Hans is NOT the Villian!

At Christmas my in-laws took my kids to see Frozen. At Spring Break, they bought my kids the DVD.

I won't lie, I love this movie. Olaf's summer serenade became my theme song as winter stretched on and on and on.

But there is something that as been bugging me, so Mr. Curly finally in exasperation said "Write a blog and get it off your chest!"

HANS IS NOT THE VILLIAN!!

Being an avid Pinterest and (yes, sadly) tumblr follower, I've seen my fair share of Let It Go stuff.  That's fine.  But what really bothers me are the blogs and statements calling Hans the villain, and then saying he's bad at it because he doesn't have a villain song or die at the end.

The villain is much less obvious.  The villain is Elsa's depression and social anxiety.  Her parents did the best they could, they loved their daughter.  But she is dealing with a power that scares people, that scares her because it is so strong. And while the trolls warned them that fear would be her enemy, she couldn't fight that fear.

Hans admits in the epic love song 'Love is an open door" that he's been searching for his own place - he even gestures to the city around them as he says it. He admits to Anna that he was using her because Elsa was unapproachable, and that Elsa's powers were going to make things easier for him.
So yeah, he's not a nice guy. He's THIRTEENTH in line for the throne, he had brothers pretend he was invisible for 2 (or is it 3) years. Chances are, especially since when they throw him in the boat to send him home they say 'make sure his brothers know what he was up to", that his parents didn't have a lot of time for him.
But he did take care of Arendale when Elsa and Anna ran off. He knew what to do to care for people and make sure they were all ok and nothing was lost.

Back to Elsa's depression.  "Let It Go" is actually the villain song in this Disney movie. Paraphrasing "I've left a life behind - I'm too relived to grieve, buried it in the snow, but the cold never bothered me anyway" She absolutely does not care who she hurt, what happened when she left, she is SO DONE,  with hiding who she really is, SO DONE with pretending to be ok. She's tired of being scared, and she just doesn't care anymore. 
That's a problem. 

But the trolls - THE TROLLS - that nobody can figure out why they are there, what purpose they serve in the movie, are right again.  In "Little Bit of a Fixer-Upper" they say "people do bad things when they're mad or scared or stressed, but with a little bit of love...." and Anna figures it out.

Elsa doesn't realize how loved she is. When Anna sacrifices herself for Elsa (yes against Hans, give him a break, he was also scared of this girl who could freeze everything and thought he was saving Arendale from a monster. To be fair, everyone in town agreed with him.), Elsa FINALLY knows she's loved. She gets it.

And like in all Disney movies, true love conquers all. And like in recent Disney movies, our heroine doesn't get married right away. 

So Frozen does have a great lesson for us all - don't hide when you're suffering, let people love you, and don't be a jerk or we'll turn you over to 12 brothers.  Because despite how much I like Hans, yeah, he needed to be punched.

But remember- HANS IS NOT THE VILLIAN