Young Royals Analysis - Blog Posts

I’ve always wanted to write Wilmon fic but nothing I write sounds like their authentic voice. You always manage to get them so in character, sometimes it feels like you’re secretory in the writer’s room. I guess I’m asking if you have any tips or tricks for characterizing Wille/Simon

Surprise, I’m actually Lisa

But thank you anon, that’s so sweet. Let me kind of lay out my thoughts on how I write them and hopefully that will help.

In general, I think you should always start with a character’s flaws and build their reactions to events/people from there. It’ll also give you a good starting place for whatever emotional journey you want to take them on.

For Wille’s flaws: there’s a lack of emotional maturity here. Wille’s usually not intentionally mean, but most of his flaws come from how unaware he is and how he ends up unintentionally hurting the people around him but is often unable to understand how he did so because, to him, his actions are always, completely justifiable. He’s almost emotionally stunted in a way, and he kind of has trouble identifying what he’s feeling at any given moment which is what makes him tip towards anger and frustration more often than not. He reacts poorly to situations and people he can’t control, which is a hallmark symptom of anxiety. As a result, he has trouble putting words to his thoughts in a meaningful, constructive way. He’s impulsive and stubborn and self absorbed.

For Simon’s flaws: he’s actually incredibly emotionally intelligent and very perceptive - but he uses this intelligence to be intentionally cruel when he’s angry. For example, in arguments with Wille or Sara, he uses his intellect to pinpoint exactly what he needs to say to cut them down completely. He’s very, very good at getting the last word and sometimes he gets kind of consumed by that. Simon’s definitely not the super nice approachable guy at school - he’s a cunt to Wille on his very first day, he’s loud and outspoken, and hard headed. He’s also got a slightly hypocritical streak of idealism where he’s an idealist when it comes to the things that affect him, but is sometimes unable to offer the same grace to other people, especially when he’s angry or hurt. He also has a difficult time asking for help and being vulnerable.

Wille’s positives: he’s loyal, romantic, and he doesn’t have a wandering eye, he likes being coddled a little and is unafraid to ask for it, he’s quicker to admit that he’s wrong and knows when to give in, he’s also incredibly bold and brave - he’s unafraid to be the black sheep of the family, but he still loves his family and wants them to be proud of him.

Simon’s positives: he’s incredibly selfless and wants to take care of the people he loves and genuinely likes being there for them, he likes being supported but not protected - he loves that Wille respects his autonomy and thinks he’s capable, he has a strong sense of right and wrong and he stands up for what he believes in even if it might hurt him or if he might end up being wrong. he’s also a romantic and he definitely likes grand gestures and praise.

As for their dynamic, I always liken it to that old Christmas story where the husband sells his prized pocket watch to buy his wife a set of expensive combs, only for her to have cut and sold her hair to buy him a gold chain for his watch.

Just don’t be afraid to make them fight and annoy each other and not always say the right thing. It doesn’t take away from their love in any way.

Sorry this got out of hand, but I could talk about it forever. Hopefully that was even the slightest bit helpful ❣️

okay but imagine being Linda in this situation like: you got married a while ago but he turned out to be an alcoholic and just generally a bit of a loser so as soon as you aren't at risk of being homeless anymore you divorce him and it may be tough but at least you got your two wonderful children out of it and you decide you're going to raise them into good, responsible, polite and hard working people. They've always been a bit different, your daughter is neurodivergent and gets along with horses better than with people and your son is a really polictically active gay musician who probably wants to sing at some point in his life. Neither of those things are paying really well but you'll be damned if you don't support their dreams. So you make them work hard at school so you can get them into this really popular and renowned boarding school where they can follow their dreams. All of your good parenting and support pays off and they actually get into said school.

Within a year both of them get involved in a national sex-scandal involving the royal family, your daughter sets a building on fire and now owns a horse and a car apparently, while your son briefly dealt with drugs, fistfought a guy, changed the schools anthem and also made the current crown prince abdicate by being a bit too woke and cute at the same time. Also the school closed down due to all the shit your children were involved in and your son owns a lot of money now.

Like- Linda really just released two well raised children into the upper class and watched the system crumble. Queen behaviour nobody is doing it like her.

Thank you for writing this.

Naturally we all know that this in no way excuses August's literal crimes he's committed against other children, and simultaneously I do think the context is important. Abusers don't just *poof* materialize out of nowhere -- they're created and made by the influences / forces around them. (And then the newly-created abuser is responsible for the choices they make and actions they take afterwards, of course).

I've actually been thinking about the trauma August has experienced (at Hillerska + pre-Hillerska) a lot, ever since Young Royals season 1. We had two striking examples there of times August was about to try and open up (strangely to Wille, of all people) before being immediately cut off and ignored.

First example, S1E4: After the Society initiation for Wilhelm, before he ends up on the football field. August and Wille are outside peeing, and Wille is intoxicatedly expressing his guilt, grief, and conflicted feelings to August after his brother's death. August begins to open up as well, saying he *too* felt guilty after his father's death (suicide) and that he was somehow to blame. He doesn't even get to finish that sentence before drunken Wille cuts him off mid-thought. The look on August's face at that point is one that always cuts me to my core & brings me sorrow.

The second time was in S1E6, after August had already uploaded the video. Wille knew about it, but didn't know it was August's doing. In either a show of remorse, or as a kind of play-acting fakeness, August shows up to Wilhelm's room to offer him (fake or genuine?) consolation and advice. He begins to thank Wille for helping him with he tuition fees before Wilhelm cuts him off and says (essentially) that no one will ever be as helpful as Erik and he'd rather be talking to him, hearing Erik's advice. This isn't technically a "rehashing of trauma" moment at all -- but it is a moment where August was about to show vulnerability to someone who helped him, and August isn't used to being helped. Both of his parents abandoned him: his father to death, and his mother to Hillerska. Now this little cousin he's been hazing and betraying actually does something kind for him -- and he isn't able to access sufficient airspace to acknowledge it and share a moment of gratitude. Wilhelm never acknowledges that he heard August at all. His face, again, seems to communicate something really complicated and dejected then.

All this is to say -- I've just been spending a lot of time trying to understand August and meditating on the complicated, conflicting ways he shows up, and especially about his relationship to vulnerability. Not in order to forgive him! The crime he committed was truly evil and inexcusable. But I do want to understand. I want to know. How did he come to be this way? Where did all of this evolve from? And he always really fascinates me for these reasons.

August's story is not "good boy turned bad at Hillerska" but something so much more complicated.

I've been thinking a lot about August and the revelations in S3. About how Erik and co played an even bigger role in his indoctrination and development into a toxic mess of a young man than I had imagined - but how it's also important to remember that didn't happen in a vacuum.

The new information doesn't cancel out the old, it just completes it.

August will have still grown up in the highly patriarchal, misogynist, elitist system of the aristocracy, with a very specific view of the world and his place in it. Idolising his father, whose tux he is fittingly wearing when he gets "awarded" the bad boy trophy. A man who taught him by example that death was preferable to failure - and seemingly turned him against his mother, as we could infer from S1E3. A mother who then essentially dumped him off at Hillerska after his father's death and left him feeling like the only woman in his life failed to support them both.

It's precisely these kinds of views, values and experiences from his early life that will have primed him for the culture of abuse at Hillerska (which his father will have also attended back in the day). Made him so desperate for the older boys' approval, vulnerable to their abuse, and susceptible to the awful patterns they impressed upon him. Erik and the others' part in messing him up is horrible and bigger than we thought, but that doesn't cancel out his parents' part any more than his own victimhood excuses his victimisation of others. He's got many intersecting and partially overlapping cycles to break, and I really hope we see him take more steps down that road on Monday.

I may write a longer meta post on him after the finale. For now, though, I'm just going to engage in some shameless self-promo and point to my old analysis post with more thoughts on his upbringing and worldview as well as the backstory one-shot I wrote in the run-up to S3. (It's set two and a half years before his arrival at Hillerska and focuses on his father's horrible influence, as well as his parents' marriage as a possible model for his seemingly contradicting views of women and romance. It remains compatible with canon apart from a few details - please check the tags for content warnings, though).

Would like to gently remind everyone that in less than a year Wille had to transfer schools against his will, got made fun of for the club fight on social media, got hazed in an incredibly traumatizing way, lost his brother, learned shit about his brother, been betrayed by someone he thought he could trust (because of his brother), fell in love, was outed very publicly, had a recording of him having sex leaked, was forced into the closet by his own mother, lost the boy he loved, came out to the entire world, had to take on a bigger role as the Crown Prince, never got time to grieve, continues to get manipulated by his mother and the court, is hounded by the press and just 17. And there’s probably more I could mention.

Yes, of fucking course he isn’t perfect. He also grew up in a super toxic environment where he didn’t learn shit about controlling his emotions or healthy communication. But he’s trying and willing to learn. I really don’t get why he’s being judged as harshly.

I already wrote this on Twitter and Reddit, but I like what I wrote, so I’m posting it here too. Meh. So sue me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After sitting with Young Royals S3 for a few days, I have a new main takeaway, after letting myself feel the initial rage & grief & hurt & disappointment.

New takeaways:

While Seasons 1 & 2 were primarily a love story, S3 is a very serious, thoughtful, and important meditation on trauma + the impacts of abuse & neglect on kids.

I hate almost every single adult in the YR universe. They emotionally abandoned these kids in general life + during moments of severe crisis & trauma, both past & present. They set these kids up to fail. And when those children did inevitably fail, the adult washed their hands clean of responsibility and pinned the blame solely on the kids.

Very few of these children have any coping skills or communication skills at all. Even the ones who WANT to show up for each other properly, and who don’t want to hurt each other (one example being Wille), end up hurting others anyway because they’ve never learned any other ways of interacting.

Here's a "brief" list of some of the traumas (that we know about) these kids have endured:

Revenge CP sex tape

Online & in-person harassment (esp. Simon)

Homophobic hazings to terrorize, demean, & publicly humiliate them

Violence (related to #3 above)

Grief & loss, including death (but not limited to death -- see #s 8 & 10)

Familial betrayal

Familial substance abuse & possible DV (related to #6)

CONSTANT invalidation, dismissal, minimization, & victim-blaming (esp. with the Royal Family)

Emotional neglect & abandonment (closely related to point #8)

Even being on the receiving end of outright contempt & disdain from one's own family

Control & surveillance from the Royal Court

It's no fucking wonder these children are so messed up & don't know how to navigate life & relationships.

Of course, they're still responsible for their actions. Accountability still remains extremely important. (Which is where introspection, taking corrective action, & pursuing repair come into play.) I'm in no way arguing that this excuses anything. *And* simultaneously, the adults in their lives have failed them so badly -- leading us to arrive here, at S3.

It reminds me of one of my favorite adages that I use in my mental health line of work all the time: "It's not our fault what happens to us. But it is our responsibility what we do next."

Realistically, I don't know how kids are supposed to manage this on their own. Being wounded so much, surrounded & overwhelmed by so many pressures, with very close to ZERO adult supervision, support, or help. It just wounds my soul to see the impact it's having on them.

I'm thinking about all of this in the context of several characters... but in particular (obviously) Wilhelm & Simon. And truthfully, especially for Wille, because I had such a hard time empathizing with him this season. I felt so deeply hurt by his obliviousness to Simon's pain, as well as both offended by and disappointed in his "all queers" comment and dismissing the opportunity to value Simon's politics or opinions on how he could use his position as Crown Prince to do good in the world. I was angry with the writers, too: like, how dare they? I wanted Wille to show up as a more evolved version of himself. I wanted his besotted-ness to translate into being a "better" person.

But, then I got to thinking... like, how in fact would he know to do that? Wille isn't trying to be cruel. In fact, I think he is in all actuality trying his hardest with the tiny amount of social skills he has to demonstrate the care he feels. (That does NOT excuse his actions, of course. I mean, poisoned cake, anyone??).

However, he is a child who is EXTREMELY overwhelmed and wracked with guilt... and with no way to realistically handle this. He has ZERO parental or even adult support (the best he's got is Farima; he doesn't even appear to have individual sessions with Boris anymore). There are exactly zero adults helping him to navigate this. I actually don't know how a child should or could know how to do better with all this pressure, especially because it all comes back to decisions he's made (to not conform to family+royal pressure, to come out, to publicly challenge traditions, etc.). The overwhelmingness of it must be enormous.

Compounded with that, no adult in his life has ever modeled to him how to properly talk to another human being about emotions. When he had emotions, he was minimized, dismissed, shut down, ignored. He has zero idea of how else to handle it, even if he wanted to handle it differently. Where & when would he have learned these skills? So, of course when Simon brings up his online harassment, he really doesn't know what else to do besides sigh and say "ignore it." I don't think he's actively trying to minimize. I think he has absolutely no other language that he's aware of to use. He just has no skills, support, or role modeling when it comes to this. He's in WAAAAAAAAY way over his head and never previously learned how to swim. I do really think Wille is trying his absolute best. (Which is not good enough, and he does need to learn to do better -- not an excuse, just a building up of context.)

In an ideal world, someone at this point would hand him a book on Reflective Listening skills so he could learn to validate, normalize, and properly attune to emotions. I think he probably wants to -- I see how concerned his expression is every time he looks at Simon after the window-rock incident, and after they overhear their classmates mocking Simon's revolution love song. He probably feels totally helpless, confused, disoriented, frustrated, & self-critical in his process of trying to figure out on his own how to listen to & validate others (I mean, he literally does say his attempts are always "clumsy").

I imagine his internal shame at being terrible at attunement & communication must be immense. He makes it clear that he's aware he's terrible at all of this, but doesn't seem to know what to do about it. (And again, there are NO adults to help him figure this out! Except for maybe Boris's mediation sessions...?) I wish someone would hand him the Nonviolent Communication skills book & workbook. He'd probably be able to heave a big sigh of relief, knowing how to talk to & be there for the people he loves. He'd probably feel more empowered, too, as a result, and therefore less anxious. Win-win-win.

In summary: I just feel so freaking heartbroken for Simon, Wille, & a lot of the other kids, too. They are CHILDREN. Adults are supposed to be role modeling for them, guiding them, helping them cope & navigate the pressures of life. INSTEAD, they just heap on *even more* trauma.

So... yeah. I think it's intriguing that the writers chose to shift to make Season 3 a meditation on trauma and its consequences. And now that I'm reframing the season through that lens in my mind, I'm able to sit with the content more easily and understand it better.

I really really wish everyone would get SHITTONS OF THERAPY in the YR universe (and also in real life, ha). Even better: go back in time and put all the adults in therapy, so their kids don't have to emotionally handle + figure out everything on their own! It's really not the kids' fault that they wound up with no skills or tools, and just confusedly trying to fumble their way through things in the dark. My heart really breaks for a lot of these kiddos, just trying their best and fucking it all up.

One example of how we are primed to empathize with Wille is that when Simon stands his ground and doesn’t accept the terms the monarchy puts on him. Wille lies to him, lies to the whole world basically throwing Simon under the bus regarding the leaked sex tape. And then wants Simon back to unconditionally love him on Willes terms. But a lot of people still only empathize with Wille and claim Simon is selfish when he is the one standing up for himself and against the monarchy first. The one actually standing up to the system. Wille says “I can be free” showing he can get out of the system but not questioning the system. Finally he stands up for Simon and himself, questioning the traditions within the system but please give Simon a better arc so we can sympathize and understand the ones outside the system better. Get his points of view and consequences for him. If Simon would have agreed to the terms of the system, Wille would not have learned and not questioned them. Simon is also a hero in this story.

.

Is it easier to empathise with Wille?

I have a LOT of empathy with Wille. His vast loneliness, his anxiety, and having less than stellar parents resonates deeply with me.

This post is NOT about empathising with Wille or not. It's about power, hierarchies and privilege, and what they do to our empathy and who we empathise with. The very themes of Young Royals itself.

We all live in hierarchical cultures. Privileges are unevenly distributed; some have more, most have less. Privilges are interesting because they shelter us from experiences, which in turn makes us less emphatic. We see it in August, Felice and Wille, all being blind to the realities of people outside their sheltered world of privilege. Right, "Simon would go to the police so he shouldn't know who posted revenge porn of him on the internet" Felice and Wille?

Prefering one character over another isn't wrong in itself of course!

On the other hand, to empathise with Wille while NOT noticing Simon's suffering, or disregarding it as less important indicates a certain amount of privilege. Not to mention not even recognizing Simon as a whole human being with his own needs and wants, but merely something Wille deserves, a reward for his suffering.

It's a mindset we've been brainwashed with through culture since the beginning of patriarchy (some 5-15K years ago). For gender reasons I was somewhat aware of it, but not explicitely until the #metoo movement of 2017. I've watched so many movies and series where the female characters is a reward for the hero.

It's what we're taught, so of course we normalise that one person can act like a reward or comfort for someone else's pain and suffering. Doesn't Wille deserve comfort when he's hurting? Don't I deserve comfort when I'm hurting?

The problem is the word DESERVE. When we feel like we deserve something from someone else, it's time to take a step back and check if the other person is okay with giving that comfort, and if we're offering comfort in return when needed. That was another lesson Wille had to learn. And he did! Very curious about season 3 and how well he learnt that lesson!

Living in Norway means on a global scale I have massive privilege. Yet on a local scale I barely have any privileges at all. It's impossible to ignore the class issue to cheer for the white boy, because my life is profoundly affected in a negative way by the very class systems that Young Royals is critical of.

To quote my fav indigenous Saemien/Sámi artist, actor, author, slam poet and activist Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen: "How do you endure, you ask? When the truth is that to live as a Sámi is a political act in itself. That just by breathing, I revolt."

It's impossible for me in any way, shape or form to empathise with Wille at the expense of Simon's emotions and integrity. I empathise with both; hierarchies hurt people in both ends of it. Wille is selfish for a long time, and though I empathise, I can't defend his behaviour. On the other hand, Simon had no one else to fight for him against the system of power and privilege so clearly rigged against him. It's the exact same system that is failing to protect disabled people from adverse health issues and social exclusion, perpetuates generational trauma and poverty, and continuing the massive ongoing cultural genocide of my own people in both Norway and Sweden.

Just like Simon, I lack the privileges required to shelter me from the realities of life at the bottom levels of the patriarchal hierarchy.

Emotional growth requires facing negative consequences for harmful behaviour. The older we are, the harsher the consequences need to be for us to learn. Look at August - on a path towards emotional growth, stopped dead in its tracks by the meeting with the queen. What he did was unforgivable imo, but I still hope he'll face the consequences required to learn and grow, because the alternative is so much worse for everyone else.

I much prefer emotionally immature boys to suffer the painful consequences of their actions, in order to mature into decent human beings - rather than being habitually coddled so that they never learn anything and continue perpetuating the patriarchy.

Wille wouldn't have learnt and grown unless Simon enforced his boundaries. The Wille who changed the speech wouldn't exist without having to face the painful consequences of his own actions, learning that other people's lives and emotions are just as important as his own.

The YR parallels are paralleling!

Thoughts and predictions based on the clip and on season 1 and 2, which I spent way too much time on writing.

Both in season 1 and 2 Wille isgazing longingly at Simon in Singing and/or playing piano. In season 3, he's also gazing longingly - but now they're together.

In season 1 and 2 we see Wille in front of mirrors so many times - but now it's Simon who's up for the scrutiny. And mirrors means parallels, parallels all the way down.

It's Simon who's standing in front of the mirror, and Wille is walking, moving, observing him.

This means that this season, Simon will parallel Wille's previous seasons, with media scrutiny. And boyfriend drama.

And what do we know about Simon? He's a boy with many secrets.

Lisa Ambjörn mentioned before, I think in an ask on insta, that all her main characters have a secret that they think will destroy them if it came out. And by now, we know all their secrets - or do we?

August: his family is broke, but even worse, that he posted the video.

Sara: she knew August posted the video, and that she was in love with him.

Felice: the sale of Rousseau. And the things she told Sara in the stables.

Wille: that it was him in the video, that he's in love with a boy.

Simon: that he sold drugs and booze. But is that all?

There are several parallels between Simon and August, such as their dads being addicts, having divorced parents, and having less money than their peers. The court asked for August's passwords to his socials. Nobody helped Simon lock down his accounts. He turned off his phone after the video, Rosh and Ayub came to his house to see him because he didn't answer them. So anything he posted would be there.

Nils is also a parallel character to Simon, they have a lot in common right? They're both gay, they're poc, neither Simon's nor Nils's family have generational wealth. And what does Nils do? He's on Grindr.

For those of you who've seen SKAM, you'll remember that Isak went on Grindr too. It's a common thing to explore. So it's likely - VERY likely - that Simon has or has had a Grindr account. He may have posted pictures there too. Imagine those pictures being spread online, that'd be both traumatic, a publicity nightmare - and potentially cause boyfriend drama; how would Wille react? I very much doubt "It's better not to tell unless someone asks" Simon has told Wille about his sexual history, if he has one. Despite his "No more secrets between us" from last season.

I couldn't find the right gif so you'll just have to suffer watching Wilmon kisses. How sad.

Jumping back to to happier parallels: Wille walks over to Simon and says hi. This is a reverse character parallel to when Simon walked down the closet corridor, where he kissed Wille for the first time. But now there's no closet! And again, this time, Wille and Simon are reversed. More hints that Simon's storyline will parallel Wille's from season 1.

Simon and Linda are there to make a joint statement statement. As a parallel to the first season - except this time, it's not Wille who lies, saying things it's obvious that he doesn't mean. It will be the queen who doesn't mean anything of what she's saying:

"In season 3 episode 1, the unresolved plot and the parallels dictates a statement supporting Wilhelm and Simon must come from the queen, possibly a joint statement with Linda. The queen will be forced to give it, it will be filled with lies, and she will not mean what she says. As a consequence,she is thrown into a new and scary situation where her position is under threat"

We don't know exactly why, only that it's not pleasant. The media must be going crazy. In season 1, the statement lead to Wille becoming a boarder at Hillerska. It's very likely that this statement will lead to Simon becoming a boarder at Hillerska. As we've seen, he's mirroring Wille now! That means there may be an initiation - a harmful tradition it's unlikely Wille would want Simon to go through.

On the other hand, I suspect he may very well parallel Sara and leave again. The interesting question is whether Wille moves in with the Erikssons in Bjärstad instead.

Wille says "I can't believe you're here, while he looks at the room he's in, and Simon mirrors him. That's a parallel to when Wille came to Bjärstad and said Simon's room was cozy. It's the wrong gif but I couldn't find the right one and that's one of my fav scenes, you'll just have to suffer it.

@books-books-smolderinglooks hit the nail on the head with these parallels - the first pair of gifs are from when Wille invited Simon to stay over at Hillerska after parents day, the last is when he says "I can show you" and Simon giddily hums in agreement. It's shot with the exact same angle on Simon's face, so we know what Wille wants - and we know exactly what he dreamt of. And again, this is a season 1 parallel.

And now we see the giddy smiles and playful behaviour from the lake date. Note that Simon invited Wille to Bjärstad, and Now Wille invites Simon to ...his room, probably. It also reminds us of when Wille invited himself to hang out with Simon in Bjärstad right before Erik died. This suggests that something will happen that may tear them apart. And it's probably related to some secret that Simon has, possibly related to his socials, to Grindr and whatever he did on there. Woops.

And here's the thing. Young Royals is heavily influenced by the Norwegian show SKAM. Even Wilhelm's name is the nickname Noora gave William in season 1, to mock his status. And Noora has a past that is revealed, and a plotline that is pretty traumatic, and I'm beginning to suspect that Simon have a similar past. I'm very happy about this though, because to me, their story was pretty problematic at times, in ways Young Royals is not.

Go watch SKAM if you haven't! [Head over to @skamenglishsubs on desktop to watch with English texts.]

To end on a happy note, Wille says, "They won't start without us." As long as they stick together, they have a lot of leverage now! And Wille isn't afraid to use it. This also reminds me of when Simon asked Wille to skip class - again, their roles are reversed.

Looks like we'll get them together for a Bjärstad repeat, but in the palace, to shore us up for the drama that is coming. With a huge potential for boyfriend drama too. BUT also with an equally huge potential for Wille and Simon challenging the toxic traditions at Hillerska - and the royal house itself.

I'd love to talk more about the locker room scene in S2 E2 of Young Royals, where Wilhelm tries to convince Simon to get back together with him, in the process (sadly) demonstrating that he believes his mother's feeble offer to "talk" about him possibly coming out when he's 18. This takes place after his almost-removal from Hillerska.

Plenty of people have already pointed out how Henry snitched on Wille and Felice’s kiss, but apparently didn’t choose to tell anyone (as far as we’re aware) about Wilhelm almost pleading with Simon to get back together with him during that post-almost-dragged-out-of-Hillerska conversation. And that's definitely an interesting thing to chew on. But there's more...

Here are a few other things that stand out to me too:

First -

I think it’s worth pointing out the obvious — Wilhelm clearly sees Simon in his future long-term (possibly for the rest of his life). The way he casually says to Simon “So, we’d only have to keep it a secret for 2 years” implies three things very clearly.

a) He immediately and easily sees himself together with Simon in 2 years and beyond. Actually, specifically, definitely beyond. Because his eye is on the prize: coming out and living openly with Simon *after* he turns 18 — implying his focus is entirely on the intended afterwards period. He doesn’t even blink at that idea; it’s obvious to him.

b) He also really doesn’t seem to think 2 years is a big deal. For a teenager who’s only lived 16 years on this planet (only approximately ~11-ish of them in a state where they’re forming conscious memories) to think 2 years is just a drop in the bucket is kind of wild. Even 6 months feels like forever to a kid. So Wilhelm — a child — viewing time from this perspective suggests he’s likely balancing 2 years out against a much longer expanse of time; hence why those 24 months would look so minuscule and shrug-worthy by comparison. In other words: he sees himself with Simon in the LONG long term. Two years is nothing if you’re imagining growing old with someone and spending the rest of your many decades on this Earth with them. (All of this is pretty much confirmed later on in S2, when Wilhelm offers to abdicate the throne for Simon.)

c) He also doesn’t seem to think Simon should be appalled by the idea of waiting for 2 years. Yes, sure, we can chalk part of that up to selfishness and lack of mentalization / empathy for Simon’s point of view. But I’m going to suggest it’s more than that. My takeaway is that he assumes Simon also sees them as endgame, and so naturally wouldn’t be bothered by waiting a bit longer in order to spend forever together. (Sadly the conversation does not play out that way for him; ouch. Though no shade to Simon: what he said in response was realistic and fair.)

Second -

I think we have to rewatch his interactions with Simon as Henry slams a door and slowly walks past them with a raised eyebrow. Because, in S1, that Wilhelm would have immediately jumped away from Simon to create distance and try to pretend there’s plausible deniability about what their relationship has been and could be again. That’s (one) part of the whole point of S1: Wilhelm is not ready to be brave enough to face a homophobic aristocratic world and take a bold stance to stand by Simon.

Instead, in S2 E2, he sits still. He stays right next to Simon. In fact, he *leaves his hand resting directly on Simon’s thigh.* And he knows someone is coming their way! He heard the door slam inside the locker room. Obviously he knows someone else is here. But he doesn’t jump. He actually doesn’t really stir much at all.

He sits there like it’s of no importance, and he doesn’t care who sees. Or, even, who overheard this very intimate, vulnerable, and pleading conversation. A conversation in which the future King of their country is almost on the verge of begging his ex to please be his again… not just for now, but for multiple years’ time. I mean we’re like 2 steps away from Wille practically offering Simon a “promise ring” (not sure if that concept holds up in Europe, but it’s basically a very pre-engagement type thing in the US; it’s not common though). (Their convo also makes it very clear Simon was the one who dumped him and that he’s having trouble accepting that and moving on.)

Yet he doesn’t seem perturbed or disturbed by Henry’s presence and overhearing and seeing them. He doesn’t seem embarrassed at all. He’s not ashamed of his love for Simon. Even more specifically, he’s not afraid of people (Henry) seeing him put his heart out on the line, and of them knowing that he wants Simon back - not for just a hook-up, but for a very long-term, serious, committed relationship. And he doesn’t make any moves to emotionally or physically distance himself from Simon, despite Henry’s clear witnessing of this private moment.

This is a subtle way to show that, even though Wille hasn't yet gone through his full S2 journey of self-awareness and self-growth, he has still already begun changing and growing after the end of S1. So he’s at least started to learn some of his lessons about what he needs to do differently.

Anyhoo, the whole point I’m trying to make is… gosh there were so many fascinating things happening in that scene. And they rush right past us in the blink of an eye! But there is so much meaning built into every small interaction and non-interaction there, and into every nonchalant assumption the characters casually voice.

I’m sure there’s more meaning and are more details I missed, too! What did you think? I’d love to learn more from others’ perspectives, too. :)

Blocking – Wilhelm's many 'switches'

I'm currently taking a tumblr break. Linking this here in case somebody missed it and wants to read it:

Blocking – Wilhelm's many 'switches': Wilhelm switches places with other characters three times in 1x01 (not just with Erik). What does it all mean?

Read more about it here:

tvmicroscope.substack.com

Blocking: Wilhelm’s many ‘switches’ (example: “Young Royals”)

Wilhelm switches places with other characters three times in episode one – not just with Erik. What does it all mean?

This article is FREE.