Within Disney’s Frozen 2, the scene featuring the song “Into the Unknown” may have teased the film’s biggest twist: that Elsa (Idina Menzel) is the reincarnation of the fifth spirit. As Elsa sings along with the mysterious voice that’s calling to her on the wind during the song “Into The Unknown,” the elemental spirits communicate with her by creating a magical vision in the air, which contains a lot of foreshadowing about Elsa’s future journey.
After hearing an unknown voice call to her from the distance, Elsa goes on a journey through the Enchanted Forest to discover the source of the voice along with her sister Anna (Kristen Bell), the magical snowman Olaf (Josh Gad), the ice merchant Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), and his reindeer Sven. Traveling to Ahtohallan, the mythical river of memory, Elsa learns that she is the reincarnation of the fifth spirit and that her elemental powers were a gift from the spirits after her mother Iduna (Evan Rachel Wood), a member of the Northuldra tribe, risked her life to save their father King Agnarr (Alfred Molina) during the battle between the Arendellians and the Northuldra people. In one of the opening scenes of Frozen 2, when Elsa first interacts with the mysterious siren call during the song “Into the Unknown,” many aspects of her journey are foreshadowed within the imagery, including the secret origins of Elsa’s powers.
Towards the end of the song “Into The Unknown,” Elsa follows the mysterious voice throughout the hallways of the castle and outside onto the grounds. When Elsa states the line, "Every day's a little harder as I feel my power grow," Elsa lets some of her ice magic fly from her fingertips, which forms into a magical vision created by the elemental spirits. A vision of each of the individual elemental spirits begins to form around Elsa in a circular motion, each representing the embodiment of the elements she’ll meet on her journey, including the fire spirit Bruni, the Kelpie Nøkk, the Earth Giants, and the wind spirit “Gale.” As Elsa sings along with the voice, the magic then begins to circle Elsa herself, as if teasing that she is the fifth and final elemental spirit in the chain.
Further evidence that the film’s twist is being teased during the song "Into The Unknown" can be seen through the vision of a snowflake. Throughout Frozen 2, a snowflake becomes the common representation of the interconnected elemental spirits, with each of the individual branches of crystals representing a single element. Since the fifth spirit is meant to bring balance to the elements and acts as a mediator between the natural world and civilization, the fifth spirit, within the imagery of the snowflake, lies at the center. Before the vision of the elements begins to form, the image of a snowflake appears beneath Elsa with her at its center, foreshadowing that she is the fifth spirit and the unifying core of the elemental spirits.
Not only does the magical vision vaguely tease that Elsa is the fifth spirit, but it also foreshadows Elsa’s entire journey to Ahtohallan. When Elsa sings the line, “Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go/ Into the unknown?”, Elsa walks through a cloud-like barrier, which represents the curse that currently barricades the Enchanted Forest. Elsa then sees images of the trees from the Enchanted Forest, the herd of reindeer that belong to the Northuldra people, and a younger depiction of her mother and father on the day when Iduna saves Agnarr. Followed by the vision of the elemental spirits, all of the images in their current order seem to be foreshadowing the entire plot of Frozen 2, starting with Elsa traveling through the Enchanted Forest, meeting the different embodiments of the elements, and lastly, learning the origins of her powers at the river Ahtohallan.
While Frozen 2’s climactic ending may be teased during the song “Into the Unknown,” the scene in no way spoils the Disney film’s twist ending since the foreshadowing is very subtle and will only be noticed by those who already know that Elsa ascends into the immortal elemental figure the fifth spirit.