#and all the years of unsatisfaction for giving in to my fears | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ariel-seagull-wings · 3 years

Text

TOP 12 WICKED QUEEN PORTRAYALS

@sunlit-music @mademoiselle-princesse @princesssarisa @superkingofpriderock @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark @amalthea9 @theancientvaleofsoulmaking @astrangechoiceoffavourites @giuliettaluce

Alongside the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella’s Stepmother, The Giant from Jack and The Beanstalk, The Witch from Hansel and Gretel and Bluebeard, The Wicked Queen from Snow White is one of the most iconic fairy tale villains of all time. A lot of people come to consider her the real protagonist of the fairy tale, since is her desire to be considered the Fairest of All and her actions to keep that title what puts the narrative in motion. And today, i will rank my favorite portrayals of this fascinatingly nasty foe.

12º Miranda Richardson as Queen Elspeth in Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001)

Talk about being typecast: before that turn as Snow White’s Evil Queen, Richardson had portrayed an Evil Sorceress Queen and Stepmother in Jim Henson’s The Storyteller (’The Three Ravens’ episode) and she was a wicked Sorceress Stepmother in Tim Burton’s Sleep Hollow. So it was neat for her to be called for the role of the most famous Evil Sorceress Queen and Stepmother in this Hallmark TV Movie. Elspeth is the sister of a strange, mysteryous creature known as the Granter of Wishes. Having been recently released from his freezing prison, the Granter of Wishes makes a spell to make her look beautifull for human standards, and marries her to the newly crowned and widowed King John. At first she looks content with the prospect, but as time passes, she grows more and more unsatisfied. Her source of joy is the Magic Mirror that praises her beauty, and casting spells to turn gnomes into garden statues. But when the Magic Mirror says that Snow White’s beauty surpasses hers, the unsatisfaction gets mixed with paranoia, and Elspeth slowly abuses her power in constantly harming other people, until there is no magic enough...

11º Herta Kravina in Schneewitchen (1971)

This german TV Movie is the most faithfull adaptation of the Grimm’s tale original edition, not only keeping the three murder attempts by ribbon/lace/corset, hair comb and apple, but also being the only one to show the Queen dancing to death with hot iron shoes in Snow White’s wedding. This is enough to make it worth a checkout. The other reason i find this version interesting is how the Queen comunicates with the Magic Mirror: they sing to each other. And Kravina has a really good voice (no wonder she was a voice actress for Peggy Lee in the first german/dutch dub of Disney’s Lady and The Tramp). Sometimes that is enough to get a spot in a ranking.

10º Mari Yokoo/Caterina Rochiara/Regina Reagan/Carol Jacobanis as Queen Crystal in The Legend of Snow White (1994)

From the outside, Queen Chrystal appears to be calm, regal, and sophisticated, but in reality, this collected and stately facade hides an extremely sadistic, hateful, cold and sinister person. She is ruthless, jealous and obsessive and wants nothing more than to be the fairest in the land. She also has an extreme vanity that made her utterly intolerant of rivals. Being solely focused on the idea of becoming the fairest of all, Queen Chrystal does not appear to be significantly involved in governing her husband's kingdom, though the skeletal remains of prisoners in her dungeon point to her being a villainous ruler. In the end, her mad vanity and jealousy of her stepdaughter Snow White drove her to murderous insanity. Later is revealed that Queen Chrystal is not unredeamably evil as everyone thins, but an actually kind and gentle person who is possessed by an Evil Spirit.

09º Diana Rigg as the Queen in Canon Movie Tales: Snow White (1987)

This lady is the personification of paranoia multiplied by the double. Why? Because the Magic Mirror didn’t needed to say that the little child Snow White was the fairest, this queen just feared so much that the princess’s beauty would outgrow hers that she ordered the huntsman to kill her. Basically: run, she is bad news.

08º Jeri Arredondo as Sly Fox in Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales For Every Child (1995)

Sly Fox... What a cunning diva. People try to counsel to not use alone a Magic Mirror that is a portal to the spirit world, but who says she listens? She is just there to hear the singing of her praises, and will try to eliminate anyone who gets on her way. She even goes so far as taking the appearance of the kind hearted nurse Sage Flower to lure her stepdaughter White Snow to eat the poisoned appled. What is not to love about that bastard?

07º Kazue Komiya/Arlene Banas as the Queen in Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics (1989)

Interestingly this encarnation starts naturally cold, calm and collected, ocasionally at the princess Snow White to see if she can ever grow more beautifull than her, and dismissing the girl with contempt. It is years later that she lets go of acting calm and collected, because after hearing some gossips in the palace, she asks Snow White if she thinks of herself as more beautifull than the Queen, and her stepdaughter reacts by exclaiming that the Queen is vain and cruel, and to her eyes that makes her ugly. So besides the desire of being considered the most beautifull, you get the feeling that this Queen pursues Snow White as a way to shut a person that dares to rebell against her, wich ads new interesting dimentions to their antagonism.

06º Dorothy Cumming as Queen Brangomar in Snow White (1916)

Brangomar was once a lady in waiting of the palace. But one day, she met the powerfull Witch Rex, who offered to give Brangomar anything she wanted. And what Brangomar wanted was to become a beautifull Queen. Wich was achieved by a faustian deal where Witch Rex would cast a spell that killed Imogene, the previous Queen, while in return Brangomar would have to find a way of getting Snow White’s heart for the Witch. Years have passed, and now Brangomar must kill the princess to pay her debt, or else everything she got will be lost. Hey, here is a way of making a villain tragic, almost simpathetic and complex while keeping clear that she is still a villain!

05º Vanessa Redgrave as the Queen in Faerie Tale Theatre (1984)

The most loud and bombastic portrayal of the Wicked Queen ever put on screen. Bringing to television her sperience from stage, that allows some more over the top emotional reactions, Redgrave had the time of her life in that role, indulging in twirling, preening and screening as much as she could, and his Queen is all the most fun for it.

04º Gudrun Landgrebe as the Queen in Schneewittchen (1992)

What i live about Landgrebe’s Queen is her range: at first she acts all humble, discreet, cold and mysteryous. Then her husband leaves to fight in a Crusade, and she trows the white veil and gray clothing of humility to show a diva red hair and orange dress, as to say “Hey, the King leaved, i have all the power here now and you must do as i say”. Later, a knight comes, offering a magical crystal ball that connected to a mirror says all the truth, and the Queen takes posession of it to ask about her beauty. When Mirror says that the most beautifull woman in the kingdom is Snow White, she gets infuriated, than goes to carefully plan ways to eliminate the princess once and for all. The highlight is when she takes the disguise of a russian male doctor to offer the apple (where she injects poison into with her ring) to Snow White.

03º Maria Antonieta de Las Nieves in El Chapulin Colorado: Blancanieves y los Siete Churín Churín Fun Flais (1978)

This three part episode of the mexican comedy superheroe show is a loving parody of the Disney version, that stands out as an enjoyable retelling of the classic fairy tale in its own right. Interestingly, while most of the comedy in the episode is delivered in the form of over the top slapistick, de Las Nieves’s delivers a straight faced, contained performance. Wich makes her answers to the absurd situations in the story all the more funny.

02º Patricia Medina as the Queen in Snow White And The Three Stooges (1961)

This lady was a hell of a foe: she not only antagonizes Snow White for the title of the Most Beautifull, going so far as to lock the princess in a dungeon for no crime at all, but also, alongside her partner in crime Count Oga, ordered a murder attempt aggainst Prince Charming when he was a child, to prevent him from marrying Snow White, and this way she could become ruller of the kingdoms of Fortunia and Bravuria. Troughout the film, you think that she could win, since she has powerfull magic, spy and a mighty army at her comand, wich makes the viewer get all the more excited on the seat, that is how enjoyable Medina’s Queen is.

And my Number One Portrayal of the Wicked Queen is...

01º Lucille La Verne as the Queen in Disney’s Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The first encarnation of the character that i ever saw in my childhood, and the one that still sends chills/shivers to my spine. As a young Queen, she rarely smiles, acting cold and calculating, intidimidating who is subordinate to her with the expression of her eyes and highbrows. And as a Crone, she lowdly indulges in her cruelty, offering the poisoned apple to her pet raven to scare him, and mocking the dead skeleton of a prisoner inside the castle’s dungeons. That balance between cold calculism and loud cruelty, where both are equally unsetling and scary, is something very hard to achieve, but i think this encarnation did a very good job in achieving that balance, that every other portrayal that camed tried to draw influence from it ever since. And that’s why Disney’s Wicked Queen is my Number One portrayal.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Addi Adamets in Schneewittchen (1955), Marianne Christina Schiling in Schneewittchen (1961) and Sonja Kirchberger in Sechs Auf Einen Streich (2009)

#snow white #snow white and the seven dwarfs #fairy tales #disney #brothers grimm #rankings #moodboards #grimm's fairy tale classics #anime #the legend of snow white #fantasy #mithology #folklore #pop culture

34 notes · View notes

counterpunches · 4 years

Text

This is going to be an utterly rambly mess of like three or four separate essays in one, but it’s only been like 24 hours and I have a lot of feelings and need to just get them out so here goes: (huge spoilers below, obviously)

Ultimately I think Frozen 2 comes down to having some really interesting ideas and things to say that ultimately didn’t entirely go far enough to succeed.

As satisfying and complete as Elsa and Anna’s relationship was in the first movie, I can’t help but feel a little bit of the opposite this time around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for intertwined, co-dependent people becoming more healthy and independent and thrilled at the end note. I love the journeys the characters took, I just wish they actually showed it better. I didn’t believe it even though I agreed with it.

The catalyst of the movie hinges on Elsa’s sudden apparent need for more when this thought has never previously been expressed. We’re not given a reason enough to doubt Elsa wasn’t happy and didn’t have everything she always wanted.

Not that ‘show don’t tell’ is the single gospel truth from a storytelling point (there are ways to do the former very effectively through the latter) but the movie played the central character’s purpose and secondary tension to the plot as something only passably mentioned if at all. This new reason and purpose, the drive for answers and feeling like she never truly belonged wasn’t built enough to override and supplant her previously established central purpose and tension: Anna.

A few of the film’s other weaknesses play into this.

I expected more of the Northuldra. I liked the few characters we saw, and I get that there’s a lot of material for the main characters to go through so cut for time, but if by the end the main lead gives everything up to stay with them, then you gotta build them up enough to match. If Elsa’s gonna stay in the north and not with Anna, then there has to be more of a pull for her. The Northuldra people aren’t magical themselves, but they do trust nature’s magic. So I guess, that means Elsa has to stay there? It’s only been 35 years since the mists fell, but they don’t even seem to know more about the spirits than Elsa herself had discovered. “This place suits you” isn’t enough to ditch her world that came before it. All the movie gives us is “Elsa’s the Fifth Spirit (which, WOW, I have a million follow up questions to that) and suddenly has a thirst for adventure and nature, so I guess that means she has to stay???” and we’re supposed to accept that as-is. But they have to give us more because if anything, this movie teaches us the importance of choice. We can’t control what happens, but we can control how we act and what we do about it. We can’t change the wrongs of the past but we can work to right the wrongs in the present. Elsa didn’t have to stay. But the movie is telling us ‘Elsa wants to stay and does’ and there’s no reason to back the weight of that choice up.

The confusion starts right in the beginning with ‘Into the Unknown”.

Did Elsa wake the spirits, or did the spirits wake her? It’s not clear and the difference is important to Elsa’s drive throughout the rest of the movie. She sings happily with Anna in ‘Some Things Never Change’: I'm not sure I want things to change at all. These days are precious, can't let them slip away”

Then expresses similar concerns in ‘Into the Unknown’: “if I heard you, which I don't, I'm spoken for, I fear. Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls. I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls. I've had my adventure, I don't need something new. I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you.” This is THE previously established building blocks of Elsa’s character: she loves her family, happy being part of the world she shut out for so long, loves quiet books and being at home, and doesn’t need anything more than she’s got (which is more than she ever expected to have).

But then, ten seconds later she sings “are you someone out there who's a little bit like me? Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be?” Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone. Since when has Elsa felt like she isn’t where she’s meant to be?? That Arendelle and her family wasn’t enough? That she’s never felt like she belonged there? Sure, an hour ago she was distracted during charades because she heard magic music calling to her. But losing a round of charades isn’t reason enough to feel like she doesn’t belong. The siren call seems to be a recent development and something that hasn’t been happening that long or hinted at during her childhood.

She seemed happy and content during ‘Some Things Never Change’, at the ending of the first Frozen, during ‘Olaf’s Frozen Adventure’, and ‘Frozen Fever’. So what the fork happened for Elsa to go from “I’m as settled as I ever want to be and don’t want to risk losing everything I finally have” to “I’ve never felt like I truly belonged and have always wondered where I came from” in the span of a single song?

The missing linchpin to this is Iduna, but more on her later.

Anna gets to love Elsa but we don’t get to see Elsa shower that same type of love to Anna. Let Elsa show Anna some darn affection! Anna cradles Elsa in bed the way their mother used to, soothing her to sleep. She rushes to her side in moments of danger. Elsa, rather characteristically, shows her affection and love for Anna by trying to protect her from danger, even if it means risking herself in the process. But even at the end when she rushes back on the water horse after saving Arendelle, she just stands there, arms outstretched, like the idiot she is. This isn’t the first movie, where it’s the first time they’ve touched since they were kids. They aren’t standing on the newly melted fjord after she discovers the key to her powers for the first time, shyly holding back. Why Disney didn’t have Elsa running into Anna’s arms saying “You did it, I love you,” is just ajkhgajksdhgasycsdmc so frustrating.

To Sporky’s point, sure - Anna’s coronation didn’t have the pomp and ceremony from the first movie, and we don’t know the reason why. Perhaps Anna didn’t want it to be a big deal, that’s why there wasn’t an audience Elsa and Kristoff weren’t present for the actual ceremony, I get it. But for Elsa not to be there at all? For such an important moment for Anna? There needed to be a small sisterly moment. Maybe Elsa giving Anna a pep talk before the ceremony, something that mirrors the one Anna gave her after the left the wreckage of their parents’ ship. What about an “Are you ready?” from the first movie being re-contextualized in an absolutely loving, adoring, supportive tone.Something. Let Elsa be a big sister. Let her be the one to run into Anna’s arms. If she’s trying to follow their mother’s footsteps, what a great place to start, being part of that bridge between Arendelle and the spirits. Let that relationship come full circle and lead to a healthy place.

And poor Kristoff I felt was a little misserved. As Sporky said, the engagement should have happened at the end of act 1. He got a reindeer friend, yay! (Jason Ritter, great as usual) but I felt like his central conflict was ultimately...Anna’s about Elsa: Again, you're gone off on a different path than mine. I'm left behind wondering if I should follow. When you're gone I'm the one who sees you home. But now I'm lost in the woods and I don't know what path you are on. Where am I, if we're not together forever? Who are Elsa and Anna now if they’re not together forever?

There are two outtake songs that were cut, which is a shame because they would have helped fill the holes of what’s missing and gnawing at my unsatisfaction.

‘Home’, for Anna, on the surface is a light song about Arendelle and the citizens within it. But lyrics like these: Wandering through the town with everyone doing all of their stuff, Somewhere in my heart I feel I’ve not yet done enough, For these people I know, this place that I love so, My home” sets us up beautifully for the Queen Anna endgame. Anna, who loves her home and loves everyone in it, still doesn’t feel like she’s done enough for them. She wants to give more: to them, to her home. It’s not just about Elsa, Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf. Anna expressing this earnestness connects her to leading her people much more than the ending they give us presenting her as an alternative, the second daughter, the spare queen, the extra (which we know from ‘Just The Spare” outtake from the first film).

Then the later lyric: I’m grateful for this castle and for everything we’ve got, especially my family. We’ve all been through a lot. I know how fragile things can be. If I lost them, I’d lose me’ (x) calls directly into Anna’s true solo, ‘The Next Right Step’ where she faces this exact fear - the fragility of the family they built. She’s in the dark cave, lost Kristoff, Elsa and Olaf presumably dead, fears losing herself and giving up. Instead she faces that darkness and does what’s right; despite her heartache, she gets up and saves both of her people: Arendelle and the Northuldra. ‘Home’ connects Anna’s fear of losing her family and her desire to give more to her people. It pairs off beautifully with ‘The Next Right Thing’: The life I knew is over. I can't find my direction, I'm all alone. The only star that guided me was you. How to rise from the floor when it's not you I'm rising for?”

“Home” is a perfect setup to the ending, giving Anna more agency to her crown and the happiness and solidity that she’s able to forge in a new arrangement once Elsa leaves. It connects Anna’s journey from the first film (“I’m not alone anymore”) and bridges it into the journey she ultimately goes through in the sequel.

It’s a good song, a great one for Anna, but ultimate the plot doesn’t suffer without it, so I understand why it was cut for time even though I wish they didn’t.

But then there’s ‘I Seek the Truth’. In it, Elsa sings to her mother, expressing the unease she feels as her power grows stronger, the questions she’s been feeling, the longing she feels for her mother, her role as queen. She seeks the past through her mother to find the truth of her magic and her identity through the pages of a book her mother left her with clues to the answers. “I seek the truth. What are you teaching me? I'm ready to learn, can't retreat once again. And so I turn to you back then. You left me messages and they hold the key. I need to know what they mean, to know who you want me to be. How do I come from this land, with a power inside that I can't command? It's growing and speaking a language that I don't understand.” (x)

This, THIS song, perfectly sets up the central conflict of the film; Elsa expressing that she even wonders where her magic came from, who she is, what she was meant for, and what secrets her mother held. Without this song, we’re left with a gaping hole around it. The movie makes the Queen absolutely, vitally central to the plot and the girls' identities (and choices), (in a way that parallels the Father’s from the first film) yet she was somehow strangely absent from all of it. We’re left with a very unsatisfying shape to what’s missing.

Why does she keep her identity as Northuldra a secret from her children and husband? What is served by leaving that a mystery? Wouldn’t it have been much more interesting if once Frohana made it through the mist, they saw Arendelle soldiers and people bearing the same pattern of the scarf that their mother used to wear? It immediately connects Elsa and Anna to these people much more than the drop later on. It wets their curiosity and plants that seed in Elsa about desiring connecting to the Enchanged Forest and wanting to stay instead of ruling Arendelle.

I didn’t even realize during the first viewing that the second voice singing in Ahtohallan during ‘Show Yourself” isn’t also Idina Menzel- it’s Iduna dueting. The movie tried to intertwine Elsa’s journey with her mother’s past but ultimately fell short of both. The movie desperately needed a few more moments between Elsa and Iduna. The skeleton is there in ‘I Seek The Truth’ but without it, the movie doesn’t stand straight up. (Whatever, I know that doesn’t fully work but metaphors are hard and you get what I mean)

The ending was supposed to tie Elsa and Anna’s journeys as well as that of Arendelle and the Northuldra together. Others not me (hi helen) have already gotten into the complications of race and lack of stakes the ending presented, but yeah, it super bears repeating that Arendelle should have been destroyed. If anything it would have re-framed Anna’s journey (home about people, giving more to them) and the sisters’ past (rebuilding). That made zero sense. Let there actually be stakes! Were there any stakes? The people were safe. Either the town should have been still filled with people still to give Elsa a reason to save it or let it be destroyed and give Elsa and Anna a reason to build it back up together. Have the flag of Arendelle fly, finally earn it “standing for the good and the many” as they all sung in the beginning during ‘Some Things Never Change’. Let Elsa tell Anna that there’s still more she wants to learn about what it means to be the fifth spirit, so she wants to stay in the north and figure it out.

Better ending: Anna, the idiot she is, is running around on the bridge she’s actively working on getting destroyed (pot calling the Elsa kettle black for running into danger without thought to her own safety THEY ARE SISTERS FOR A REASON). The dam successfully breaks, but Anna falls into the water. Our other heroine presumed dead. But no! The spirits awaken with the freeing of the waters. Anna’s courage to do the right thing frees Elsa from her frozen state. Elsa falls into the water, knowing instantly what Anna’s done. She also senses the danger and there are two choices in front of her - she can either save Arendelle or her sister, there’s only time for one. Obviously she chooses Anna and rushes to save her as she tumbles into the waters below. Arendelle falls. Elsa and Anna rebuild it together, maybe some of the Northuldra people help, along with Gale and the earth giants. Anna has her coronation, makes vaguely BSDM comments to Kristoff, which Elsa gags at. She says how beautiful Anna looks, so much like their mother, and their parents would be so proud. Elsa leaves, she waves her hand and threads some pretty ice magic jewels into Anna’s crown and says “See you for game night Friday?” and rides off on her horsey.

Ok, so the gay thing:

They really doubled down on the queer analogy for Elsa. Yes, ‘Into the Unknown’ slaps but I mean, ‘Show Yourself’? Woof. What a gorgeous anthem that clearly parallels ‘Let It Go’ with a message of self-love, pride, and identity. Why didn’t they go further? I get it. It’s Disney. There’s the China market to content with, primarily. But that still leaves us with...its Disney. If ever there was a company that could affort to survive the right-wing and Chinese boycotts, it’s this one. “If Disney really believes in the kind of progressive representation it pretends to stand for, then its choices to barely depict LGBTQ people in its films — while simultaneously winking to let us know that, yeah, Elsa’s totes gay — are more than just irritating. They’re an abdication of the moral code the company vaguely genuflects toward having, in the name of higher profits.”x

I mean, Honeymaren was right there. I want to ship them, but it’s so thin that I can’t even get much further than “they talked like once and it’s an age-appropriate female who isn’t a family member.” Disney was never going to give Elsa a girlfriend, c’mon. But they could have at least given her a girl friend. A connection between the two of them would have made more sense for the ending as well - Elsa deciding to abdicate the throne and stay with the Northuldra. Give Elsa a more tangible connection to the place she chooses over Anna. The minimum they could have done without putting anything at risk would have been queercoding Elsa and Honeymaren, but there wasn’t even enough to give us that. But “where the queer subtext for the character in the first Frozen seemed mostly to arise by accident, it feels more intentional in this movie” and yet also deliberately given a wide berth so that they couldn’t be accused of going anywhere near it. “To be clear, it continues to be subversive that Elsa is a character defined entirely by her lack of a love interest. I don’t want to discount Frozen 2’s emphasis on Elsa’s powerful independence.” Do I love single Elsa? Heck yes. Am I happy and pleased with that? Absolutely. Did Disney have a great opportunity to also have room for queerness should people want to look for it? Yup.

So many unanswered questions! -W H Y does Iduna hide her ancestry from the girls and even Agnarr? (Yes, I get that the first movie was intended to be a standalone film and the sudden success changed everything so retconning is necessary, but still). The actual timeline for their parents is also kind of confusing. Little Iduna saves Little Agnarr. She sneaks away with him to a strange land. They fall in love and get married I guess? When does she tell him who she is and where she came from? Does he ever find out who saved him? Why do neither Iduna or Agnarr seem to guess that Elsa’s powers came from the four spirits? Why do they take a ship to find answers that they seem to already have the ability to know the answers to? Nature magic is in Iduna’s people’s history and culture so what other answers were they seeking to find? Did they think finding out what happened to cause the mists would help Elsa control her powers? -where do the handful of Arendellian soldiers live for 35 years? Why are they still fighting the Northuldra when they are clearly outnumbered. Why do the soldiers and villagers go from hating each other to working together and being together no problem without a single word to each other? -Is Elsa still human? What does being a Fifth Spirit mean aside from retconning an identity crisis and a sudden thirst for adventure? What was the fifth spirit before Elsa took the mantle? What answers did Ahtohallan hold before Elsa & Anna’s grandfather decided to be a huge bitch? The Disney wiki says “Elsa discovers that the voice was the call of Iduna from memories of the past, and that her power was a gift from the magic of nature because of Iduna's selfless act of saving Agnarr, making her the fifth spirit who unites differences. Elsa wields her mother's mantle of the fifth spirit.”(x) Wait, what? Where was Iduna’s magic voice six fucking years ago when their boat went down and after dying presumably found the answers? If Iduna had the mantle of the fifth spirit before Elsa, why the fuck did she take a boat to the middle of death ocean to find answers she knew? Did she know she was the fifth spirit? Do the four spirits just choose a human to imbue magic powers with? I fully get I shouldn’t think about this too hard but making it the answer to everything in the movie makes it rEALLY HARD nOT TO.

Things I loved: -Olaf somehow being endearing and legitimately funny a whole second time -”I don’t want to stop you from being whoever you need to be, I just don’t want you to die trying to be everything to everyone all the time.” Hoo boy, Anna has had yelled that speech to Elsa a thousand times in her head -Elsa’s crying face in ‘Show Yourself’ -the entire ‘Show Yourself’ sequence was just stunning, honestly, visually and emotionally -”I didn’t mean to leave you behind, I just wanted to protect her/keep her safe.” (I forgot the whole line, sorry) Anna it is very sweet of you to say that to Kristoff but honey, you can’t get mad at Elsa for doing the exact same thing you just did like three times -Elsa and Bruni doing the head angle thing as they become best friends -fucking Elsa at charades. How have they been putting up with that for three years. -QUEEN ANNA OF ARENDELLE -the concept of ‘do the next right thing’ I hate that such a golden message will likely get swallowed up and not given the credit and popularity it deserves -I’m sure there’s a lot more that I can’t remember but I’ve only seen it twice so cut me some slack

-the fact that it’s earth that’s the only spirit that Elsa doesn’t master before Ahtohollan. Interesting that she ‘fails’ there, freezing into the depths of the river, because she went too far alone without earth. She wins over Gale and Bruni, tames the Nokk, but she finds herself at the base of a glacier without earth under her feet. It’s telling, because of course it’is Anna. Anna has always been her rock, her earth, the thing that grounds her. It’s Anna who runs to the earth spirits and demand they follow her. It’s earth that Anna wrestles with to finish what Elsa started. Without grounding, without earth, there can be no balance. My darling fucking idiot girls.

#frozen 2 #spoilers #my frozen meta #jesus christ this is 3.5k talk about word vomit

125 notes · View notes

reconreble · 4 years

Text

What am I doing . . . ?

I’m just so tired of not knowing what to do in my life . . . . How can I even begin to try and apply myself to fix the problems in the world if I can’t even fix my own problems? Even then, what could I do to fix anything? I’m just one guy. The best I could ever do is try to find out where we need to be looking for change and hope that others will catch on and follow.

The world is sick in many ways this year, festering as the days progress.

Corona has capped us at the knees, keeping us apart and raising tension. Separating families and separating social classes more than I thought possible.

We fight eachother for whether we sould be forced to wear a mask or given the choice. Many on both sides think the opposition is out of line. One side sees an idiocracy and an invitation for death. The other sees sheep falling in line and inviting a tyrant’s decisions to govern the unquestioning masses. The difficult part is . . . both sides have truthes in them if you look for it. Will we ever wake up and see ourselves for who we are? Who we have become over the pass hundred years. Who we have forgotten we said we would be.

Our ‘leader’ restricts supply lines to other countries in need to help us, but at the cost of just making the world hate us more for choices we the people didn’t make. Our relations are faltering, but not without reason. We, through the actions of our government, are being shown to the world as a bad neighbor. One who takes what they want without asking and gives nothing in return. One who talks not of peace but of how much they can make you hurt if you don’t agree. We have become the bully, and the world noticing this does not play well with bullies. But then again, this decline has been happening for so long, who am I to say it’s a decline when it closer matches a cliff fall. Will we ever fix our shit? Will we ever be a good neighbor?

The one in charge offers no words of kindness or condolences, only a statistic readout of the dead and ill and nod that there some responsible; attempting to galvanize us against wherever he aims. I hate to admit it but I can’t help but find parallels to the witch hunts and the communist scare of our past. A group, a nation, united against one cause, and looking for a pound of flesh; blinded by fear and rage and heeding no reason. Then again, we weren’t the only ones to act out in such a way. A notable example even started a war over it. Will we play into it blindly and let hate fuel us into actions we swore we would never commit? Will we stoop so low as to become who we promised ourselves we would never be?

We fight eachother for what supplies are there. Even the elderly have been fighting in stores like every day is black friday. Then again, we might’ve just been looking for another excuse to fight. I find it funny and sickening that in a ‘Land of Plenty’ there is so little to go around. In a ‘Land of Plenty’ that so much bigger than any other, we still fight over who is next to us like children in the back of a car; meanwhile some live in the streets. In a ‘Land of Freedom’ we still fight over if someone across the nation agrees with our views and lives as we dictate a good life should be. And in a ‘Land of Freedom’ we turn the law against one another to condem all those who we don’t agree with, simply because ‘they knelt when I wouldn’t have’. Then again, would it be right to ask better of us, if we were not tought to be better? When will we learn the meaning of symbols and how they change? What is the purpose of a flag without it’s people? Killing someone for it doesn’t make it any more than a piece of cloth. A piece of cloth that has meaning only because we give meaning to it, just like so many others do to theirs. I myself had a hard time grasping this as a soldier. But given the choice, I would save a person over a flag any day.

All the while we wait on science to provide an answer to our fears, and declare it safe again to leave home and be human. But we grow impatient.

Race has become an issue in America, as it has been and as we attempted to pretend it wasn’t. America, a place I had hoped would be foward thinking enough to not have such a problem. I had hoped it could change quicker for the better. I had hoped, it’s people clearly saying they wanted equality, would ensure we had equality. I am sad to say I was wrong.

The riots do no help to our cause, but instead make us look like marauders who care for no one but themselves. At a time of turmoil and strife when we want relief and we seek justice for those who have been wronged, we turn to injustice. To what end? To even the score? To set an example? To show our hatred and just how tired of the bullshit we are? If we were really tired of it, we would be causing change, not ripping ourselves apart . . . . or is this just the spark trying to catch?

Meanwhile the protests seem like the right approach, though they fall on deaf ears. Must we repeat this process? This nation was founded on this very cycle. First unsatisfaction with the government, then unrest and protests. Then it was a raid, then a rebellion, and a revolution. Then, after a time, a nation was born. Would a government borne from these flames not recognise the early signs of it’s own womb forming in it’s own people? Or are they all too confident that we will remain devided and not see the potential before us? The possibility to rip away all the old that is unfit, unjust, corrupt, and has inked it’s way into controlling everything in our lives for so long from what we eat to what we use to wipe our nose. And the possibility to try again and attempt to make it right. Then again . . . where would we even begin with such a daunting task? What would be replaced and what would stay? And who would we appoint to make such a decision? One or many? Few or truely all?

At the end of the day though, thoughts and ideas are just that, thoughts and ideas. I am alone and I have no way to act upon any of it. And this is no more than a discussion on the current times we find ourselves in. What could one man do to try and change a country? What would one young fag know about seeking equality and change for the better? And how could I even begin to try and fix problems in the world, if I can’t even fix my own? Besides, no one actually asked for me to fix it anyway.

What are we doing to ourselves?

-Uncultured Swine

#random thoughts #2020 #june #america #riots #protests #why can't we seem to get it right?#why are we still like this?#why are we still fighting eachother?#things that keep me from sleeping at night #Uncultured_Swine

0 notes