Short Post: Diplomacy in Frozen (2013)

Something struck me a few years ago after thinking a bit more about Frozen. I had been given to doing that for a few months after the movie came out: I had been reading the wiki (now fandom) page, watching videos about the movie, absorbing lots of hype-generated content – and then this question struck me.

But I forgot about it as the hype died down.

Now that I have this blog, the question somehow struck me again.

Why was Hans sent to Arnadalr as representative of the Southern Isles?

I mean, what are his credentials? He is young, an is unlikely to have had much experience in the ways of diplomacy compared to any of his older brothers.

In fact, we know he doesn’t like his family – he ‘connects’ with Anna in the first movie over their shared ‘shut-out-ness’ at the hands of their respective families. I had always assumed that that meant that Hans’ parents also couldn’t care less about him. A visit to the fandom page tells me I’m half right: in the novel A Frozen Heart (2015) it is revealed that Hans’ father despised him and approved of his being bullied.

In short, the king of the Southern Isles who dispatched Hans his son to Arnadalr probably:

1. Did not care for doing business with Arnadalr – sending an inexperienced son (or so it seemed) who would probably have been going on his first ever diplomatic trip suggests that the king did not need a silver tongue to convince the new queen of anything;
2. Did not care much for his son – if there was no benefit to be gained from Arnadalr then literally sending any son would have done. In this case he chose literally the youngest and most likely the least experienced, because…convenience?

The 2 points I list above bleed into each other. The king perceives that Arnadalr is unimportant internationally, and therefore he expresses this by sending an unimportant son.

Compare this to the Duke of Weselton, who personally goes to visit Arnadalr, in order to make a fat profit from business deals. Considering that, in the time period of the 1840s, what is now Germany was still the German Confederation, with plenty of semi-independent dukedoms, it is highly likely that the Duke of Weselton was the highest authority of wherever he came from. So, even if in status he was less than a king, the effect of his personal trip to Arnadalr should have been equivalent to the effect a king would have generated by personally visiting Arnadalr.

Basically, he honours Arnadalr by sending his honourable self there.

Cultural Disclaimer

My line of reasoning has, actually, been influenced by my knowledge of Chinese history.

In pre-Qin China, it was common practice for rival dukes to send each other one of their sons as hostages (a practice that would be copied in Warring States Japan, for example). Such a sending was a gesture of goodwill and non-aggression: any act of aggression would result in the execution of the sent son. However, the specific son sent would be influenced by power politics: powerful states sent younger, less senior sons who would be heirs to nothing much or who were not liked by the king – an easy sacrifice. Weaker states often were forced to send stronger states their older, and sometimes oldest sons, the loss of whom might mean the loss of an heir. In Chinese society at the time, such a hierarchy was common and accurately described the power difference between states.

I wonder if that would have been the case in 1840s European diplomacy too.

Man, my alt-history vibes just won’t stop. Or rather, they haven’t stopped since a few years ago.