Ice Princess

"The tree lights up and I push the button... no, no, wait, wait. I press the button, and then the tree lights up!"

―The Ice Princess rehearsing for the relighting of the Christmas Tree Ceremony in her tent.^[src]

The Ice Princess was a Christmas-themed beauty queen who was honored with the role of switching on Gotham City's Christmas lights during the annual Tree Lighting Ceremony. She later became a target of the Penguin was instrumental in his plan to frame Batman.

Biography[]

Lighting of the Tree Ceremony[]

Sponsored by NatIonal Bank of Gotham and Shreck's, the Ice Princess was joyous and happy to light the tree. Unfortunately, that happy occasion was interrupted by the Red Triangle Gang's rampage on Gotham Plaza.

Later, the Penguin challenged the Mayor of Gotham to authorize a new tree-lighting ceremony, ostensibly as a means of testing his competency, but in reality, in order to enact part of his plan to frame Batman, discredit the Mayor, and thereby enhance his own mayoral bid. Consequently, the Ice Princess was called again to preside over the tree-lighting honors.

The Ice Princess was rehearsing the tree-lighting process when Bruce Wayne invited Selina Kyle to Wayne Manor to watch the ceremony on television. She appeared to be visibly irritated with the various people trying to advise her on the instructions for lighting the tree.

Assault and Kidnapping[]

Batman-returns-disneyscreencaps — The Ice Princess visited by The Penguin.

Later that evening, the Ice Princess was in her dressing room mentally struggling to go over the simple instructions for lighting the tree when the Penguin and the Poodle Lady burst in. Although the Ice Princess was initially alarmed, since she had no clue who the Penguin was, despite his various appearances in the news over the previous few days, she was instantly reassured once the Penguin had introduced himself as a talent scout. After she mistook Batman's Super-Batarang, stolen by a circus poodle during the Red Triangle gang's fight with Batman, for a camera, the Ice Princess proudly posed for a picture at the Penguin's request. The Penguin then hurled the Batarang into the Ice Princess's forehead to knock her unconscious. Cobblepot then kidnapped her and left the bloody weapon in the tent and thus, framed Batman for her kidnapping.

The Ice Princess was then moved to an abandoned firetrap owned by Max Shreck and bound to a chair where she would be plainly visible though windows by Batman when scaling rooftops. Commissioner Gordon was forced to present the evidence from her tent on live news coverage, so that Batman could get wind of it. Gordon seemed hesitant to blame Batman, but a bloodstained Batarang seemed to point to his taking part in the kidnapping. Batman arrived later and soon spotted the Ice Princess, he then raced to her rescue. Before Batman had finished untying the Ice Princess, Catwoman swung down from the shadowed ceiling and kicked Batman away from her. Catwoman cut the binds that held the Ice Princess to the chair, wrapped her whip around the Ice Princess' throat, and choked her.

Death[]

"Gotta go, girl talk!"

―Catwoman^[src]

Catwoman then fled to the roof dragging the gagging Ice Princess behind her. Batman followed, but when he got to the roof, Catwoman was nowhere to be seen. The Ice Princess was alone standing on a ledge, but before Batman had a chance to help her down off the edge of the roof, the Penguin appeared and threw an umbrella that burst open and released a swarm of bats. The Ice Princess panicked and tried to swat them away. However, the Ice Princess lost her balance, fell off the roof, plunged to her death, and crashed onto the very button that she would have pressed to light up the Christmas Tree. Instead of activating the tree lights, the impact of the Ice Princess's body landing on the control box released several hundred bats that were hidden inside the tree, which created little doubt in Gotham's citizens minds that Batman had pushed her off the building moments earlier.

Legacy[]

The public blamed Batman for her murder for a brief period, further outrage was caused when the Batmobile went haywire shortly after, destroying public property and hitting protesting civilians. However, during a Cobblepot Rally the following day, Cobblepot's true nature was revealed to the public when the loud speakers at the event were mysteriously hacked, looping quotes he made the previous night.

Some time after Penguin's defeat, the Batsignal was lit once again by the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon, indicating they'd realized Batman's innocence.^[1] The Batarang weapon with her bloodstains was kept by GCPD as evidence.^[2]

Personality[]

The character is primarily depicted as vapid and vain. She believed that the tree lit up before she pressed the tree-lighting button, she didn't know who the Penguin was even though his story had been all over the news, and she fell for the Penguin's lie that he was a talent scout and that a stolen Batarang was a camera. She also foolishly chose to stay on a perilously high ledge after Catwoman had left her there, apparently beleiving she had reasoned with the Catwoman as long she remained on the the ledge. When Batman spotted her, he also advised to stay there and not move so she continued until her death. However, apart from being extremely naïve, she was also incredibly beautiful, curvaceous, bubbly, and sexy, and had, until her fatal kidnap, apparently she thoughtlessly breezed through life.

Appearance[]

The Ice Princess's costume consisted of a shiny, diamond-studded, silver white-fox-fur-lined corset, fur-lined silver and black gloves, and black boots, which she wore under a white-fox-fur-lined winter coat, and she possessed the golden blonde hair, blue eyes, and buxom figure of a typical 1950's beauty queen.

Behind the Scenes[]

In the original screenplay and novelization of the film, the Ice Princess was depicted as shoving an elderly woman to the ground during the Red Triangle Gang's attack on Gotham Plaza, contrary to the seemingly charming and sweet image that she presented during the lighting of the Christmas Tree. Cristi Conaway, the actress who played the Ice Princess, confirmed as much in a 1992 interview with Entertainment Weekly when she described her Batman Returns character as the type "to push an old lady down and try to fix her nail at the same time".
In Michael Singer's 1992 Batman Returns: The Official Movie Book, Conaway described her character as follows: "I don't think she's particularly well-read. But I think she's read every issue of Vogue that was ever published."