#there were originally more examples of her nearly-harming him but i ended up rewriting the snippet to focus on the needle thing

[petrichorium]

pluvi begging you to expand on gojo not wanting what happened to his mother to happen to you 🙏

warnings: it’s all a dream so nothing is real aside from the flashback stuff but pregnancy as horror, (sewing) needles, implied gore/eye trauma, implied child harm, gojo is messed up yo!!! and its bc of his mama!!!

he dreams about her.

it’s an odd thing, really. gojo isn’t much of a dreamer—not much of a sleeper, all things considered, but it’s difficult not to give in when you drag him to bed and curl up in his arms. the soft rise and fall of your chest, the steady thump of your heart, the sound of your breath; it soothes him into slumber.

and he dreams about her. she was always young. he’s older now than she ever got to be. frail, thin; borderline skeletal, robes hanging from her body like webbing. she sits in a chair facing a window, swathed in moonlight, the silver of her embroidery needle glinting with each stab. her face is veiled. her stomach is swollen with child.

she doesn’t turn to him, but she beckons without noise. his feet take him easily to her, and he kneels at her side as she sets aside the embroidery hoop to let him place his head on her knees.

her hand is cold as it threads through his hair. it’s gentle, at first. then harsher a moment later. she grips firm, tugs him up by those electric white threads, stares down at him through all that elaborate lace.

he imagines she’s weeping beneath it. his mother never wept before him, but she was pretty in the aftermath, eyes puffy and pink and shining. they were a cold kind of loving when they regarded him. she must have been beautiful once, elegant and lithe and willowy, cruel like the heartless sea and sharp like a brilliant diamond, but whatever was there is long gone. he thinks all sons must empty their mothers, bleed them dry from within, because his was always a shell.

she trails her hand down the side of his face, and he turns into the palm and closes his eyes, and she is silent as she sets down her embroidery to lift her veil. she is silent and hollow and eidolic as her fingers brush down his jaw and tilt his head up to look at her.

but it’s your face that he sees when he opens his eyes.

it’s your hand against his cheek, your eyes pink and puffy and pretty, your stomach bulging by his own doing. it’s your fingers that pluck up the needle, still attached to a thread of brilliant cerulean, and raise it to his eye.

his mother never was able to pierce him with that needle. she stopped herself, each and every time, dropping it and tugging him close in shame. she never doted, never was kind, but she never did manage to harm him.

you do. he lets you. it’s only fair. whatever thing is in your stomach can’t be human—whether god or demon what does it matter, at the end of the day—and didn’t he put it in you himself? if his mother never got the satisfaction of spilling his blood, shouldn’t you?

but he wakes just as the tip pierces his iris, and you hold him in your lap, eyes wide with concern and not puffy from weeping, and you hold no child within you. your hands thread through his hair and they’re warm, your lips plush when you bend to press a kiss to his brow.

he turns inward to press his face into your (empty, blissfully vacant) abdomen. the wetness he leaves there, falling from his so very coveted eyes, is colorless.

he thinks it ought to be brilliant crimson.

[galahadwilder]

Okay I’m a bit curious now. If you had the opportunity to rewrite the ML show, how would you do it and what would you do?

So I got this ask a little over a month ago, right before I had my mental breakdown when Loveater/Hearthunter came out. Given how angry I was at the time, and how irrational I was acting, I didn’t trust myself to answer this question objectively. I think I do now.

The hardest moment in this show for me to reconcile is the moment in Reverser where Nathaniel tore Marc’s notebook in half, and then was never shown apologizing for it. That moment is, I believe, indicative of a larger problem with the writing of this show. If I were to write it, here are some of the things I would change.

1: Hire Female Writers. And also more Chinese and Biracial ones.

This is a show with a female biracial main character of Chinese descent, and all of their female writers vanished after Season 1. Which is exactly when a significant chunk of the old fandom began to have complaints about the show. As far as I can tell, they never even had any Chinese writers to begin with. Honestly this should be a no-brainer.

2: Stop visiting disproportionate retribution on Marinette, and stop punishing her for doing the right thing.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng is fairly unambiguously implied throughout the show to have some kind of anxiety disorder, which is, I think, a brilliant piece of writing. It nearly explains her primary character flaws—those being her impulsivety and her tendency to overthink, while also being shown in positive aspects as her quick-thinking and resolve. However, whenever Marinette makes a mistake, the narrative goes out of its way to treat her like a monster, and even when it’s someone else’s mistake, she is the one expected to apologize and “be the bigger person.” (In fact, she’s expected to be the “biggest person” in the show, which, given that there are adults around, is kind of a horrifying message to send.) Whenever anyone attacks her, even if that person is Lila, or worse, her own friends, she is expected to just roll over and is punished for standing up for herself. That may be how the real world works sometimes, but as Astruc is so fond of reiterating, this is a kids’ show. This is not a good message to send.

Additionally, the show continually treats Marinette’s anxiety as a subject of derision instead of treating it with sympathy. Marinette is continually mocked by the narrative for maladaptive thinking that is out of her control. The writing is, in a roundabout way, mocking a significant fraction of its own fanbase.

So step two is to stop punishing Marinette for doing the right thing, and let her occasionally be shown to be in the right.

3: Let Adrien grow.

Adrien is a good and kind person in an extremely shitty situation, and as a result has ended up picking up a number of unintentionally abusive behaviors from literally every other person in his life, as well as some extremely harmful coping mechanisms. This is, once again, a brilliant premise for a character that I feel has been entirely wasted. Adrien’s character is static; he never gets called out on his harmful behavior, and thus doesn’t realize it’s harming anyone simply because he doesn’t know how to tell. The narrative refuses to confront him with the consequences of his actions; in fact, it continually rewards him for being the perfect victim, the perfect abuse target. Giving Adrien someone in his life who can teach him better behaviors and coping mechanisms would go a long way to resolving my issues with this show, especially because it would make him more supportive toward Marinette.

4: Let Fu be wrong.

In a twist of the typical “wise old master” trope, Wang Fu is presented as a traumatized and paranoid orphan/war veteran, whose decisions aren’t necessarily based on rational forethought, but on paranoia. Many of his decisions are not the best ones available, simply the best that he knows how to make. The problem is that most of this is subtext: in the text, Fu is presented as a man of endless wisdom and his rules inviolate, even when they do more harm than good. The narrative frequently shows how wrong he is, but I’m not completely sure the writers are actually aware of that, because once again that’s only in subtext. If he’d been shown learning lessons or being like “I misjudged the situation” and changing his mind or even just changing his reasoning but keeping the same decisions, that might make a huge difference. Make his fear a key point in some of his dumber decisions, and now instead of an out-of-touch old man who makes terrible decisions just because, you’ve got a rounded character who can actually be part of the story.

5: Caline Bustier.

Most of the adults in this show are not particularly competent, and in most cases—André Bourgeois, Principal Damocles, Roger Raincomprix—they’re explicitly STATED to be incompetent, or just… generally not entirely there. The only competent non-evil adults in the show are Marinette’s parents and Nadja Chamack.

Which brings us to Caline Bustier. She’s supposed to be—and unlike the others, is presented as—a kind, warm, nurturing, and supportive presence in Marinette’s life; instead she punishes Marinette (and, in Origins, Ivan) for being bullied and lets the bullies get away scot free. She reinforces Adrien’s worst behavior, punishes Marinette for standing up for herself and her classmates, and rewards bullies, and is always presented as being in the right, almost saintly… in fact, she’s presented as the Madonna in a Madonna-Wh*re complex.*

Yes, I went there.

If we look at the writing of the non-evil adults, it’s got all the hallmarks of sexism. All of the men except Tom are dumb and/or under the thumb of powerful, “shrewish” female figures. Meanwhile, among the non-evil adult women (of which there are few) we have Sabine (excellent), the harsh and unforgiving spinster-archetype Madame Mendeleiev, and the kind and saintly Caline Bustier. Both of them are dehumanized and treated more like props than like people.

So my thing there would be: make at least one competent male authority figure, and—since Madame Bustier is such an important figure in Adrien and Marinette’s lives—stop letting her reward bullying and instead have her be the person who helps both of them grow and be comfortable in themselves. Have her teach Adrien to stand up for himself, have her show Marinette it’s okay to be angry, to be emotional, to make mistakes. And, most importantly, round her out a little. Show her making mistakes occasionally too—but if she leads by example, she could admit to them and correct them.

6: Better friend interactions

Let’s face it: the friendship we see in the show isn’t particularly healthy, while the friendship in the Instagram accounts is quite a bit better. Let’s see some Alya and Nino being more supportive of their friends instead of pushing them into things they’re not ready for.

* Censored because tumblr, not because I think it’s a bad word. This website is stupid.

[digitaldreams0801]

Adventure Rewrite Idea Dump (Again)

Listen I want to talk about my OCs but I don’t have the energy to actually write right now since I feel like literal ass so it’s random fact time! Warning: random mashing of English and Japanese names for Digimon ahead. 

First off, I’m planning on giving one Armor evolution to all of the kids. Regardless of Adventure or 02 affiliation, all of them are getting one Armor evolution. Only Pegasmon and Nefertimon are staying the same while all the others get reworked/redesigned or new stuff entirely. The 02 kids get Armors first while the Adventure kids are later on. 

Also, there aren’t going to be any D3′s needed to open the gate between the worlds. All of the kids are going to have the same original model Digivice from Adventure. For colors at higher levels of evolution on the others it’ll go as follows: Daisuke - Gold, Miyako - Turquoise, Iori - White, Ken - Black, Meiko - Magenta.

Everyone is going to get to have a Jogress partner, but not in the same way that 02 used them. Instead, it’ll be more like Omnimon: an evolution that takes place after the highest level is obtained. Pairs will go as follows: Taichi/Yamato, Sora/Mimi, Koshiro/Jou, Daisuke/Ken, Miyako/Hikari, Iori/Takeru.

As of now, my plan for evolution is going to have Agumon and Gabumon go Mega in the original Adventure while Omnimon shows up during Our War Game. Veemon and Wormmon will go Mega in 02 and Jogress during Revenge of Diaboromon. All other Megas will appear during the first half Tri (which will be rewritten entirely to include the 02 kids) while the second half has the remaining four Jogress pairs. 

Since Jogress is being handled differently, the 02 partners get to go all the way to Mega on their own. The evolution lines are below: Veemon - ExVeemon - Paildramon - Magnamon Hawkmon - Aquilamon - Silphymon - Valkyrimon Armadillomon - Ankylomon - ??? - ??? Wormmon - Stingmon - JewelBeemon - GrandisKuwagamon

The only Jogress evolution that will remain from canon is Imperialdramon. The others will be redesigned entirely due to either not fitting as much (Shakkoumon) or being used already (Silphymon). As for Armadillomon’s evolutions, I’m going to have to design those myself. No matter how much I search, there’s never anything that properly fits in with the theme of Ankylomon, so I’ll just make up mons myself. Fight me on it. 

For the 02 kids, they have the Crests of Loyalty, Passion, Integrity, and Kindness for Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken respectively. Meiko will also get a Crest, though Meicoomon is special in the way that she has no Jogress partner and will act on her own. In fact, Meicoomon is being handled completely differently than in canon and is not used as a villain because I said so. Tri is being handled completely differently, so nearly everything about the plot is different now. Again, fight me. 

Hurricane Landing is going to be reworked so that it fits into canon. In it, Willis is not going to be designated specifically as a Chosen Child. Instead, he found Gummymon and Kokomon by pure accident, and they bonded to him on their own. Humans naturally have the power to make Digimon evolve at an advanced speed; a Digivice simply refines that power and makes it less unpredictable. Willis is partnered to them in a unique way since has no Digivice but is still able to make them evolve pretty reliably. 

On a similar note, I’m not using the international Chosen. I was never the biggest fan of them, so I’m just cutting them out. I’ll handle things differently during the World Tour segment (assuming it even remains in the final draft) to compensate. 

Mimi won’t be moving away to America either. I feel like it would be best for the sake of the plot if I kept her in Japan, so she’s sticking around there with the rest of the squad. 

I mentioned before that Tri is getting a complete overhaul, right? The first step is axing King Drasil. Yeah. Oops. Instead, I’m going to create a much more direct rival to Homeostasis. For now, let’s call them Havoc (which is a placeholder in case I wind up coming up with something better).

Havoc existed in the times before Homeostasis was created. In between the birth of the Digital World and the arrival of the Harmonious Ones, Havoc seemed to rule over the Digital World from afar. They created Apocalymon as a way of manifesting their chaotic whims, causing a reign of terror over the Digital World. In an unprecedented course of events, Apocalymon caused a severe distortion in the Digital World that caused time to flow faster than on Earth. Apocalymon’s existence caused a rift between the Digital World and Earth as well, and that portal pulled in the original group of six kids in 1980 (Daigo, Maki, Hiroaki, Haruhiko, Kaya, and Chisane). Their partners eventually evolved to become the Harmonious Ones, and they sealed away Apocalymon in the process, though time remained sped up. Homeostasis was born as a result of the Harmonious Ones coming to existence. 

Havoc was mostly left to linger in the shadows, forced back by the arrival of Homeostasis. The Order led by Homeostasis developed Digivices and Crests for twelve children based on manifestations from the original six. Another distortion caused by an escape attempt from Apocalymon opened a gate to Earth where the Greymon and Parrotmon fight took place in 1995. That selected eight of the twelve children, and when disaster struck and the Order was destroyed, the eight were called upon, prompting the events of Adventure to play out. 

During the attack by Myotismon in 1999, Daisuke, Iori, and Ken all witnessed events related to the Digital World. While they were not the only witnesses of these events, they caught Homeostasis’ eye for fitting three of the four traits. This left only Passion lacking in a host, though it found one when Miyako watched the fight between Omnimon and Diaboromon the following year, making her the final child of the group to be Chosen. 

Meiko was not a Chosen under Homeostasis. Instead, Havoc was the one who selected her. After the fall of Apocalymon, Havoc tried to concoct a further plan to usurp Homeostasis and take over the Digital World, and they created Meicoomon. By imitating the power of the Digivices seen up to that point (which was only known to evolve Digimon up to Mega), Havoc created another Digivice, the one that would later come to be used by Meiko. Since Armor and Jogress capabilities hadn’t been seen yet, her echo of a Digivice lacked both of those powers. She was given the Crest of Darkness, and Havoc planned for Meicoomon to evolve into another world-breaking monster on par with Apocalymon. During the events of this AU’s version of Tri, Meiko purifies the Crest into the Crest of Balance, and Meicoomon doesn’t slip into her destructive ways, instead finding a place as Rasielmon. 

As for the original Chosen, they split up after their original adventure. Hiroaki and Haruhiko grew distant from the rest of the group while Daigo and Maki went on to attend school together. Kaya and Chisane (both of whom are my OCs; fight me if that’s a problem okay) became romantic partners. All of them went on to live regular lives, most of them in the Odaiba area. Kaya and Chisane moved out to Tottori while the others stayed in Odaiba. When Digimon started to rise to prominence after the 1999 war with Myotismon, Daigo, Maki, and Haruhiko came to work together as Digimon researchers. Hiroaki remained on his own since he had other work at the TV station. 

As for Kaya and Chisane, they established a small restaurant in Tottori. They left Odaiba without a word once they were old enough, tying the knot and living alone while owning and running their cafe. Chisane couldn’t stand the city life due to the noise and crowds, and Kaya wanted to follow her. They avoided much of busy life, staying away from any incidents involving Digimon despite wishing to see their partners once again. 

All Crest bearers are sensitive to influence from Homeostasis, but their connection is on the lower side. Hope and Light are easily most connected due to their angelic links, though Light’s link is the strongest. Keepers of the Crest of Light can communicate with Homeostasis easily while bearers of Hope can still do it but are harder to contact. All of them are also sensitive to the balance of other worlds, but again, Hope and Light are most affected. 

Since Chisane was the original bearer of Hope and Light (all the original six kids had two Crests), her connection is so heavy that it borders on being dangerous. Being near so many Digital Gates in Odaiba can cause sickness for her at times since she has a lacking constitution and immune system. When the worlds are unbalanced, it has a horrible impact on her. To avoid any unnecessary sickness, Kaya moved with her out to Tottori where there were fewer gates. They moved not long after the Parrotmon/Greymon duel in 1995 since the sudden outburst by Apocalymon’s escape attempt sickened Chisane immediately. The destabilization of the worlds always harmed her, but that was the most prominent example of imbalance at the time, causing terrible harm. 

While the two mostly kept to themselves, Chisane was still vulnerable to being contacted by Homeostasis. She seems to speak to herself somewhat often, though this is more often than not Homeostasis asking for permission to borrow her body and mind. It was through her that Homeostasis learned more about how things were on Earth from the Digital World. 

When the Mochizuki family moved in near them, Chisane and Kaya took to avoiding them. Chisane was fine with Meiko at first, but when Havoc placed the Crest of Darkness inside her, being around Meiko for too long began to make her feel nauseous after prolonged contact. Kaya grows incredibly protective of Chisane when Meiko is nearby, coming off as hostile due to her blunt nature. 

The Digital World was created as a mix of three things: digital networks on Earth, the world of dreams shown at the end of 02 (one where everything is possible), and the Dark Ocean. The second of these two worlds is called the Dream Light. When all three of these lands came together, they spawned the Digital World. From there, lifeforms from all three lands were combined to create Digimon. Havoc emerged naturally, starting off as a virus program from Earth before mutating into something much larger and worse. 

Okay. I think I’m done. Also, I have a tag for my bullshit ranting now! You can find my AU junk under ‘Digital’s Adventure Rewrite BS’. It matches my Frontier tag, in other words. Now, I’m going to bed. It’s 3 AM, and I need to sleep. I hope you enjoyed tonight’s Tumblr tangent from Digital!

[thelogicalghost]

The Problem of Hans

With the Frozen 2 trailer drop, I wanted to finally organize some of my thoughts about the original in a post I can link to instead of trying to repeat this argument every time it comes up. 

Before I dive in, I want to emphasize that I am not trying to ‘forgive’ or ‘justify’ Hans being a dick. My goal is to parse his actions throughout the movie and find a plausible explanation for seemingly contrasting character moments.

Part 1: Some Background

The original story of the Snow Queen, on which Frozen was loosely based, set the icy-powered queen as the villain. However, during development, songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez composed and pitched several songs including “Let It Go” that put the sisters’ relationship at the center of the story. The decision was made to redeem Elsa and make the sisters the heroes, requiring the previously supporting character Hans to become a last-minute villain.

Because of this rewrite, and perhaps in order to preserve the ‘twist’, Hans spends the majority of the movie seeming utterly charming and even heroic. Disney inadvertently created a truly terrible villain, a sociopath capable of utterly fooling an entire country but revealing his evil plans and unfathomable cruelty only to a dying women. However, this also meant that Hans’ portrayal has several serious inconsistencies that bring his twist betrayal into question. These moments continue to bother me every time I watch the movie, creating a conundrum that a purely evil, brilliant, manipulative Hans doesn’t explain.

Taking the finished, theatrical release of the movie as canon, I as the audience was left trying to reconcile these discrepancies into a plausible narrative. First, I’m going to talk about the moments that force me to question the movie’s explanation, and then I’m going to present exactly that plausible narrative.

Part 2: The Bits That Bother Me

There are two moments that trouble me particularly in the movie. One is much more significant than the other, so let’s start with that one.

Hans has gathered a group of volunteers to find the missing royal sisters. Two of these volunteers, attendants to the Duke of Weselton, have been ordered by the Duke to kill Elsa. As they approach Elsa’s ice palace and are confronted by her snow monster, these two men take advantage of the confusion to run ahead of the group. Both try to shoot Elsa with crossbows. Elsa defends herself, pinning one man to the wall with ice spikes and pushing the other man onto a balcony with a sliding wall of ice. 

Just as she’s about to push the second man off of the balcony, where he would fall to his likely death, Hans and the rest of the men arrive. Hans shouts, “Queen Elsa! Don’t be the monster they fear you are.” Elsa pauses, realizing that she had been about to kill. The first man tries to take advantage of this pause by raising his loaded crossbow for a final shot. Hans, after quickly glancing upward, dashes across the room to yank the man’s arm up and send the bolt toward the ceiling. This sends an ornate ice chandelier falling to the floor. Elsa jumps out of the way but is knocked unconscious.

The key moment here is Hans’ intervention. Let’s consider the logic of this moment based on an evil, manipulative Hans:

If Hans wanted Elsa dead and out of the way, he could have:

Ordered his men to attack. She was obviously having difficulty managing two assailants, but attacking them with her ice powers could have been a perfect excuse to need to take her down

Continued to distract Elsa so that the first of the Duke’s men could shoot her

Grapple with the man but let the crossbow ‘go off’ to hit Elsa, either killing her (since he could obviously aim it very well) or prolonging the fight and creating other opportunities

If Hans wanted Elsa alive for some reason, but wanted a great excuse to kill or dethrone her later, he could have:

Said nothing, let her kill a soldier from a neighboring country, making her a killer and potentially exacerbating a diplomatic incident

Said literally anything else to provoke/manipulate her or the situation, for example, beg her to surrender (which she wouldn’t, making her look like the bad guy) or urge his men to save the Duke’s men (which would have turned into a full conflict that might have resulted in her wounding or killing her own people)

Instead, Hans appeals to her humanity. He says something calculated to make her stop and consider what she had been about to do. Then he takes an action that was much less likely to do her harm - Elsa had plenty of time to dodge that chandelier - but disrupted the standoff and diffused a tense situation. 

No matter which way I look at this scene, Hans’ actions just don’t make sense if he sees Elsa as an obstacle to the throne.

The second moment I want to mention is much smaller, but to me, equally disconcerting. It happens much earlier, at the end of the scene in which Hans and Anna meet.

Memorably, their initial meeting ends with the two of them standing in a boat that is perched precariously on the edge of a dock. As Anna leaves, both of them seeming quite taken with each other, Chekhov’s boat finally tips over and dumps Hans in the water. As he lifts up the overturned boat, Hans gives the departing Anna a fond smile.

This smile is what bothers me so badly. Hans, in this moment, has no audience. He is under a boat off the edge of a dock. Even his horse would have difficulty seeing him from that angle. Yet his expression contains no spark of malice. It’s gentle and hopeful, suggesting that he’s as smitten with her as she clearly is with him. If Hans were a sociopath, he would need to put effort into faking this expression, and why would he without an audience? There is absolutely no reason to think that his feelings in this smile are not completely genuine, except for the fact that he later claims they’re fake.

Which leads me to ...

Part 3: A Plausible Narrative

Hans arrives in Arendelle and meets Anna. She’s young and clearly unpolished but sweet and authentic. During the coronation ball, they enjoy each other’s company. Hans sees a woman who clearly lacks practical education and whose romantic ideas could land her into a lot of trouble, but whose spontaneity and youthful energy he appreciates. 

Now, in the mid-1800′s, like in most of European monarchical history, marriage among royalty is not a matter of love but of exchange and consolidation of goods and power. Hans suspects that there are problems in Arendelle. The princesses have been sequestered completely in the years since their parents’ deaths. Perhaps the reason Anna’s been kept behind locked doors is that she’s prone to thoughtless acts of romanticism that could easily bring harm to the royal family. He can’t offer the family riches or titles, but he can provide this woman the trappings of romance, be patient with her, and in time, nurture a genuinely loving relationship. He can promise to reign in her impulsive behavior and encourage her to act in ways that benefit the kingdom. Maybe he can offer more, in terms of what experience and knowledge he’ll bring to the table as a prince from a powerful nation, but first he has to talk to the queen.

Surprisingly, when he and Anna approach Elsa, the two sisters seem to be misinterpreting his offer of engagement and negotiations as an offer to run off to the church, like, NOW. Elsa gives a public, automatic rejection. Anna confronts her in an embarrassingly public argument. Then, of course, something happens that Hans couldn’t have predicted: Elsa reveals that she has ice powers, freezes the harbor, and sets a snowstorm on the country.

Without consulting anyone or taking anyone with her, Anna rides off to find her sister. Instead of calling on any of the advisers, minor nobility, or other titles of the realm, Anna puts Hans in change. Hans is not only shocked at the impropriety and irresponsibility, but the fact that no one seems to challenge him for that position. Everyone, local or visiting, is content to turn to this visiting prince, despite the conflict earlier in the ballroom. Well, if he’s what they’ve got, he’ll take that duty. He hopes to eventually be part of the royal family, after all, so these will soon be his people. He sorts out emergency responses including hot food and thick blankets, walking through the streets himself to aid in distribution.

Anna’s horse appears, riderless and distressed. Now Hans is deeply concerned. It seems that whatever sisterly means Anna intended to use to calm Elsa have failed. He organizes an expedition to travel up the mountain, taking volunteers (not hand-picking people who might be loyal to him, note, but inviting people who genuinely care about their monarch to help find her). He probably plans this trip and finds at least one guide, because he gets to the palace shortly after Anna leaves.

Despite having to battle a giant snow monster and nearly falling to his death, when Hans sees the standoff between Elsa and the Duke’s men, he says what he hopes will be the most effective at calming her down. He sees an opportunity to diffuse the standoff by destroying the chandelier, which knocks the queen unconscious. Despite having every opportunity and a long journey back to the city, Hans takes Elsa, unharmed, to the palace dungeons and restrains her.

When Elsa comes to, he begs her to break the curse. This is when Elsa says, simply, “I can’t,” and begs him to let her go. She doesn’t even know where Anna is.

Now, if Elsa was thinking even slightly rationally, she would know that Hans can’t simply let her go. She plunged the city into deep winter. IF the effect is related to proximity, leaving might help, but if it’s not - and Elsa clearly isn’t in control of this curse, how does she know? - then they’ll have lost the opportunity to track her down again and try something else. People are going to die. 

A visiting dignitary tells Hans that, if something’s happened to Anna, he’s “all Arendelle has left.” The message is clear: this is on his shoulders. The fate of thousands of lives and an entire country rests on him. He wants to go look for Anna again because she maybe will have some idea of how to break the curse.

And then Anna shows up, cold and dying. What she says to Hans, specifically, is that she was wrong about Elsa never hurting her, that Elsa has frozen her heart and only an act of true love can save her.

This is the last straw. Sure, eventually Hans would probably have grown to love Anna, but true love at first sight? That’s absurd. And of course, there’s no one else. Clearly something terrible has happened between the sisters, so hoping for love there is pointless. He’s been here two days and not seen so much as a close family friend who might potentially love the girls enough to save them. So now he has a country buried in snow in the middle of the summer by a queen who can’t control her ice curses, and the non-magical princess is going to die.

So Hans does a crappy thing and takes his anger out on a girl who’s going to die. He mocks her for being naive and impulsive, gives her the worst possible scenario just to make her feel stupid, and enjoys her shock and pain. And then he douses the fire and opens a window to make sure she dies quickly, because now Hans has a plan.

You see, witchcraft is a really flimsy excuse for executing a sitting queen, especially when he’s only just got here. But with everyone present perfectly happy to take his word for events, Hans comes up with a way to save everyone and take the kingdom without looking like a monster. All he has to do is say that he and Anna exchanged vows. Elsa’s killed Anna, so now he’s going to execute her for murder. Every story about magic from the era and before suggests that slaying the person who cast the curse will end the curse. He’ll save Arendelle not only from eternal winter, but also from two girls who almost destroyed their own nation with their magic and incompetence.

But, of course, both girls escape, Anna stops Hans and saves herself, and Elsa finally realizes what the trolls should have told her parents all those years ago and saved everyone a lot of pain: love is the key to melting the effects of her powers. 

So Hans is arrested for attempted regicide (despite his actions being assented to and supported by everyone else present), Arendelle cuts off its largest trading partner for the Duke’s role in events, and Anna starts spending time alone with a commoner while Elsa continues to show no interest in marriage arrangements, further eroding the stability of the monarchy. Not to mention the potential massive agricultural and economic problems from the two-day winter.

Part 4: In Conclusion

As I said earlier, I’m not trying to defend Hans’ actions entirely. His tirade at Anna when they were alone was nothing short of abusive. What I’m trying, instead, to offer is an explanation of why his supposed confession doesn’t fit with some of his actions during the course of the movie. I’m trying to frame the events of a movie set in a historical time period in a way appropriate to that time period.

(Yes, I know, it’s a kid’s movie and to some extent a fairy tale, but if your best argument is “well reality should be handwaved for the story” then I would counter that the story’s inconsistencies were actively harmful to the intended message. If the point was to make Hans a gaslighting monster, then don’t make his actions plausibly rational and rely on a single scene to demonstrate that he’s actually monstrous.)

I’ve tried my best to keep this post limited to the content of the movie and extrapolations made from that material. I don’t think Hans should be brought back as a romantic interest (GIVE ELSA A GIRLFRIEND DISNEY) and I don’t think any backstory, up to and including Hans himself suffering abuse, justifies his cruelty. That said, I continue to hope that Frozen 2 will see the return of Hans not as an all-out villain but as someone who knows he’s made mistakes and is working to be a better person.

I mean, if Elsa can be forgiven for plunging the kingdom into eternal winter, maybe Hans can find some resolution, too?