Thread:AnnaElzaJ/@comment-43279580-20200906150357/@comment-30900271-20200906153107

Hi,

you're welcome. I have read it recently and I really liked it. Honestly I'm not so sure about the details either... I know it the Nattmara in the book was Elsa's fears and nightmares she fed to Ulf the Wolf (hence it became a big wolf)... Then some speculations and assumptions come in: after the accident Elsa was almost constantly afraid, and she had a nightmare that 'triggered' her powers and covered her bedroom with snow, so Iduna told her to throw them out of the window (Iduna knew how to stop nightmares which was necessary if they wanted to keep Elsa's powers in check) - this is when little Elsa started giving them to Ulf the Wolf... At the time, Anna started to have her nightmares with the wolf, probably Nattmara noticed Anna was an easier target or something like that... Years later, when Elsa is the queen she's still afraid, this time of letting her people down. During the years the fears cumulated and at that time it was enough for the Nattmara to start affecting the real world - the Blight started and then the wolf appeared. I think it just needed a certain amount of fear to 'cross the line' and it used both Elsa's fears and insecurities and Anna's fears of nightmares to collect just enough fear to attack in the real world. But it's some kind of theory, the book itself is a bit confusing for me too ;)

Here I have something cited, chapter 25:

'And now Anna understood. Fear only grew the longer it was ignored. Avoiding a nightmare only made it more powerful, more terrifying when it finally erupted again. And if Elsa had ignored her fears for years—if she had banished her nightmares away, then maybe they had taken on their own life, taken on their own shape….

Ulf the Wolf was always my favorite, Elsa had said in Sorenson’s tower. What if, instead of handing her nightmares over to a friendly fisherman as Anna had tried, Elsa had imagined feeding her fears to a hungry wolf?

Anna’s ideas came to her even quicker. Elsa’s rejected nightmares and fears, unable to latch onto Elsa but more powerful than most people’s fears, had weaseled their way into another scared, lonely child’s dreams—a child whose loneliness had gaped wide within her, leaving room for black sand and dark dreams to creep into her heart. A heart that had cracked when the child had been separated from her sister. Anna’s heart.

Realization thundered through her: Anna had not created the Nattmara—not with a spell or her own great worries. The wolf that had first appeared to her on that night sixteen years ago was not a manifestation of Anna’s fear. There had been another scared and lonely child in the castle beside her then, one who had also feared being separated from her sister: Elsa.'

And a bit later in the same chapter:

'Suddenly, Anna could see into Elsa’s nightmare: the endless meetings that Elsa felt awkward leading, not knowing what to say to people after having had very little social interaction for most of her life. Anna had  always just thought Elsa was a good listener. Everyone seemed to think she was so wonderfully collected, but in truth, her quietness wasn’t composed thinking, but a deer-in-the-path-of-an-arrow kind of fright.

And the Nattmara had made her a bad queen—with the Blight. It all made sense to Anna now. Before the Nattmara had the strength to take on the physical shape of a wolf, it had seeped into the kingdom as a sickness, stalking the kingdom the same way it had stalked Elsa’s mind. And with the Blight came the people’s constant worry and questions, and Elsa had become more overwhelmed and even more fearful that she could not protect them. She had begun to crack at the seams while trying to keep it all inside. She had not been able to sleep…and so, Elsa’s suppressed nightmares had found another sleeping, worried sister to haunt until, at last, the fear in Arendelle—Elsa’s fear—had grown so great and powerful that the Nattmara could at last be seen by everyone. Because above all, Elsa feared hurting the kingdom—again. Of hurting Anna, again.'

By the way, reading the book when a real pandemic and a real panic hit the world was an interesting experience and I remember how I laughed when they used silk for the kingdom of Corona to cover their faces to protect themselves from the black sand from the Nattmara ;)

Love,

Anna