Elsa: When Fear Tells Us to Hide
There is something about Elsa’s story in Frozen that feels completely different when I watch it as an adult. As a child, I probably would have seen a princess with magical powers who accidentally froze an entire kingdom. Now I see someone who spent most of her life believing there was a part of herself that needed to be hidden. I see a little girl who became afraid of who she was, who shut herself away from someone she loved because she believed distance would keep everyone safe, and who spent years trying desperately to control something she didn’t completely understand. The more I think about Elsa, the less her story feels like one about magic and the more it feels like one about fear. Elsa wasn’t always afraid of her powers. When she and Anna were little, her magic was something joyful. It was something they shared. Then Elsa accidentally hurt Anna, and everything changed. Suddenly something that had brought happiness became something dangerous. Elsa learned to conc...