I hate how everyone is always hating on Elsa for the way she reacted and dealt with her powers and insecurities. They talk about how ~they~ would have reacted differently, how ~they~ would never have done what Elsa did, how ~they~ would have told Anna and how ~they~ wouldn’t have locked her out. They go on and on about how irresponsible Elsa was for running away, how ~they~ wouldn’t have left Anna to deal with and run the kingdom (queendom?) alone. But I’ve got news for you. For all you people who say she’s being a bitch, for those who are being horrible and judgmental, for everyone who can’t deal with the fact that a fictional character’s reactions and coping mechanisms don’t line up with their own. I don’t ~care~ what you would do. I don’t give a rat’s ass how you think she was a bad person for the way she dealt with her issues. Unless your name is Elsa and you have a little sister called Anna, unless your parent’s died when their ship was caught in a storm and left you and your sister alone, unless you grew up almost never leaving your bedroom to protect your family, unless you are the queen of an entire country at 21 years old, unless you have magical ice powers, I DON’T CARE. I DO NOT GIVE A FLYING FUCK HOW YOU WOULD REACT. THIS STORY IS NOT ABOUT YOU. THIS STORY IS ABOUT ELSA. NO ONE ON THE PLANT HAS OR EVER WILL EXPERIENCE WHAT ELSA DID. NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE. Every single person on the planet reacts differently to situations. Can you imagine what Elsa went through? Elsa nearly killed her little sister with her ice powers when she was a child. She was eight. EIGHT. After that, she grew up thinking she was a monster, she spent THIRTEEN years locked in her room, because she thought she was a monster, and that if she was around people, they would end up hurt, or injured, or even dead. And don’t tell me that this was exclusively her parent’s idea and fault, or that they were abusive. Yes, they where the ones to start it, but they were trying their best to help their daughter, in the only way they knew how, which, unfortunately, was more detrimental than helpful. They thought they were helping her. And Elsa continued the isolation even after they died. And if you pay attention at the beginning, her parents try to help her in other ways, to comfort her. She backed away from them, begged them to stay away, because she couldn’t control her powers and was indescribably terrified of hurting them. She was something like fourteen in this scene. Fourteen, and refusing physical contact, even just being in the same room as her loved ones, because she was so fucking scared that what happened when she was eight would happen again. She spent years under the control of the ‘conceal, don’t feel’ mantra, holding in every emotion, every little feeling because even the slightest reaction, the tiniest loss of control, even for a second, could have tragic results. For years, she held everything in, the only exception being when her parents died. Eventually, all this built up emotion, all the anger, the rage, the guilt, the sadness, everything, will explode. Eventually, Elsa will lose it. Then one day it’s her coronation. Her sister tells her that she’s marrying a complete stranger. And when Elsa tells her that it’s not the smartest thing to do, she pretty much gets told that she’s a bad person because she never left her room. Anna then (albeit accidentally, but still) takes her glove, the only thing that lets her control her powers, the only thing that stops it from happening, and holds on to it, doesn’t give it back. Anna rants about how hard her life has been alone. Elsa sacrificed everything to protect her family, to make sure her powers never hurt anyone, and now all of a sudden, ~she’s~ the bad guy, ~she’s~ the villain? But Anna is still ranting, still talking about how hard done by she is. (I’m not saying her life was easy, or that she had nothing to complain about, but you get the point) Elsa turns, telling her to stop, that’s it’s enough, and accidentally lets fly a large quantity of spiky, needle like ice, revealing her powers to everyone in the room. She stops dead when she realises what she done. Look at her face when they all look at her, when she’s running through the courtyard. Look at the complete and utter fear, the shame, the despair. Look at her face when the Duke of Weselton calls her a monster. All her life, she’d know it, she’d believed it, all her life she’d thought it over and over again, ‘I’m a monster’. But to hear it said out loud, by someone she’s never met, who knows nothing about her, is an entirely different thing. So she runs. She runs away in terror, away from everything she’s ever known. The lyrics to ‘Let it Go’ are incredibly revealing. How she’s held everything in for so long, how she’s always had to act perfect, be a good girl. She tried so hard to keep her emotions in, and she failed. Her powers were something she couldn’t reveal to anybody, and in one second, one outburst of emotion, it was revealed to everyone. But now that they know, and there is no one around for her to hurt, she feels free, she feels safe to ‘let the storm rage on’ so to say. She’s found that she’s happy, alone up on the mountain, away from all human contact. She’s free to use her powers, to do everything she was never able to do, with no one else around to hurt. But then Anna shows up. At first Elsa seems happy to see her. But then Anna begins to walk up the stairs, trying to approach her sister. A look of fear comes across Elsa’s face and she backs away, not wanting to hurt her, tells her sister that she should go home. Anna tells her that they can be close again, like they used to be. For half a second, Elsa looks like she want nothing more than to be able to be as close to Anna as they were as kids, but then she remembers what happened last time they played together, she remembers how she struck her with the ice blast, how Anna almost died. She looks so full of despair when she tells her sister no. Then she finds out that she unintentionally froze everything. Even up on the mountain, away from any other human beings, she still hurting people, people are still suffering, because of her powers. She can’t escape it. No matter where she goes, how far away she runs, she’s still hurting people. She looses it again, sending out ice shards in every direction. When she realised that she hit Anna she looks so horrified, so disgusted with herself. She’s still backing away, turning her body away from her sister, trying to stay as far away as she can, so she doesn’t hurt her for what would now be the third time. Anna still won’t leave, so Elsa needs to take drastic action, before she accidentally kills Anna. Marshmallow is a last resort for her, it’s not what she wanted to do. Look at her face as she summons him. She never wanted to have to go that far, but she’d already tried everything else she could to get Anna to leave, to go somewhere safe. I don’t even think she intended for him to hurt anyone. At first, all Marshmallow did was throw them out of the castle. It wasn’t until Anna threw that snow ball that he started chasing them. Very nearly everything Elsa did was to protect her sister. She loves her sister very much and would never intentionally harm her. No one has been through what Elsa had. No one knows what it’s like. No one can accurately say what they would do. Because while it’s all fine and dandy to ~say~ you would handle things differently, when the time actually comes, anything could happen. People think things will happen in one way, but it almost never does. People panic, people freeze (no pun intended) people break down, and often loose all logic or meaningful thought paths. Leave Elsa alone, because no one knows what she went through. No one ever will, because it’s just not possible.