It must be loud, Anna and Elsa's love
I see rather often Anna's love being praised above all others. It should be praised. But not above. There's this notion that the best love, that the strongest one is always loud, always explosive, like the kind of spectacle that looks nothing like what an introvert or neurodivergent person usually does.
The extrovert love, easy to understand, easy to read, that follows the cultural romantic notions is the only love held high. And this is something I hoped people would've seen past, mainly after the stories we got.
Elsa can't be or do what Anna does socially. Not even with her sister. Because Elsa's love language is built in broken cold pieces that do not always stay together but exist nonetheless.
Yes, her love is uncomfortable, it looks distant and so very quiet. Because of this, it looks like little love. Something of no worth. Too different, lacking in bright colors, lacking in the neurotypical language, so it must be set aside as the lesser love.
Ironically enough, Elsa agrees. Her love is the lesser one. Because it's broken, it's pointy, it's difficult to detangle, and takes a little bit more effort to see. She too was raised in a world of loud love. In a world where her natural ways are frowned upon. Her pain and her traumas met the place where she held love and it too affected it beyond recognition.
The first time I watched Frozen I wondered: why haven't Elsa's sacrifice counted as an act of true love? I read some people explaining that it was because it was tainted by fear, but to me, such an explanation never felt right. It put the blame on that child again, it put aside her love as the lesser one, the "not sufficient". I like to believe that the act of true love in the first movie should've been from Anna all along, not from someone else. Anna saved herself, all the while saving her sister. She chose her sister, ALSO making a sacrifice. Both did their best to protect each other, both were scared that the other would hurt at some point, both kinds of love are important.
Elsa does deserve Anna.
Elsa, in all of her different, silent, introspective way to love, deserves every ounce of loud, sparkly, and extroverted love Anna gives her. And Anna agrees.
