King Runeard is the main antagonist of Disney’s Frozen franchise
He is the former King of Arendelle, the father of King Agnarr and the grandfather of Queen Elsa and Princess Anna. As opposed to his son and granddaughters who are benevolent monarchs, Runeard is a ruthless tyrant who plotted to exterminate Northuldran people out of fear of their association with magic.
History[]
Past[]
Years prior to the events of the film, Runeard oversaw the construction of what would be known as the Castle of Arendelle. He was responsible for greatly expanding the location, though he had predecessors presumably from previous locations, such as his great-great-grandfather Eric and his grandmother Else. He had the castle chocked full of secret passages to hidden libraries in which he would obsessively study magic, its causes and its whereabouts. He also established a proud annual naval tradition where the Arendellian fleet would navigate the close-lying seas.
At some point, he forced a woman named Rita into marriage with him, who became Arendelle's Queen. She gave birth to their son Prince Agnarr, and though she loved her son, she grew increasingly depressed, pining for her home kingdom to which she had no access and longing to be free. Runeard initially tried to satisfy her materialistically by raining royal gifts, but as she became so encumbered with grief at being trapped that she would spend all day sobbing in bed, Runeard grew impatient at her for seemingly being ungrateful, unable to fathom why she would be sad when she could have everything she wanted. Realizing Runeard could never give her love, Rita eventually broke down, sought out the Trolls and begged their leader Grand Pabbie to erase her memories so she could forget her life in Arendelle and who she was. She then fled, having to leave her son behind with Runeard as she knew running off with Agnarr meant a war breaking out between Arendelle and her kingdom, causing many deaths. Furthermore, Runeard would likely hunt them down, and in the war Agnarr's life would hang in the balance.
After having her memories wiped, Rita disappeared, and Runeard resolved to erase any documentation of her existence from the kingdom by locking away all her belongings (in the secret library) and criminalizing the mentioning of her name; anyone who brought her up would face immediate banishment. Runeard told a heartbroken Agnarr that Rita had been "carried off by an evil spirit". When Agnarr wept for his mother (who he thought had died) Runeard shamed him, causing his son to lock himself in his room for years, praying for the evil spirits to return her in the day and fearing the evil spirits would come to snatch him up in the night. Rita had made Agnarr a puffin called Sir JörgenBjörgen which Runeard did not know about, and the royal servant Gerda quickly hid it away so she could return it to Agnarr in the future. Runeard publicly made magic and its users the scapegoat of all the problems in the kingdom, teaching his subjects that magic users were dishonest and that their souls had been turned black by the corrupting darkness of their magic.
When Agnarr was 14 years old, the tribe of Northuldra, who lived in the Enchanted Forest north of Arendelle in harmony with the elemental spirits who also resided there, made peace with Runeard and his kingdom, with Runeard and his men frequently meeting with them because of this. Though it was evident to a portion of the Northuldran population that Runeard was not sincerely a friend to their population, as he would often glare at their adults as well at children with hate and disgust, he still made a point to prove to them his intent to establish peace. To this end, he got his men to construct a dam in the Enchanted Forest near a fjord, supposedly designed to help the Northuldran people and bring prosperity to their land by strengthening their waters. Some of the visiting Arendellians even offered the Northuldrans book of Arendellian legend, which instilled Arendellian ideals of royalty and honor into the nomadic people.
Betrayal and Death[]
However, in truth, Runeard actually feared and despised the Northuldrans, believing that their association with magic made them too entitled and that they could potentially threaten his power as king. It also turns out that the dam was only created to weaken Northuldra's resources so that Runeard could subjugate them to his rule. This was shown when he ordered his second-in-command to bring in Arendelle's grand army to speed things up and prepare for an imminent attack; even when his second-in-command wisely pointed out that the Northuldrans aren't distrustful in nature, Runeard arrogantly refused to heed his advice as he still despised magic.
When the Northuldran leader saw that the dam is weakening the land's resources instead of strengthening them, he confronted Runeard, who declared that they would discuss this in private and find a solution while having tea at the fjord, a proposal that the Northuldran leader agreed upon. However, this was just a ruse to let the Northuldran leader's guard down as Runeard wields his sword and kills the Northuldran leader from behind. To cover his tracks, Runeard claimed to his army that the Northuldrans attacked him, and a battle broke out between the Arendellian soldiers and the Northuldran people, resulting a number of casualties between both sides. Eventually, during the fight, Runeard was driven to a cliff and fell to his death, along with the Northuldran that he was trying to strike down. The spirits of the Enchanted Forest, enraged by the fighting, cursed the forest by enveloping it in a powerful mist that would keep anyone from leaving or entering, trapping the Northuldran people and Arendellian soldiers inside. Prince Agnarr managed to escape the mist with the help of a Northuldran girl named Iduna, whom he would later marry upon inheriting the throne of Arendelle, thus becoming the new King and Queen.
In the following years, Runeard posthumously became a grandfather after Agnarr and Iduna gave birth to Elsa and Anna. Due to Iduna's selfless act during Runeard's attack, the elemental spirits rewarded Elsa with ice powers. Years later, King Agnarr would tell Elsa and Anna about the story of the Enchanted Forest, unaware that his father had actually started the conflict that sealed it off from the world in the first place. Upon learning about Elsa's powers, King Agnarr and Queen Iduna sailed off to find a mystical river called the Ahtohallan that holds all explanations of the past in hopes seeking answers to Elsa's powers. However, both Agnarr and Iduna perished to their deaths in a shipwreck caused by a violent storm, leaving a distraught Elsa to take over as the new Queen of Arendelle.
Legacy[]
It has been three years following Elsa's coronation and the defeat of Prince Hans, the Duke of Weselton and his thugs. However, the stakes changed when Elsa, upon hearing the call of a mysterious voice and accidentally awakening the elemental spirits, travels to the Enchanted Forest alongside her sister Anna, Olaf, Kristoff and Sven. Foreshadowing what was to come, whilst fighting the Wind Spirit, later named Gale, Elsa was met with the vague glimpses of the past that showed Runeard roaring in rage as his sword fell down on something veiled by the fog. Then, as Elsa was face to face with her grandfather, she saw Runeard coldly glower at whomever he attacked, stating: "For Arendelle." After taming the Wind Spirit, they met the trapped Northuldran people (led by their tribe leader Yelana) and Arendellian soldiers (led by Runeard's former lieutenant Destin Mattias), learning of her mother's heritage and encountering the different elemental spirits in the process. Explaining of her parents' heritage, Elsa was able to arrange a truce between the Northuldrans and Arendellian soldiers. While travelling towards the Ahtohallan, Elsa, Anna and Olaf discover Agnarr and Iduna's shipwreck, realizing that they had perished trying to reach the Ahtohallan themselves and find answers about Elsa's powers. Believing that her powers are the reason why both Agnarr and Iduna died, a guilty Elsa forces Anna and Olaf away and seeks out the river by herself. Upon reaching it, Elsa finds out about the true origin of her powers and that she herself is one of the spirits because of it. Gazing at moments of the past, Elsa finds one revealing that Runeard was responsible for the forest's curse by creating the dam, killing the Northuldran leader, and instigating the war against the Northuldrans, all due to his fear and hatred of magic. Outraged to learn that her late grandfather was really a ruthless tyrant who allowed his own fear and hatred to consume his mind over trusting others, Elsa furiously denounces Runeard for his actions and sends the information to Anna before freezing as a result of venturing into the most dangerous part of Ahtohallan.
While trying to find a way out of the cave she and Olaf had become trapped in, Anna receives Elsa's message in the form of an ice sculpture of Runeard about to murder the unarmed Northuldran leader. Realizing the atrocious scoundrel their grandfather truly was and seeing that Olaf has faded away due to Elsa's fate, a mournful Anna concludes that the dam must be destroyed to end the curse and the war, despite being informed earlier by Kristoff that doing so would also cause a flood through the fjord that would sink down Arendelle. Upon escaping the caves, Anna provokes the Earth Spirits into chasing her to the dam and explains the truth to Mattias and the Arendellian soldiers about Runeard's heinous crimes. Realizing their mistake for following a despicable tyrant, Mattias and the Arendellian soldiers signaled the Earth Spirits to destroy the dam with boulders. Though the destruction of the dam lifts the mist from the Forest and saves both Elsa and Olaf for good, a giant flood heads down the fjord to sink Arendelle, but Elsa uses her powers to divert the flood, saving Arendelle in the process.
With the curse finally lifted, Elsa decides to remain in the Enchanted Forest as its new protector while abdicating the throne to Anna, thus bringing true peace to both Arendelle and Northuldra and ending Runeard's dreadful legacy for good.
Trivia[]
- He is the first main antagonist to be a completely posthumous character.
- He will appear in Ryan's Adventures of Frozen 2 even though he can't fight Ryan, Meg and friends since he's already dead.
- Despite being the main antagonist of Frozen II, he only has four minutes of screen time.
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