Frozen II: A Forest of Shadows is a 416-page novel based on the Frozen franchise. Released in October 2019, the book is a young adult story bridging the three years that lapsed between the end of Frozen and the start of Frozen II. Character sheets for the franchise can be found here.
All spoilers for the first movie on this page are UNMARKED.
This book provides examples of:
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Here Anna is said to have chestnut brown hair instead of the more strawberry color in the movie.
- And I Must Scream: The novel takes place after the original movie, in which Anna slowly freezes to death from the inside out, the process completing at the climax, after Anna sacrifices her chance to get a cure as well as find the love she's craved for years in order to save her sister Elsa's life. Here, Anna still has nightmares about it: turns out she didn't die, but was fully conscious as a statue of ice, unable to move, speak or breathe, and wanting to comfort the distraught Elsa, but trapped in her own hard, cold body.
- Anxiety Dreams: Anna has dreams dealing with her abandonment and self-esteem issues. Her dreams include one about being replaced by another version of her with white hair whom her family prefers, and one about her former fiancé, who tried to murder her and her family, trying again to marry her again for her title and telling her that her sister doesn't want her because she's not useful. These dreams also include reliving the time she spent frozen as a statue of ice, physically frozen in both senses of the term and how helpless she felt while unable to comfort her sister.
- Chekhov's Gun: Subverted with the Revolute Blade. Anna and Elsa are led to believe that it's the only thing that can defeat the Nattmara. When Elsa faces the Nattmara, however, the blade shatters. According to myth, it was an all powerful sword gifted to Arendelle's founder Aren to carve out the fjord and slay dragons. However, while Aren MAY have existed, there is certainly a lot of myth around the truth and the sword is just a regular blade.
- Constructed World: Takes place in the fantasy country of Arendelle, and mentions other fantasy countries like Weselton, the Southern Isles, Zaria, Royaume, Chatho, Tikaani, Eldora, Torres, and Corona.
- Continuity Nod: Although most spin-off Frozen literature is Schrödinger's Canon and often contradictory, the other kingdoms mentioned in Forest of Shadows besides Arendelle refer to other Frozen extended media: Eldora (Anna & Elsa), Chatho ("The Trip to Chatho" issue from the comics as well as Across the Sea and A Frozen Heart), and Zaria (Across the Sea and A Frozen Heart).
- Creepy Cave: Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff enter a closed mine to get away from the Nattmara. They board a mine cart that ends up splashing in an underground lake at the end of the track. The cave system they're in is huge and dark. They get utterly lost.
- Danger — Thin Ice: Elsa freezes the surface of a river. She made the ice layer just thick enough so that she, Anna, and Kristoff could travel by ice skating, but too thin to hold the weight of the much larger and heavier Nattmara. Later, when Anna and Elsa get into a fight and Anna stormed off, she skated on the ice with so much force that it cracked. Anna fell into the icy water underneath and would've drowned if Elsa and Kristoff hadn't helped save her.
- Diving Save: Elsa saves Anna from drowning when she falls into a frozen river.
- Eldritch Abomination: A Nattmara is the result of a person burying their fears until it overflows and allows it to take form, in this case a giant wolf. When the Nattmara first begins to manifest in Arendelle, it's a blight that causes crops to die and animals to fall into an endless sleep. When it takes physical form, it causes those who fall asleep to remain asleep experiencing nightmares to feed it, and they go into a frenzy when they wake up.
- Fake Ultimate Hero:
- Aren is the legendary founder of Arendelle who was said to have wielded a magic sword that carved the fjord and went on many adventures with mermaids and dragons. While it's ambiguous that he was even a real person, he certainly wasn't as magical as the stories tell.
- Anna mentions that King Runeard, along with Aren, is considered one of the greatest monarchs in Arendelle history. Of course his legacy is greatly diminished in the sequel.
- Foreshadowing: Thanks to the author communicating with the directors for Frozen II, she is able to reference a lot of things that show up in the sequel.
- The books Anna reads references to spirits of earth, air, water and fire.
- King Runeard and the Northuldra are mentioned.
- Anna finds blueprints for a dam in the secret room.
- They gang escape the Nattmara through a tunnel called the Earth Giants' passage.
- In the final chapter, Anna tells Elsa she is re-instituting family game night and charades.
- Interquel: Takes place during the three-year timeskip between the first and second film. Specifically three months before the sequel. The epilogue takes place during the sequel's "Into the Unknown" sequence, serving as a brief novelization of Anna's thoughts during that scene.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The book's opening scene takes place when Anna is five years old and is waking up from a nightmare she has the night Elsa accidentally strikes her head.
- Mistaken from Behind: During Anna's first nightmare in the prologue, she saw what she thought was the back of Elsa's head. Upon closer inspection, the patch of white hair actually the Nattmara's fur.
- Mythology Gag: Olaf finds a secret room in Arendelle castle with books on magic. Elsa and Anna find the same room in a deleted scene for Frozen 2.
- Nightmare Sequence:
- The prologue has a version of Anna waking up after her accident where she has a nightmare that she encounters a gigantic wolf. Seeing blood on its paws, she's terrified it's gotten Elsa.
- One scene also involves her having nightmares about Earth Giants destroying the village; a shipwreck in a stormnote ; being replaced by another version of her with white hair whom her family prefers; and her former fiance, who tried to murder her and her family, trying again to marry her for her title and telling her that her sister "has no use" for her; and the time she spent frozen as a statue of ice, physically frozen in both senses of the term and unable to comfort her sister.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Played with. When the kingdom suffers from a terrible blight, Anna tries to save her homeland by reading a spell from a book designed to "Make Dreams Come True." This does not save the day, and next thing she knows, a wolf-like creature called the "Nattmara" is terrorizing the land — a creature apparently from the nightmares she had been having about being chased and devoured by a wolf for quite some time. However, it turns out that the "spell" was just a poem without any actual power. The Nattmara actually manifested from Elsa suppressing her fears of not being a good enough queen by imagining that she is "feeding" them to a wolf constellation named Url. Guess who taught Elsa that trick: her well-meaning father.
- Anna tries to help Elsa placate agitated Arendellians stressed about the blight plaguing the kingdom by promising that Elsa will have it solved in three days. However, this makes Elsa, already stressed, feel more pressure.
- No-Sell: The Nattmara has the ability to shift its body into black sand, which it uses to negate attacks. Elsa's ice magic in particular actually feeds the Nattmara's power and boosts its strength even more. Not even the legendary Revolute Blade can leave a dent in it. It isn't until Anna helps Elsa overcome her fears that the wolf shrinks into a single harmless grain of sand trapped in ice.
- Plot Hole: Given that the Nattmara manifests from a person's fears and disappears when not afraid anymore, why didn’t a blight or Nattmara start to form earlier in Elsa's life when she was even more afraid?
- Schrödinger's Canon: While the author did communicate with the directors for Frozen II's plot line, it is still the author's own work and isn't referenced in the sequel. It is contradictory of other Frozen material, for example:
- Olaf had to ask to be sure what a wolf looks like when he first saw the Nattmara, even though he easily identified wolves in Once Upon a Snowman. Though that short came out after the book was written Olaf did know what a wolf was in the comic story “wolf at the door.”
- In the novel "A Frozen Heart" Anna’s horse is named Kjekk. However, here the horse is named Havski. "Polar Nights: Cast Into Darkness" uses the name Havski. In Dangerous Secrets the horse is initially called Havski, but Iduna calls him Kjekk only a few lines later.
- Elsa goes on a grand tour of other countries in Across the Sea and takes Anna with her. In Forest of Shadows, she leaves Anna in charge of Arendelle when she goes on tour.
- Elsa is shown having nightmares as an adult in the comic story "Restless Week". In Forest of Shadows, she stopped having nightmares as a child after her father taught her a trick to avoid them.
- Also, in Art of Frozen 2, it's stated that Kristoff got the stone for his engagement ring to Anna from the rock trolls, but in this book it's implied that he bought it from the local jewelry shop.
- It's implied Elsa and Anna already had separate rooms at the time of the accident that led to their estrangement, while in A Frozen Heart (which has a different depiction of her waking up all together) and the actual movie, Elsa moves out of their shared nursery after the accident.
- Secret Room: Olaf climbs onto a horse statue in the library, activating a lever that opens a secret door hidden behind one of the bookcases, revealing a secret room.
- Shout-Out: The book mentions Corona, the kingdom from Tangled.
- Significant Anagram: "REVOLUTE" is an anagram of "TRUE LOVE".
- Solar and Lunar: The REVOLUTE blade is said to have been a gift to Aren from the sun and the moon. REVOLUTE is actually an anagram of TRUE LOVE, likewise the moon and the sun are both symbolic of Elsa and Anna respectively. And it is their true sisterly love for each other that defeats the Nattmara.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The isolated upbringing and other traumas Elsa and Anna have endured over 13 years have left them socially stunted and socially anxious.
- After spending so much time worrying about making one wrong move that would expose her powers, Elsa's quietness during meetings is due to fear, not stoicism. She also feels trapped by the pressure of living up to everyone's admiration and expectations of her.
- After being suddenly cut off from her sister and spending so much time facing constant apparent rejection, as well as her fiancé revealing he was faking his feelings and implying that no one loved her, Anna herself is constantly afraid that her loved ones, especially Elsa, secretly don't want her around. She also worries about whether she's valuable enough and is hurt by the knowledge that her family often keeps big secrets from her.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The fate of Bjorn the snow bear is never revealed. After arriving back at the Earth Giant's Passage with Anna and Elsa in an ice sleigh, he leaves them to go fight off the Nattmara. He's never seen or mentioned again after that. It's implied Bjorn died offscreen, killed by the Nattmara.
- Wrecked Weapon: The Revolute Blade shatters when Elsa tries to slay the Nattmara with it.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The ultimate saving force of the book. Elsa and Anna do this for each other in some way.
- Anna worries over the course of the book that her sister doesn't trust her and is leaving her while she goes on her grand tour because of this. But she gets a major boost after reading a decree from Elsa saying that she is leaving Anna behind to watch Arendelle in her place because she trusts her, calling her thoughtful and considerate.
- After receiving this boost, Anna goes to save her sister from the Nattmara. After realizing that the Nattmara is a manifestation of Elsa's fear, she gives her sister an emotional boost saying she's the person she looks up to and is a great queen; this finally defeats the evil spirit.
