Even the most quarrelsome couple on House Hunters would agree that Carl’s house is a treasure. It’s quirky, it’s Victorian, and it comes furnished with millions of balloons. What’s not to love? We’ll tell you what: it’s a symbol of Carl’s stubborn, unhealthy relationship with the past.

Carl’s house is a memorial to Ellie. Heck, it’s practically a shrine. Her pictures are everywhere, and Carl talks to her on the regular. That may seem touching, but it’s also a little creepy, right? Carl holes up in that house like a hermit and refuses to leave and interact with the world around him. By hiding in his house, he’s hiding in a past that he can never recapture, spinning his wheels until he can join Ellie. What Carl needs to do is move on, pronto.

The weight of Carl’s house—and all of the memories it holds—is crushing, and it’s further illustrated by the way Carl struggles to lug it through the jungle to Paradise Falls. He’s literally tied to his past. He can’t change or grow or live a remotely awesome life until, in the wise words of another complicated Disney star, Queen Elsa of Arendelle, he lets it go.

And that’s exactly what happens. When the cord snaps on Carl’s house during his climactic battle with Muntz, the house floats away and Carl is finally free. “It’s just a house,” he tells Russell when Russell offers his condolences over his AWOL abode. Carl’s finally ready to rejoin the land of the living and build a new foundation for adventure.

Ellie will always be with him, of course; but she’ll be in his heart.