Defrosting Ice Queen / Live-Action TV

---

• Lexa from The 100 tries to be stoic and ruthless, with no attachment to people as individuals, but only to her duty as the Grounders' Commander. However, as she works alongside Clarke, Lexa begins to develop feelings for her, enough to make her reconsider her belief that Love Is a Weakness, and to trust Clarke even when her pragmatic logic says she shouldn't. Subverted at first when, despite her feelings for Clarke, Lexa still abandons her in the middle of a crucial battle, seeing an easy victory for her side as more important than her personal attachment to an ally. Later on after reuniting with Clarke, Lexa makes it clear she greatly regrets abandoning her and then slowly but surely warms up to Clarke, even offering to implement more merciful and forgiving policies as Commander of the Grounders. Unfortunately, Lexa ends up being shot and dies in the very same episode where she fully melts.
• Alex Rider (2020): Kyra. She's dismissive and hostile to... well, everyone, but works with Alex and James on the escape plan. When that fails, she and Alex work out a plan where he escapes alone and fetches help, while she rescues the kidnapped students and hides out with them in the laundry room. When she hears Alex has died, she goes into Heroic BSoD mode until she hears from him. In the final episode, she visits him at his school, apparently just to see him.
• On The Astronaut Wives Club, Louise Shepard gradually defrosts, partly thanks to the friendship of her fellow wives and Max.
• The Big Leap has Mallory and Brittney.
  • Monica is a cold perfectionist who's been dancing ballet for most of her life and expects as much skill from her amateurs. Part of this is due to her injury skewing her perspective, and it takes a while before she can fall back in love with dance again.
  • Brittney is only on the show to win - even though there aren't very many things to "win" in the show itself. She ends up being cruel enough to turn everyone against her (including her own brother), and nearly gets kicked off the show.
• Dr. Brennan of Bones, thanks to Booth. She initially viewed love as nothing more than a delusion brought on by neurotransmitters and never went any deeper than Friends with Benefits. Over time she fell in love with Booth but refused to admit it until she rejected him and thought she had lost him.
• Brothers & Sisters character Kevin Walker is an Ice Queen until Scotty forcibly defrosts him and his "own homophobia."
• Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
• Cordelia Chase from Buffy and Angel starts out as the definition of this trope (especially towards Xander and Doyle on the respective shows) and by the end of the series has evolved into a warm caring woman.
• Burden of Truth: Joanna is largely cool, reserved, and shows little emotion at first. Over time, she gets better at showing how much she cares for other people (such as her sister), emoting more.
• Maria Joaquina Villasenor from Carrusel becomes nicer as the series progresses.
• Sister Therese in Charite, a young deaconess, seems very stern and closed-up at first, but she soon thaws when she befriends nurse Ida.
• In Dance Academy, Abigail is initially quite a horrible person, but Sammy's persistence and support of her eventually makes her much nicer and she eventually falls in love with him despite her claims that she "[doesn't] do emotions." Christian starts off very cold and distant from everyone and isn't too keen to make friends. Tara, Kat and, again, Sammy all play a role in making him a warmer person.
• Doctor Who
  • Romana. A number of fans posit that the Doctor and she had a relationship (no doubt aided by the brief marriage of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward).
  • Amy Pond is an example, considering the Doctor ran off without her twice and she was pretty bitter about it.
    Amy: I grew up.
    The Doctor: Don't worry. I'll soon fix that.
  • Ice King variant: The Twelfth Doctor explicitly tries to distance himself from his companion Clara by being less affectionate and open than his predecessor (who ultimately thought of himself as Clara's boyfriend). Over time, however, he defrosts at least as far as Clara is concerned to the point where he becomes more openly affectionate with her, less abrasive in discourse with her — and undergoes an epic and universe-threatening grief-driven Heroic BSoD when she is killed. Although recovering from this requires him to lose the deep feeling he had for her via Mind Rape and he's frosted up a bit at the top of the Christmas Episode that follows this story arc, his actions upon his path being crossed with River Song's prove he'll never truly be the Ice King again.
• Lady Mary Crawley of Downton Abbey slowly but surely defrosts over the course of the first two seasons thanks to the influence of Matthew. She evolves from someone utterly selfish whose only concern upon her unofficial fiance's death is how long she has to wear black, to a woman who realizes her own mistakes and eventually admits them to those she loves. She even outright states that Matthew sees her as a much softer person than others do. After Matthew's untimely death, Mary reverts temporarily to her icy ways.
• Aeryn Sun from Farscape, her icy cold exterior barely thawing to a cool, calm and collected outlook, contrasting nicely with her malfunctioning microwave of a man.
• In For the People, Kate starts the series very closed off, but starts to at the very least tolerate those around her as time goes on.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Robb Stark was very stoic initially; Talisa defrosts him.
  • Brienne to Podrick, as she didn't want a squire, so she often berates him. She does eventually come to respect his loyalty and apologizes for being harsh towards him, however.
  • Despite their rough introduction, Lyanna Mormont eventually mellows to Jon and Sansa. She even nominates Jon as the new King in the North, which the other lords accept.
• Glee: Kurt, especially after his transfer to Dalton means he no longer needs to be constantly on the defensive just to survive high school. And he is indeed a queen...
• A Hallmark Presentation LOVES this trope, albeit often in a downplayed form. Often, the woman isn't exactly an ice queen, but is clearly more cynical than the guy and thinks Hope Is Scary until he shows her The Power of Love. When it's not this trope, they often use Belligerent Sexual Tension.
• The Handmaid's Tale: Serena Joy begins to treat Offred much more nicely when she finds out Offred's period is late, even going so far as starting work on a much nicer bedroom for Offred. Before the reveal, she seemingly opens up to Offred about how happy having a child will be and how much she and the Commander had tried for a baby in the past. Naturally, once she finds out Offred had her period... it's right back to business-as-usual. However she then develops as a character in Season 2.
• Ice Fantasy: Shi is stoic and cold towards everyone except Ka Suo. He gradually starts to warm up to Yan Da while pretending to be Yun Fei.
• The Inspector Lynley Mysteries is an interesting case where the two leads defrost each other; DI Thomas Lynley is the 'icy' type, whereas DS Barbara Havers is the Jerkass type. It's not romantic... supposedly.
• Hiiro Kagami of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid starts as The Stoic, who regards Emu as Idiot Hero and scolds him every so often for being too naive or empathetic. This is a fitting description of Emu. Hiiro eventually became fond of him because of his resilience and Incorruptible Pure Pureness. The fact that Emu is much smarter than he looks (and often, acts) also helps.
  • Unfortunately, coming to respect Emu's opinion led Hiiro into a deal with Masamune Dan. It Makes Sense in Context.
• In Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Alex Cabot defrosted from a perfectly poised Hello, Attorney! out to conquer the universe to a genuinely kind woman, if still blessed with some interesting legal approaches.
• Legend of the Seeker: Cara. She slowly warms up to Leo, who actually gets her to smile for the first time. It's only after he dies that Cara admits she had feelings for him though. It also helps that she learns that her father never betrayed her and refused to say he did, forcing the Mord-Sith to burn his vocal cords with acid to keep him from denying their claims.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Galadriel starts as very distant and aloof, always at odds with Halbrand. But after getting to know him better and surviving several adventures together, she becomes comfortable enough to be vulnerable around him. He's the only one enjoying such privilege from Galadriel. This trope also gets deconstructed [[once is revealed Halbrand is Sauron, and he just played her the whole time.]]
• Love and Destiny:
  • Jiu Chen, both literally and figuratively, as he warms up to Ling Xi.
  • Qing Yao is a more traditional example, as Yun Feng's persistence finally manages to win her over.
• Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H. During the series' early "comedy" years, she started as a bossy, unlikeable head nurse. She had many defrosting moments (mostly with the laid-back Hawkeye) after the first season, but her first defrosting episode was "The Nurses", and since, due to trouble with men like Frank Burns and Donald Penobscot, although she's still a hard-nose (she is an Army major, after all), she comes off as a significantly more developed character with a warm heart who will volunteer rather than send others into danger.
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: May comes across as cold, belligerent, aloof and rude to everyone, especially her ex-boyfriend Kentaro; but as the series goes on, she grows closer to the people around her and feels guilty for selling them out to Duvall. She's furthermore revealed to be traumatized from her past: she used to work for a tech company, later revealed to be Apex Cybernetics from Godzilla vs. Kong, until she discovered that they were using her research to conduct cruel brain experiments on chimpanzees, which prompted her to crash their database and forced her to leave her family behind when she went on the run from them up to the present day. By the last few episodes, May's interactions with Cate Randa have reached Ship Tease levels.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: Raelle starts off the show as a bitter, jaded loner, but her relationships with Tally, Abigail, and Scylla gradually get her to lighten up considerably, with Raelle showing genuine love for them all.
• In an interesting case of a role defrosting an actor, the title role on Murphy Brown did a lot to soften up Candice Bergen's image after years of being known as a cool debutante. Her dry wit has been a staple of most of her roles since.
• No Tomorrow: Deirdre's developing relationship with Hank makes her move from cold and standoffish to passionate with him.
• Nowhere Boys: Ellen slowly opens up in Season 2 after discovering the truth about magic and what happened to the boys in the previous season, and is taken up as a member of the Nowhere Boys gang.
• In a somewhat rare completely non-romantic version, Kristen Cohen of The O.C.. She changes so drastically that watching the first episodes again after watching the whole series is jarring.
• In Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023), Annabeth starts off quite stand-offish and cold towards Percy, to the point that he doubted that they would become friends. However, as they become closer on their quest, it's clear that she is slowly letting her guard down around him.
• Dr. K from Power Rangers RPM goes from treating the Rangers like weapons (and, in Ziggy's case, a total idiot) to caring for them as friends (and more, in Ziggy's case). Well, in her own way.
• Sarah Jane Smith of The Sarah Jane Adventures started out "positively frosty!" — and can you blame the woman, considering aliens are out to kill her? — but softened considerably after meeting Maria and adopting Luke. Later she goes on to say that Luke gave her something to live for.
• Scarlet Heart: Yin Zhen starts out aloof and stoic. He becomes warmer after falling in love with Zhang Xiao.
• Ashley Jeurgens from The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Started out being the down-to-earth girl who said won't repeat Amy's mistakes, being the voice of reason and trying her best to be a good daughter to her almost crumbling family. Now, she might be steps away from being almost like Amy...
• Sherlock in BBC's Sherlock over the first two seasons. Although not without bumps along the way, his friendship with John helps Sherlock slowly learn to open up to the other people in his life (albeit in an eccentric, clumsy way) to the point where his priorities at the end of the second season are wildly different from those in the pilot, or even the end of the first season.
  • John as well. Before he met Sherlock, he was cold and aloof, particularly towards his therapist, Mike, and Mycroft. He doesn't talk to his sister either. Understandable, he did see active service in Afghanistan. However, he is still caring, since he wants to help out others, like the innocent people who had a bomb vest strapped to them. We then see John grabbing on to Moriarty, and telling Sherlock to get the blazes out of the room they're in.
  • Now that we have Mary, Sherlock, and John, despite the fact Sherlock claims himself to be a sociopath, (we know he isn't, since his goals in Series 3 were a lot different) and shooting Charles in front of everyone, including Mycroft, it shows that he's a lot more caring than he was before.
• Marguerite in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. In the beginning she appears cold and uncaring. She is perfectly willing to sell Veronica for a way home of the Plateau and usually seems to not care about any of the others. And then one looks closer. She grows to care about the others a lot. When Summerlee gets stung by a gigantic bee and hallucinates about his dead wife she resumes that role to comfort him, she looks out for Malone and Veronica, helps Challenger and becomes Roxton's confidante whenever the memory of his brother breaks him. But although she learns to trust every expedition member with her life she's still careful about letting them know about her past and why she really came to the Plateau.
• Naomi Campbell from Skins made a conscious effort to freeze her heart solid many years ago; if there's one lesson life's taught Naomi repeatedly it's that opening your heart is the very first step on the painful journey towards getting it trodden on. And then she met Emily, the human microwave.
• Stargirl (2020): Courtney initially, to Pat and Mike. At first she's cold and hostile to them, but warms up over the first season. By the end, Courtney considers them her dad and brother.
• Star Trek: The Original Series: Spock's relationship with Kirk is a platonic example of this. Although it takes years for Spock to fully accept that emotions are a good thing, most of his moments in between are due to the captain.
  • Kirk also defrosts a haughty monarch in "Elaan of Troyius."
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Odo tried very hard to remain the dispassionate observer of humanoid behaviour but he found himself making friends despite himself.... friends that were determined to make him enjoy having friends. Friends that won this battle in the long run.
• Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso. She starts out as an angry and bitter Iron Lady and the de-facto Big Bad as she tries to destroy Richmond AFC from within to spite her ex-husband. By the midpoint of Season 1 she becomes The Atoner and truly begins to care for the club largely due to Ted's positive influence, forming a genuine friendship with Keelee and reconnecting with her oldest friend and goddaughter. In Season 2, she's a warm and generous (although still intimidating) Benevolent Boss.
• Vagrant Queen: Elida starts out as a cool, reserved and sarcastic person due to her years of very tough living while surviving on her own. Over time however with Isaac and Amae she reveals she's got a good heart, caring for them both genuinely (in Amae's case, returning her romantic feelings).
• In The Walking Dead, Michonne started out this way. She lived with Andrea for months, yet never revealed anything about her past. When Rick kept her hostage, she could do nothing but scowl stubbornly at him, even retaining her mute state after becoming an official member of the group. Carl eventually coaxes her out of her shell, and it's Rick's refusal to hand her over to the Governor that cements her Undying Loyalty to him.
  • Enid is introduced as The Quiet One, who shuts people out due to her Dark and Troubled Past. After growing close to Carl, and witnessing Glenn and Maggie's devotion to helping her cope with the Crapsack World, she warms up to them and becomes a more involved and vocal member of the team.
• Wife Swap gave us the mom of a fun-free house who had to deal with a loony magician. When she realized she was fighting an uphill battle, she took off and made her way to the customary meeting between the couples in tears.
• Although the defrosting is only partial, Alex in Wizards of Waverly Place could be considered a example, either thought Jalex, Dalex, or Malex.
• Dana Scully of The X-Files is this way. She is naturally steely and emotionally distant to everyone, but especially to Mulder in the early seasons. Eventually, he breaks through and she develops a Sugar-and-Ice Personality, in which she remains cool and distant to everyone else, and a little bit freer with her feelings with Mulder.

---