Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
"He dug deep to find powers...". That discounts hats, rings, magical lamps and all other means of external magic.

GW
All right, devil's advocate time:

If the hat is like the hat that animated Frosty the Snowman (kind of what I got from the suggestion), especially with Elan saying "shoot the hat," I would argue that the hat is not a normal magical item, but possesses some sort of intelligence, and is the animating force of the snowman, and is the actual spirit, while the snow forms the body (Fiend of Possession-ish perhaps), and the hat digs into its innate magical abilities to cause the escape.

Then again, this would be something Rich made up, and I believe the image is from the Kickstarter, so unless we have evidence of this snowman being created prior to strip 100, for something other than OOTS, I think it would violate the fine line.