But first, a bit of housekeeping:
* I am trying to save up to by a new computer because of ongoing technical issues and certain programs ceasing support of Windows7. But it's been very slow going as my expenses have been outpacing my intake, especially since I spent the first half of the year saving to go all-in on Marvel United 3
* I have a soft goal of, as usual, trying to complete the FireRed Let's Play before I switch computers and lose the save file but, again as usual, the computer takes so ungodly long to boot up properly that by the time I actually find the right angle to press the button to make the thing turn on that day I have no remaining energy for meticulous screen capture and want to spend my time doing literally anything else. So, again again, slow going
* Once I do get a new computer, I want to try doing occasional game streaming, so to that end I unlisted every video on my YouTube channel with the exception of Jar Jar Frozen Peas. Links and playlists should still work for the older videos, but they're no longer floating in the algorithmic ether. I'm still proud of what I was able to do with those videos at the time I made them, but at this point they're from two whole lifetimes ago.
That should be it for the update, and now for the main event.
***
So the twins' newest obsession has been Frozen. That seems to be at or near the top of all my kids' fave Disney Canon lists, but the twins are at an age where starting it up is the unfailing "sit quietly and focus" button. So even though I've always liked the movie I've been forced to rewatch it way more times than I would have willingly. That said, it is during these near-daily rewatches I have grown a bigger appreciation for one much-maligned part of the film
Prince Hans of the Southern Isles has had a mixed reception at best. And granted, some of it is understandable. First of all, he came towards the beginning of a trend the Revival Era of the Disney Canon where several films in a row featured a "Twist Villain", and while I will die on the hill that they were all fine villains and fine twists on their own, doing so many one after the other and at the expense of the classic Fun Being Bad kind of Disney Villains that we still haven't seen return to the Canon since Tangled's Mother Gothal lessened their impact as a whole and soured many folks on the concept.
There was another unfortunate trend of the Revival Era to try and address some of the more problematic tropes of earlier Canon...by trying to "fix" things based on half-baked internet commentary. This is still a big issue in the current swath of sub-par live-action remakes, but in the Canon proper this mindset reached its peak - at least in blatantless - with Frozen and its subversion of true love tropes. Where this concerns Hans in particular is the running gag of "You can't marry a man you just met." While I'll discuss later how taken just in the film it's a good hint to Hans' true nature, in the broader outside context it's easy to write off as Disney making fun of the "three day wedding" it's often criticised for when the vast majority of its wedding endings happen after a time skip of undisclosed duration. In fact, the only film I can think of where a Just Met Marriage MIGHT have explicitly happened was in 2009's The Princess and the Frog, and the only proof of that is that they'd have to have turned back human within days of the film's events to buy the restaurant building within the time limit set earlier. Everything else is technically ambiguous as to how long each couple waited.
Now I've read articles and heard discussions and diatribes in the intervening years saying that Hans is ineffective, boring, and even that his villainous turn makes no sense and comes out of nowhere. I always thought Hans was...fine. Not the best villain, not the worst villain, just...fine. He serves his narrative purpose. He's just whatever. After these rewatches and with all the criticism in mind, I no longer think Hans is a fine villain.
I think he's a GREAT villain.
The stuff I'm about to talk about isn't new. It's stuff that people have noticed and have spoken about and written about since pretty much the film's release. However, given those voices have been long drowned out of the mainstream narrative when discussing this film, a lot of this is new to ME, and I suspect will be to at least some of you.
I actually went and reread my original review of Frozen for this very blog from when the film came out, and something I had forgotten about was that I actually clocked Hans as the villain from first viewing (quick digression - it's also funny that I'm talking about this movie on the eve of its 10 year anniversary when it was just after my original review that I stopped doing Anniversary Reviews of older films). But I recognized it based on watching a lot of movies and realizing what a character like his was being set up for narratively, and even then certain parts made me second-guess. I didn't actually catch any of the clues until recently save one: You Can't Marry A Man You Just Met.
Divorced from the trite metanarrative and taken on its own in the film, this is a major hammering in that Hans is not to be trusted and a major thing that women - hell, EVERYONE - truly needs to take to heart. No matter how much you become infatuated with someone, no matter how deep that initial connection, regardless of whether it ends up panning out to true love after all, you can NEVER really know a person with such limited interaction. It truly takes years to really learn what someone is like - and even then things can shift. And until you learn that, sooner or later someone will take advantage of you. This is super mega obvious clue number one that the movie does not want you to trust Hans and never did.
Even before that, if you watch Hans closely you can see his personality is never quite consistent. The filmmakers called him a "chameleon", and it's definitely apparent if you know what you're looking for. With Anna he's adorable and bubbly, with Elsa he's mature and reasonable, with the Duke of WeaselTown ("Wesselton!") he's sharp and aggressive, and with everyone else he's strong but kind to build up a good reputation. Now, everybody has different versions of themselves that they bring out to different settings, but usually a bit of the real person shines through no matter what. Not as much with master manipulators like Hans.
Still, there are times he slips. Several instances during the number "Love is an Open Door" are clear red flags. While Anna sings about how she feels about him directly, Hans has something else in mind from his first line: "I've been searching my whole life to find my own place", he sings while gesturing towards Arandelle. And no, it's clear from the look on his face that "Sandwiches" was NOT, in fact, what he was going to say. But he played Anna's desperation like a fiddle. And despite their supposed "Mental Sunchonization", there's a lot of the song where they are singing different parts at different times and rarely quite synch up.
And what about when Hans accidentally confirms he thinks Anna is just ordinary and barely walks it back with a sheepish "in the best way"? And how he's all worried about Anna leaving unil she puts him in charge and suddenly he's all supportive of her mission?
Now there are two moments people point to that supposedly show Hans was really a good guy (or supposed to be before anything from overworked screenwriters to jealous trolls "changed him") that upon closer inspection provide proof to the contrary. The first being when he gave out blankets and offered shelter to Arandelle's citizens. This can easily be explained by him wanting to ingratiate himself and ahow himself as a leader, and it's somewhat undercut by the unusually potent venom he rounds on the Duke with. It's something that can seem natural enough at first especially with what an annoying twerp the Duke is, but in hindsight it really is a viscious turn for someone as compassionate and reasonable as Hans is trying to appear.
The second and most damning is the confrontation between Hans, Elsa, and the Duke's men at Elsa's ice palace in the North Mountain. Now detractors will say that if Hans really was the villain, why did he rescue Elsa from the Duke's men rather than let them take her out for him? Or more directly, why not try to kill her himself then?
The thing is, he DID. And true to his plan of still trying to pretend to be a hero, he tried to make it look like an accident.
If you notice, a split second before he runs to the crossbowman, he looks up. He sees the chandelier. Then when he moves the crossbowman's arm, he's not looking at him, or Elsa, or anything else in panic. He is still looking up, eyes trained and shrewdly aiming for the chandelier. He's trying to drop it on Elsa and make it look like he was trying to save her in the process, keeping his hands clean. It was sheer luck that Elsa looked up and dodged just in time to get merely knocked out instead of crushed.
If he was this smart and this effective up to this point, some of you may ask, then why the Bond villain stupidity and confessing to Anna without sticking around to make sure she died? Well, first of all, this IS a movie, and one where the good guys are expected to win. Secondly, even in real life horrible people can't go forever without bragging to SOMEONE about some bit of terribleness they're proud of. Thirdly, Anna was so close to freezing and she was locked in, and there's no way he would have considered a sentient snowman would be an expert lockpicker. As an addendum, this scene where he's revealing his plan is the only scene in the film where Hans takes his gloves off, and gloves were set up earlier in the film as being concealing (not feeling).
Add to this brilliant construction the surprisingly nuanced performance by Santino Fontana, and Hans more than earns his place in the pantheon of Disney Animated Canon Villains. No, I still wouldn't put him in my Top 11, but in the modern parlance of Tier Lists I'd definitely say he's High B/Low A Tier. I definitely appreciate him more now than I did before, and he deserves more love (to hate) and more recognition; perhaps a Disney Villainous deck?
Interesting.
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