Fifteen years ago I had a discussion about movies with a genuine public intellectual, one of the great foreign-policy minds of his generation. At the time, he had young children. He tried to convince me that A Bug’s Life was a great act of cinema. “For the first 20 viewings or so, it’s just a good movie,” he explained. “But after the hundredth time, you start to really appreciate the genius.” I laughed nervously and made a silent vow never to get myself into trouble the way he had.

This morning I watched the movie Frozen for perhaps the seventieth time. I don’t keep a strict count. And like my friend, I’ve come to believe a number of truths about it: For starters, Frozen is—hands down—the best animated film of all time. It is also the best filmed musical since The Sound of Music. But the most important realization I’ve come to is that the villain of Frozen, the dastardly Prince Hans, isn’t actually a villain. Or rather: Hans may be a villain in the movie, but his villainy is accidental.