Anna from Frozen

Who is Anna from Frozen?

Anna is one of Frozen's two leads, alongside her older sister Elsa. People searching for "Anna from Frozen" are usually after the basics: she's the sister without powers, she's the hero of the first film, she ends up with Kristoff, and she becomes Queen of Arendelle at the end of Frozen II.

She's also one of the more unusual Disney princesses. The film sets her up with a classic fairy-tale romance, then reveals it as a trap. The love that saves her is her own love for her sister. Anna is the character through whom the film overturns the old "true love's kiss" formula.

• Younger daughter of King Agnarr and Queen Iduna; three years younger than Elsa.
• Struck by Elsa's magic twice: once as a child and again at the ice palace.
• Engaged to Prince Hans for one evening, with famously bad results.
• Freezes solid while shielding Elsa, and is saved by her own act of true love.
• Destroys her grandfather's dam in Frozen II and becomes queen.

Personality

Anna is warm, chatty and quick to act. She talks before she thinks, trips over things, loves chocolate and is delighted by almost everyone she meets. She has no formal training for adventure and no special abilities. What she has is persistence. Once she decides something matters, nothing stops her: not a blizzard, not wolves, not a giant snow monster throwing her off a mountain.

Her flaw in the first film is that she trusts too fast. Years of isolation have left her hungry for connection, so when Hans says all the right things she takes it at face value. Kristoff, who has known her for about an hour, points out that marrying someone you just met is a strange idea. She is offended, and he is right. The film doesn't mock her for wanting love, though. It just asks her to tell the real kind from the fake.

By Frozen II she is more grounded. She's happy, settled in Arendelle and quietly worried that something will take Elsa away from her. Her fear in the sequel is losing her sister again, and the film tests it hard. When everything falls apart, Anna is the one who keeps going by doing the next small, right thing in front of her. It's a quieter kind of courage than her dash up the mountain, and it's the one that makes her a queen.

What she wants

In the first film Anna wants to be let in: by her sister, by the world beyond the gates, by someone who loves her. In the second she wants to keep the people she loves together and safe. In both, she's the emotional anchor of the story. She's the one who refuses to accept distance between her and Elsa.

Anna's role: a hero without magic

Frozen is built around a contrast. Elsa has enormous power and is afraid to use it. Anna has none and is afraid of nothing. The plot needs both: Elsa's magic causes the crisis, but Anna's choices resolve it. In the first film that means throwing herself in front of a sword. In the second, it means ordering the destruction of a dam that will flood her own kingdom, because it's the only way to undo a wrong her family committed.

That makes Anna a useful example of a hero whose strength is character rather than ability. She isn't the best fighter, the wisest planner or the most powerful person in the room. She's the one who acts when it matters, and the films keep rewarding that. It's one reason she's often listed among Disney's stronger heroines in discussions of female protagonists.

Anna's story, film by film

Childhood

As small children Anna and Elsa play with Elsa's magic every day, until Elsa accidentally hits Anna in the head with a blast of ice. Their parents take her to the rock trolls, and Grand Pabbie heals her by removing her memories of the magic. From then on Elsa is kept apart from her. Anna grows up in a half-empty castle, talking to paintings and asking through Elsa's door whether she wants to play. Their parents' deaths at sea leave the sisters orphaned and still not speaking.

Frozen (2013)

On Elsa's coronation day, Anna is thrilled the gates are open. She literally bumps into Prince Hans of the Southern Isles and falls for him within hours. They sing a duet and decide to marry. When Anna asks Elsa's blessing, Elsa refuses, Anna pushes, and the argument ends with Elsa's powers exposed and Elsa fleeing into the mountains.

Anna leaves Hans in charge and rides out after her. She loses her horse, buys winter clothes at Wandering Oaken's trading post, and talks Kristoff the ice harvester into guiding her up the North Mountain. They're chased by wolves, Kristoff's sled is destroyed, and they meet Olaf, who leads them to Elsa's ice palace. Anna's plea for Elsa to come home ends badly: Elsa panics and her magic strikes Anna in the heart.

Anna starts to freeze from the inside. The trolls tell her only an act of true love can save her. Kristoff races her back to Arendelle for a kiss from Hans, but Hans reveals he never loved her. He planned all along to marry into the throne and get rid of Elsa. He leaves her to die. Olaf keeps her warm, and helps her see that Kristoff is the one who loves her. She sets off across the frozen fjord towards him, then sees Hans about to kill Elsa. She chooses her sister, steps in front of the sword and freezes solid. That sacrifice is the act of true love. She thaws, Elsa learns how to undo the winter, and Anna punches Hans off the ship's edge into the water. She buys Kristoff a new sled to replace the one she cost him.

Frozen Fever (2015)

The short takes place on Anna's birthday. Elsa has organised a scavenger hunt around the kingdom to make up for all the birthdays they missed. Elsa is sick and won't admit it, and the hunt keeps producing Snowgies. Anna ends up taking care of her sister, and the two spend the day together, which is really the present she wanted.

Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017)

At their first Christmas with the gates open, the sisters realise they have no family traditions of their own. While Olaf searches the kingdom, the sisters find an old box in the attic. It's full of Olaf-themed things Anna made for Elsa during all those years on the wrong side of the door. Their tradition, it turns out, was Anna never giving up on her.

Frozen II (2019)

Three years later Anna is happy and settled, and quietly worried about Elsa, who seems distracted. When the elemental spirits drive everyone out of Arendelle, Anna insists on going north with her. She's determined not to be shut out again. In the Enchanted Forest she meets the Northuldra and the trapped Arendelle soldiers led by Lieutenant Mattias, and she and Elsa find their parents' shipwreck.

Elsa sends Anna and Olaf away on an ice boat to keep them safe, and the boat carries them into a cave. There, Anna receives the truth Elsa has found at Ahtohallan: their grandfather, King Runeard, built the dam to weaken the Northuldra. Then Olaf fades away in her arms, and she understands Elsa has frozen. Alone in the dark, she picks herself up. She leads the Earth Giants to the dam and gets them to destroy it. She knows the flood could wipe out Arendelle, but it's the right thing to do. Mattias stands with her.

The mist lifts, Elsa thaws and stops the flood, and Olaf is brought back. Kristoff finally proposes and Anna says yes. When Elsa decides to stay in the forest, Anna becomes Queen of Arendelle.

What comes next

Disney has announced Frozen III for 2027. Its story hasn't been revealed, so nothing about Anna's reign or wedding is confirmed yet.

Anna's songs

Kristen Bell sings all of adult Anna's songs. Her numbers show her moving from loneliness to confidence.

• "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" (Frozen) — Anna growing up outside Elsa's door, asking her to come out and play. It's the film's quickest piece of storytelling: years of childhood in a few minutes.
• "For the First Time in Forever" (Frozen) — her excitement on coronation morning, sung against Elsa's nerves.
• "Love Is an Open Door" (Frozen) — the duet with Hans, which plays very differently once you know the twist.
• "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)" (Frozen) — Anna trying to persuade Elsa to come home.
• "Some Things Never Change" (Frozen II) — the cast's opening number; Anna is content and wants everything to stay as it is.
• "The Next Right Thing" (Frozen II) — sung alone in the cave after losing Olaf and fearing she's lost Elsa. It's the emotional low point of the film and the turn in her arc.

Relationships

Grand Pabbie and the trolls, the Duke of Weselton and the Northuldra are covered on the main Frozen characters page.

Trivia

• The hair streak. A white streak in Anna's hair marks both of Elsa's accidents: the childhood one, and the blast at the ice palace, where the spreading white is the first sign that she's freezing.
• Chocolate. Anna's love of chocolate is a running joke, from the coronation party to her birthday in Frozen Fever.
• Two Annas, two voices. Kristen Bell voices adult Anna, while young Anna is played by child actors at different ages, which is common in Disney films that open in childhood (see our voice acting guide).
• Outside the films. Anna appears in Ralph Breaks the Internet's princess scene, in the TV series Once Upon a Time, and in the Broadway musical of Frozen.
• A parody of insta-love. Her one-day engagement to Hans pokes fun at older Disney romances, where couples often marry after a single song.
• Queen with no powers. By the end of Frozen II the non-magical sister rules the kingdom and the magical one lives in the forest. The films treat that as the right fit for each, not as a consolation prize.

Why Anna matters

It's easy to see Elsa as Frozen's star, but the franchise depends on Anna. She is the reason Elsa's story has stakes, the person whose love proves fear wrong, and the character who makes the films' biggest moral choices. She's funny and fallible, and she gets things wrong in very human ways. That's what makes her later decisions, especially at the dam, land so hard.

Anna's arc is also a clear example of growth without a power-up. She starts the franchise wanting someone to save her from loneliness and ends it ready to lead a kingdom. If you want to see how writers build that kind of change, our character development guide covers it. For more Disney heroines who carry their films on courage, see Moana and Encanto, or browse the full Disney and Pixar characters A–Z.