Tracking Elsa's route in Into the Unknown scene #2

Let’s look at the evacuation scene after Into the unknown song. In the previous post, we examined where Elsa ran after awakening the spirits. In this article, we examine her after movements.

Arendelle castle ~ Market square

As can be seen in the above figure, Elsa and other villagers pass by market square.

Market square ~ Hill street

In the next scene, we see the people going up the hill street. We can spot this place in the opening or ending scene. Considering surrounding placements and their route, this would be the street right side of the clock tower.

On the top of Hill street, then turn left.

So far, the evacuation route would look as above figure. After leaving the castle → Elsa passes by the market square → and heads to the clock tower → then goes up the hill street and turns left at the end.

Another route?

We can verify this route from the artbook. The above figure is the map of the Arendelle from the Frozen 2 artbook. It looks almost the same as seen in the movie.

But, a question arises if you look at this map. If we accept the previous argument, the evacuation route would be (1), marked in yellow.

But there exists another route (2) for the evacuation, marked in red. If they take this route, they could also evacuate the village.

We can also find this road in the movie. It’s difficult to spot clearly, but we can see the people walking this road by zooming in on the epilogue scene.

Then why they didn’t take this route?

There’s no clear answer, but we can suggest two possibilities.

1. This route is very narrow. Zooming this scene reveals that this second route is clearly narrower than the first one.
2. Since this road is next to the cliff, it would be dangerous with the strong wind they experienced during the evacuation.

Considering these two aspects, it seems reasonable for the people to take the first route.

Hill ~ Opposite side

Now, let’s determine the remaining route. Before that, we have to know where they are headed exactly.

In the above scene, villagers watch the Arendelle castle is about to be flooded. From their left side, we see the Arendelle castle and some roofs of houses. By inspecting the shape of the roofs, we can spot where these houses are located. They are marked with a red circle on the above figure.

Next, let’s connect the watchtower of Arendelle castle and the house marked in the figure. We see that the people are on the right side of this line connecting these two.

If we see this line from the opposite side, we can verify that the people should be standing on the stone hill marked in red square.

Bridge

But this induces another question. The schematic path of the evacuation should look above the white line.

But as we can see, there does not exist any kind of bridge that connects these two sides. Then how could they go to the right side?

We need to remember that some kind of bridge appears in the evacuation scene to answer this question. Behind that bridge, we see a waterfall. Considering that the wind is blowing to the right, we can think the people would have crossed this bridge to reach the right-side hill.

The entire shape of the waterfall can be seen from Frozen 1 and looks as above.

The above landscape is from the Frozen 2 art book, and it is almost similar to the previous one. Thus, the bridge mentioned before should be somewhere across this waterfall. Then where?

First, see the lower part of the hill. We see no bridge in this region.

So, we verify that the bridge is not located in the region (1). Also, considering the terrain says that the bridge can’t also be placed in the region (2).

Then the last possibility that the bridge can be located is the region (3), the upper side of the waterfall. The people might have gone to the top of the hills, into the forest, then crossed the bridge. I couldn’t find the explicit figure of the bridge in the movie, but I have other evidence.

Above is the landscape of Arendelle from Frozen 1 artbook. We can find a bridge connecting two sides of the hills in upper side of the waterfall.

Of course, it shouldn’t be regarded as a canon since this is from the concept art, but at least we can verify that they intended the bridge to be located here.

Thus, region (3) is most probable where the bridge is located. The people would have crossed this bridge and finally arrived at the opposite hill.

Summary

Summarizing all these arguments, we can draw the whole evacuation route in the Into the unknown scene as above.

1. After Into the Unknown song, Elsa ran to the west watchtower of the castle.
2. Then ran to the market square.
3. Passed by the hill street.
4. Crossed the bridge.
5. Finally arrived at the opposite hill.