Yuffie's Writing How-To's

Movies to Books: Frozen

Frozen was an incredible movie for so many reasons. I could speak volumes about the characterization, the interactions, the storyline, the plot, and THAT SNOWMAN. But today I'm just going to focus on characters who are their own antagonists. The protagonists are also the villains (so I'd like you all to forget about the actual bad guy, who gets revealed at the end. Before he was even revealed as a bad guy right before the climax--over halfway through the movie--he played no antagonistic role).

Frozen is the story about two princesses: Elsa and her younger sister Anna. Elsa was born with ice powers, and when she's playing with Anna and accidentally ices Anna and nearly kills her, the King and Queen lock Elsa away and convince her to hide her powers and keep her distance from everyone, including Anna.

When Elsa's to be coronated as Queen, she finally (and reluctantly) opens the castle for the festivities. And she accidentally freezes everything and nearly kills a bunch of people.

And here is where we begin our discussion of how to make protagonists who are their own antagonists.

It wasn't Elsa's powers that made her "bad" or was a character flaw. It was the way she reacted to them. She let herself be overrun and controlled by the fear of accidentally hurting others with her powers. If she'd made an effort to learn how to control her powers, rather than let her powers control her, she could've lived a full and happy childhood and life and bypass all the bad events in the movie.

No ability is inherently evil. It's the way it's used, and the way the user reacts to the powers that create problems. If your character has some ability--not just magic; it could be something like being really charismatic or an amazing pianist--their reactions to that ability is the defining character flaw. As a writer, exploit that flaw, and the character will create problems for themselves.

Elsa's flaw was that she made one mistake with her powers, and she completely closed herself out to everyone and locked herself in her room for years. She planned to live alone forever. Rather than seek out a solution that makes everyone--including herself--happy, she decides to run away from her problems and suffer alone, shut away and isolated from the rest of the world.

When she accidentally froze a bunch of stuff at the coronation party, she dropped everything and ran away to live on a mountain in a self-built ice castle. Again we see her character flaw in action. Her power itself isn't a flaw. It's how she reacts to the power that's a flaw.

And this point is solidly proven at the end *SPOILERS AHEAD. LOOK AWAY IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET!* when she learns how to use her ice powers to do good and create an ice rink for the kingdom and save Olaf snowman from melting. She learned how to be herself--powers and all--and still live happily with everyone.

*END SPOILERS*

Remember when I said the villain is layered and deep when you can look at their decisions and say, "Yeah, I definitely might have made the same decision if I was in their situation."? Villains are just Heroes who made the wrong decisions. And really, who's to say they're "wrong"? Antagonists just oppose the protagonists. That doesn't necessarily mean they're pure evil. Elsa was the main antagonist of Frozen (during the first 2/3 of it), but I can bet you not a single person who watched that movie will ever call her "evil" or a "villain". Anna was the main protagonist, but she made impulsive decisions (deciding to marry the guy she met like 2 hours ago, which caused more problems later on). But she's not a villain.

The line between "villain" and "hero", "antagonist" and "protagonist" can be (and should be, in my opinion) extremely blurred. If you can blur it, you get deeper characterization and a more emotionally impactful story, because your audience will be torn over which character to root for. And that's a bigger emotional response from your audience.

We desperately wanted to see Elsa succeed, but we knew she was on a bad path--a path toward permanent isolation and unhappiness. So we wanted her to fail in her attempts to run away, so she could learn to embrace her power rather than fear it. We want Anna to succeed in bringing Elsa home, but we (well, I) wanted to see her 2-hour lust-o-rama with prince charming fail, because, DOWN WITH INSTALOVE. She annoyed the heck out of me, but at the end of the day, I rooted for her. I rooted for Elsa from the start, but part of me wanted to reach into the TV and give her a hard shake and slap some sense into her.

You get complex characters when they show both flaws and redeemable traits. It's the flaws that create problems and push the plot forward. It's the redeemable traits that let us forgive their bad decisions.

I know I've probably said this point like 20 times already, but it's just so important and so poorly done in a lot of works I've read. Here's another way to look at it: ask yourself, "Can I flip the game and write from the villain's point of view and still make it as interesting as writing from the protagonist's pov? Could I make the Villain look like the Hero of the story, simply by switching the pov?" <- probably the most important advice I feel like I can give you guys about storytelling.

EXERCISE: Write a scene or two from your Villain/Antagonist's pov. Try to make us root for them and boo at the original Hero/Protagonist.

Frozen did this beautifully! I'm incredibly proud of Disney for going in this direction with a princess movie considering their biggest moneymakers in the past were things like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. where there was a very clear, thick line between good and evil. With their latest movies, that line is getting really blurred to the point where it's almost non-existant! Kudos to you, Disney. :) (Also, completely unrelated to this how-to's topic, Frozen also emphasized platonic love over romantic love, which made me soooo happy to finally see, especially in a Disney movie. Yay! *claps*)

So what did you guys think of Frozen? How are you liking Disney's new direction with how they treat their protagonists and antagonists?