By now, Frozen has penetrated pop-culture well past any point of return. While the dust has somewhat settled as fans young and old anxiously await the sequel, the animated epic has recently spawned what might be considered a rite of passage for an indelible Disney property: an insanely morbid fan theory.
A compellingly crazy hypothesis was proposed on Reddit by user superclaude1 regarding the reason why Frozen’s awkward ice harvester-turned princess’ boy toy, Kristoff, is followed by a reindeer, Sven, with such unflinching fidelity. According to this theory, the coat that Kristof sports is made from the pelt of a reindeer, specifically that of Sven’s mother.
Still with us? Well, while it might seem like a tinfoil hat-ish theory one would propose before passing a doobie to an adjacent buddy, the author supports his claim with some noteworthy backing. While the foundation of the entire theory rests on conjecture relating to the make of Kristoff’s coat, it does remain within the scope of unnerving feasibility. It’s reasonable to assume that the Scandinavian culture of Kristoff’s people depend upon animals such as reindeer as not only beasts of burden, but for meat and furs. In fact, as this HuffPo piece points out, it’s a fact that remains true to this day.
However, this is where things take a turn towards the macabre. We meet a young Kristoff at the beginning of the film wearing a coat of the same make, while hanging around with a baby Sven. The theory posits that the ice harvesters who raised young Kristoff actually killed Sven’s mother, giving Kristoff a pelt to wear and charging the lad with the care of her offspring. The friendship we see develop between Kristoff and the animal is forged not only from bonding, but from the fact that the pelt he wears gives off a scent that, as superclaude1 puts it, "reminds Sven of his mum." This angle could conceivably be backed by the real life aspect that scent plays a huge part for animals identifying their parents.
To give the Cliff’s Notes on the theory, Kristoff is wearing the skin of Sven’s dead mother, which may possibly have resulted in the animal being perpetually under the impression that the boy is his mother. Well, I guess it’s more than what the Hunter did for Bambi’s mother, but is there actually anything to this angle? I’m going to come right out and say "no." I mean, look at the video above and try to tell me that such undertones were intended. Despite the Pollyannaish picture that Disney animated features love to paint of situations that are actually quite gross and sometimes tragic, it doesn’t seem constructive to examine the master/pet dynamic of Kristoff and Sven as anything other than what it seems.
Besides, if anything could be looked into more closely, there may be an argument pointing to a serious case of borderline dissociative identity disorder in the way Kristoff regularly speaks for Sven. However, that’s a tangled web that Princess Anna might have to unravel in Frozen 2 whenever that surely monumental pop-culture moment comes down the pike.
