#the secret of the nameless kingdom | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pendragonsclotpole · 8 months

Text

building on my idea that merlin takes on the name ambrose pendragon after arthur’s death, like imagine it’s 50 years later.

everyone from camelot is dead. the anglo-saxons have won, historical conquests of britain are continuing on as they did and here remains merlin, previously known as emrys, neither name really a surname and the latter always more of a title, but both representative of a world that no longer exists, a kingdom that has fallen apart, a servant with no master, a half without that which makes it whole.

so maybe merlin leaves. he explores. first he travels the isle and perhaps when people ask him who he is he defaults to an ancient practice. people, you see, have often been known by what they do or who they serve or where they come from. for a while, for the decades that pass wherein people remember the rule of the pendragons and the great kingdom of camelot and the failed prophecies of albion, he is not Merlin of Ealdor but Merlin of Camelot.

but people die. memories fade. time passes. merlin remains. and after a while, he cannot call himself Merlin of Camelot. not only do people forget his old kingdom, they forget his name, they bring along new languages and then around 300 years after arthur’s death, a collection of stories begin to be written, about magic, about merlin, about—

Arthur.

people you see, have often been defined by what they do or who they serve or where they come from. when the stories of arthur begin to be told anew, and remain with merlin through the tide of centuries, merlin resolves to forge a new name. he devises first the name in the style of a servant or of some of the common folk.

Merlin of Pendragon.

merlin toys with that idea, wears it for a few decades but something in those words rings false, sounds wrong, and unsettles his blood, as if he lays claim to a dynasty that shall never be his and will never rise again. when he uses it, people laugh and think him an uneducated fool playing at legend. it feels trite and awkward and wrong.

Merlin Pendragon sounds better, more forgivable if not entirely presentable. It makes merlin sound like he is a Pendragon, but only one sorcerer has ever laid claim to the Pendragon name and her name had not been merlin. (it makes merlin a Pendragon, and not even when Arthur lived had merlin considered such a fate a possibility, that Arthur could ever consider—)

merlin continues thinking, and by the time he settles on a replacement it is out of obligation and urgency. he cannot be nameless while he works as a healer and travels the world and serves other people as best as he can. he cannot be merlin Pendragon if the only man who could have conferred that name to him is dead.

instead he becomes Emrys Pendragon, and for a while, that name becomes a second skin. but like the serpent he has always been, merlin eventually sheds that skin. centuries have passed and those who once bore the name emrys, the last descendants of the druids and the people of Camelot, now only recognize that name in legend. the name once more marks him as stupid fool in love with the romantic notion of chivalry. besides, the languages have shifted and a name that once rolled off the tongue has become clotted and stuck in the mouths of people. no one can say it as it had once been said nor as it once belonged by arthur’s side, if only in secret.

merlin again returns to the drawing board, and luckily by that time he is aware of the translations of his many names. on a visit to rome, the grand imperial capital Arthur once dreamt of seeing as a young man, merlin thinks of a perfect substitute. His final name.

Ambrose.

Ambrose Pendragon.

it is emrys, but not quite.

it is merlin as he is forced to live without Arthur.

it is what Arthur could have been if he had lived at merlin’s side.

it is, written shorter, A. Pendragon.

it is a simple name. it is a stupid name. it is a name that breaks his heart and reminds him of his failings and keeps the faith alive within him.

years after adopting the name, merlin wakes up and walks to his desk and sees the name written on the outside of an envelope and he imagines it’s a letter from arthur.

a thousand years later, he sees it written on the sides of coffee cups and envelopes, monogrammed on his coats and cufflinks, inked on his essays, emblazoned on the side of his shop, and merlin imagines that when Arthur returns, he will return to a world already familiar with an A. Pendragon.

It shall be a welcoming world, as if across all these centuries, by some miracle, Arthur Pendragon had lived all along.

#merlin #bbc merlin #arthur pendragon #merlin bbc #king arthur #merthur #merlin emrys #bbc merthur #merlin’s name is a. pendragon #merlin quotes #arthur and merlin #married names

976 notes · View notes

bonefall · 5 months

Note

Windstar's kits in BB are Dust Muzzle and Morning Whisker. With the former being renamed Dustiest Muzzle to fit naming conventions. But whats Morning Whisker's new name? Esp since you said that they will probably be the leader after Windstar passes and theres already Morningstar of ThunderClan (my beloved).

TO RECAP FOR THOSE COMING IN;

There's three groups in BB!DOTC now; Park Cats, Mountain Cats, and Forest Cats. Forest cats are the oldest cultural group and have lived around the White Hart for decades. Park cats arrived a few generations ago following their king away from the destruction of their home down south. Mountain cats recently followed Gray Wing the Wise down from the north at the beck of prophecy.

Forest cats are given a simple, natural name, and then their talent earns them a suffix from a small pool of traditional meanings. Bee, a strong fighter, might earn -sting, -slash, or -stone.

Mountain cats inherit the last names of their parents, and are usually given first names that work with them. Tempest Sky and Quiet Wing's children are Gray Wing and Clear Sky. Quiet Wing then had another litter with Stone Peak, and they were named Fluttering Wing and Jagged Peak.

Park cats are born nameless. They're given simple descriptions about their physical traits, traditionally until they're given a mentor. They spend their adolescence as (Mentor)'s Paw, until they make an achievement that is worthy of their leader giving them a title of three words or less.

Normally the leader is the King, but the Wind Coalition broke off from the River Kingdom many years ago. The Wind Runner sees herself as being much better than a King, HER kingdom is self-made, battle-tested, unprotected by the powerful river or the secretive forest.

Moth Flight isn't her child anymore, but I do know I want The Wind Runner to keep three total. At birth, the kittens were "named" Littlest One, Middle One, and Biggest One.

(It's tradition that the first real name of a Park cat is their apprentice name, but Windy is BURSTING with hubrice and LOVES breaking traditions. So it's possible the three of them did something different.)

SO currently I'm thinking their new names are;

Emberkit: Littlest One -> Embers Under Rain

Morning Whisker: Middle One -> Prayers at Dawn

Dustiest Muzzle: Biggest One -> Dustiest Muzzle

Embers might still die rather young, but at the very least she gets to apprenticeship. I'm not entirely sure on what I'm doing with her yet. If her name is a title, she managed to light a fire during a rainstorm (probably using flint)

Dustiest Muzzle gets his title from being an early tunneler and both bold and curious enough to stick his nose in every burrow. It actually reads as kind of unearned though, you could put it in English as "works harder than everyone else" which he probably just got because he's the son of The Wind Runner.

(Not that he isn't hardworking, just that Windstar doesn't even pretend she isn't biased.)

And Prayers at Dawn is interesting, because praying to future Clan cats looks like tilting your head upwards, and feeling the wind stir your whiskers. In Ancient Parkmew, her name meant something more like "Rousing Whiskers at Sunrise." I like the idea that she's quite religious for some reason, possibly also a friend of Moth Flight when it comes time.

The Parkmew word for "whiskering" eventually becomes the Clanmew word for the physical position of making prayers.

So Prayerstar would be a perfectly good name to avoid the conflict of Morningstar down the line later, BUT I'm also tempted to make the name MOURNINGstar and maybe have her take Mourning Whiskers as a title during her life.

Maybe even as a self-given title of great sorrow. I could have her become very close to Moth Flight and make her heart break when Moth and her children agree to split themselves up across the five Clans in Moth Flight's Vow.

Hmmm... perhaps Windstar's last life withered away pretty slowly, and Mourning Whisker knew she was going to inherit the Wind Coalition on the brink of war with SkyClan already attacking. Moth and her kits knew that WindCo would defend them all with their lives, and that's exactly why they knew they couldn't stay.

#better bones au #BB!DOTC #Moth Flight's Vow #I need to make a new fragments thing for BB!MFV since a lot more stuff is in it now #But overall BB!DOTC is the part of bb I need to organize the most #And I have Bad At Organizing disorder

92 notes · View notes

dailyadventureprompts · 6 months

Text

Mystery: Oh, How the Iron Coffin Hungers!

There's been a rash of graverobberies across the kingdom that have the authorities suspecting necromancy. For their part, the necromancer's guild has nothing to do with these crimes and is willing to hire your party to help clear their name. The investigation will lead you to through tombs, black markets, and haunted crossroads of the realm, as it becomes clear the culprits are seeking far more than coin or corpses at the bottom of those defiled graves.

Clues & Complications:

A missing body is usually a dead giveaway that a necromancer has been involved in a grave robbery, as most criminals only care about grabbing what valuables they can and wouldn't result to bodysnatching unless someone was going to pay them for it. How unusual then when a few of the bodies begin turning up days after they were exhumed, one in an abandoned cellar, one on the side of the road, and one in a completely different town, which may give a hint as to the culprit's movements.

Working for necromancers has its benefits, the guild is aware of the habits of the corpse trade (only in a theoretical sense, you understand, yes?) and can use their magic to extract information from the cadavers. Strangely enough it appears all the corpses bear the marks of previous magical questioning, hinting that it might be information the robbers were after, not flesh or treasure.

The bodies all belong to minor gentry or well-to-do merchants, the ideal targets for graverobbers who don't mind breaking into a tomb or fussing with a trap (both of which the party might have to do during their investigation) if it means access to better plunder. If the party press deeper however they'll notice a recurring symbol, on a ring or a tattoo or etched into the gravemarker, resembling the crudest sketch of a jawbone.

Just like it seems the party is getting answers, the corpses they've been trailing sit up and lunge for the nearest individual's throat, transformed by dark power into a rampaging ghoul. Chaos ensues as this awakening occurs not just with those corpses that have already been found, but also with those that were previously undiscovered as well as a half dozen or more random bodies scattered across the countryside. Though they seem too possessed with hunger to be capable of speech, if the party manage to restrain one of the ghouls and sate its unholy hunger, they may just get the last few clues they're looking for.

Background: In life all of the bodies belonged to a secret society known as the jawbone club, a bad pun on one of the first mystical objects they'd obtained; a crude weapon made from the skull fragment of some great beast, unearthed on one of their founder's estates by some adventurers clearing a nest of monsters.

Their association started a few generations before as a mostly innocent affair, a nameless but exclusive social lodge where those in the know could smoke and gamble and make the sort of back room deals that occupy much of the energy of the idly wealthy. Those who took an interest in the jawbone realized that whoever held it had greater luck in their personal affairs, in no small part because of the unlucky and sometimes disastrous circumstances that would befall their rivals. They became secretive, an inner circle within the lodge that took on more authority as their powers grew, understanding emerging that if they fed their blood to the jawbone it would grant them power.

Power does not spring from nowhere however, as the weapon was infact an artifact dedicated to the ghoul-saint Doresain, the avatar of a hungry and terrible demon god who was in turn feeding on the hungry ambitions of the inner circle. Unconscious impulses became whispers became visions, as the tithe of blood raised to sacrifices of flesh and fingers, because what was letting the razor teeth of some dead beast scar your body if it meant your hateful old uncle suddenly took ill just after rewriting his will to leave you his fortune.

Things came to a head with Catiro Wayte, the youngest and least favored son of a large noble family. The Wayte clan owned land and mills aplenty and were no strangers to ambition, Catrio and his siblings were practically weaned on it. So when the opportunity came to take hold of his fortune at the price of only a little pain Catrio was only too happy to pay it, and keep on paying so long as he had blood to let and skin to scar. After they'd come to understand what it could do the Jawbone Club had made rules about how often its members could make use of the artifact, fearing not only discovery but one of their number growing in power above the others. Catrio begged, bartered, and blackmailed to jump the line every time he could, hacking away a little more of himself each time, not giving his wounds time to heal up between sacrifices.

One night, when the itch of pride and avarice overwhelmed the pain in his infected flesh Catrio broke into the jawbone's sanctum. It was too late when the others found him in the morning , he'd carved open his belly looking for more of himself to cut away and had died with the artifact buried in his guts. Such heedless sacrifice opened a door for the ravenous hunger of the gnawing god, transforming Catrio's corpse into its mouthpiece, hungry and cruel. For all their resources the Jawbone club were unable to slay their former friend, instead sealing him in the lodge's basement and later an iron coffin they had constructed. They had a select number of their most trusted find a place to entomb Catrio's body (along with the bone it still clutched) in some unknown location and swore all the rest to secrecy, dissolving the jawbone club and swearing never to speak of it for the rest of their days.

The Culprit & The Consequences:

Catrio left much behind on that night he met his end, including a commonborn mistress and a daughter named Heliana only a few years old. One could theoretically source his ambition to his desire to make a place for them in the world, but that would be making things far too simple. Unrecognized by her father’s family and cut off from Catrio’s support Heliana and her mother ended up scraping to get by, with her ending up in the gravemaking trade out of one part practicality, one part wistful desire to perhaps one day find where her father was buried.

after nearly four decades after she and her mother were forced out on the street, Heliana’s crime spree began when by chance she found the first of the Jawbone marked graves. Remembering the stories her mother had told her about the club and its excesses, It took only a little convincing to have her fellow undertakers help her unearth the body, and a few charms learned from a travelling death priest to get the cadaver talking. After that it was just a matter of asking which corpse knew what, tracing her way through the postmortem ranks of the Jawbone club until she found out what had happened to her father and where his body lay.

Originally, all Heliana had wanted to do was give her father a proper burial alongside her some years dead mother, as she was told was always his wish. Plans changed when her father began to speak to her within the iron coffin after she’d unearthed it from its secret hiding space. Through the magic of the ghoul-saint he knew her, knew of her hungry years, and of the long dormant pride and ambition he’d handed down to her along with his blood: a desire to be recognized no matter the cost. He whispered a plan into her mind, a way for him to return to life and use the artifact he still carried to make everything as it should be. Naturally when they caught her agreeing with the corpse, most of Heliana’s muscle deserted her, and might give your party a much needed lead in their tall tales.

The animation of the other jawbone club members as ghouls was only a warning sign, a byproduct of Heliana breaking through the outermost layer of the iron coffin’s wards in preparation of something far more calamitous. Her father’s plan (or rather, the thing wearing her father like a mask) is to have Heliana burn the iron coffin along with her mother's bones in a ritual pyre at the heart of the Wayte estate. Catrio’s spirit will be free, devour the grounds (and his unwelcoming family) and use the power of the jawbone artifact to remake them all as they should be, with him as lord of the manor, united with his lover and child. While she’s more than willing to even the score with the people who denied her birth and threw her mother out on the street, why Heliana doesn't suspect is the horde of flesh eating undead and other malign spirits that will be unleashed should the ritual be allowed to finish.

Art 1 Art 2

#mystery #undead #necromancer #mid level #town encounter #cultist #yeenoghu #dnd #d&d

79 notes · View notes

transmascotd · 2 years

Photo

today’s adventure time character of the day is: slumber princess

#adventure time #slumber princess #the secret of the nameless kingdom #princesses

11 notes · View notes

yaeggravate · 5 months

Text

brief post about kaeya's potential future arc (or why 5 star kaeya will totally happen 🔮✨️)

so something i noticed is that kaeya always removes or distances himself from the end of any situation he's in. (it's much more noticeable in his hangout).

first is crepus's death. he hangs back and doesn't get involved in his final moments.

kaeya disappears in the final section of the ballads and brews event. you can find and talk to every character except him.

in the venti route of his hangout, kaeya stays back when it's time to sing with everyone. venti then drags him back in. (what's odd is that venti didn't even notice he was gone at first 👀 "now you see them, now you don't")

Kaeya: Slipping away before the final verse is sung, before the poet has uttered the last line, before everything has concluded… I don't know, something about it just resonates with me.

klee says kaeya hasn't read her the end of the book series the fox and the dandelion sea yet, which is about a guy stuck in a loop. in somewhat the same vein, in the secret summer event, he tells her a story about the jinni and a shepard boy but changes the ending from what we know from the in game book…

and then we have the prince qubad play, where he quietly exits after it ends. he explains why himself (through nahida's auge):

(Use Nahida's All Schemes to Know on Kaeya, optional) Kaeya: (I always like to extricate myself before things start getting tedious.)

in the same route, kaeya quotes the character jaques from shakespeare's play as you like it

Kaeya: Let me think... "All the world's a stage, and all the people merely players."

which is very fitting considering, quote the wiki:

Jaques takes no part in the unfolding of the plot, and confines himself to wry comment on the action and exchanges with his fellow characters.

he also silently does things for others without wanting to take credit, i.e. being rewarded.

and i think i know why 😏

in his character story, kaeya is referred to as a chess pawn in CN, he then repeats this in his hangout.

Kaeya: But I shall not bow to the will of fate. I am no pawn in heaven's plan.

further emphasizing it's not a random throw away term.

i'm neither chess expert nor chess amateur. but anyone can pull up a wikipedia page 😤

pawns are the only pieces that can't move backward, pawns can get promoted to another piece when they reach the end of the board, and… pawns are expandable, made to be sacrificed for the kingdom.

he even expresses the desire to age backwards….which pawns can't do of course.

A very simple such analogy is the Pawn — the expendable, powerless, nameless foot soldier who may, if his actions are brave and his heart is true, become a Queen (although someone more practised at the game may note that the pawn is really a symbol of why you should never overlook apparently powerless people).

that sounds exactly like kaeya's situation, doesn't it? many people have questioned why kaeya is a 4 star given his importance to the main plot, but i think it could be a deliberate narrative decision. (at least i hope it is 😬)

if kaeya is a pawn he can be promoted to a queen when he reaches the end…. except kaeya doesn't want to, as demonstrated by his unwillingness to see things through till the end.

why would he do this?

simply put, it's foreshadowing 😏

kaeya will have his character arc eventually, where the only sensible path is accepting that he must reach the end because pawns cannot stay pawns forever

Promotion is mandatory when moving to the last rank; the pawn cannot remain as a pawn.

there is some sick sense of irony in him declaring he won't be heaven's pawn, when a pawn can only stop being a pawn by moving forward.

i think kaeya's birthday letter about tcg of all things is also hinting at his arc:

If you think about it, playing cards aren't easy at all — you gotta do the math before throwing the dice, and be extra careful with your every move. One step wrong, and the whole table is turned. When that happens, don't you think it's most amusing to watch your opponent's frustrated face, hmm?

(uh oh, celestia 🤭)

say he does reach this metaphorical last rank, what would that look like for him? gameplay wise it would mean a promotion to 5 star status. story wise? a magical girl transformation into the second coming of fischl.

haha ok but, unfortunately i doubt it's that simple.

something else that has been foreshadowed is kaeya's eventual fate…

Traveler: What did you think of the story? Kaeya: It was alright. I suppose the hero always has to sacrifice himself to save others, and it does make for some good storytelling. But it leaves you wondering how he really feels about the whole thing. Did he ever have second thoughts? Only he can know, I suppose.

Kaeya: My dear audience, I ask you this: Do you believe in fate? If fate decreed that your life was to end in tragedy, what would you do?

Kaeya: I, Qubad, will spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, till I breathe my last in a place far from home.

Kaeya: And anyway, life is short, so we should make the most of the time we have. Right now is the perfect time to relax and enjoy ourselves, and who knows how many other chances we'll get. So come on, what do you say?

Fallen I 还没尽…兴… Haven't enjoyed...to the fullest...

When It's Windy 真是和平啊、可又能持续多久呢？ How peaceful, but how long can it last?

Traveler: Good night, Kaeya. Kaeya: Is it that time already? I'm not sure I'm ready to say goodbye.

let's face it, these are death flags. no, kaeya is not going to perma die, but this might be what he has seen through the Auge der Verurteilung and why he's so reluctant to reach the ending of his story.

but in order to defy fate and become a 5 star you have to throw yourself into the embrace of the immernacht first 😈

#.txt #lore bytes #see? i'm not crazy 😌#kaeya alberich

44 notes · View notes

inkyyghost · 6 months

Text

i own them all now

#hey ice king whyd you steak our garbage #explore the dungeon because i dont know #the secret of the nameless kingdom #finn & jake investigates #Pirates of the Enchiridion #adventure time #3ds #switch #adventure time games #finn and jake #mine #my post #game #2024

1 note · View note

autisticlalna · 3 months

Text

figured i should also do some theorizing of my own in avid's comments (if only to make people more aware of Nightmare existing), so here's my own current insanity after watching avid's ep8 premiere:

okay, theory: maybe Avid himself was pulled up out of the Void? maybe by his boss, whoever that is-- i'm guessing the Nameless King from the Nightmare series, considering the conversation Trog & Kitt overheard in Trog's episode 3. it feels like it's somebody from outside what we've seen so far, seeing as they're having to use Avid as a conduit for their will. there's also what's Milkman- uh, the Underswamp Wizard said about there being something else out there in the Void, and that triggering another flash of memory of Limbo.

either way, Avid was banished to Limbo, which… what if that's the depths of the Void? or, in another direction, what if Avid's fascination (and rejection) of the Void is because it reminds him of Limbo and the missing gap between him arriving there and him waking up in the Jungle Kingdom? he's vocally skeptical of the Void being alive or having wants and desires-- is that because of personal experience? and we still don't know how Doovid got monkeyified besides him saying he "saw some weird stuff" when returning to the Overworld. if Avid's transformation is related to his unwilling ties to Limbo, did Doovid also pass through it when going through the End portal home?

"you're an open book". "no more secrets". how much of it is "Avid hiding things from people" and how much of it is "Avid hiding things from himself"?

#leo.txt #sbk #sbk spoilers #queueing this so it's not Immediately Hit With Spoilers Beam lmao #skyblock kingdoms #meta analysis stuff

19 notes · View notes

a13thprincefora13thprincess · 1 year

Text

The 13th post: More than a Disney Prince

“Hans is a prince. He is a Disney Prince, but he’s more than a Disney Prince. He is many things. And there are a lots of secrets and twists and turns that we take with Hans.” "A lot of the scenes I recorded did not end up in the movie" Santino Fontana on Hans.

From Admiral Westergaard to Prince Hans of the Southern Isles

As you will already know, Frozen is an adaptation from the tale “The Snow Queen” by danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Disney had been trying to adapt “The Snow Queen” for decades. Different ideas were developed and a lot of changes were made in the process (you have a really interesting post about Frozen’s development by @greatqueenanna here).

We know that at some point, when Elsa still was a villain, the idea for Hans’ character was a nameless “Admiral Westergaard”, who was Anna’s love interest.

Evil Elsa deleted scene

Elsa was then changed, from a villain to a villain who had a redemption thanks to Anna, while Admiral Westergaard became a surprise villain.

Fast-forward to the final act: Elsa creates an army of snow monsters to attack our heroes while Kristoff has “a Han Solo moment” and comes to help Anna. To halt Elsa’s attacking army, the two-faced Prince Hans triggers a massive avalanche — not caring that the avalanche also puts Anna, Elsa and all of Arendelle in jeopardy. Anna realizes Elsa is their only hope, so she convinces her to use her powers to save the kingdom (...) Elsa’s heart is then unfrozen allowing her to love again.

At some point, Admiral Westergaard was changed to Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. This is a strange change for a villanous character if you ask me: they not only made him a Disney prince by birth, but also gave him the first name of the author of the original tale. Besides, keeping in mind that the names of the main characters in Frozen are meant to be a Hans Christian Andersen reference (Hans Kristoff Anna Sven), prince Hans would somehow be the most important, because he’s the one who was given the author’s first name. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Oh, but maybe it's just a coincidence.

Besides this, there is the fact that the kingdom’s name, Arendelle, is based in the norwegian town of Arendal. The isles located south of Arendal are, in real life, Denmark. And Hans Christian Andersen was danish. So they gave prince Hans not only the name but also the nationality of the author.

Also a coincidence?

Disney gave us a huge, very important clue with the Frozen Fever map.

This picture was originally posted by @wrath-of-zirro. A lot to analyze here.

On the top left corner there is a map of real Arendall with Denmark on the south; and the Frozen Fever map on the right. It is clear "The Southern Isles" are the danish isles of Fyn and its surroundings.

Map of real life Denmark with Fyn (Funen) in red from Wikipedia. Compare to The Southern Isles in the Frozen Fever map.

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, capital city of Fyn.

In the bottom of the picture we see the Egeskov Castle in Fyn, whose tower reminds of the one we see in The Southern Isles in the Frozen Fever map. It looks like it the castle was still under construction in the Frozen Fever map (there are 13 princes, so they need a huge castle I guess!). It's quite hard to me to think all of this is just a coincidence.

But that is not the only Andersen reference. Hans having twelve older brothers reminds of Andersen's tale The Wild Swans. That tale is about a princess who has eleven older brothers. The princess is named Eliza, which reminds of Elsa and, not unlike her, she is taken for a witch and is almost killed for that reason.

It is also known that Disney planned to make a movie about the danish author's life which started developing in the 1940s (the same time period in which they started trying to adapt The Snow Queen).

That project was later abandoned. Nevertheless, Disney has adapted many of the danish author's tales.

So... could it be that when Frozen was finally made, the creators decided to pay homage to the danish author by making him a Disney Prince?

But wait... there is more.

Thanks to @thelittlehansy I knew Hans Christian Andersen himself appeared as an animated character in an episode of The Little Mermaid animated series, called "Metal Fish". So, if Disney already had an animated character design for H.C. Andersen, and Prince Hans was a tribute to the author, it would make sense they would look alike, wouldn't it? They just had to redesign the character to make him look young, regal and handsome. Let's have a look at how did the animated version of the danish author look like. I found the episode in swedish language on Youtube:

Part 1

Part 2

They look pretty similar to me. Ginger, big nose, large chin, with sideburns, wears a vest and, in the last scene, a tailcoat. Even the fringe is similar. If you still think all of this is a coincidence I have to disagree. As the Duke would say: The can be no doubt now.

Frozen Fandom: But that's not posible! Making the author a villain, not very important for the story, and the center of silly jokes?! That would be so disrespectful!

Well, I have spent two years trying to prove Frozen makes perfect sense withouth Hans being a bad guy. Santino Fontana said a lot of the scenes he recorded weren't finally included in the movie, so it's safe to think we miss a lot of information about the character. The movie is not badly written; it's too well written in fact: the plotholes are part of the plot.

Frozen Fandom: But Hans is the villain!! He plotted a whole plan to take over the kingdom, took advantage of Anna's vulnerability, leave her to die when she needed him the most and let's not forget almost decapitate Elsa after lying to her about her sister's death.

*Sighs in frustration* All you can accuse Hans of is being a jerk to a dying Anna, being in a very stressfull, life-or-death situation. But let's deny these accusations one by one.

Lying to Elsa about Anna's death: Technically, he wasn't lying, as Anna was dying because of ice magic and Hans though (because of Anna's own words!) Elsa willingly attacked her.

Almost decapitated Elsa: Already explained in the 11th post of this analysis.

Leave Anna to die: Hans was sure there was nothing he - or anyone else - could make to save Anna, and let's not forget the overall situation: people in the kingdom was in inminent risk of dying because of the winter (remember the Duke's words: if we don't "do something" ( = kill Elsa) soon, we all will freeze to death), and he was really shocked (see 9th post of this analysis) to know Elsa had attacked Anna.

Plotted a whole plan to take over the kingdom: The only evidence for this is his own "villain monologue", which I don't think we should take seriously for reasons already explained in the 9th and 12th posts. Telling Anna he wanted to marry her and then arrange "a little accident" of Elsa is more him being a jerk than confessing an evil scheme.

Took advantage of Anna's vulnerability: I have to disagree. I think he manipulated her a bit, but not all of the time. If we look at their "date" from an objective point of view, we realize that for the most part he was just being friendly. Dancing, taking a walk, eating something is not something particularly romantic.

There were not ardent love expressions, he didn't even tell Anna he loved her. Can we really say he "seduced" her? The shoulder bump is romantic? It's more a friendly gesture, that is coded later in the saga as a "sibling thing".

We are led to see the scene in a subjective way, through Anna's eyes. But if we rewacht the scene from an objective point of view, all we see is a friendly interaction.Things don't get really "romantic" until "Love is an Open Door". And let's not forget it's Anna who begins it and this is Hans' first reaction:

Then he basically plays along with her, and at the end of the song - when he proposes to her - that's where the manipulation begins.

Another reason against Hans being a villain would be his facial expressions. He only has facial expressions that could be labeled as villainous in a few scenes (already explained in previous posts). I find it very telling that when he sentences Elsa to death, creators chose to give us a close-up of his face expressing sadness - when a smirk would be more fitting, since this happens after the betrayal scene. It's like they wanted to tell the audience: "No, Hans is not happy to sentence Elsa to death; he is devastated".

Frozen Fandom: He`s faking to the Duke and the dignataries.

It could be, but it's unusual for Disney characters to fake to the audience. Gaston makes villanous expressions since he first appears, so the audience can easily identify him as a villain... but everyone in the town think he's a great guy!

And Mother Gothel... think how interesting would it be if the audience wasn't given the backstory at the beginning of Tangled. But still in that case, we would be able to analize her expressions and realize they are different from those of a worried parent.

Frozen Fandom: well, so who do you think is the villain then?

Simple: there is no real villain in Frozen. But there are two fake villains. This pair.

Before we continue we have to make the following question: who is this Elsa?

But was she the cursed princess to be saved, or the wicked witch to be vanquished? And what was his role in this story? (A particular understanding, by @fasadi)

Elsa: A witch in distress

While most of the audience identifies Elsa as a princess, making Frozen a "two princesses movie", this is only half truth. Anna is "the princess" and real protagonist in Frozen, while her sister shares some traits with other kind of classic Disney characters. Let's see: Elsa...

Is older than the princess

Has magical powers

Lives isolated

Has a position of power (she's the princess heir and becomes the Queen)

Wears heavy make up

Wears purple clothes (her coronation cape) and uses purple eyeshadow

Curses the princess and the kingdom

Her actions have a huge impact on the plot

Has a great (villain) song

Is (almost) killed by the prince

The 13th Disney princess shares these characteristics with these ladies:

From my point of view, the Evil Queen from Snow White is the one that has had the biggest influence in Elsa's look. I found the following description of the Evil Queen on the Disney fandom wiki very fitting for Elsa:

"From the outside, the Queen appears to be calm, regal, and sophisticated, but in reality, this collected and stately facade hides an extremely sadistic, hateful, cold and sinister person" (Elsa's facade is similar and also hides her real self) "The Queen is an icily beautiful woman with a serene, unfeeling face and a slender figure. She has pale skin, red lips, green eyes, and seemingly penciled-on eyebrows"

They both wear a long cape with a pendant. You can't really blame the Duke for thinking Elsa was "a wicked witch conspiring to destroy us all", can you? After all, this is a fairy tale. There has to be a witch!

(Full comic here. A very fun comic showing Hans has all the traits of a classic Disney Prince. I'd love to see something similar with Elsa as a classic Disney Witch!).

At the end of the day, Elsa mortally attacked her sister and almost killed her whole kingdom because she had a massive anxiety attack. But even if she is, technically, a Disney witch and the villain of the movie (in the sense her actions are those of a villain) Elsa is not evil. Her thoughts, feelings and motivations are very different of those of a villain. She can't control her powers and feels unable to cope with the problems she has created, so her response is to run away.

This learned helplessness makes her another classic character: the damsel in distress. Elsa has to be saved from those who want to kill her to end the eternal winter and save the winter. She is first saved by Hans, who risked his own life entering the Ice Castle to save her from the Weselton guards and was able to stop her with a sentence that basically meant "I trust you" (whole analysis in the 7th post) and later saved by Anna. And, just like Hans saved Elsa from killing two men, Anna saved Hans from killing Elsa.

But, just because the audience "knows" Elsa they fail to identify her as the witch of this tale. They fail to understand that the Duke's reaction and prejudices against Elsa were, in fact, quite logic and understable. They fail to understand that (almost) everyone in Arendelle feared Elsa and wanted her dead, so the curse disappeared. The audience has all the information they need to realize Elsa meant no harm but... do the audience has all the information they need to understand Hans' character, and his sudden change at the end of the movie? I'm pretty sure we miss essential information.

Remember my interpretation of the gloves parallel in the analysis of the betrayal scene? One glove off = fake villain reveal. Now look at the Hans and Elsa dolls. "Hero and villain" series, and there are TWO sets of dolls. The first one: Elsa as the Snow Queen (hero), Hans in his fake villain reveal clothes (villain). The second one: they are in their coronation clothes, Elsa as a Queen who is secretly a witch (villain), Hans as the perfect Disney prince (hero). And the looks of complicity are very obvious.

And if Prince Hans' inspiration was the danish author himself, is there some real life woman behind Elsa?

The answer is Yes.

Hans Christian Andersen's inspiration for the Snow Queen was the most important of his (long) list of imposible loves.

Jenny Lind

Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind (6 October 1820 – 2 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular concert tour of the United States beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.

Yes, I know she doesn't look like Elsa. But still, she was the inspiration for the Snow Queen, and Elsa is inspired on the Snow Queen, so... she somehow "is" Elsa.

From Wikipedia:

She toured Denmark where, in 1843, Hans Christian Andersen met and fell in love with her. Although the two became good friends, she did not reciprocate his romantic feelings. She is believed to have inspired three of his fairy tales: "Beneath the Pillar", "The Angel" and "The Nightingale".[4] He wrote, "No book or personality whatever has exerted a more ennobling influence on me, as a poet, than Jenny Lind. For me she opened the sanctuary of art."[4] The biographer Carol Rosen believes that after Lind rejected Andersen as a suitor, he portrayed her as The Snow Queen with a heart of ice.

One of his stories, "The Nightingale", was written as an expression of his passion for Jenny Lind and became the inspiration for her nickname, the "Swedish Nightingale".[46] Andersen was often shy around women and had extreme difficulty in proposing to Lind. When Lind was boarding a train to go to an opera concert, Andersen gave Lind a letter of proposal. Her feelings towards him were not the same; she saw him as a brother, writing to him in 1844: "farewell ... God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jenny".[47] It is suggested that Andersen expressed his disappointment by portraying Lind as the eponymous anti-heroine of his Snow Queen.[48]

So, to sum up this very long post:

Hans and Elsa

Who people think they are

Who they really are

Conclusion

So... if I'm on the right track, and Disney created Prince Hans' character as a tribute to Hans Christian Andersen, wouldn't it make sense they planned to give him the happy ending he did not have in real life?

Time to analyze the Helsa hints...but that will be in a next post.

First post of these series here.

100 notes · View notes