Fixing Frozen 3's questions at 2024's D23 Expo

On August 9–11, 2024 at D23, Frozen co-director Jennifer Lee revealed questions that may or may not be answered in Frozen 3:

One word: disappointing. These questions are like tossing dung at a wall and hoping one of them will stick. They are either incredibly redundant (e.g. Olaf alive, Elsa's powers growing), unnecessary (e.g. Kristoff meeting Sven, the origin of Elsa's powers, castle ruins, the spirits origin) or obvious throwaway questions (e.g. Yoo Hoo, Sven's virility).

And why are the only questions about Elsa all about her powers? Does Lee genuinely believe people only like Elsa because she has ice powers? Seriously look at the questions about Anna and Kristoff--these questions ask about their lifestyles. Do they want kids? What kind of rulers will they be? Meanwhile Elsa gets two questions and they're all about her POWERS.

And why are there no questions concerning the relationship between Anna and Elsa? I thought their sisterly bond was what Frozen was all about. Not Elsa's magic. Not convoluted mythology. Not Kristoff and Anna being rulers and starting a nuclear family. These questions are seriously missing a HUGE part of why Frozen became a hit.

So I've decided to formulate a different set of questions, or rather a more through set of questions, which build upon Lee's questions, and hopefully better address the characters and themes of Frozen and Frozen 2:

Characters

The personalities, the journeys they undergo, the choices they make, the consequences they endure, and the relationship they have with each other are vital to creating memorable characters that resonate with audiences. Frozen set the groundwork, Frozen 2 destroyed it, now its up to Frozen 3 to build it back.

Elsa

Anna

Kristoff

Hans

Olaf

Themes

Old and new themes to explore....

Sisterhood. How does living separately effect Anna and Elsa's relationship? How does Elsa cope without Anna's constant presence and unwavering support? How does Anna cope without Elsa's compassion and wisdom? Will living separately cause the divide between them to deepen?

Fear and isolation. Is Elsa afraid of being alone? Is Elsa afraid of her powers spiraling out of control again? Is Anna afraid of failing to live up to expectations as queen? Does she feel lonely without Elsa always by her side? Is being queen a lonely endeavor? Is Elsa afraid of Athohallen (it literally froze and held her hostage when she got too curious, lol)?

The duty/role of a ruler. Now that Anna is queen, how does that effect the people? What do they think of Elsa's abdication? What do they think of Anna being queen? What do they think of Kristoff being their king? What are the qualities of a good ruler? What sort of constitutional duties are there to perform?

Self-discovery and transformation. How will Elsa and Anna discover new things about themselves or about each other? Will the journey they undergo change them for the better or the worst? Will Elsa's role as fifth spirit drive her further from her humanity? Will Anna's role as queen isolate her from her sister and her people or drive her closer to both?

Redemption and forgiveness. In Frozen, Elsa redeemed herself when she thawed Arendale. The people, who she had nearly accidently killed, forgave her and happily ice skated with her at the end. If Hans is redeemed in Frozen 3 then the theme can continue anew. Redemption is all about transformation. Can someone flawed change for the better? Or are some people's crimes so evil that they are irredeemable? Can we forgive those who wronged us even if they aren't sorry?

Norse mythology. Fate, rebirth, knowledge, sacrifice are a few of the central themes of Norse mythology. The Æsir (e.g.  Odin, Frigg, Thor, Loki, Balder, Hod, Heimdall and Tyr) and Vanir (e.g. Njord, Freyr, and Freyja), the Nine Realms, Yggsdrasil. How can they be weaved convincingly into Frozen 3, when 1) it takes place in 18th century Norway and 2) the first film was largely based on a fairytale and classic disney references? Will they ever acknowledge how Christianity replaced paganism? (probably not since this is Disney).

Conclusion

What do you think? Feel free to add some questions. Please be respectful.

There was certainly room to ask more *important* questions.

Perhaps they thought giving away the *real* themes of III and IV would be too much to a spoiler?

Behold! The known (and derived) relatives of the Duke of Weselton!

Created by @virtual-winter

Another sighting of Hans's ship at Frozen Kingdom, Fantasy Springs!⛵

The ship is a part of the brand new boat ride "Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey" at Tokyo DisneySea, replicating a scene from Love is an open door. The ride also features some new animations of young Anna and Elsa and well as Elsa and Hans!

Video source

You can find other appearances of Hans's ship in our previous post.

10-year-old mystery finally solved

One of the biggest riddles of Disney Frozen is how the choir gets up to the gallery. Nowhere in the movie is an entrance to the gallery or an access of any kind to be seen. All we see during Elsa's coronation scene is a completely open construction of the chapel, but there are twelve singers above the altar. How do they get there? Many fans have wondered how this is possible for ten years of Frozen's existence and everyone has puzzled over it. Even in books and comics, not a single clue is given and, stupidly, nowhere can you see the back of the chapel, i.e. from the west. Not even in Mindcraft designs is this side more clearly visible, which proves that the fans have no idea. However, there is Disney concept art and two, almost identical books about Arendelle Castle. The latter is clearly intended for children, but even there you can see the beginnings of a solution to the problem.

I myself was at a loss until yesterday, when I suddenly realised something while downloading screenshots and concept art. And tada!, suddenly everything was completely simple and logical. I could hardly believe it. You're probably asking yourselves now, "So how does that work? I don't believe anything without proof!" No problem. Let's go!

Arendelle's family tree!🌳

By: @virtual-winter February 4th, 2024

(full quality version)

It's finished! The newest addition to the Archives. With this family tree, I've tried to tie together all characters mentioned throughout the franchise that have family ties with Anna and Elsa or their parents. And there are quite a lot of them! If you happen to find this interesting and want to know more about the individual characters or how I came to some conclusions, I strongly recommend that you also read my previous work Anna and Elsa's lost family members!

/virtual-winter

Very proud to finally share this! I hope you like it 🤗

Anna and Elsa's lost family members

Written by: @virtual-winter Reviewed by: @bigfrozenfan October 8, 2023 First edition

The world of Frozen is surprisingly rich with characters, events and places. Thing is though, most of them are introduced outside of the movies and short films and a lot of fans probably don’t even know they exist. In this project which I created last year, I set my focus on uncovering Anna and Elsa’s lost relatives!

/virtual-winter

The Frozenverse - A list of books, comics and more!

Written by: @virtual-winter Reviewed by: @bigfrozenfan & @yumeka-sxf August 14th, 2022 First edition

This was the first collaboration project for Arendelle Archives, where a project was reviewed by one or more members before its release. With this project, we aimed to list every known (to us) Frozen title out there. As of 2024, a few more titles have of course appeared like the novels All is found and The fixer upper but see this as a close-to-complete list of titles spanning from 2013 to late 2022!

Prepare for a long read as this list covers well over 300 unique titles over 53 pages, including everything from the movies and novels to chapter books and one-page comics.

We hope you will enjoy this journey into The Frozenverse!

/virtual-winter

(please note that the Discord-links provided in the document may not be up to date anymore😉)

An Odyssey Through Frozen Geography

Another amazing Frozen fanwork has come to my attention! An Odyssey Through Frozen Geography, written by ImWaitingForWinter, chronicles the geography of the Frozen universe using the various maps and other sources we’ve gotten within the franchise, and ties them back to real-world locations. Like Annals of Frozen which I posted about recently, this digital book was a huge labor of love, and ImWaitingForWinter did a fantastic job of shining more light on the Frozen lore!

Here are some excerpts:

*You can read the full 39-page book here*

There’s quite an interesting discovery that’s made at the end when examining Iduna’s map from Frozen 2. I won’t spoil it here, but definitely give the book a read and find out. Lots of work and research went into it and I know I learned something new!

This was my very first Frozen analysis-project, completed in August 2021. Yumeka kindly updated the original post with a refreshed version that has some corrections and new pics taken by me during my Norway trip in 2023!

/virtual-winter

Upcoming and future projects

Hello folks! 🤗

Thought I'd shed some light on the fandom-projects that are currently in the works within the walls of the Archives.

Starting next week (January 29th), we will re-release the current works produced by the members of the Archives 2021-2023!

The following weekend (February 3rd), I will unveil the Archive's newest addition: my version of the Arendelle royal family tree!

Using information provided by the movies, books and other sources, I've attempted to piece together every known member of the royal fjord-dwellers and present them in the most comprehensible way possible!

I started working on and off with this idea some time last year and I'm happy it's finally coming together. Below you can find a teaser showing some of the progress from August 2023 to January 2024!

(excuse the blur, I'd like to save the complete structure for when it's ready 😉)

For the future, I've planned to make a major revision of my old project An odyssey through Frozen geography. Besides exploring Arendelle and the real-life places that inspired it, I will also cover a few other topics like culture, architecture, technology and a few other things that are still in early development.

Also, be sure that when Frozen III eventually comes around, you will hopefully see a renewed Annals of Frozen edition covering the new events and any possible backstory!

virtual-winter

The flora and fauna of Frozen!

Written by: Virtual Winter January 15th, 2024 First edition

For our first new-ish entry to the Archive, allow me to introduce you to the flora and fauna of Frozen. Most fans probably recognise Sven the reindeer and the wolves from the first movie and the sunflowers in Frozen fever but did you know there are over 70 unique species of animals and plants featured, mentioned or referenced throughout the franchise?

In late 2022, I made a very short-lived series on Reddit covering two types of plants and one type of animal found in the Frozen movies. I felt it was time to expand the list a little…

I hope this will be the most comprehensive list of flora and fauna found in Arendelle and beyond ever made and I hope it will be of use to someone! I’m sure there are plenty of artists and writers out there who want to enrich their own Frozen world and hopefully this list can help!

I have arranged the list following a similar structure to my previous project The Frozenverse, starting off covering the movies and novels and then gradually moving into different story-material.

Now, lets explore!

Read the full list → HERE ←

Prepare to go back to school and learn about the animals and plants found in Arendelle!

/virtual-winter

The Archive is now officially open!

Hello everyone! Sorry it took a little longer than expected. I got myself distracted (like I usually do).

The concept for the Arendelle Archives came into fruition in 2021 when friends @saiten-gefroren and FrozenHeart began working on the Frozen timeline study “Annals of Frozen”. The project was released to the fandom in July, 2021 and quickly gained traction among other fans who were already invested in exploring and discussing the lore of the franchise.

Around the same time, @virtual-winter published his 3-part series “An Odyssey Through Frozen Geography" which explored the real-world inspirations behind the world of Frozen, which perfectly fits the theme of the "Archive".  Together with “Annals of Frozen”, these two projects acted as the catalyst works that would bring a group of fans together on a common platform under a common goal and banner, starting off as a Discord-server in April 2022 and now, finally, stepping into the world of Tumblr!

So, what is Arendelle Archives?

As for the concept itself, we imagine that the Arendelle Archives, aka the Royal Arendelle Archives, was a 19th century national institution of Arendelle tasked with the preservation and documentation of natural, historical and geographical records. Though founded by the royal family (by Agnarr and Iduna undoubtedly, not that Runeard guy), it was a neutral agency without affiliations with any political or commercial power.

Moving on to the 21st century, we have established ourselves as a group of ordinary but dedicated Frozen fans with varying backgrounds and areas of “expertise” who are on a mission to restore the records that were once under the supervision of the Royal Arendelle Archives, in line with the same values that defined the "native" institution.

As spiritual descendants of the original Arendelle Archives staff, we aim to collect as much information as possible centered around Arendelle and its neighboring lands with the help of official material like the movies, books, comics, etc. (the “facts” of the Frozenverse if you will), then compile and summarize these facts by studying the source material and by making logical deductions without the interference of personal preferences or prejudices — It is a “science” for our beloved fictional world, not a “fiction” with personal attachments riddled through the work.

What have we done so far?

For the past two years, our focus has been set on collecting and presenting the history, geography and lore of Arendelle and the rest of the Frozen world. Entering 2024, our work has resulted in nearly a dozen completed or ongoing “in-house” fan-projects as well as affiliated works by creators tied to the Archive:

(links to the individual works will be added later)

What's next?

We are always “on the hunt” for like-minded fans with similar fan-projects in their portfolio. Just in time for Christmas of 2023, such an encounter resulted in the impressive video project “Frozen: The History of Arendelle”, a timeline study very much in tune with “Annals of Frozen”, created by Youtuber Geekritique in collaboration with us.

Just around the corner also lies the creation of a detailed Arendelle family tree based on the findings in “Anna and Elsa’s lost family members”.

After this? Only Ahtohallan knows… But with more Frozen content on the horizon, our work as archivists and record keepers will surely not be over any time soon and updates and refreshes of past works will definitely be coming in the near future!

Arendelle Archives on Tumblr

The decision to finally start this Tumblr came in November 2023. From now on, we will use this platform as the base of our operation and republish our previous entries, now finally unified under a common “Archives” banner. It will also be the main platform for future projects as well as reblogs of Frozen fan projects from other sources.

All things considered, we hope that through our work, we will contribute to the Frozen fandom as a whole and allow for regular fans, artists, analysts, and fanfiction writers alike to get a clearer picture of the lore, trivia and backstory of the Frozen-series!

Welcome!

Virtual Winter, Saiten and the rest of the Archive team

Aaaaand here's an additional teaser for a brand new project that will be released soon!

After over two years of working together on discord, the Arendelle Archives is opening its gates on tumblr this weekend! The Archive is a group of Frozen fans aimed at creating projects that explore, research and analyze the history, geography and lore of the Frozenverse.

I the past, we've made projects investigating the Frozen timeline, Arendelle's geography, Anna and Elsa's past family members and most recently aided Geekritique with his Frozen timeline-video!

The Grand Opening will be held on Saturday (January 6th). Welcome!

/virtual-winter

Arendelle Archives will launch January 6th! ✍️

I'm pleased to finally announce the launch of the blog-version of Arendelle Archives, an ongoing multi-faceted fandom project aimed at exploring, researching and analyzing the history, geography and lore of the Frozenverse!