Disney's Frozen 2 features Elsa (Idina Menzel) hearing a mysterious voice calling to her throughout the movie, and despite confusion among audiences it has been definitively confirmed it belongs to her mother, Iduna (Evan Rachel Wood). Taking place 3-years after the events of Frozen, the sequel finds Elsa going on a journey of self-discovery as she tracks the voice she hears like a siren's call, making her way across the land and awakening the elemental spirits in the process. The then-Queen of Arendelle eventually makes her way to Ahtohallan, a mystical river, and in a glacier there learns that she is the fifth spirit.
Across the course of Frozen 2's runtime, it's left rather ambiguous just who (or what) the voice belongs to. Is it Ahtohallan, a spirit, or Elsa herself? When she reaches the glacier, Elsa learns the truth about herself and her family: Elsa is the fifth elemental spirit, and her powers were gifted to her because her mother so selflessly saved Agnarr (who would go on to become Elsa's father). At this stage of the movie, it's suggested that the voice Elsa hears is Iduna's, but it has been open for debate. Many fans have argued that, since Elsa is the fifth spirit, then the voice she hears is really her own.
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Disney and the makers of Frozen 2 have put an end to the debate, however, by confirming that the voice really is Iduna's. In Into The Unknown: The Making of Frozen II - a behind-the-scenes documentary on Disney+, charting the development of the film - there is a lot of discussion about the voice Elsa hears. In episode 3, Frozen 2's co-director Jennifer Lee confirms that a decision has been made: "We all agreed definitively, we're going to answer that the voice is the mother." Alongside this came the addition of Iduna's vocals into the song "Show Yourself", the climactic musical number that accompanies Elsa's self-discovery, with songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez working in both the voice's call (the "Ah"s heard throughout) and the lullaby Elsa and Anna's mother sings at the beginning of Frozen 2.
As detailed in the documentary, the voice calling to Elsa was one of the biggest obstacles for Frozen 2 to overcome. Even less than a year out from release, there was still a lot of debate among the people making the film over who it belonged to, with Lee noting that they all had "different opinions" about it, while production design Michael Giaimo admitted to being "a little confused" because "it's so dense." This went hand-in-hand with the struggles to make Elsa's song "Show Yourself" work, with discussions had about changing that to more of a "I'm Home" type sentiment in the hope of making things clearer to the viewers. When they showed what was finished of the film to a Story Trust group several months prior to release, many were still confused about who the voice was supposed to belong to.
It was after that the decision was made to fully commit to the voice calling to Elsa being that of her mother, Iduna. As Marc Smith, Frozen 2's Director of Story, notes in the documentary, the idea "unifies the movie" since it starts with a flashback featuring Iduna and Agnarr, and it brings those elements together. With Disney+'s Into The Unknown making it 100% explicit that the voice Elsa hears is that of Iduna, it clears up one of Frozen 2's more mysterious and debated moments, but also highlights that even with so much time spent on trying to increase its clarity, the story was still too confusing and convoluted for many.