Frozen 3 Needs To Avoid Repeating The Same Elsa Threat Again
Elsa's character in Frozen 2 is inconsistent with her arc in Frozen, but making her no longer a threat in Frozen 3 would reconcile the two films.
If Disney decides to make a Frozen 3, it needs to stop making Elsa a threat to other characters. Her destructive power forms a central part of the plot in the two previous Frozen movies. It brings about the inciting incident for each film as well: in Frozen, Elsa plunges Arendelle into an eternal winter, while in Frozen 2, she awakens elemental spirits that wreak havoc on the kingdom. However, the franchise needs to avoid falling back on this trope if it wants to move forward.
The ending of Frozen seems to suggest that Elsa has finally found peace, after struggling to control her powers and inner demons – including her guilt over the harm those powers may cause – throughout the movie. Frozen 2 develops the narrative from the first movie, providing answers about her powers and revealing Elsa's role as the Fifth Spirit – a bridge between humans and the natural world. However, the inner peace Elsa found in Frozen continues to be disrupted throughout the sequel as she longs to learn more about her powers and her past, unable to shake off the sense that she’s meant for some greater purpose. After asking for answers in the beginning of the movie, she loses control of her powers, causing destruction and forcing the evacuation of Arendelle.
Elsa doesn’t seem to feel guilty in Frozen 2 about the chaos that she’s unleashed on her people. Her loss of control with no sense of contrition causes a rift between the Elsa at the end of Frozen and the Elsa of Frozen 2. It is because of this that Frozen 3 needs a new conflict and should avoid making Elsa’s destructive power the center of the story yet again. A more prosaic reason for the change is that it would be tedious to repeat the same pattern for a third time. But Elsa needs to move forward as a character, not in circles, and she will only be able to when her powers are not a threat to others. Though Elsa’s character in Frozen 2 is inconsistent with her arc in Frozen, making her no longer a threat in Frozen 3 would reconcile the two films by letting her character develop.
As someone who struggled to learn to control her powers, Elsa should be more upset for her own sake as well as that of her subjects when her actions harm Arendelle. It seems that she went through and learned everything that she did in Frozen only to slip up again, seemingly just as badly. Having the conflict in Frozen 3 be unrelated to Elsa posing a threat would show that she has fully mastered her powers. It would also let Elsa finally be at peace with herself. The guilt that consumed her in Frozen would no longer be pushing her to act, and unlike in Frozen 2, this change would no longer seem selfish, since the conflict would not have come from her.
Elsa’s focus on self-actualization isn’t bad in itself — it simply needs to be tempered with her arc from Frozen – the realization of giving and receiving selfless love – for her character in the second film to make sense. Now that the second film has established Elsa as the Fifth Spirit, a third Frozen movie, by having Elsa use her powers to save against a threat that did not come from her, could combine her strength and self-actualization from Frozen 2 with her openness and love from Frozen. Through Frozen 3, audiences would see she’s in control, acting for selfless reasons, and finally confident in her place in the world and relationships with others.