Defrosting Ice Queen/Literature

Examples of Defrosting Ice Queens in Literature include:

• Horribly, maliciously, painfully averted in Duumvirate. Further subverted by the fact that this (metaphorical) Ice Queen has fire-based powers. She does end up having sex with him, but...
• In The Lord of the Rings, Faramir finally defrosts Éowyn, the Lady of War who previously looked for glory, honour and death on battlefield.
• In Catch-22 Nately's Whore.
• Hortense for Gilbert in Small Island. He considers it a major milestone when she deigns to laugh at one of his jokes.
• Maid Marian in some versions of the Robin Hood legend.
• A very literal example of this can be found in the fairy tale Heart of Ice. In this tale, a young man goes on a quest to defrost a young princess's heart, without which he can only be friends.
• There is a non-sexual example of the trope in the fairy tale The Snow Queen, where the titular character freezes the heart of a young boy, making him Not Himself, until he is defrosted by his sister's love.
  • Except in some versions where it doesn't work, he freezes completely, and she goes home and forgets about him.
  • In the original, it's his childhood friend Gerda, not his sister, who attempts to rescue him, and she succeeds.
• Calling Perry Rhodan "literature" seems inappropriate but his love interest, the icily beautiful and scornful Thora of Arkon definitely qualifies for this trope—she ends up his devoted wife.
• Male example: Mr. Darcy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In fact, contrary to the claim that role reversal is unusual with this trope, the man with the cold and unfeeling façade who is melted by the love of a good woman is extremely common in romance novels, because All Girls Want Bad Boys AND Single Woman Seeks Good Man—you can have both that way.
  • And in Pride and Prejudice And Zombies, Elizabeth, too.
• Rachel in No More Dead Dogs. She initially thinks that Wallace is a dumb jock, but warms up to him later and by the end, a letter from a Genre Savvy Julia Roberts tells her that she's practically fallen for him.
• Played with in Twilight. Rosalie Hale looks like she's warming up to Bella, but it's only because Bella's pregnant, which Rosalie can never be.
• Atlas Shrugged's "Dagny Taggart" (not quite an anagram for Ayn Rand but getting there) until she's raped.
  • Er. That was in The Fountainhead, not Atlas Shrugged, and it was Dominique Francon.
  • They blend together...
• Branded Ann, from the book of the same name. Her ship is even named the Ice Queen.
• Lady Aliena in The Pillars of the Earth. She eventually defrosts enough to fall in love with the lowly Jack Jackson/Builder.
• In Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, Virginia is cold, brisk, and businesslike when she and Stephan first meet. When they get a chance to actually talk, she thaws.
• Dia Passik of Wraith Squadron wasn't quite a Rich Bitch, but she was distant and sometimes cruel, and blamed other Twi'leks for selling her into slavery as a child. After being forced to Shoot Her Wingmate Castin Donn, who was probably already dead, she had a Heroic RROD, told her squadmates that Diap'assik (her child name, representing her compassionate, vulnerable side) was dead. It wasn't. She hooked up with Face after a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, and Word of God says that they later broke up amicably.
  • Myn Donos, also a Wraith, is a male version. He'd once been in charge of a squadron of his own, but everyone except him and his astromech was killed on their first mission, and he blamed himself and became the Wraiths' Cold Sniper, going into a catatonic Heroic BSOD after that astromech was destroyed and his failure became complete. His wingmates brought him out of it, particularly a woman who'd started falling for him. When she died, he was left a little less cold, and Lara did the rest.
• After more than twenty years of suffer, Cassie from Uncle Tom's Cabin is pretty much a cynical wreck of a Broken Bird. She's harsh and snarky towards Tom and Emmeline when they arrive and talks back to her owner Simon Legree and is feared by almost everyone... but as time goes by, Tom's friendship warms her up slightly, at least enough to take Emmeline with her and run away from the manse. Which, unbeknownst to her, would trigger Tom's Heroic Sacrifice.
• Diana Mayo from the novel The Sheik, in a somewhat disturbing way, thanks mostly to Stockholm Syndrome. After being kidnapped and repeatedly raped, she abandons her old cold, independent attitudes and realizes she's fallen in love with her rapist.
• Much of the plot of The Queen of Attolia revolves around the titular queen slowly defrosting, ending with her marrying the hero, Eugenides. The King Of Attolia shows her continuing to defrost, which disturbs most of the kingdom, which is used to her being cold and cruel.
• Skirlet Hutsenreither plays this role in Jack Vance's book Night Lamp - over the course of the story, she goes from a stuck up Clam Muffin (it's a social caste) to a warm and friendly space traveler, largely because of Jaro Fath, the main character.
  • Almost all of Vance's heroines are this, at least towards the hero.
• Bean, in the Ender's Shadow series; particularly Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow of the Giant. In Ender's Shadow, Bean was a snarky, cold calculating little boy who was extremely logical and restrained. By the end of the series, having found love, he's happy, romantic, and emotional.
• Sofia Mendes in The Sparrow. Tragically, the sequel Children of God shows her not only refrosting, but becoming a Knight Templar.
• At the end of Robert E. Howard's "The Devil In Iron", Conan the Barbarian is rather crestfallen to find that Octavia tried to allure him because she was forced; a kiss later, she is somewhat reconciled, and he offers to burn down the city where she was Made a Slave for her.
• The novelization of the original Alien vs. Predator comic arc does a more thorough defrosting of Ice Queen Machiko Noguchi. She was so unintentionally aloof from the colonists under her authority that she was dubbed the "Nitrogen Queen" behind her back. Only three months into her stay does she realize that they all hate her, and immediately sets about changing her status among them. She makes decent but slow headway until the Predators begin hunting colonists and the subsequent outbreak of Aliens, at which point she becomes a Badass Action Girl and repeatedly risks her life for all of them.
• Aunt Polly from Pollyanna is an unromantic example. She begins the book as cold and borderline cruel but Pollyanna eventually defrosts her however it's not until Polllyanna's badly injured that she completely defrosts.
• Ex Heroes has an excellent example with Stealth and the Mighty Dragon.
• Pip does this to the previously cold-hearted Estella in Great Expectations.
• Jiltanith in Mutineer's Moon, the first in the Empire From the Ashes trilogy.
• Comfort Goodpasture in Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, known as "The Iron Maiden" around school until she gets tired of saying no.
• This is pretty much how Anne and Gilbert's relationship works from books one through three, though she's only cold to him, not other people.
  • And the fact that it took over ten years to defrost her and he waited patiently just makes him that much more awesome.
• Fish (male example) in Waking Rose and Rachel (female example) in The Midnight Dancers.
• Richard causes this in the Sword of Truth just by being. The Mord-Sith, Sisters of the Light, and Nicci, all of whom are some of the iciest queens out there.
• Sherlock Holmes becomes this towards Watson; especially shown when Watson gets hurt.
• While the titular character of Beachwalker is a kind and giving person, it takes a bullet wound for her to let anyone start to get close to her.
• Glinda Arduenna Upland in Wicked becomes this as her friendship with Elphaba grows, and even more so when Dr. Dillamond was killed by Madame Morrible.
• Hermione Granger in Harry Potter starts off as a stuck-up know-it-all, but calms down after Ron and Harry defeat a troll for her.
• Invoked in Carter Brown's Charlie Sent Me! with an actress whom protagonist Larry Baker had called "the Snow Queen" and a "frozen virgin." She decided to change his mind, saying after kissing him, "Beware the Snow Queen when she melts. Then comes the avalanche!" Alas, they were interrupted before things could get really interesting.