Frozen II’s big dam problem
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Runeard’s Dam in Frozen II
This month Before They Were Live, a Christian Humanist Radio Network podcast covering every film in the Disney animated canon in chronological order, finally reached Frozen II. Or, as my kids used to call it—with unwitting accuracy—Frozen Number Two. Hosts Josh and Michial have a great discussion about the film’s strengths and its many, many shortcomings, but there’s one aspect of the film I’m going to take this sliver of an excuse to vent about—the dam built by Anna and Elsa’s grandfather.
Having a daughter who was four when Frozen II came out (so you know where I was opening weekend), having watched it far too many times since, and—the sticking point for me—having once written a book about destroying a dam in Norway, I have thoughts.
Frozen II’s dam was built as “a gift of peace” to the Northuldra people, the film’s thinly-disguised Sami, who live in the Enchanted Forest, a region both far, far away (i.e. a couple hours’ walk) from Arendelle and near enough to be at the head of the same fjord. Over the course of the film, Anna and Elsa learn that the dam was actually a Trojan horse attack on the peaceful Northuldra because of their grandfather’s wicked suspicion of magic-practicing peoples. The dam has, somehow, shrouded the Enchanted Forest in an everlasting fog. Only destroying the dam will dispel the fog and make things right, but doing so will also unleash a torrent of water that will destroy Arendelle. It’s a social justice trolley problem.
So—what’s been bugging me since that Saturday morning three years ago:
First, what is this dam doing? People don’t just build dams for fun. The Frozen movies apparently take place in the early 1840s, so this is too early for the dam to provide anyone with hydroelectric power, but it also doesn’t seem to be providing anyone with hydraulic power, either. Even if that was the intention, it’s too far away from Arendelle to do them any good. Flood control is the most plausible reason, but even this is a stretch given the environment. As for the recipients of this dam, the Northuldra are reindeer herders—why give them a dam at all? And even if it was offered, why would they accept?
Beyond serving no obvious purpose, Frozen II’s dam doesn’t even function like a dam. The water of the deep lake behind it does not apparently flow over the dam—or anywhere else. Having no hydro station, it doesn’t even have intakes that could redirect the water through the cliffs to the valley below the dam. Here’s the dam that I scaled up in imagining the Grettisfjord dam in Dark Full of Enemies. Look at it on Google’s satellite view and you can see on the right, the southeastern side of the lake, the intakes for the pipeline to the power station downriver. Frozen II’s dam is just a literal wall plopped in the wilderness that created a lake that somehow just sits there.
In Before They Were Live, Josh and Michial hesitate to fault Frozen II for sloppy storytelling, but I am less inclined to be charitable. The dam makes it clear that the story is secondary to the politics. It is a symbol and only a symbol. It has to be there so it can be destroyed, just like the Northuldra have to unnecessarily accept the gift of useless infrastructure so they can be haplessly victimized. And all of this has to happen so that the audience can vicariously grieve over generational injustice and accept that the cost of Doing Better is utter, year zero, civilizational destruction.
And that brings me to my biggest problem with Frozen II on this score: the seemingly minor detail that man-made lakes can be drained. The lake could be drained, the fog dissipated, the dam demolished bloodlessly, in controlled conditions that would not annihilate everything downriver. (Seriously, read about dam failures, both unintentional—here’s one from my neck of the woods—and otherwise. Anna might as well atone by nuking Arendelle.) The destruction at the end of the film—which is prevented by a deus ex machina anyway, because all recent Disney films toothlessly refuse to follow through on their own logic—is completely unnecessary.
Josh unfavorably compares Frozen II to other, better films’ “fairy tale logic,” arguing that Frozen II lacks it. He’s right. Frozen II’s story is governed by Jacobin logic. Bolshevik logic.
I’m only half kidding, and only barely overstating it. Regardless of whether you agree with the politics or not, this is bad storytelling. Fortunately—since I do not agree with the film’s politics—the storytelling is so bad, the plot is so slipshod and scattered, and the climactic action so blunted in its effect on the characters, that few people who are not already ideological fellow travelers will end the film having had some kind of awakening. But, Lord knows, I could be wrong.
I’ve embedded the latest episode of Before They Were Live in this post—give it a listen! And I highly recommend subscribing to the show. Josh and Michial bring great dedication and insight to the show, and their discussions always maintain a high standard. Though I wouldn’t call myself a Disney enthusiast by any means, each new episode sidelines whatever else I’m listening to. I think y’all will enjoy it, too.
You can visit the show’s official website here and the Christian Humanist Radio Network’s main page here. The CHRN also has a Facebook page which you can like or follow for regular updates on all of their shows.
