Overthinking Frozen

Perhaps unsurprisingly I am watching more kids stuff now. My toddler is kinda obsessed with Muppets at the moment, which is both nice and a bit irritating. It's good that he wants to watch something we already like, but a bit irritating when he starts plaintiavely whining about "Muppies!" wherever we are.

It may be apparent that I can be a bit of an overthinker, but so are many people. Even when I'm watching something simple/cute with my kid I can't turn off my brain's and tendancy to ask irrelevant questions and posit theories. I've decided to lean into this and so here is my overthink of Frozen.

I'm so Angry at the Older Generation
I get that the King and Queen were scared by what happened, Elsa did seriously damage Anna, but locking their daughter (and heir!) away for most of her life was never a good plan. Telling someone they have to go to their room until they stop being magic/a mutant is not a good option. How did they expect her to develop the necessary skills of statecraft, diplomacy or socialising that are surely needed by a monarch? It seemed like each day they hoped it'd all just go away, or maybe gloves would somehow fix the problem, and everything could go back to normal. Except when it has been years and a situation is getting worse you've got to plan for what happens next, instead of trying to pause the lives of children.
Locking Elsa away, while cruel and stupid, makes a lot more sense than locking Anna away too . She had no powers and presented no danger, there was no reason to keep her away from everyone. She was this active, excited child and they just left her to wander about by herself, who does that? Well, these jerks obviously. If they wanted to keep the sisters apart (advice which they took to extremes) then why cloister Anna alongside -but ever separate from- Elsa? If Elsa isn't going to be in a position to go out and represent the royal family, then encourage Anna (the spare in 'heir and a spare') to act in her stead. She could have been the social, outgoing one who was seen by the people and did the social stuff that Elsa wouldn't be able (assuming you subscribe to the nonsense that Elsa couldn't go outside). Instead it seems like they just forgot Anna, gave her no useful training and left her eager and naive, easy prey for manipulation.

This is clearly not working

I feel like Grandpappy Troll needed to give more advice about dealing with Elsa's powers. He scared everyone and didn't give them a practical way to handle the situation, so the toxic situation above developed. Also the trolls in general needed to be less pushy about Kristof's lovelife. I think it was supposed to play as embarrassing, but it came off as intrusively pushy, especially when they encourage him to pursue Anna after they learn she's engaged to someone else.

Arendelle's Constitutional Crisis
It was 3 years between King Bad-Dad's death and Elsa coming of age, who was regent? Where are they? If no regent, who was running things?  Did Elsa just have brief meetings with the people who ran stuff and then hid away again. I mean hopefully she was taught something about running a country during the 10 years she was sent to her room to dwell on her continued failure (still not over it). The fact that the royals can just disappear from public life with limited ill-effects to the country (so far as we know) suggests there were other people around actually getting stuff done.
When Elsa is crowned things are probably expected to be more settled, a new Queen and a new start. But after the coronation she reveals scary powers and runs off, so is she the Queen still? The legal status of people with magic isn't clear, and it is mostly a foreigner who reacts badly. Then the heir to the throne goes off too and leaves a foreign prince in charge. Except there's no official status for Prince Hans, because Elsa (head of the royal household) didn't approve the engagement. He goes around being seemingly useful, and everyone's suddenly troubled by all the snow in the world, so I guess the people who usually run things were just glad for the help. Not sure who those people are though, dignitaries seem to be clustering together to discuss things in the few days that this is all happening, but only one of these characters seems to be from Arendelle. Where are the folks who were running things during Elsa's minority? Shouldn't they be involved until whatever is happening with the royals has been resolved?


For all that he is a horrible person and trying to grab a kingdom by manipuative and murderous means, Hans does seem to have a good handle on disaster relief and how to get things done. Is this just a ploy? Or would he have been a useful leader even if he is a shitty peron? I mean he presumably had more interest in/experience of statecraft and diplomacy than either of the 2 royal women. Having said that, Hans claimed to marry someone without providig a witness and said she'd died when she was still alive. I mean she was dying, but still he's presumably not the only person with a key to that room, so someone might well have found her. Not good planning/villaining there.