Can We Just Say How “Young Royals” Had CRACK IN IT. Like There Was Never A Boring Moment, And Every

Good article from Teen Vogue with a Q&A with Lisa Ambjorn. Spoilers galore for YR S3.

Teen Vogue

'Young Royals' Took Simon’s Harassment From Real Life Edvin/Omar Speculation

Creator and head writer Lisa Ambjörn tells all about the show’s final season.

The cruelty of racist white men.

Unintentionally ominous sign a friend took a photo of at a JoAnn's that's closing.

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.

Quietly losing my mind over the fact that Elon Musk has straight up orchestrated a coup of our executive branch and like....I don't even know what, if any, system we have in place to fix this. Like... He's just taken control of the money and locked out the actual appointed officials. What the fuck.

I kind of love the use of dirt in S1E4? 

When the episode starts, Wille is laying his head on Erik’s casket. He reaches out for some dirt on it as the last conversation they have when Erik leaves Wille at Hillerska in episode 1 plays in the background. The words' dual meaning becomes obvious.

Wille touches the dirt, feels it. The dirt is real. There's not much of it, but it's real. And he's losing it. He's lost the one thing in his life that is real--his relationship with his brother, Erik.

For most of his life, I’d imagine that Erik was the only person in the world with whom Wille could be fully real. And Erik was probably one of the only people who was real with Wille back.  The only person with whom he could have a real relationship.  Who didn’t expect a polite, respectful prince and nothing else. Who would tell Wille to run on the count of three during a boring photoshoot and slip down the muddy hill with him.  

And then Erik dies. The only real connection that Wille can ever remember having in the world is gone. And Wille is realizing that he pushed the very last glimmer of a real connection away.  And nothing feels real any more. So Wille goes to the football field where he was with Simon, a place where he felt truly normal, looking for something that will make him feel real. And all he finds is astroturf—no real dirt. He realizes that without Simon, there’s nothing real left in his life. No one who sees him and accepts him for who he really is. No one who knows the real Wille, who is messy and dirty, and still cares for him regardless.

And it sinks in. Without Erik, there’s nothing tethering Wille to this earth any more. The rest of the world seems further and further away.  Fake, as Wille discovers the astroturf on the soccer field is.  So, Wille reaches out for Simon, the one person who can ground him again. 

The only real thing that Wille has left in his life is Simon.  He’s the only person left who would ever be fully real with Wille. Tell Wille that he’s actually the country's biggest welfare recipient. Give Wille shit when he tries to hide from August. Discreetly laugh in August’s face with him. Dare him to evade the cousin he hates for an evening to experience something totally normal with real people.

And not only that, but Simon is the only person left in his life who Wille can be fully real with at this point. No one else has any idea about the sexuality crisis that Wille is going through or how that plays into any of his feelings about ascending to the role of Crown Prince.  No one has any idea about what happened between him and Simon.  No one knows that he doesn’t really like August, or the school, or his role.  Except Simon.  Simon is the only one left who sees Wille for himself—a real person rather than a personification of his title.  

And, as Wille points out, what he and Simon have—what he feels for Simon, at the very least—is real.  Wille has tried to fight it, but the sheer reality of it rips through the paper-thin fake layers with which Wille tries to shield himself. “I’m not like that” and “I can’t do this any more.” But alone, out on the field, where Wille expected to find the normalcy he felt when he went to Rosh’s game, he’s surrounded by only reminders that nothing left is real.

So Wille reaches out for Simon—the only one who can ground him again. Because unlike the astroturf on which Prince Wilhelm's life is built, dirt is real. What they have is real.  And real life is messy, it’s dirty, and you can pretend otherwise, but you’ll end up falling down in the mud either way.  And Wille is choosing to grasp at the only thing left that he sees in his life that is real. Simon.

WILLE AND FELICE YOUNG ROYALS | 3.06

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.

I watch other things and they can be fun, they can make me feel things, but they make me realize that I am essentially monogamous for young royals

I’ve never broken down so hard seeing a shot. Simon’s face here broke me (in a incredible sad and happy both way).

And then…

That happened.

And I will always forever be in love with the way Simon looks at Wille. His forever prince, not by title anymore, but because he is his 💜