Neglected part of "Snow queen"

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One part of the "snow queen" story that nobody ever asks any questions about is:

a) How come Kai's grandmother was so negligent that she never went to look for Kai, only Gerda did

b) What about Kai's parents, why didn't they look for Kai either?

I guess I know the answer to both of those questions. It was designed to be appealing to kids. Would kids really want their parents and grandparents to look for them? Probably not. But they surely want the kid same age to do the same.

This shows how kids don't really appreciate parents/grandparents help, that the only parents they would appreciate are non-existent, and the only grandparents they would appreciate are the ones who read them stories without actually helping them.

Now, the storyline of Kai and Gerda includes the fact that his grandmother was negligent. But that is not something the story focuses on since that's not important for its reader. But it is a part of the story line nonetheless.

Adults are useless - TV Tropes.

When the main characters are kids or teenagers, the adults can't do anything right. And that's if they appear at all. But then again, if the adults were keeping their eyes on the youngsters all the time, there would be no plot.

Good point. So adults would have saved Kai from Snow Queen by stopping him from running towards her.

This would disprove kids perception of their parents. Kids think that strangers are fun and parents are cold ones that keep them from fun. But in this case the stranger was the one who was cold, and Kai's parents would have kept him from coldness (if they were to do their job, that is).

Disney's version of the Snow Queen ( the movie "Frozen" ) is a great advertisement for mental illness.

My summary is "if you have a mental illness it may feel like it is a great idea for you to go off on your own and do your thing. It may help you make great art! It also will have very negative effects on your family which you may be entirely unaware of".

I went back and read the H.C.Anderson version. Completely different. Stories like that are sometimes meant to be a lesson for children "don't go off with a stranger, they may not be a nice person, and might take you away from your family".

Sometimes they are (according to C.S.Lewis) about man's longing to connect with nature in a deeper (or at least different) way. Fairy stories (true fairy stories) often have this aspect. I read in Jim Henson's biography that Jim believed in "parallel worlds". This can be seen in Labyrinth and Dark Crystal and some episodes of Fraggle Rock. I think Lewis Carrol's Alice stories and Sylvie and Bruno are like this - they have to do with not only people but places who are both close and far away. That "world" between being asleep and awake. The Snow Queen seems to start in the kind of imagining a real child might have (like H.C.Anderson might have remembered from his own childhood) but then move into a fantasy about a brother who wants to find his lost sister (friend).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snow_Queen

The book series the boxcar children also has the appeal of a "successful" life without parents.

One thing that complicates it is that, before snow queen kissed him twice, he "was" aware of those people. But he disliked them because the ice in his eye magnified all their bad aspects. Notice that a magnifying glass doesn't produce an image of something thats not there. Rather it magnifies something that is there. So someone with that ice would symbolize a person who notices the faults of others -- that are real -- but makes bigger deal of them than should be.

By contrast, Kai liked snowflakes because they didn't have any of the imperfections that the glass was magnifying. Although, of course, they didn't have human emotion either. So in other words, Gerda is an example of a loving person who sometimes get into fights too, while snow queen is an example of a really cold person, who doesn't get into any conflicts. And the meaning of a parable is that human emotions are a mix of good and bad. So when you can't stand the bad, you would go for an emotionless person, that doesn't have "either" good "or" bad.

I have an example of it from my own life. When I interact with people, I constantly read negativity into things. Well, I don't have any problem with my current landlord. But that is because she doesn't show any emotions altogether. So maybe my appreciating the landlord is a good analogue of Kai appreciating the snow flakes? Except that -- unlike Kai -- I do long for affection. It is just that when I interact with people that do have emotions, then sooner or later a conflict arizes that I can't get over. And oftentimes I am told "I am dwelling into detail too much" which is kind of what that magnifying glass would do.

But then again, all of it applies to before Kai was kissed by snow queen. After the kiss, Kai forgot about Gerda. So that is when he began to match what you are saying. And so the whole thing after the kiss would portray Kai as autistic and by calling Kai evil (as the similarlity between Kai and Cain suggest) would villify autistics.

But then on the flip side it shows how Gerda could cure him by her love. So that says that autistics shouldn't be rejected. They should be won back by love. If only NT-s nowdays could get that point, maybe I won't be ostracized so much. But then again, maybe if Kai wasn't portrayed as evil to begin with, maybe I won't be ostracized either.

And I have even harder time seeing snow queen as evil. After all, when Kai were to solve that puzzle, then in addition to removing her spell, she would also give him a pair of skates, AND the whole world. That looks like a really good deal, isn't it. It seems very puzzling why Kai didn't take this when the spell was finally removed.

The only rationalization I can think of is that in the Bible devil rules over the world, offers it to Jesus (in Matthew 4), Jesus refuses, but then antichrist takes the offer in revelation. So if snow queen is the devil prototype, then Kai wouldn't want to be antichrist prototype and thus won't take her offer.

But then again, its not so clear that this is the symbolism of the story. Because I can make it a different way. As in queen is a prototype of Old Testament law, and her promise of the reward after Kai solves the puzzle is a prototype of Old Testament promise of the Messiah to come (which is fulfilled in Jesus). But in this case, wouldn't Kai want that reward (just like we have reward of Jesus)?

I think that second analogy is the better one because that puzzle is similar to Old Testament law having all those legalistic details. And those letters dancing together and then falling in the right pattern all by themselves is analogous to "the law being fulfilled in Christ". Well, if so, why not take her presents then?



The snow queen part sends this message, yes. But then the Gerda part counters it. If Anderson wanted to teach this message all the way, he needed to have grandma search for Kai rather than Gerda. But when Gerda searches for Kai it just says that "hey kids, maybe you SHOULD run wherever you are trying to run to, and adults are just too stupid to see it".

I heard of a totally different thing that inspired Anderson. I heard that there was one specific woman who rejected him, and he had hard time getting over that rejection, so he used snow queen as an image of that woman. If so, it is kinda cynical how he used kids as a captive audience to vent about his love life since none of the adults would listen. Funny how kids would go like "oh yeah, oh yeah, she is so evil" without even knowing what they are talking about.



I don't think in case of snow queen it was a parallel world. After all, Gerda had to go north to find Kai. And north vs south is one of the parameters of our world as we know it.

Now contrast it with C.S. Lewis. In that case you can't really say if Narnia is north or south of where we are. Because Narnia *is* in fact a parallel world. Thats the difference.



You lost me here. I thought it was sister who were trying to find her brother, not the other way around.

I read about how in the beginning of the Snow Queen a group of evil trolls or demons had a mirror that would make anything that was beautiful look ugly and depressing in its reflection, for example a green meadow would look like a desolate wasteland. And just for fun they decided to take the mirror up towards Heaven to see how it would look in the mirror, which caused the mirror to shatter, and then all the tiny shards of broken glass drifted down to Earth, where they occasionally get lodged in people's eyes so that they see the world looking ugly the way the mirror did, and soon they start acting ugly, too.

Okay, that little bit of eye injury unpleasantness aside, that would explain a lot about how I see the world. I must have gotten a whole cloud of those mirror shards blown in my face like sand or dust.

I believe that you are right and I am wrong on this point.

I see that you know the story much better than I do and you have really thought a lot about it.

I heard that the Disney Movie "Frozen" was partially based on the H.C.Anderson story and decided to find the original story at the library and read it. This was some time ago and I think I may have some of the details mixed up.

I noticed that some people thing that the White Witch in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was partially based on the Snow Queen.

In the summary on the Wikipedia it mentions how the grandmother talked about the big fat snow flakes in a storm looking like "snow bees" (I have seen snow like this) and saying that since bees have a queen, so the "snow bees" have a "snow queen". This part of the story seems like a "real life" story which H.C.Anderson could have remember from his own childhood. The "Snow Queen" being a grand lady seems more like a fantasy or a dream.

Have you read "Sylvie and Bruno"? It is included in a book I have with all of Lewis Carol's writing with Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

Sylvie and Bruno

The devil's trick of magnifying faults in others, and how this can distort how people see one another I think is a real thing. I see it in myself at times and in others, especially in politics and social media.

In C.S.Lewis's book "the last battle" he talks about how the lasts we live in are "shadows" of the "real world" which is depicted as "Aslan's Country". He likens it to Plato's Cave. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave ).
In Plato the "shadows" that the philosopher sees teach him about the real world but are not the real world.
I believe C.S.Lewis believed this to be true - that heaven is the "real world" and the world we live in only a poor "shadow".
In the Last Battle Aslan's country has recognizable lad features of Narnia, but is more clear and brighter and better in every way. He also tells how they can look down and see both Narnia and England as if looking down into rooms from a wall.

The dancer that H.C.Andersen fell in love with, but who did not love him is depicted in the film "Hans Christian Andersen" with Danny Kay. She is also mentioned in the wikipedia article on the Snow Queen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Chri ... rsen_(film)

I think it is very interesting how you see your autism as being like the mirror fragments which result in focusing too much on details and not on the "whole". I think many people with autism experience something like this.

In The Hobbit the dwarves get lost in the Woods and ask Bilbo to climb a tree to see where they are. The hope is that if he can get high enough he will have a better perspective and will be able to tell them which direction to go when he returns to the ground. (it doesn't work - all Bilbo can see is a sea of green leaves). This is a good dramatization of the idea of not being to see the forrest because of seeing the trees.

It is also possible to have the opposite problem where people are so focused on the "whole" that you cannot see the "parts" this is why there are people like auto mechanics and computer scientists. The can see the parts. Some people can only see the "whole". My auto mechanic knows much more about the parts of my car than I do.

Last edited by Fenn on 10 Oct 2022, 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't suppose it matters much since it is a fictional story.

Imagine that this world is like the top of a dining room table. The surface of a table is 2 dimensional. Our world is 3 dimensional.

Imagine further that you place a table cloth on top of the dining room table. The part of the table cloth which touches the surface is ALSO 2 dimensional. For every point on the table top, there is a point on the table cloth that touches it. The table top is parallel to the table cloth. To get from the table top to the table cloth a gnat can start from anywhere and the "other world" is always close-by.

In some fairy stories the "real world" and the "fairy world" are similarly in parallel. Every part of the real world (imagine a fourth dimension to "contain" the many 3d worlds) could be equally close to the fairy world. The fairy world would ALWAYS be close-by. So when Kai meets the Snow Queen we know he must have crossed over into the fairy world at some point, or she into his world. Before going north Gerda talks to flowers and meets strange people. One can imagine Gerda crossing in and out of the fairy world trying to find a way to Kai. I think of films like "Time Bandits" or parts of Douglas Adams stories about the "Hitchhiker's Guide" and "Dirk Gently".

Time Bandits

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Dirk Gently

This might explain your worry about the Grandmother not looking for Kai. Being an adult she may not be able to cross over into the Fairy world at all. The "foggy headedness" that comes into many fairy stories may have made her completely forget Kai once he had crossed into the fairy world.

Or if like in some science fiction stories both our world and the fairy world have complete 4 dimensional worlds (with the fourth dimension as "time"). I may have been that Kai crossed over into the fairy world in such a way that he took his past self with him and "never existed" as a result. It may be that Gerda being young and innocent, or unsophisticated, or "untouched" by the forgetting of old age, was still connected to the fairy world enough to remember and seek him.
For this theory to work you would have to imagine a fifth dimension to hold the other "worlds" in.

If you consider the book "Flatland" these ideas seem more possible.

Flatland

But as I say - I believe that "The Snow Queen" is just fiction, a creative work. Adding these extra ideas simply is more imaginary creativity. But it would be somewhat consistent with other such works.

It can be fun to think about.

When I was younger I used to read superhero comic books. They always had lots and lots of worlds and dimensions (and really things never completely fit anyway, and plot holes still cropped up).

Still there is something lasting about H.C.Anderson's stories so there is likely something which resonates with many of us that was able to put into them.

It's because it's a symbolic story. If you want, you can see the ice shards that got into his eye or heart as a metaphor, and the words forming "eternity" at the end are metaphorical as well.

Or you can take it at face value as children probably do.
That's what fairy tales are all about-they hold many meanings some of which are literal, and some of which are hidden, so they can be seen differently by different people of different ages.