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The film setting makes it very likely that Arendelle is a Christian kingdom (not an ultra-Puritan one, but Christian nonetheless). This means Elsa and Anna were raised with the Bible as their major morality. As a result, after falling to their temptations they both wake up guilty and ashamed the next morning, the sexual tension now resolved and no longer distracting them from the sinfulness of their feelings. They avoid each other for several days afterwards, both instinctively trying to punish themselves by depriving themselves of the other’s company.
It’s less than a day before both Anna and Elsa are missing each other, even just as sisters. After three more days with no interaction, Anna cracks under the pressure and knocks on Elsa’s door again, rationalizing to herself that they’ve suffered enough punishment, and convincing herself out loud that they need each other as sisters and can both agree to not succumb to their sexual desires. Anna’s voice through the door is what breaks Elsa’s will to continue her self-flagellation. The door springs open and they fly into each other’s arms, sisters once more.
They spend a week doing fluffy, sisterly things together before the sexual tension starts to creep back in, slowly and un-noticed at first, but gradually building. Both unwilling to talk about it, they each fight to keep seeing each other as merely sisters, rationalizing away all the touches that are creeping towards sensitive areas as the weeks go by, all the stolen glances when the other isn’t looking.
Several weeks later, they finally snap after Anna has a nightmare one night and creeps into Elsa’s bed for comforting. They wake up entangled, hands under each other’s clothing, their libidos awaken faster than their brain function, and by the time they realize what’s happening they’re both naked and satisfied again, just like the first time. But then the sun streams in through Elsa’s window and as their post-coital high wears off, their guilty consciences return in full force. They again go back to avoiding each other, repenting for their sins, etc, and this time it’s a whole week before their sisterly longing once again overcomes their shame and drives them to see each other.
Talking through Elsa’s door, they come up with an extensive list of rules to control themselves and limit their physical contact. This proves difficult since they often have impulses to touch or hug in platonic sisterly ways and have to constantly remind themselves not to – and each time they resist touching, it causes them to also remember why they have to resist touching, so that each aborted gesture that started out sisterly reminds them of their non-sisterly attraction as well, thereby pushing it to the front of their minds. As a result, their rules for not touching have actually just made it worse – and they soon find their desire building up even faster than before. They manage to stay platonic for several weeks, but more and more of their waking thoughts are consumed by the very desire they were trying to avoid – as the act of avoiding it simply makes it stronger.
Inevitably the tension snaps like a rubber band and another explosive night together is followed, yet again, by the familiar morning-after guilt and several more weeks of avoidance. Elsa decides that they must always have a door between them, and when Anna starts camping outside her door, Elsa evades her by conjuring ice ladders and pathways from her window over to the window of her study, the ballroom, etc. Anna’s only consolation is that Elsa is still willing to talk through the door, and she gives up on ever seeing it opened again.
But then, Anna’s birthday comes, and Anna persuades Elsa to come out just for her special day. They have lots of fun, but when Elsa finally retires to her room, Anna won’t let go of her. After months without even seeing each other, the tension is too much. They wake up the next morning once again shamefully entwined, and their cycle begins anew.
Every few months they go through a full cycle: avoiding each other out of shame, then caving in to the need for their sibling’s company, then fighting the return of their feelings as lovers, then finally caving in and returning to the ashamed state. Even Anna’s marriage to Kristoff doesn’t stop the rubber band from occasionally yanking them back together. Miraculously, Kristoff never seems to notice those mornings when both sisters go red in the face upon seeing him. (In fact, he knows – but lacking a Christian upbringing, he simply accepts it as another quirk of his quirky wife.)
Morals ingrained into a child from birth are exceedingly difficult to change even as adults. It is the same conscience, the same moral code, that approves of them being sisters yet condemns their inevitable progression to more-than-sisters. And that ensures the cycle will never end.
The sisters never stop hearing the little voices in their heads, telling them they’re not supposed to love each other this way, that it’s wrong and their ancestors must be spinning in their graves. The moments preceding each frenzied coupling are always filled with guilt and foreboding, before passion temporarily drowns it out – for only a short time. After each episode, their consciences regain control and keep them apart for a short time. But when they see each other longing for their sister’s company again, the guilt over being a bad sister and making their beloved person unhappy overwhelms the guilt of their carnal sins, driving them back together and giving each of them the force of will to bury their more primitive urges – for a time. After a long deprivation, just seeing each other again is so euphoric that they have no trouble staying sisters – but inevitably the euphoria wears off. Then it’s a matter of willpower, as they both know that if either of them makes a move, they’ll pay for it with another month of guilt and loneliness… so they pull back from the brink, over and over, until the haze of desire has clouded their judgment enough, and depleted their stores of self-control enough to make them fall into the abyss once again. And every time they regret it the next morning when they realizes what they’ve done and can’t bear to look at each other, and they trudge off to their penance, which they really should have seen coming…
Sisters, then strangers, then sisters again, the servants gradually learn to predict the oscillations like clockwork – though few know of the third fleeting stage of the cycle, that lasts only a night at most.
In time, Elsa and Anna begin to recognize that this cycle will continue for the rest of their lives, though they never admit it out loud. They rationalize that everyone has their vices and theirs is somehow okay because “it’s true love”. And for a while, things seem okay.
But when Anna gives birth to a white-haired child with ice powers, the three royals learn the hard way that people other than themselves are not so willing to excuse their behavior…