The Snow Queen (1993)

The Snow Queen is a 1993 American animated musical adventure fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film is the 32nd Disney animated feature film, and was the fifth produced during the Disney film era known as the Disney Renaissance. The Snow Queen is the 5th Disney film in the era known as the Disney Renaissance. It was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and is based on the tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. The voice cast features Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Naomi Watts, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Christina Ricci, Alan Rickman, Jodie Foster, George Clooney, Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins, John Goodman, Tom Hanks and Dom DeLuise.

It tells a story about a young eight year old girl named Gerda, whose quest is to go all the way from southern Sweden to Northern Sweden and search for childhood friend, Kai. Meanwhile for Kai, he happens to stumble across the Snow Queen named Sigrid, who has been in solitude for years and needs to earn Kai's trust in order for Sigrid to have a kind heart. Along Gerda's way, she meets three talking animals. A large, yet friendly polar-bear named Klaus, a smart & wisecracking beaver named Josef, and the agile hare named Magnus. Gerda also meets other children who goes along with her journey, such as the young, tough, yet kind and nice knife-holding robber-girl named Katrine, and two fun-loving kids who are royal siblings, named Prince Viktor & Princess Ingrid. The kids only need to avoid several cutthroat robbers, wolves and the man that's following them, named Jorgen.

It marks the 4th time that Alan Menken has done the songs on a Disney animated film, following previous films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast & Aladdin. It also marks as the first Disney animated film to have two composers for the movie, first being Alan Menken (for the songs) and the other being James Horner (for the film score), which was the latter's first and only Disney animated film to work on in the Disney Renaissance.

Voice Cast


 * Kirsten Dunst as Gerda - A young, kindhearted & brave eight-year old girl who is determined to go on a long journey to search for her friend Kai, after she learned that he got lost and did not return back home. During her journey, she also meets new people (whether they be new friends or enemies) along the way. Despite facing dangerous enemies & obstacles on her way to the Snow Queen, it’s her courage that helps her come so far. Glen Keane was the supervising animator for Gerda, which he modeled Gerda’s character design a bit on Kirsten herself. Kirsten Dunst provided both Gerda’s speaking & singing voice. She is one of the main protagonists of the film.
 * Elijah Wood as Kai - A friendly & adventurous nine-year old boy, who is Gerda’s best friend since their much younger years. He has a desire to spread good & positivity to whoever kind soul he meets and help others. Kai was in an unfortunate time when a harsh snowstorm led to him being seperated from his parents. He was then brought by the Snow Queen (Sigrid), to her kingdom for protection and as company. Mark Henn was the supervising animator for Kai, which was a new type of Disney character for Mark, after being the supervising animator for the Disney Princesses from the two previous Disney films. Elijah Wood provided both Kai’s speaking and singing voice. He is one of the main protagonists of the film.
 * Naomi Watts as Sigrid - She is the Snow Queen, who takes Kai with her to her home in the north of Lappland Sweden, after he gets lost from his family. Due to her loneliness (aside from her serveants as company), she starts out as a character with a cold, yet calm personality, but then learns to open her warming heart to new people she meets, when Kai gets brought to her ice kingdom. Naomi’s take on the titular character of the tale, brought an unique & well-mannered performance to her character. James Baxter served as the supervising animator for Sigrid. She is the deuteragonist of the film.
 * Alan Rickman as Jorgen - An once honorable man in his time, who becomes a rather power-hungry and a ruthless person. When first seen, Jorgen seems to be a person who knows Kai, Gerda and each their own parents very well, while hiding his colder & malicious, manipulative nature. He is a magician with a British accent, who is good with fire powers, an elemental contrast to Sigrid’s ice powers. Jorgen is depicted as a man who thinks the Snow Queen’s powers are seen as dark & savage, but later turns out that he uses dark powers of his own (including harming the protagonists), making him a hypocritical Disney villain. Andreas Deja serves as the supervising animator for Jorgen (making the latter, the third human Disney villain in a row to be animated by Deja, following Gaston from Beauty and the Beast & Jafar from Aladdin), giving him a design as a middle aged appearance with a beard almost reminiscent of Ivan the Terrible, though a thick beard. Jorgen is a character original to Disney, as he is not present in the Snow Queen fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen. He is the main antagonist of the film.
 * Natalie Portman as Katrine - A rebellious, tough, tomboyish but friendly & independent eight-year old girl, whom despite her gender & age, is a kid who’s not to be easily reckoned with. Katrine is the robber girl who’s the first kid that Gerda meets on her journey. Katrine is an independent girl and a survivor for living without a home for years. She has her own reindeer companion, named Sven (who could serve as the descendant of the Sven (the first) from the Frozen-franchise, and with the same manners & design). Ken Duncan was the supervising animator for Katrine. Natalie Portman provides both Katrine’s speaking & singing voice. She is one of the human tritagonists of the film.
 * Joseph Gordon Levitt as Prince Viktor - A young nine-year old prince who is high-spirited, smart, friendly & fun loving boy. He is the older brother of Ingrid. He and his sister embark on Gerda’s journey, not just to help her search for Kai, but to also experience great adventures in the world. Glen Keane was the supervising animator for Viktor (alongside Gerda), which makes it the first movie where Keane was the supervising animator for two Disney characters in the same movie. Joseph provides both Viktor’s speaking and singing voice. He is one of the human tritagonists of the film.


 * Christina Ricci as Princess Ingrid - A young eight-year old princess who is a kind, friendly, smart and a positive girl. She is the younger sister of Viktor. She is the most open-minded & outspoken kids whom Gerda meets on her journey. She, along with her brother, always wanted to go out discovering the world and such, hence why they wanted to join Gerda with her journey and search for Kai. Mark Henn is the supervising animator for Ingrid, making it the second character in one Disney movie to work on, alongside Kai. Christina Ricci provides both Ingrid’s speaking and singing voice in the film. She is one of the human tritagonists of the film.
 * Tom Hanks as Josef the Beaver - A wisecracking, comical beaver and at times overconfident beaver, who is among the animal trio. Being a beaver, he is a very good swimmer and can climb very well in trees, mountains and hard obstacles. He is one of the first talking animals that Gerda meets on the journey, and despite his is proven to a morally good helper through thick and thin. He even lifts Gerda’s spirit up to boost her bravery & confidence. Michael Surrey was the supervising animator for Josef. Surrey based his design loosely & closely to the un-named beaver from Lady and the Tramp & Gopher from the The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He is one of the animal tritagonists of the film and serves as one of the comic relief sidekicks.
 * John Goodman as Klaus the Polar Bear - A big & strong, yet very friendly & open-hearted polar bear who serves as a defensive protector to both his human friends and animal friends. Klaus is the biggest of the animal trio and the only animal omnivore. He never attends to eat any of his friends, despite being a polar bear. He serves as a good transport for the kids to sit on his back and ride him. He can also be a good fighter due to his size and would even fight enemies who threaten his companions. Duncan Marjoribanks was the supervising animator for Klaus. Klaus’s characteristics are inspired by older & previous Disney bears such as Baloo from The Jungle Book. He is one of the animal tritagonists of the film.
 * Dom Deluise as Magnus the Hare - A fast & agile hare, who is the charismatic & strong at heart member of the animal trio. Magnus is sometimes mistaken for a mere rabbit, and while he definitely has nothing against being called a rabbit, he usually considers himself a hare due to being bigger and faster, and have longer ears & hind legs. Magnus is one of the two herbivores among the animal trio, alongside Josef. Magnus’s fast speed gives him the advantage to quickly run from enemies, whether they be natural enemies that wants to eat him, or bad guys that wants to kill him. He serves a good companion to help Gerda with her journey. Nik Ranieri was the supervising animator for Magnus. He is the second Disney character that is voiced by Dom Deluise (who was often a regular voice actor for many Don Bluth films) with his first one being Fagin from Oliver & Company, five years before this film. He is one of the animal tritagonists of the film.
 * Jodie Foster as Birgit - The
 * George Clooney as Hjalmar -
 * Jeff Goldblum as Nick -
 * Elizabeth Perkins as Hedvig -

•

•

•

•

•

•

Additional Voices


 * Frank Welker
 * Macaulay Culkin
 * Angela Lansbury
 * Hal Smith (Final film role)
 * David Ogden Stiers
 * Philip Glasser
 * Tony Jay
 * Jim Cummings

Production

Development

During the production of The Little Mermaid,

Casting

The voice actors were chosen for how they fit and could add to the characters. One example is the Snow Queen herself, Sigrid. Originally, actresses like Jodie Foster & Sharon Stone were considered for the role. However, Disney saw that a newcomer in stardom like Naomi Watts, would be the best fit for the title character, giving her character a more dignified & unique tone of personality. She was so happy for always wanting to work with Disney and thanked the company for letting her do a voice acting, and fully accepted the role. Eventually though, Jodie Foster did accept to do voice acting on another character in the Disney film, as Birgit (Gerda’s mother in the story). Other Hollywood celebrities were automatically chosen for voices of several characters, like George Clooney as Hjalmar, Jeff Goldblum as Nick, Elizabeth Perkins as Hedvig, etc.

The interesting task however, was the voices of the kid characters. Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, always had Kirsten Dunst as the main character of Gerda. Dunst not only fully said yes to being a voice actress, but also showed the director duo, her singing talents. They were so happy that they also let Kirsten sing in the musical numbers of the film. As for the voice of Kai, Disney wanted a voice with heroism & kindness to up the well-developed personality. And the actor who automatically accepted that role, was Elijah Wood. Due to the fact that he always wanted to voice a Disney character in his life. Out of all the actors & actresses in the voice cast though, the most surprising one was newcomer Natalie Portman, who automatically became the voice of Katrine in the movie. At the time, Portman was just new in Hollywood, so for her to do a voice in a Disney film, came off as a huge surprise for the people at Walt Disney Studios.

For the role of Viktor & Ingrid, in the former’s case, the character was originally depicted as a proper & a bit snobby type. However, Viktor’s personalities & characteristics were changed to be much more friendly, upbeat, high-spirited boy who loves fun & adventures, when Joseph Gordon Levitt came in. He really liked doing a fun & positive character, resulting in making Viktor the Disney character that everyone knows his as, ever since. Lastly was the voice of Princess Ingrid. Eventually, Christina Ricci fully accepted to be the voice of a more colorful & kind character, in contrast to how Ricci did in The Addams Family for example.

For the voice of the main Disney villain, actors like Jonathan Pryce & Pete Postletwhaite were originally considered for Jorgen. However, Disney always had Alan Rickman in mind. And because of his work in movies as villains like Die Hard & Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he was ultimately chosen to be Jorgen’s voice due to his charismatic performance with a British accent.

Music

Song Composer Alan Menken returned to do the songs, in his fourth Disney film to work on. However, since Howard Ashman died before the release of Beauty and the Beast, and Tim Rice, after the work of Aladdin, went to work with Elton John with songs from the new upcoming Disney Feature The Lion King, Menken was originally left alone to do the music, much to his pressure. But then during production, all hopes & faith of a musical score arrived in the name of movie composer James Horner, who always wanted to do the score in an animated film from Disney itself for a change after working with animated films produced by Steven Spielberg (while also we’re working on the Amblin animated feature We’re Back: A Dinosaur Story, at the same time). Alan was so relieved & glad to have Horner do the music score of the film, while Menken himself worked on songs for the feature. Alan publicly said that “Having James Horner to work with me on the music for this feature, is a legendary honor”.

Critical reception

Upon its release, The Snow Queen received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike for its emotional & adventurous narrative, animation, screenplay, characters, musical score, musical numbers, and voice acting. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of a rare 100%, which makes it one of the few films with a perfect 100% rating and among the highest rated animated films. The website's critical consensus reads, "Emotional, magical and helped by flawless animation and memorable characters, The Snow Queen is one of Disney’s more perfect animated motion pictures“.

=== Box office === The Snow Queen was released on November, 24, 1993 to overwhelmingly positive reactions from critics, who praised the film for its music, characters, story and animation. At the time, it finished its theatrical run as the highest-grossing release of 1993, (overtaking Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park from Universal) and became the highest-grossing animated film at the time with $1.826 billion worldwide, massively outgrossing the previous Disney films such as The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast & Aladdin’s worldwide grosses all combined. It kept the record as the highest grossing animated film for 13 years until Disney’s own ”Thumbelina” in 2006. The Snow Queen later outgrossed Thumbelina and The Princess and the Pea (which initially came out the same year as Thumbelina in 2006) in 2011, with a strong 3D-rerelease in November, following the surprise hit of The Lion King 3D-rerelease, back in September. During the 1990’s, it was also was the highest grossing film overall at the time initially for four years until James Cameron’s Titanic, which then the worldwide box office record was taken back by The Snow Queen years later, thanks to the re-releases it got, including an IMAX-release, which boosted it’s worldwide box office gross to over $2 billion+, making it the first film in history to reach that feat.

Original theatrical run

At the time of it’s release on it’s opening weekend on Thanksgiving Day, it grossed to a three-day of $40.8 million - which at the time in 1993, marked it as the biggest opening weekend for an animated film and the third biggest opening overall, winning the weekend. The Snow Queen’s $40 million opening was almost four times the opening of Beauty and the Beast, and more than twice the opening of ''Aladdin. The 3-day opening weekend was one of the highest sums for a Disney animated film at the time, alongside The Lion King''. It also earned a rare "A+" rating from Cinemascore. It’s 5-day weekend was much larger, making $71.6 million since its Wednesday launch, giving it the biggest 3-day and 5-day Thanksgiving opening for an animated film and film in general, until 6 years later, where it’s records were taken by Pixar’s Toy Story 2 in 1999. On it’s full opening week, it grossed $82.8M, which was the biggest opening week for an animated film at the time. It held at the top for long, resulting in extraordinary legs. By the end of its original theatrical run, it had earned $642 million, being the highest grossing 1993 film in North America.

Outside of North America, the film grossed $1.191 billion, for a worldwide total of $1.833 billion worldwide, making this the first animated film in history to reach over a billion at the box office.

Re-releases

Later around the mid 2000's & early 2010's, The Snow Queen got re-released in theaters numerous of times, including Christmas-re-releases, an IMAX-release and a 3D-release. The re-releases boosted it domestic gross from $642 million to $982 million and it's worldwide gross from $1.833 billion to $2.846.8 billion, (making it one of the few blockbusters from the 90's to earn a 3D-convertion). The Snow Queen is currently the 9th highest grossing film of all time.

Accolades
The Snow Queen was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound & Best Original Song (with four songs nominated) and won for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score & Best Original Song (one of them). It became the first animated film in history to win Best Picture, which was a feat that no other animated film could do before it.

 Tv Tropes  :

2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Some sequences in the movie (like the avalanche & the wagon sequence & some of the rooms inside Sigrid’s castle) are computer-generated. However, the scenes with that CG-use, still impresses to this day, with the way the traditionally-animated characters maintain a precise perspective with the CG background. Compared to other mixed CGI-in-hand-drawn-animation examples, this one still holds up pretty well after all these years.

Adaptation Displacement: This Disney film has become the defining version of ”The Snow Queen” fairy tale, even more so than the 1957 Soviet animated film.

Adaptation Expansion: Given the much longer running time (at around 167-170 minutes), this Disney movie adaptation, spends time just fleshing out Gerda, Kai, their families and the many side characters that Gerda meets on her way, and it also shows what their hometown and the rest of Sweden, are like. It also takes its time showing Gerda actually preparing for her journey to find Kai.

Age Lift: Both the prince & princess in the original tale are young adults, old enough to marry. Whereas in the Disney movie version, they’re both siblings who are around the same age as Kai & Gerda.

All Star Cast: There is a lot of them, and yet they fit their characters perfectly. Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Naomi Watts, Alan Rickman, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Christina Ricci, George Clooney, Jodie Foster, Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins, Tom Hanks, John Goodman, Dom Deluise, just a name of few.

Animated Musical: Given the fact that it’s a Disney film from the Disney Renaissance, it is to be expected.

Big "NO!":


 * Hedvig screams it as her son Kai falls down the cliff in a well-done and dramatic way.

Cash Cow Franchise: The most successful traditionally animated film of the 90’s; spawned a hit Broadway show, which runs to this day, two theatrical-released sequels and some theatrical midquel/prequel spin-off films involving Katrine, Viktor & Ingrid (in each their own adventures) & a reasonably successful TV series released.

Character Development: Most of the characters in this movie (if not all the goodhearted characters) experience great character development over the course of the film's narrative. Thank the long running time for this.

Children Voicing Children: Every kid character in the movie (Gerda, Kai, Katrine, Viktor, Ingrid, and more) were all voiced by actual children. It helps since Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon Levitt & Christina Ricci were young celebrities in the early 90’s.

Dueling Movies: Amblin’s We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story was in theaters at the same time, with Dinosaur’s Story even opening on the same weekend as The Snow Queen. Needless to say it wasn't much of a fight - all other movies (sans the Robin Williams comedy Mrs. Doubtfire) were pretty much Curb-Stomped as audiences flocked to the one with a story that everyone could resonate with,  with watershed animation and with Broadway-caliber songs, as well as the still-evolving idea that such important kid characters could be anything more other than the cute ones. In other words, The Snow Queen became like a huge meteorite against We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story and blasted it into smithereens.

Ice Palace: The Snow Queen (Sigrid) lives in an enormous palace/castle of over a hundreds of rooms made of ice and snow.

Loyal Animal Companion: Josef, Klaus, Magnus, Alvin, Clapper (talking animals), Sven & Blizzard (non-talking animals).

Magic Mirror: Sigrid has one in her palace.

Named by the Adaptation: The Snow Queen of Hans Christian Anderson's tale became Sigrid, the prince and princess became Viktor & Ingrid respectively, while the Robber Girl became Katrine. Even both Kai’s parents & Gerda’s parents have names.

Non-Human Sidekick: Josef, Klaus & Magnus fits the trope perfectly.

Oh, Crap!: Happens numerous of times in the movie’s more intense scenes. One in particular where Kai sees Jorgen (as an Ax-Crazy man) ready to shoot him and Gerda, yet the kids fortunately run away from being shot by him.

Related in the Adaptation: The prince and princess are a couple in the original story, but here in the Disney version, both (named Viktor & Ingrid) are aged down to children and portrayed as siblings.

Scenery Porn: The whole movie is like this. With hand-drawn 2D-animation (including CGI effects) & visuals as beautiful & gorgeous as The Snow Queen herself. And the characters (humans & animals) that are so distinctly well-animated. It makes the Swedish & Scandinavian landscapes, towns & cities look artistically wonderful & a great sight for the eye to behold.

Sleeper Hit: Jeffrey Katzenberg considered The Snow Queen & The Lion King (the Disney film after the former) to be nothing more than fillers on the way to the real hit, Pocahontas. Though other executives at Disney at first hoped The Snow Queen would do as well as Aladdin, which looked like a $18-20M opening weekend. Instead, Pocahontas underperformed commercially (relative to expectations) and critically and The Snow Queen overperformed above and beyond expectations & became a critically acclaimed animated film, beloved by everyone & a massively phenomenal box office success, opening at a record-breaking $40M (for an animated film), being the first animated film to gross over more than $600+ million domestically and more than $1 billion worldwide. It went on to become not only the highest grossing traditionally animated film at the time but also the highest grossing film of 1993, outgrossing even Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.

Speaks Fluent Animal: Gerda, Kai, Viktor, Ingrid, Katrine, Sigrid, both Kai’s family & Gerda’s family & the Sami people, speak to talking animal characters in the movie.

Talking Animal: Well..almost all animal characters. You have ones who do talk (Josef, Magnus, Klaus, Clapper, Alvin, etc), and those who don’t (Sven, Blizzard, etc)

Tropes regarding Gerda:

All-Loving Heroine: She can make friends with anyone; children, adults, animals, flowers, ghosts, you name it. Enemies or bad people though, are exceptions.

Break the Cutie: In the first film, the first time Gerda becomes sad is after the scene where she hears that Kai was lost during a trip with his parents. Another moment is at the near end of the movie, where she believes that Kai was dead after a fatal injury, the poor child has all of her hopes shattered. Luckily, things do get better when Kai wakes up alive.

Childhood Friend Romance: With Kai.

I Will Find You: Gerda sets out to find Kai, and oh boy does it take a while.

Man Bites Man: Gerda bites Jorgen on the arm, to get out of his grip and run away.

Plucky Girl: An adventurous example for Gerda.

Snooping Little Kid: On Jorgen, when she finds out that he is indeed a ruthless man, exposing his villainy. Gets her into lots of trouble.

Walking the Earth: Walk from your hometown in the south of Sweden to the cold, cold north.

Tropes regarding Kai:

Adaptational Nice Guy: While still one of the endearing characters in the original tale, Book Kai became rather cold & mean after getting one mirror shard in the eye and another in the heart, possessing him. This Disney incarnation of Kai, is pretty much a nice boy with no bad heart. And him meeting the Snow Queen herself (Sigrid) and being brought to her palace up north, is more because of an accidental cause after a raging & windy snowstorm seperated Kai from his parents and left him unconscious, rather than intentionally coming along with her like in the tale.

Big Damn Reunion: Probably one of the most famous examples in animated films. Kai finally seeing his friends (Gerda) & family (his parents) again, feels like an absolute feel-good moment in the movie.

Childhood Friend Romance: With Gerda.

Disney Death: Gerda believed it at first when she tried waking Kai up, which led her to be heartbroken with her belief that her friend was gone. Fortunately though, Kai does wake up alive in the end, and both he and Gerda finally reunite with their families.

Nice Guy: Kai is generally one of the kindest characters in the movie.

Tropes regarding Katrine:

Action Girl: She is the most combative of the girl characters.

Beware The Nice Ones: Katrine might be a young & friendly little girl, but don’t let her age or gender fool you. She carries her knife to defend herself and is a survivor orphan, and if her best friends are in danger….boy, will this not end well for the villains.

Brainy Brunette: For an orphan kid, Katrine is a pretty smart girl.

Knife Nut: She has her own knife as a weapon for defense.

Little Miss Snarker: When she needs to be. Katrine is of course, the girl who is a lone survivor.

Official Couple: With Viktor. Explored in the TV-series.

Parental Abandonment: Katrine is the only animated kid character, who is an orphan and homeless (though she does get an own home in Gerda & Kai’s hometown, after the long journey with them). We do meet her mom in the sequel.

Tomboy and Girly Girl: Katrine is the knife-wielding girl which makes her feel a bit tomboyish, compared to Gerda & Ingrid’s Girly Girl. She’s the only young girl character in the movie, not to wear a skirt.

Tropes regarding Viktor:

100% Adoration Rating: Both he and Ingrid are beloved by everyone in their kingdom (including royal subjects), even the ones outside towns & cities.

Big Brother Instinct: Is this towards his younger sister, Ingrid.

Blue Is Heroic: Prince Viktor wears a light-blue prince outfit.

Disappeared Dad: While Viktor & Ingrid’s mother is present in the movie’s story, their father was nowhere to be seen. He is mentioned though.

Official Couple: With Katrine. Explored in the TV-series.

Tropes regarding Ingrid:

100% Adoration Rating: Both she and Viktor are beloved by everyone in their kingdom (including royal subjects), even the ones outside towns & cities.

Disappeared Dad: While Ingrid & Viktor’s mother is present in the movie’s story, their father was nowhere to be seen. He is mentioned though.

Pink Means Feminine: Ingrid wears a pink princess dress. Justified, since she is royal-born.

Tropes regarding both Viktor & Ingrid:

Big Damn Heroes: They both help Gerda & Kai fighting off Jorgen and his men in the climax. And they’re good at it too.

Tropes regarding Sigrid:

Adaptational Badass: She fights Jorgen to protect the kids.

Adaptational Heroism: The Snow Queen was a morally ambiguous figure in the story; here, she's a heroic figure who befriends Kai, and later Gerda & her friends. She even fights against the true big bad of the movie (Jorgen).

Lady of War: She has her own Ice sword.

Summon Magic: She is able to summon her horses and the white carriage when she intends to travel and even a giant Ice eagle & Ice golem as her combat companions. And of course, she is the bringer of snowflakes and ice each year.

Tropes regarding Jorgen:

Ax-Crazy: Downplayed until the climax, where he goes into a Villainous Breakdown. Also during the final showdown with Sigrid & Kai, he's lost all composure to homicidal rage.

Big Bad: Of the first movie. He is the one who rallies lots of robbers (excluding Katrine, since she left with Gerda) to hunt the kids down.

Canon Foreigner: There isn’t a character like Jorgen in the original story.

Cruel and Unusual Death: His demise is incredibly drawn out and grotesque, even by Disney standards.

Disney Villain Death: He falls down off the top of the ice palace, after a Backstab Backfire and down into the ravine below, while being a man out of ice. The hard ground shatters him in pieces (due to being frozen), which ends up killing him once and for all.

Evil Brit: Obviously, since he’s voiced by Alan Rickman. He is one of the very few characters with the British accent, but the only villainous Brit.

Family-Unfriendly Death: After being painfully transmogrified into an icy version of himself, when stabbed with an ice shard by Kai, the man turns into ice. That however doesn’t stop him from being in full control and injures Kai with sharp weapon. And before attempting to make a final kill shot, Jorgen is literally shattered into tiny, bitty pieces by falling ice boulders after when they reach the hard ground, killing him.

Humamoid Abomination: After he's cut and infected by the ice shard, and the mere fact that he's still moving imply there isn't much of Jorgen left.

Reckless Gun Usage: Besides literal firepower, he even uses shotgun rifles.

Villainous Breakdown: When it's clear that Gerda & Kai would not fall for Jorgen’s treachery, he publicly shows his true nature to them and their families. Also, later in a scene while Gerda & Kai share an emotional moment, Jorgen soon goes “Ax-Crazy”, grabs his rifle and tries to shoot them both.

Would Hurt A Child: Jorgen would not hesitate trying to hurt/injure the kid characters, especially Kai & Gerda. It’s proven when he grabs Gerda with one hand, only to be bit by the girl (who gets away safely).

''"You!" Exclamation'': Jorgen says this when he notices Gerda spying on him.

Tropes regarding Josef the Beaver:

Large Ham: Josef is basically Tom Hanks as a Disney animated talking beaver, and boy...does he have absolutely fun with his character.

Tropes regarding Klaus the Polar Bear:

Bears are Bad News: Subverted when it comes to being with friends/allies, but played straight when it comes to foes/villains. Klaus’s size and strength justifies the trope, when defending the heroes from the bad guys.

Beware the Nice Ones: Is a nice enough guy, but he's still a large polar bear, Anyone who threatens him or his friends (human or animal), is in trouble.

The Big Guy: Klaus is the muscle of the trio.

Tropes regarding Magnus the Hare:

Righteous Rabbit: He is definitely a honorable bunny through thick & thin.

Super Speed: While not really the fastest thing ever existed or such, Magnus is still very quick & agile for a hare. This puts his ability in very good use when it comes to running from predators or foes that comes after him.

Tropes regarding the entire Animal Trio:

Big, Thin, Short Trio: Klaus is the Big (a polar bear bigger than both his herbivore buddies) Magnus is the Thin (a hare who is the smallest one but very agile) and Josef is the Short (a beaver who's right in the middle when it comes to size difference, far smaller than Klaus but slightly bigger than Magnus.)

Canon Foreigners: The animal trio were nowhere to be seen at all in the original H.C Andersen story, nor was there any beaver, rabbit/hare or polar bear sidekick.

Comic Trio: Their primary roles are to provide comedy and otherwise playing off each other for laughs. They even help Gerda on her big journey as company by accompanying her as supportive animal sidekicks.

Tropes regarding both Birgit & Hjalmar:

Good Parents: They are this to Gerda.

Tropes regarding both Hedvig & Nick:

Good Parents: They are this to Kai.

Just Nick:

The Storyteller: He’s the one telling the tale of the Snow Queen, to the kids in the beginning of the movie.

Just Hedvig:

Cry into Chest: In the scene after both she and Nick loses their son during a winter storm, they come home very heartbroken due to the loss of Kai. Hedvig especially, gets so heartbroken that she breaks in tears on her husband’s chest, with him trying to comfort her, while feeling sad as well.

Tears of Joy: When she (along with Nick) finally reunites with her son Kai after a very long journey to the Snow Queen’s palace in Lapland.