I have never seen Frozen, but I agree with you that flawed heroines are more interesting--also more risky. I think most readers will give a hero a lot more slack for his shortcomings and wrong turns, while a heroine who stumbles gets the "too stupid to live," comment all too often. I do wonder if that's not a symptom of female readers being much too hard on themselves....?
So agree that heroes tend to be given more slack (though I hope that's changing a bit). There's definitely been a trend going back at least into the 19th century for heroes to get away with a far more varied (and often flawed) romantic past than heroines - or at least heroines who get happy endings (as I've posted about in my "courtesan heroines" post).
I have never seen Frozen, but I agree with you that flawed heroines are more interesting--also more risky. I think most readers will give a hero a lot more slack for his shortcomings and wrong turns, while a heroine who stumbles gets the "too stupid to live," comment all too often. I do wonder if that's not a symptom of female readers being much too hard on themselves....?
So agree that heroes tend to be given more slack (though I hope that's changing a bit). There's definitely been a trend going back at least into the 19th century for heroes to get away with a far more varied (and often flawed) romantic past than heroines - or at least heroines who get happy endings (as I've posted about in my "courtesan heroines" post).