A Frozen Conspiracy Theory: How Disney stole Elsa from George R. R. Martin

I haven't blogged in a while because my life has been consumed by my honors research. Picking a research question is one of the hardest things to do. But now I finally have my thesis, so I will attempt to be a more disciplined blogger.

2014 illustrated edition

Recently, I discovered a book called The Ice Dragon by George R. R. Martin. A young adult novel, The Ice Dragon precedes Game of Thrones by sixteen years, which was released in 1996 with the first in 1980. As I read the book, I noticed an overwhelming similarity of the protagonist, Adara, with Elsa from the Disney movie Frozen. You've no doubt seen or at least heard of Frozen by this point. Elsa's hit song, "Let It Go," has either been driving you nuts or blasting from your radio, iPod, etc.

Adara, like Elsa, is a child born to normal parents who don't understand her powers. While Adara does not have Elsa's ability to control ice and snow, Adara is amazing resistant to cold and forms connections with the ice creatures in her mythical world, such as ice salamanders.

Unlike Elsa, Adara befriends a dragon and becomes a dragon rider. No one else where she lives can even come close to the dragon. It is due to Adara's cold affinity that she forms this bond.

Notice any familiar phrases?

Similar to Elsa, Adara prefers solitude. However, both characters love their families. When Adara's family is in danger, Adara calls upon the help of the ice dragon and together they fight to protect Adara's family.

Since Martin published this book in 1980, Adara preceded Elsa. Thus, it is my theory that the writers of Frozen modeled Elsa after Adara. They certainly did not model her after the snow queen in Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale from which the movie is based. Virturally nothing from Frozen resembles "The Snow Queen" except the setting and the idea of a queen with magical power over snow. I will actually be so bold as to say that the original fairy tale is more feminist than Frozen. But more on that in my next blog post (this one inspired me!).

In the fairy tale, we know little about the Snow Queen. Except that she abducted the best friend of the protagonist, causing her to journey to save him.

Essentially, Elsa is the adult version of Adara. Her basic personality and power over the cold is a duplication of Adara's, with the obvious differences (there's no Olaf in The Ice Dragon).

I will end on this note. Please don't read this post and think I hate Frozen. I like it okay, but I'd rank it third to Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph. I haven't seen Big Hero Six yet, so I'm not sure where that one ranks yet. We'll see.