Published in On Our Selection News May 15, 2014

I’m currently embroiled in an ugly feud with my sister.

We’ve had fights before, but none have been so personal. Never have the cuts been so deep. It started about 9.47 minutes after we watched Frozen. The warm glow of Disney-inspired sister love faded and discussion promptly turned who was Elsa (the snow queen) and Anna (the brown one). And it got ugly.

This was inevitable. As soon as I heard Anna call her sister a “stinker” (a word my sister uses quite a bit), I knew this discussion would be had. We have a history of it. After we saw Wicked, it became apparent that our lives were abstracted (only slightly), put to a soundtrack, and performed on stage. My sister conceded that I was Elphaba (the green one), making her the pretty, but kind of shallow Glinda. It was very noble of her, and of course it makes the song “Changed for Good” just that little bit more emotional. Before this was the Olsen Twins issue – I have a feeling I bullied my sister into letting me be Mary Kate. However, this was a reasonably peaceful arrangement, and we happily took on our characters while pretending we were hosting our own imaginary series of Better Homes and Gardens. Because we were obviously very cool.

This character comparison obsession began many years ago. The root of this problem, as is the root of all problems, stemmed from our mother. The woman is obsessed with the movie Little Women. You may think that it couldn’t have had such an impact on her family planning decisions considering it only came out in 1994, but Mum also had the novel before then. We started out as The Maguire Five, with three darling daughters, but that changed. Now, I have a theory that when moving house, she came across the book, and remembered her desire to be Marmee and her love for Susan Sarandon – then in 1996 my youngest sister came along. And after years of watching the movie with Mum, we began to see certain similarities between the Maguires and the Marches.

The problem is, according to birth order, I would be Beth. Now while she’s nice and everything, Beth is the most boring character – even that dull old Mr Brooks lashed out and stole a glove! Beth is quiet and dies after visiting a child, who gave her scarlet fever, weakening her heart forever (oh yeah, spoiler alert!). I, however, am a giant show pony who usually goes out of her way to avoid children. Birth order or hair colour should not come into play; deciding which character you are should be based on your own characteristics. Therefore, I reason that I am Elsa. Like Elsa, my hobbies include being left alone, and being fabulous. I am also known to belt out a power ballad. My sister’s resemblance to Elsa is based on her blonde hair and propensity to seriously hurt her brown-haired little sister – although while Elsa’s wasn’t on purpose, my being struck on the head with the vacuum cleaner was nowhere near as accidental as you might think.

We eventually asked Mum to decide, and, after putting both our cases forward, no conclusion was reached. For the sake of peace, we decided that we are both Elsa and we are both Anna. But after watching Frozen again (for the 7,689th time), I am convinced I’m an Elsa. I’m sorry, but I just can’t Let it Go.