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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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rewatching tts got me back on my worldbuilding bullshit again ANYWAY

→ this is me trying to cram a frozen heart canon, tangled the series canon, and descendants canon, and assorted personal hc together into one map in a way that. makes sense.

→ descendants is a mess so when i say “descendants canon,” i mean i cherry-pick the things i like from the books + films and ignore everything else.

→ as always, when it comes to rp, i’m willing to be very flexible on big worldbuilding things like this.

auradon

- is an authoritarian, imperialist empire built on slave labor. ( “sidekicks” aka the working class not getting paid at all for their labor is a minor plot point in the first book. this is canon. ) the canon nonsense about “united all the kingdoms” and how of course everyone was just pleased as punch to join up is just that — nonsense. it’s propaganda. auradon began as an alliance between antipe (king adam’s kingdom), corona, and sleswick (where camelot and sherwood forest are) and expanded slowly from there, through a mixture of diplomacy, espionage, economic manipulation, and open warfare. kings frederick (of corona) and arthur (of sleswick) are nominally on an equal footing with king adam, but king adam is first among equals and the de facto emperor.

- i refuse to use the canonical names of auradon’s regions because they’re stupid. as far as i’m concerned those are names given to auradon’s member states by king adam as part of the propoganda machine — but citizens of those lands still, by and large, use the old names ( and languages ) in private.

- in addition to its thirteen official states, auradon occupies significant territories in vakretta, aphelothia, and zaria. conflict along the borders of the occupied territories are ongoing, and the end goal for auradon is to conquer each country and absorb them into the empire altogether.

- atlantica, the southern isles, and vacona are all formally allied with auradon (and send many of their criminals and unwanted individuals to the isle of the lost). agrabah has a strong economic and academic partnership with them (hence jafar’s presence on the isle, too), though it is also a member of the coalition of al-qamar and thus providing military aide to zaria against auradon.

- corona joining up with auradon threw fuel on the fire of the saporian separatist movement. there are many saporians on the isle, and many more living as refugees in other nations outside of auradon.

- (timeline wise, i know auradon is sUpPoSeD to be formed ~after all the happily ever afters~ but i imagine the events of frozen taking place ~6 years after auradon is formally founded and the first season of tts ~1-2 years after that) (also in terms of blog canon i. auradon’s tech is steampunk tech, not modern tech, okay. i just. truly cannot handle the suddenly, smartphones vibe.)

the hléssian league

- arendelle, seland, skaron, vakretta, and the duchy of weselton are members of an alliance that predate auradon by several decades.

- blavenia was once also a member of the league, but those ties were cut about a year after queen elsa’s coronation when the blavenians, rattled by the magical summer blizzard and the thought of what else elsa’s magic might do, withdrew from the league and exchanged their sovereignty for the protection of auradon’s wards and laws against magic.

- half of vakretta has been conquered and occupied by auradonian forces, and auradon was embroiled in war with the league until, again, queen elsa’s coronation. the reveal of her incredibly powerful magic — and its unique resistance to fairy godmother’s ability to bind and disperse other magic — put an immediate stop to the conflict. since then, the league and auradon have settled into an icy stalemate. (...pun intended.)

- the league ( led by arendelle ) sends regular shipments of food, medicine, and other supplies to the isle of the lost. these shipments are kept very very secret, because auradon doesn’t know about them.

- arendelle, specifically, openly offers sanctuary and a path to citizenship to any auradonian sentenced to exile on the isle of the lost, and to any auradon with magical ability who wishes to use it. this is a source of... considerable tension between arendelle and auradon, as well as arendelle and other members of the league who wish to take a more conciliatory approach to their aggressive southern neighbor.

the eastern bloc

- is not an alliance as such, but chatho has an interest in ensuring that auradon never comes close enough to actually touch its borders and as such bends its considerable political, military, and economic power to protect those nations lying between auradon’s eastern border and chatho itself.

- despite this, chatho maintains relatively cordial relations with auradon, to the point that a fair number of chathonese nationals live in auradon and/or send their children to be educated in its schools (see: mulan.)

- yultadore, weselton, and arendelle have extensive trade agreements with each other and frequently work together on the international stage to further each others’ interests. if it were ever abandoned by chatho, yultadore would likely turn to the hléssian league for protection against the empires it is caught between.

- aphelothia and zamora have a long history of conflict, mainly over the richly fertile land between the twin rivers that run between them. for the time being, their differences have been set aside in favor of the greater threat of auradon, but the alliance between them is tenuous at best.

the coalition of al-qamar

- eighteen years ago, zaria, aberdinon, and agrabah were flooded with terrified refugees from aphelion — once a prosperous kingdom, now transformed into a dark, desolate wasteland by an infestation of indestructible black rocks with mysterious occult ties to the moon. in the years since then, once-mighty aphelion has become known as the dark kingdom and half-forgotten, relegated to the realm of children’s stories. but knowledge of the black rocks and legends of the droplet of moonlight from whence they came lives on in the nations that welcomed aphelion’s people, and a political coalition has grown around it.

- weaponry carved from the black rocks is the prize of the wealthy and distinguished within the coalition, for it is rare and immensely valuable due to its indestructible nature — the only thing that can damage a black rock is another black rock, which makes carving weapons out of the stuff a laborious task, to say the least.

- despite this, auradon has pushed deep into the coalition’s territory, claiming nearly half of zaria’s land for its own — for though the sorcerers of the coalition have a wealth of magic at their fingertips, they, unlike the more fortunate queen elsa, are not immune to auradon’s magic-cancelling wards and can be of little use on the battlefield. combined with the fact that auradon’s alliance with atlantica guarantees domination of the lost sea ( whereas the selkie kingdoms of the hléssian sea by and large do not concern themselves with human conflicts ), the coalition is at a distinct disadvantage in comparison to their northern counterpart.

- the “uncharted desert” is only uncharted by auradon’s cartographers. chathonese and agrabahan mapmakers are fairly detailed in their knowledge of the desert — though it is mostly uninhabitable desert.

#⌈ CHILDREN WILL LISTEN ⌋ ( v : descendants )#[[ i love. maps.#the borders of atlantica are jagged like that bc it's defined by #a continental ridge #whereas the hlessian sea is swoopy bc it's a human border #based on ocean currents. ]]#[[ anyway. most of these nation names are from the tts books #bt a couple are from a frozen heart / the elsa & anna novels #and a handful are purely headcanon based ]]

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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oh also. listen.

elsa is not naturally shy. and she’s not introverted. she loves meeting people and being around people and talking to people — she thrives in social settings. she has horrible social anxiety because so much of her life was built on the notion that she’s too dangerous to be around people, but that is not the same thing as being shy.

( if she was genuinely shy as she is popularly characterized, she would not have had such a good time at her coronation prior to the anna getting engaged fiasco. take a shy introvert and put them in near total isolation for ten years and then throw a huge party where they’re the center of attention and expected to interact with dozens of people at once and see how that goes. they wouldn’t be grinning and laughing and having fun for the first time in a decade, i can tell you that much. )

in an alternate universe where elsa didn’t have her powers, she’d be just as outgoing as anna is — though elsa’s more serious & cautious disposition would manifest in her being the more socially graceful & charismatic of the two.

#⌈ ONE WITH THE WIND & SKY ⌋ ( hc : elsa. )

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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Queens are called “Your/Her Majesty” just like kings are. “Highness” is the rank of princes/princesses and is below the rank of “Majesty”. Stop calling queens highnesses in the same breath you call kings majesties.

#[[ yeah elsa hasnt been a ‘highness’ since she was eleven ]]

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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gustav.

“What? But I wasn’t– Oh.” Gus smiled shyly and let out a surprised little chuckle. It had taken a second, but he got it now. “Thanks.” The rambling didn’t even faze him; he’d grown up with an aunt who rambled frequently, so to him it was pretty normal. “Oh, really? I’m sorry– That you’re in the class, not that you’ve seen me around… Politics aren’t exactly my favorite topic.” Despite being a prince, Gustav really didn’t care about the ins and outs of it, and he’d always been naturally good at getting along with people, so he’d never felt the need to pay too much attention to the class. “I’m Gustav. Nice to meet you, Drust.”

“I had a hard time gettin’ into it,” Drust offered, with a wry grin. “They fill up all the slots with royal types and then... kinda give the run around to anyone else who wants in.” Blah blah blah, princes need politics, peasants don’t, whatever. Drust liked knowing how the world worked, and Auradon ran on politics. He shook his head. “Nice meeting you, too, man. Uh.”

He knew most of Auradon Prep’s important students, the children of the aristocracy, by name if not by face, but ‘Gustav’ wasn’t so uncommon a name that Drust felt comfortable jumping to conclusions on it. Instead he discarded the first question that sprung to mind and said, “So—if politics isn’t your thing, what is?” He tipped his chin in the direction of the tree Gustav had been tending to a moment ago. “Gardening?”

#descendedfromlegend #⌈ THERE'S MORE TO LEARN OF WHAT YOU KNOW ⌋ ( drustan baker. )#⌈ CHILDREN WILL LISTEN ⌋ ( v : descendants )#⌈ STORYMAKING ⌋ ( ic. )

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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mr. darling.

Michael was not, by nature, a truly complex man. He was one of those cheerful, well-meaning individuals who’d never quite clambered over the hill of childhood (although, to be fair, this was mostly because nobody really expected him to– when you’re a five-year-old in every Auradon history text, most people are surprised to find you’ve aged past 20.) He lived a nice little life, teaching a subject that was as close to the adventurous tales of his youth he was ever likely to get again. He gave Elaine a little sideways glance.

There had been an edge to her voice. A depth of feeling that gave Michael the troubling sensation of edging over a vast black pit; a sense that here was a subject he Did Not Wish To Touch. Something somewhat beyond his own little bubble of nostalgia.

He tugged at his cufflinks (tiny silver teddy bears. Michael had at least three sets) and managed a smile;

“…You sound an awful lot like my sister. Sometimes I think if she’d never left Neverland she wouldn’t have been unhappy at all.”

Then, for want of anything better to do, he held out a hand.

“Michael-” there was an almost imperceptible pause before he corrected himself. “-Mr. Darling.”

She quirked an eyebrow at his mention of Neverland. Elaine knew of the place in the vague sense that she’d read of it in history books and, now and then, in the news, but that didn’t count for much. Auradon’s historians and its newscasters had a way of sanitizing the past and glossing over the more unappetizing moments of the present. “I’m not sure staying in Neverland would’ve helped your sister much, Mr. Darling, if it’s all this civilization making her unhappy.”

But she reached over and shook his hand all the same, because it was the polite thing to do and because she hadn’t come today just to gripe about how much better things had been in the Good Old Days. “Elaine Baker,” she said. “I’m sorry if I seem... cantankerous. I’m used to catering parties, not attending them myself.”

Did Parent Day count as a party? It did in Elaine’s book—any gathering of people fancy enough to call for chocolate fountains and putting on one’s cleanest, least threadbare dress qualified as a party—but for all she knew this was just a boring old picnic for the wealthier families who filled out most of attendees. She shook her head.

“You might know my son,” she added. “Drustan. He’s in his second year.”

#darliingmichael #⌈ IF THE END IS RIGHT IT JUSTIFIES THE BEANS ⌋ ( elaine baker. )#⌈ CHILDREN WILL LISTEN ⌋ ( v : descendants )#⌈ STORYMAKING ⌋ ( ic. )

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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kids.

“It’s not infected,” Charlie groaned as she was pulled along. They’d been having this argument for days now, and Foster had finally convinced her to get a scratch checked out–though she wasn’t going without protest.

“Girl, you must be blind. Tha’s def’nitely infected,” he replied. “Look a’ tha’ nasty thing.”

“Foster–”

“Charlotte.” The uncharacteristic sternness in his tone silenced any other argument she had, because she realized how worried he actually was. They would just see what the doctor had to say about the scratch a stray cat had given her that stretched from halfway up her forearm to the top of her hand, which was angry, red and puckered.

@timeshuffles

The scratch was indeed infected. Alcina heard it clamoring out for attention long before she heard the bickering; a high, sharp whine against the background buzz of poor health that characterized the Isle. Somehow minor infections were always the loudest.

She kept half an ear on it as she undid the first of the half dozen locks protecting her medical supplies — a measure she disliked but found necessary given the sheer numbers of underfed, desperate, opportunistic young thieves roaming the Isle’s streets. In a place miserable enough to make steal anything not nailed down a popular hobby for the young, cabinets stocked with riches like moonshine and honey became an equally popular target.

By the time the kids arrive at her door, Alcina had everything laid out on the counter: clean fabric, distilled water, little jars of honey and alcohol, lumpy soap.

“Come in,” she called out. “Mind the step.”

#descendedfromlegend #⌈ PRIMUM NIL NOCERE ⌋ ( alcina todd. )#⌈ CHILDREN WILL LISTEN ⌋ ( v : descendants )#⌈ STORYMAKING ⌋ ( ic. )

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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nobody.

❝ Why should I care that you have to be on the phone in half an hour ? You should plan better next time, like the rest of us. ❞ Oh, but that statement is full of it. Just this morning, Zinnia had ‘accidentally taken’ ( stolen ) a coffee not meant for her due to her own very personal distaste for lines. She had been considering what it would take to skip this line before the woman’s grand entrance ( but she would never. As the outstanding citizen she was, cutting lines was vile ).

There is something vaguely familiar about the woman, and the blonde briefly wonders if she has seen her somewhere else ( was it on television ? it must have been on television, though she’d remember if she had been anyone important ), but fluorescent, yellow light could make it all a trick of the eye. ❝ The lighting in here really is horrendous. ❞

She’s already puffing up like an indignant cat ready to pounce at the suggestion that she should wait in line like all these — ORDINARY PEOPLE, and all the more incensed over the idea that she, Dee Dee Allen, answers her own phone calls (that’s what her personal assistant what’s-her-name is for). But the muttered comment about the dreadful lighting completely derails the sharp retort she’s been preparing from the moment the other woman began to speak. “Oh, it’s awful, isn’t it?!”

Dee Dee crosses her arms, ire momentarily forgotten in the muddle of having found a kindred spirit on the subject of bad lighting. “It doesn’t flatter me at all! Look at me—I look downright jaundiced! Frankly—” A sharp look at the other woman, who right about the lightning or not still has not moved as Dee Dee asked “—as a celebrity, I think poor lighting should be considered a health code violation. On the basis that it’s bad for my mental health.”

#frequencyfound #⌈ WHY DOES BEING GOOD COST SO MUCH MONEY? ⌋ ( dee dee allen. )#⌈ STORYMAKING ⌋ ( ic. )#[[ JOIN ME & WE'LL START FIGHTING COULD I GET SOFTER LIGHTING -- ]]#[[ honestly. these two deserve each other. ]]

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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paulette.

“Well, yeah, but she also said you were preppy, and honestly… It’s the other way ‘round with you two,” she admitted, carefully making sure her roots were covered entirely before stepping back, mouth set in a line of concentration.

“I mean, she’s the pink, sparkly, bubbly, fashion magazine type’a girl, and you’re… Not that, s’far as looks go,” she told her, moving to pull off her latex gloves and throw them away. “But I dunno what’cha like, outside of bein’ real law-oriented,” she said with a small shrug, “And needin’ your roots done, but that’s not a bad thing…” … said the woman who ran a salon.

“Depends what you mean by ‘preppy,’” Vivienne murmured, drumming her fingernails against the arm of the salon chair. Elle’s sparkly bubblegum look would stick out like a sore thumb at Groton, while the only real change Vivienne had made in her wardrobe since boarding school was throwing out all the blue pastels and getting her suits tailored—she looked every inch the polished prep school alumna, which at a guess was what Elle had been getting at.

(Of course Little Miss Pink Eyesore would think that an insult.)

“Well,” she added dryly, “it’s gratifying to know she thinks I’m worth gossiping about. It’s so nice when people care more about you than you care about them.” Was that mean? Maybe. Did Vivienne care? Not one bit.

#nctamused #⌈ THE STURDY ONE; THE CALLOUS ONE ⌋ ( vivienne kensington. )#⌈ STORYMAKING ⌋ ( ic. )

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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& another (only vaguely related) thing: elsa doesn’t unilaterally end trade with weselton in retaliation for the duke’s actions during the blizzard, firstly because it doesn’t happen in the musical and secondly because it’s only a thing in the film because it’s a movie for kids so we get straightforward retribution to give the bad guys their just desserts without any thought for the delicate international relationships elsa might be blowing up in doing so or the economic implications of being a trading nation and abruptly ending all trade with your single biggest trading partner. but that’s not how we roll here and elsa has, like, a grasp of basic principles of international politics and would not do something so stupid and petty as walking away from what must be a very long-standing trade agreement with either weselton itself (if it’s a sovereign duchy) or whatever nation weselton is a part of.

also, as much as elsa loathes the duke on an individual level — she is a politician. & a woman who could shut out her beloved sister and refuse to speak to her for eleven years while anna pleaded to be let in is a woman who can play nice with dignitaries from allied nations even if she, personally, hates their guts. that’s just a fact. she’s not going to treat him with warmth and true friendliness but she will strive to be polite.

( this includes not participating in the ‘weaseltown’ thing. )

& at the end of the day, she doesn’t really harbor him any ill will. she recognizes that his actions during the blizzard were motivated by genuine and reasonable fear for his life, and she recognizes that he is a weak and insecure man who will tend to drift toward whatever authority in the room appears strongest, and she can find it in herself to forgive him and do him the politeness of pretending he didn’t chase her up a mountain to murder her.

however she does make a point of subtly doing things to remind him that she could make things very difficult for him, that he did come to her coronation and then attack her and support a regicidal usurper who tried to kill her and her sister, and that he, in a very big way, owes her for her magnanimity in choosing to let the whole incident be water under the bridge.

( & for this reason i hc that, after the coronation, he becomes one of her staunchest allies in the international arena; he is a coward, he is weak, and he is also not stupid. he knows he’s on thin fucking ice with her and has to stay on his absolute best behavior vis a vis arendelle. elsa is not the type to make him ask how high when she says jump, but she can and does tap him for favors when the need arises.

i think there’s even textual support for this in the musical, because after the blizzard is resolved — the duke is the first to drop a knee & he’s the one who answers her question of “is everyone alright?” with “we are, your majesty. rest assured.” whatever his private thoughts about her may be, he recognizes that elsa has won this round and his immediate instinct is to make a public show of respecting her authority. that is a trait elsa wouldn’t hesitate to use. )

hans, on the other hand, elsa will never, ever forgive. alone of everyone in arendelle during the blizzard, hans acted out of premeditated malice and ambition because he wanted to steal the throne of arendelle, and his actions came within seconds of costing both anna and elsa their lives. he manipulated her people. he exploited her sister and broke her heart. he took pleasure in telling elsa that her sister was dead. elsa will never forgive him.

even if he redeemed himself, even if he did a complete reversal, fixed his mindset, and totally transformed his behavior and became a good person who repented from his past wrongs and devoted himself wholeheartedly to being better, elsa still would not forgive him or fully trust him. she would accept that he has changed and acknowledge whatever apologies he offered to her, but he would still be persona non grata in arendelle and the most she would ever offer him is chilly politeness.

#⌈ ONE WITH THE WIND & SKY ⌋ ( hc : elsa. )

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timeshuffles · 6 years ago

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so yesterday i saw what i believe is a huge misinterpretation of ‘monster’ and specifically the reason elsa surrenders at the end, and i’m still annoyed about it, so to be 100% clear about my take on this: ‘monster’ is not about elsa surrendering because she thinks she’s a monster or because she’s intimidated by hans. ‘monster’ is not about elsa being a passive observer of her own story. ‘monster’ is not about an angry mob storming in to burn the helpless, frightened witch.

‘monster’ is about elsa grappling with the very real consequences of her decision to run away from her coronation and turn her back on arendelle when it needed her most, which has resulted in a situation where lives are in danger and foreign usurpers have taken command over the crisis.

‘monster’ is about elsa coming to terms with the damage her father’s instructions and her rigid adherence to them has done.

‘monster’ is about elsa weighing her desire to disappear into the wilderness where she feels safe against her sense of duty to her country, her people, & her sister, and deciding to walk the difficult, uncertain path of a queen instead of hiding herself away again or giving up and killing herself.

‘monster’ is about elsa triumphing over her worst inclinations.

from the moment she hurts anna as a child until the moment hans shows up at her ice palace with the mob, all of elsa’s actions are guided by anxiety, depression, and guilt. ‘monster’ is the turning point, the moment when elsa finally takes a clear look at herself & her past and consciously chooses to break free of those psychological chains and live.

and in order to do that, elsa has to surrender.

see, in the show, the way ‘monster’ is staged, elsa is alone on stage for the first half of the song. she can hear the mob approaching outside, and they are important only insofar as their arrival will force her to make a choice: she can’t continue to pace and fret and do nothing as she has since sending anna and kristoff away from the ice palace.

beyond that, elsa is not scared of or even particularly interested in the mob. her focus, instead, is on herself, her magic, and what she can do to put an end to the crisis she created when she lost control:

It’s finally come, come to knock down my door. I can’t hide this time like I hid before. The storm is awake. The danger is real. My time’s running out, don’t feel, don’t feel.

the method she has always used for controlling her magic no longer works, but that doesn’t stop her from instinctively falling into it even though she knows it’s not going to work. (& one thing the musical does, which i like very much, is directly echo pieces of ‘monster’ during ‘colder by the minute’ to emphasize that these harmful thought patterns are still very much there in elsa’s mind even after she chooses to reject them, eg. “conceal, don’t feel, don’t feel, get back into the cage!” while also using the word monster in a different way so that it is less self-referential and more like elsa is treating her magic like an adversary she now needs to beat.)

Fear will be your enemy, and death its consequence. That’s what they once said to me, and it’s starting to make sense. All this pain, all this fear, began because of me.

the assumption of both elsa and her parents throughout her life was that the prophecy pabbi delivered to her after saving anna’s life meant that other people’s fear of elsa and her magic would be the cause of elsa’s death. however, elsa is now beginning to interpret the warning differently: it is her own fear that is putting other people’s lives in danger, because she suppressed her magic out of fear, and then after losing control ran away out of fear, and that directly resulted in the devastating summer blizzard they’re trapped in now.

Is the thing they see the thing I have to be? A monster, were they right? Has the dark in me finally come to light? Am I a monster, full of rage? Nowhere to go but on a rampage? Or am I just a monster in a cage?

now... in the interpretation that i disagree with, the one that prompted this post, the writer of that took issue with the line “am i a monster, full of rage?” on the grounds that elsa is not an angry character and — yes. to an extent that’s true. but i think it’s very important to remember that the feeling that actually causes the blizzard, the actual trigger that makes elsa lose control over her powers at the coronation, isn’t fear. it’s anger. she loses her temper with anna and yells at her and it is that burst of, yes, rage that shatters her grip on her magic.

the whole storm is borne out of anger and only exacerbated by fear. elsa recognizes this. and this verse is her — somewhat poetic — way of interrogating those feelings. the blizzard began because she lost her temper for just one second; what if the reason she can’t get it back under control is it’s being fueled by all the pent-up frustration and anger she feels about her situation (forced into isolation and loneliness by dangerous magic she can’t control, with no end in sight)? and what if the reason she can’t stop the blizzard is simply because she’s just too weak & ruled by her emotions?

( i also think it’s an intentional parallel to ‘dangerous to dream’, in which elsa laments “i can’t be what you expect of me/and i’m not what i seem” and “i can’t show you i’m not as cold as i seem” — she longs to open up and be herself with both her subjects and especially her sister, whereas in ‘monster’ she confronts her fear that she is exactly who she now appears to be.)

at this point in the song, the mob interjects again, and elsa is visibly startled by their cries. which, if you ask me, is a very strong point of evidence in favor of ‘monster’ really not being about the mob; elsa is so deeply absorbed in her introspection that she loses track of the people storming into her home to kill her. anyway — the reminder of their imminent arrival pushes elsa out of this mournful speculation and into urgently evaluating her options.

What do I do? No time for crying now. I started a storm, gotta stop it somehow. Do I keep on running? How far do I have to go? And would that take the storm away or only make it grow? I’m making my world colder— how long can it survive? Is everyone in danger as long as I’m alive?

knowing that the “conceal, don’t feel” method has been unsuccessful so far, she considers running even further away and hoping that the storm will follow her away from arendelle. but since that didn’t work last time, she also begins to consider that perhaps only her death will guarantee the safety of her people.

( i have seen a surprising amount of backlash against the suicide ideation threaded throughout ‘monster’ and i really do not understand where it comes from. no one argues that elsa isn’t depressed — because she is, and it’s perhaps even more overt in the musical than in the film. she never worked through the trauma of nearly killing her little sister when she was ten, she’s spent the last eleven years living in near-total isolation and silence, her country is locked in the grip of a magical winter she caused and has no clue how to stop, and just hours ago she nearly killed her sister again. in purely emotional terms, it would be a miracle if the thought of suicide didn’t cross her mind in this dark moment — and on top of that, she has an actual genuine reason to believe the world would be a better place without her in it, because her death might end the blizzard, & that kind of logic has incredible power on a mind that is already entrenched in habits of guilt and self-sacrifice. )

( i think it’s also worth noting that this is the second time in the show elsa asks herself “what do i do?” — the first is in ‘dangerous to dream,’ after she manages to get herself coronated without freezing her scepter:

Father, I did it! Now what do I do? I can’t stop smiling, how strange— does this mean that things are different? Could they really change? And could I open up that door, and finally see you face to face? ...I guess a queen can change the rules, but not the reason they’re in place.

and once again, its use here feels like an intentional inverse of its use in ‘dangerous to dream,’ where instead of being so giddy with success and optimism that for a second she considers relaxing the strict rules she holds herself, now elsa is in a situation where the rules are crumbling all around her, she’s beginning to see that they never protected anyone in the first place, and she has no fucking clue what to do without them. )

anyway, this part of the song is when the mob breaks into her ice palace and finally enters the scene proper. and the physical staging of this moment is really important, because it’s what really drives home the balance of power here and what elsa is doing in this scene. because what’s the first thing does elsa when a mob of scared, angry, armed men break into her sanctuary?

she turns her back on them.

like — they don’t even get to ENTER properly because she controls the space, and elsa barely even spares them a glance. and just as elsa denies them entry into her palace, she refuses to be distracted from her internal quandary.

Was I a monster from the start? How did I end up with this frozen heart? Bringing destruction to the stage, caught in a war that I never meant to wage.

if anything, the arrival of the mob becomes, to her, a kind of symbol of how badly she has failed them. like — just imagine how desperate you’d have to be to storm the castle of somebody with powers like elsa’s in the middle of a blizzard so deadly cold that you know you will die if you stay in it.

this verse is, i think, really elsa empathizing deeply with the mob and recognizing herself through their eyes — she waged war on her own people. it was an accident, yes, but that doesn’t end the devastation nor undo the destruction she has already caused. she’s not afraid of them, because they are completely at her mercy. and she’s not angry at them, because she understands the fear and pain fueling their anger.

& most importantly, she still sees these people as her subjects, and that makes their safety her responsibility in her mind. which is what brings her to:

Do I kill the monster?

ultimately it is the sight of the ordinary people she has failed — not anna, who has a personal history with her and thus trusts and loves her in a way no one else can, but regular subjects who are scared and hurting and confused and are literally just innocent bystanders in a disaster that grew out of a simple spat with her sister — that pushes elsa into actively contemplating suicide.

Father, you know what’s best for me. If I die, will they be free? Mother, what if after I’m gone the cold gets colder, and the storm rages on? ...No! I have to stay alive to fix what I’ve done, save the world from myself and bring back the sun.

this is the most important verse all of ‘monster’ and, i would argue, the entire show in terms of elsa’s character development. why? because it is a direct echo of the conversation young elsa has with her parents after almost she almost kills anna — even the melody is the same:

AGNARR: We must keep her powers hidden from everyone, including Anna.

IÐUNN: What?! No, they’re sisters, we can’t ask expect them to stay away from each other—

ELSA: Mother, it’s how it has to be. What’s best for her is best for me. Father, I’ll do what you say—

AGNARR: We’ll help you to control it. I know we’ll find a way.

IÐUNN: Only until we get more answers, and then

ALL: We’ll find our way back to be a family again...

as a child, elsa took her father’s advice and hid herself away, shut down all her emotions and metaphorically ends her life in order to keep her powers hidden (“i can’t laugh, i can’t cry, i can’t dream, i can’t live without it bursting out!”). in contrast, her mother rejects the idea that she must live in fear, objecting to keeping her isolated from anna and later trying to comfort her when she’s upset instead of scolding her to keep it hidden.

& here, as a woman facing down all the myriad ways that her father’s teachings have failed her and her country, elsa consciously chooses to follow her mother’s advice instead—embracing life, and trying to control her magic without sacrificing her life in both the literal and figurative sense. she chooses to seek out the answers her mother wanted, the better alternative that her parents went in search of when they left arendelle on the voyage that killed them.

If I’m a monster, then it’s true there’s only one thing left for me to do, but before I fade to white, I’ll do all that I can to make things right.

so this is her conclusion: if it’s true that she really cannot end the storm any other way — if she really can’t bring herself into balance, if she really can’t find a way to rule her emotions instead of being ruled by them — then, yes, she will kill herself as last-ditch effort to save her people. ultimately, she values their wellbeing above her own life.

but. she is not there yet. it’s kind of funny because, despite the fact that elsa is literally planning to kill herself if she can’t stop the storm any other way, this verse is, in contrast to the despairing tone of everything leading up to this verse, actually filled with hope and determination. this is elsa rejecting the idea that she’s a monster, rejecting the idea that the only way to keep people safe from her is to lock herself away and suppress all her feelings, rejecting the fear her father’s ideas represent. this is elsa saying “if my father was right about me, then i’ll die, but i don’t think he was right anymore.”

& having articulated this conclusion to herself, she finishes up the song by taking the first step in acting upon it. how?

by taking control of her magic and setting her people free.

I cannot be a monster. I will not be a monster— not tonight!

the other big point of contention in posts i read yesterday that prompted this post is the idea that elsa surrendering to hans at this point makes her — weak? passive? a helpless object in her own story? but the thing is —

elsa still holds all the power here. after she lowers the ice, the mob readies their weapons and advances on her...

...but all she has to do to make them back off is tilt her hands at them.

a mere glance over her shoulder and they recoil. they don’t dare actually attack, and elsa holds them back like this for several seconds with nothing but the power of their own fear — and then she surrenders by saying, “I surrender, take me to Princess Anna.”

because the thing is. she doesn’t surrender because she thinks she deserves it. she doesn’t surrender out of guilt or because she believes she’s a monster. she surrenders, i think, for two reasons:

first, these are her people and it is currently so cold that they will freeze to death if they stay in the mountains. she needs to get them to safety. surrendering and allowing them to escort her down the mountain, back to the comparative safety of arendelle (where there’s fire, food, blankets, and plenty of shelter), is the best way to accomplish that.

and second, anna came after her with nothing but trust and love and unshakable belief that elsa could get the storm back under control. elsa drove her away out of fear, but now that she has consciously chosen to fight against her fears and try her best to end the storm, she wants to accept the help anna offered her — and given that catalyst for all of this was, as i said, elsa losing her temper with anna during an argument, it’s also not unreasonable for her to think that maybe resolving that argument with anna will help end the blizzard too.

in any case, she now has a pressing need to get to anna as soon as possible, and every reason to think anna is already back in arendelle, and surrendering is, again, the best way she can think of to accomplish this.

& also, i’ve pointed this out before, but elsa is still positioned as the one in charge after she surrenders. we see hans gesture for two guards to go up and put elsa in shackles, but when they actually go to do so, they wait for her consent before even attempting to actually put them on her.

they don’t try to force the shackles onto her hands — they don’t even touch her. while hans and the duke of weselton (both foreigners with no legitimate authority in arendelle!) posture and bicker with each other about who is in charge, these guards—actual citizens of arendelle—WAIT for elsa to to grant them permission to put her in chains. she slowly holds up her hands, then nods, and only then do they actually move to restrain her.

she is in charge. she is the one holding the cards throughout this scene.

& throughout the rest of the act? elsa is willing to play along with hans’s authority only for as long as his decisions do not interfere with hers. she wants to see anna, he wants to bring her to arendelle — that works for her. he says anna isn’t back yet and she’s to be imprisoned until anna returns — that’s fine, she’d be waiting in arendelle for anna anyway. but the second he gives an order that doesn’t align with her own goals, she breaks the shackles and leaves.

( caissie also rolled her eyes at him after “i charge queen elsa with treason” when i saw the show again in july. it was delightful. )

ANYWAY. this got a hell of a lot longer than i intended because i have so many goddamn feelings about how important ‘monster’ is and how necessary it is for the development of elsa’s character to have her fight this vicious internal battle between her greatest strength (compassion) and her greatest weakness (“conceal don’t feel” & the ethos of self-sacrifice) and emerge triumphant after a lifetime of clinging to her father’s misguided lessons but —

TL;DR ‘monster’ is elsa battling depression, anxiety, guilt, and self-loathing so she can whole-heartedly accept the responsibilities of rule, choose life, and finally turn away from “conceal, don’t feel;” her subsequent surrender is equal parts deep compassion for the mob and a calculated decision that allows her to accomplish all her goals in the safest and most efficient way possible based upon what she currently knows of the situation. also pacifism does not make a character helpless or weak and at no point does elsa lose or relinquish control over the mob situation thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#⌈ ONE WITH THE WIND & SKY ⌋ ( hc : elsa. )#[[ musical elsa is the only valid elsa & you can't change my mind ]]

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