna and Elsa having periods of self-reflection while Anna goes out looking for her and Elsa in her castle would have made the film seem less rushed. It felt like the film was trying to accomplish too much for how much time it was given.

I second this. In my opinion Anna going out alone in search of her sister would've been a far better wake-up call than anything else. Although I agree with another anon saying Olaf tagging along would've been fine too. IMO, Olaf served a more important role to the story and to Anna and Elsa than either Hans or Kristoff, considering what he represented for them.

It's just that if it had been them two alone, actually getting the chance to fucking talk with each other after so many damn years, it would've been far much better development for their relationship. All their goddamn interactions kept getting cut off from other characters.

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[ SECRET POST #2679 ]

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