Headscratchers / Frozen Fever

Clock discrepancy

• Clock Discrepancy During the scene where Elsa almost falls off the clock tower, the time on the clock face (~4:50pm) is wrong for Arendelle's latitude on June 22 (Anna's birthday is the summer solstice). The sun is setting, which wouldn't happen to after 10pm that far north. If the minute hand and hour hands were reversed, it would be more appropriate.
  • Elsa's cold screwed up the weather. And the atmosphere. And the rotation of the earth.
  • Possibly worth noting is Frozen Fever was confirmed somewhere to have taken place a few months after Frozen, which a line from Oaken suggests takes place in July, meaning the short would probably take place somewhere in fall or early winter. What this says about the exact date of Anna's birthday is unclear, but it could serve as a reasonable answer to this question.
  • It's also possible that Frozen Fever takes place AFTER Olaf's Frozen Adventure (which was explicitly said to be the first Christmas in Arendelle since Elsa's coronation), so Anna's first birthday since the coronation is still on the summer solstice.

Self-curing colds

• Wouldn't Elsa be able to cure her fever with her powers (I.e., cooling herself down) pretty easily? I mean, it wouldn't cure all the symptoms, but I'm a little surprised they never thought of that.
  • I'm not so sure that fevers work that way, but even on the off chance that they do, Elsa spends a majority of the short denying that she has a cold so they can proceed with Anna's party plans undeterred. She may not have the ability or the knowledge of how to cool herself down enough to ease her symptoms, if it is possible.
  • Fevers are a defense mechanism. Getting rid of one before it runs its course would actually make the problem worse.
  • Given how the previous time her powers affected a person's body temperature, it nearly killed her little sister, Elsa would be the last ice-controller to try using her abilities therapeutically.
• Why are people so perplexed over Elsa getting sick in this short? She's a normal girl with ice powers, not a goddess who's immune to illness.
  • Basically, a piece of fanon formed that Elsa having elemental powers meant she's some sort of Physical God and therefore immortal. Immunity to cold meaning immunity to illness as well. There are fanfics where she outlives Anna and ends up becoming centuries old and Walking the Earth. Highly unlikely in retrospect, but with limited info about her powers in the film, people will fill in the big blanks their own way.
  • There is also the fact that Frozen takes place around 1840. This was when people thought colds were actually caused by the cold, which doesn't bother Elsa, instead of by germs. Combined with the fact that for most of her life Elsa avoided contact with others as much as possible, thus not getting in contact with germs and not getting sick, she'd have a weakened immune system as a result.

Elsa's wardrobe choice

• Does Elsa just wear that blue ice dress all the time now? I understand that it might be something of an iconic outfit for her, but wouldn't she ever consider seeing what other clothing designs she could create once she'd returned to Arendelle? The decision to keep her in it, from my perspective, really seems more like some sort of marketing gimmick than it does an actual representation of character... (And I know it's one thing to wear it during Anna's birthday festivities, but then she's also shown wearing it while preparing said festivities, even though I feel that even royals would have less fanciful attire that they would wear during such a time.)
  • Either she does (maybe it's just really comfortable), or she made multiple copies. Or she was planning to do physical work (normal dresses are not great for that) and then magically transform her dress (which would destroy the original, but presumably wouldn't destroy an existing magic ice dress).
  • Limited Wardrobe is the easiest answer. I'm sure she has a full wardrobe of clothing to wear that she's iced out to fit her new style. We just never see it because the dress is iconic to her. Notice that Anna is still wearing the same clothes as before as well and Hans is shoveling manure in the same suit he was wearing to Elsa's coronation. The only recurring character to have an entirely new outfit from the movie is Oaken...well if you consider his state of dress to be an alternate outfit...
  • It's possible that Elsa sports the ice dresses we see in Frozen Fever and Olaf's Frozen Adventure for formal events, filling the same purpose that her coronation dress would've been brought out for had she not used that to create the original ice dress. I think at other times, Elsa just wears the same fabric jacket◊ dresses◊ that we see her wearing all through her childhood and teenage years (maybe with a thin layer of ice applied to them to give them a little shine). And by Frozen II, Elsa has found another style and wears an outfit without the long train.

Oaken's not-so-useful medicine

• It's suggested Oaken's medicine was partially to blame for Elsa's delirium near the end. Yes, it probably did contain opium or some other narcotic given the time period, but why would Elsa take it to begin with when she was still in denial of her illness?
  • Anna did it.
    • How? I know she was the one who took it from Oaken but how would she convince Elsa to actually drink it?
    • It doesn't matter how, we just can assume she did. The movie cuts from Anna grabbing the medicine from Oaken to a scene with Kristoff ("Dry banana hippy hat"), and by the time it cuts back to Elsa & Anna they are by the tower but we haven't seen how they got there from Oaken. So there was plenty of time/opportunity for Anna (during that time we weren't shown) to administer Elsa the medicine, whatever way she did it (probably covert). It's probable that Elsa ingested the medicine, because from that point on she isn't just sick but seemingly high (a common cough suppressant, even today, is Codeine, which is medically and chemically similar to heroin).
    • Or Elsa was simply delirious from fever ("Frozen Fever") instead from taking the medicine (though that high a fever wouldn't be a simple "cold" anymore, but more like a serious flu or pneumonia)
    • There's also the possibility of Elsa going "I don't have a cold, just a few slight sniffles, but maybe this will help with those, and I'll take it if it'll get you to stop insisting that I stop the party and rest."

Manure cleaner

• Why was Hans' punishment to clean up manure? He tried to assassinate a foreign monarch and usurp rule of a country. Shouldn't he have had a more severe punishment due to taking actions that could incite a war?
  • Maybe that was only part of his punishment?
    • It seems like his crimes would have warranted a much more severe punishment, like exile.
  • It's possible Hans's family didn't get the whole story, because his actions were only part of the film's main conflict - as everyone on the main page has said, Elsa fleeing the kingdom effectively meant she abdicated the throne to Anna, so she's not exactly the reigning monarch. Not to mention, she was the cause of the winter plaguing the kingdom, and Hans (as well as many others) figured that killing her was the only way to stop it, so he wasn't trying to kill her just with cementing his kingship in mind. Also, as informal as it was, Anna did initially accept his marriage proposal. There were a lot more details than just "Hans came to Arendelle and tried to kill Elsa to usurp her throne." What he did was still wrong, mind you, but there were a number of reasons (and thus, potential defense arguments) he could've used to justify doing it.
  • Also Hans' family are jerks who don't actually care that much, so they probably just thought it would be more fun to keep him around as an indentured servant for the rest of his life than just kick him out or execute him, considering it A Fate Worse Than Death. If they're all as bad as he is (or worse), they might be more annoyed that he failed to kill Anna and Elsa and take over Arendelle then the fact that he tried to do it in the first place. Plus, if any of the rest of them ever wanted to attack Arendelle or try to get rid of the queen with the intimidating magic ice powers, now they've got a good source of information on them. Hans is more useful to them there and alive right now.

Anna's never had a real birthday before?

• Elsa says, err, sings that Anna has never had a real birthday before. Are they seriously saying that the king and queen never celebrated their daughter's birthday?
  • The key word is "real" birthday. I think what's really being implied is that Anna just had a bunch of really depressing, half-hearted birthdays, with no friends she could have there to celebrate with her and no Elsa for her to spend time with either, even on that one special day. There's only so many special memories you can expect to create when your only party guests are (maybe) your parents (if they're not busy with Elsa and/or doing their jobs) and the limited staff remaining after the gates were closed (if they're not busy doing their jobs, either, and the staff reduction after the gates were closed probably means they're stretched thin enough).

Timeline confusion games

• When is Anna's birthday? Any idea how long after Frozen is Frozen Fever? A year? A month? How long?
  • I believe I remember learning from somewhere that Anna was born on the summer solstice and Elsa the winter solstice. This would mean either that Frozen Fever takes place a year after Elsa's coronation or Elsa's coronation was held sometime before the 21st of June the same year.
  • Apparently it takes place 'just a few months' after Frozen, which explicitly took place in July. So Jennifer Lee seems to be contradicting herself, or Anna has two calendar birthdays like real royals have.
  • The end line is that it’s messed up from the beginning. So whichever timeline you choose, it’s as good as any. If we're to assume that Frozen Fever comes before Olaf's Frozen Adventure, there's some continuity issues at hand. Frozen takes place in July because Oaken says so ("a real howler in July, yes?"). While this is an oral message we get, the visual one is in contradiction to it, as the scenery in Arendelle before and after the "Eternal Winter" screams spring. Crocuses (c. vernus) and wisteria (w. floribunda) are seen in bloom, and these are spring blooming flowers. In Frozen Fever, Anna gets a bouquet of flowers from Elsa and again some are easily recognizable: sunflowers (helianthus annuus) which bloom in summer, and definitely after crocuses and wisteria. And no matter how you try, June can't happen after July, no matter the year. Funny thing, we are never told onscreen when exactly Anna’s birthday is. We have that knowledge from outside sources like Jennifer Lee’s famous tweet and a few Frozen books that also use a summer solstice date. Visually, the Frozen saga order fits the order in which these movies were made and suggests that they happen in Spring (Frozen), Summer (Frozen Fever), and Winter of the same year (Olaf's Frozen Adventure), something kinda confirmed by Chris Buck. But with additional info (Oaken’s comment in Frozen and Jennifer Lee's tweet about Anna’s birthday date) this order does not work anymore.
  • The real flower to every Frozen timeline theory, is a passage from the Olaf’s Frozen Adventure novelization: "At the beginning of the summer, the sisters had vowed to have a weekly picnic, and it had turned into a great little tradition. They were able to do two of their favorite things: spend time together and explore. Each week they'd hike, heading in whichever direction their feet chose to take them until they found a beautiful spot. As autumn deepened, though, the growing chill made picnics outdoors more difficult." Obviously we have to assume that either Oaken lied about this winter in July thing, or the novel writers use time markers that sound fine but they don’t stop to think if they make sense with the overall story.
  • For sure the franchise takes place in the 1840s, what is confirmed by the date on Frozen Fever map. For sure Frozen takes place in July, what is confirmed by Oaken. For sure there is a full moon. For sure Frozen Fever is on Anna’s birthday and for sure Olaf’s Frozen Adventure is during Christmas. The rest is a speculation based on more or less reliable sources that sometimes contradict one another. Like Jennifer Lee saying that sisters were born respectively on winter and summer solstices. This would really mess the timeline up, as in, Olaf’s Frozen Adventure should be before Frozen Fever. As for very exact date of Frozen, there is always some collision of facts. 1839 is good when you literally get the date from the Frozen Fever map, but then it does not fit with a traditional date of Norwegian monarchs​ coronation, which is Saint Olaf’s Day: 29th of July, and full moon was done by then. The plants we see blooming in Frozen and Frozen Fever are totally out of scale: some are spring ones, some are summer ones, some would hardly survive Arendelle's climate, what may indicate that the creators did not pay attention much to the exact dates of both Frozen and Frozen Fever, deciding that “summer” should be enough. Since there is zero reference to Elsa’s birthday in Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, then we can speculate that dates of the girls’ birthdays have changed since Jennifer Lee tweeted about them, or Elsa’s birthday date is a secret. Which goes against info in the Frozen books.
  • There doesn't seem to be any reason to bring up Elsa's birthday in Olaf's Frozen Adventure if it's already passed, which it likely has, since the winter solstice always comes before Christmas. No contradiction is apparent there.
  • It's possible the exact year on the map is a little outdated, although the general 1840s timeframe is supported by a lot of evidence and sources, including the official Art of Frozen book.
  • Out of season flowers could be Artistic License – Biology.
  • The Christmas Special Wiki also states that Olaf's Frozen Adventure comes after Frozen II. This places the order as being Frozen, Frozen Fever, Frozen II and Olaf's Frozen Adventure. This wasn't officially confirmed by Disney, but considering Olaf's Frozen Adventure was made by a different team, it's pretty possible that the producer and writer of that short were only told something along the lines of "It's the first holiday since Elsa's coronation, go". The main events of the short could pretty much go anywhere on the official timeline, either after Frozen but before Frozen Fever or after Frozen Fever as is in the release order. Frozen II also affirms the placement of Frozen Fever in the timeline by acknowledging the Snowgies, which is a given since the original team worked on Frozen Fever and had little to no involvement in the conception and development of Olaf's Frozen Adventure although the team who worked on Olaf's Frozen Adventure said they vetted the script and contributed notes, but in terms of actual production, little-to-no.

Kristoff's Hygiene

• So in the original movie, they said that Kristoff smelt bad because he just ended up that way despite "washing well". Yet apparently here he doesn't take showers?
  • It could be a continuity error, but there are a few possible in-universe explanations. One is that he started washing less, but there doesn't seem to be any reason he would start doing that when he starts dating royalty. Either the trolls or Elsa could be wrong, too. Elsa might assume he must not wash often because he smells, or the trolls might have a different idea of "washing well" and count splashing some water on your face every one in a while.
  • Elsa misjudging his sense of hygiene seems the most likely, especially as she wasn't there when the trolls sang about how he washes well. It's not a huge leap to assume that someone as unkempt as Kristoff has an aversion to washing and bathing when you notice he has a certain musk about him.
  • Or Elsa is just being snarky. He kinda smelled before, seeing as how he basically lived in the woods, and now he can't live it down.

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