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meraki-yao · 8 months

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RWRB Movie Analysis + Feelings: The King, and Parental Love

Okay heads up, this is gonna be an amalgam of a meta/analysis, and my own feelings and experience/me venting, because I’m going through some things right now in my life and this is how I cope.

So in the book, the “final boss” on Alex's side is Richards. In the movie, I would say it’s more the action of being outed than Miguel himself, but yeah. The former is politically driven to screw things up while the latter is career-driven. To understand this change please read this essay.

Henry’s “final boss” is his Grandmother Queen Mary in the book, and his Grandfather King James in the movie. These two are in a similar position: the head of the monarchy and of the family, both trying to make Henry hide the truth. On first glance it might feel like they simply gender-bent the Queen for the movie for the sake of distancing the movie from the actual royal family, which, fair.

(Tangent: Also the fact that Stephen Fry is not only a gay icon in the UK but also a good friend of King Charles, yet he took this role without hesitation, I applaud you Sir)

But as I watched the Buckingham confrontation more, I noticed something.

And I noticed this because I’m familiar with it, in fact I’m living with it.

Either way, both the Queen and the King wanted Henry to hide his sexuality. That is forcing him into the closet, especially the way the Queen still brings up finding a wife in the book and Alex is right there, it’s forcing him into the closet for his entire life. That, is awful.

But there’s a difference.

In the book, Queen Mary doesn’t care about Henry. She berates Henry for damaging the crown’s image. She only mentions things from his perspective and says she’s only “protecting” him when she’s trying to convince Henry once she realizes that he’s not going to budge. She barely acknowledges Alex. Even till the end, she never really gave in: Princess Catherine gave her an ultimatum, and because she still wants to be in power, she extremely begrudgingly, agreed to Catherine’s terms. Not Henry, Catherine’s. It just so happens that Catherine’s terms are supporting Henry. On top of that, Catherine mentions feeling awful because of Mary (Quote: “And I swear on my life, and Arthur’s. I will take you off the throne before I will let them feel the things you made me feel”), so it’s clear that this is generational. Queen Mary is arrogant, power-hungry, and uncaring for her children and grandchildren. All she sees is the crown. She does not love Henry.

Okay, now look at the movie.

In the movie, King James says he’s protecting Henry at the start of the conversation. He admits that Alex and Henry’s love is genuine. He says the nation will not accept a prince who is homosexual. Which is still bullshit, but look at it. He’s speaking about Henry. This is about Henry. This isn’t about the crown as a whole, this is about Henry being shunned. About Henry facing scrutiny. He even says no one is saying Henry doesn’t deserve to be happy, and the implication there is that he thinks Henry will be unhappy if he comes out. In the end, he didn’t stop Henry from going onto the balcony when, as terrible as it would be, he could have. He just asked if Henry was sure because there is no turning back. He stepped back from the situation, and with a warning, let Henry decide for himself.

So here’s the thing.

There’s a type of parents, that truly do love their child and want them to be happy. But it comes out wrong and hurtful, because they want what they think is the best for their kid, without considering what their kid actually wants. They stick with the world and mindset they grew up with, and enforce that on their child, without acknowledging that after decades, the world the child lives in, and the world they lived in at that age, are extremely different. They want their kids to get the things that make the parents happy, but they don’t realize that the same thing might not make the child happy, maybe even make the kid feel worse. This is a different type of pain than straight-up abuse and neglect. (Please note that I am absolutely not saying that this type of pain is more than abuse/neglect. Abuse/neglect is still extremely fucking awful. But pain isn’t something that should be compared.)

And I say this, because my parents belong to this category. And it took me 18 years to realize that they can truly love me, and hurt me at the same time, and it’s not actually my fault that I feel bad about myself, it’s theirs.

Here’s the personal part. Please bear with me. (If you’re not interested, or find family issues or devaluing of mental health issues potentially triggering, please skip to *****)

My parents are older for my cohort, come from an extremely traditional and conservative society, and immigrated to my city during the 90s. I’m Gen Z. So our generation gap and cultural gap ended up being pretty fucking wide. I’m a very emotional, artsy person while my parents are pragmatic and hold traditional ideas very strictly. So what happens is that they don’t value the things I want to and like to do, because it doesn’t fit the perspective they grew up with and ended up being stuck with. I’ll state two examples from the clusterfuck that is my life.

Last night when I tried to subtly explain my recent struggles to my mom, she straight up said emotional people are egotistical and tend to end up mentally ill by their own doing. I excused myself and locked myself in my room to sob for ten minutes because whether or not she realised it, she was also talking about me, and holy fuck it hurt. What she said is fucked up, but the problem is I know why she thinks this way: a combination of her personality, personal experience, society and environment resulted in this perception being the only way she has ever viewed emotional people, and she just… never changed. Maybe if she heard more narratives or stories about “emotional people” she might change her mind, but right now the only exception is her daughter, who she can easily pass off as “not trying hard enough”.

My personal choices for university were between psychology, science & arts, and sociology, but on the day of finalizing my university choices, my parents spent hours telling me, in both shouting matches, and gently convincing in the same tone the king tries to persuade Henry with, about how those degrees aren’t useful, and I won’t get a job, and they need me to support myself by 25. Under pressure, borderline hysteria and non-stop crying from said pressure, and the knowledge that 1, I can’t convince them at this stage 2, I’m running out of time 3, they’re paying for my tuition, I caved in. I am now stuck with a degree I hate and feel like I have no motivation to live every fucking day. I meant it when I said RWRB is like, my only light in life right now. I’m literally writing this to avoid schoolwork. I’m also not saying my parents’ concerns aren’t valid, they are, that being said it took me so long to realize that it is not normal for me to feel so shit about myself and my life every fucking day, and that we didn’t even come to a compromise, because based on what their society taught them, they think they’re in the absolute right, and I’m being naïve, and they ended up forcing me into this. I refuse to say this was my choice. It wasn’t. It’s theirs.

*****

Movies, books and shows are my escapism. I find comfort in stories, and even more so when I see characters who I can relate to, who are in same way, starting at a point where I am.

When I read the book, I fell in love with both of the boys. But between them, I related more to Henry: a family who doesn’t understand us, with the sole exception being our sister, having out-dated traditional ideas enforced on us, and having parts of us being invalidated. Granted Henry’s core issue being his sexuality and my core issue being my personality and interest makes the whole issue still different, but there are bits and pieces that are similar, and I find comfort in that.

But then I watched the movie, and for some reason it hit harder. I found myself relating more to Movie Henry than Book Henry (again, I love them both, one’s not better than the other, they are different, and both precious). And I ended up clocking it on the King.

The king didn’t come across to me as cold and uncaring the way the Queen in the book did. He came across to me as someone who genuinely loves Henry, but failed to understand how Henry wanted and needed to be loved, and failed to see how the perception and opinions of the younger generation have changed. Let’s be honest, having a heterosexual prince isn’t a requirement the way the King and subsequently Henry viewed it, it’s just an expectation because that’s how the royal family’s image in the past was: either you’re straight, or you’re queer and hidden. The King was stuck with that expectation while ignoring the growing acceptance of the LGBT+ community among the people, even for prominent figures, because that wasn’t the society that he was raised in, and therefore stuck with. The king meant it when he said he wanted to protect Henry, and he didn’t support Henry because he believed that Henry was naïve or not looking at the bigger picture when he wanted to come clean about his relationship and that doing so would be Henry’s detriment. I have heard that used on me too many times.

The king loves Henry the way my parents love me: genuine, but ultimately hurtful.

And in all honesty, I think that might be a more relatable/humanizing characterization for this type of family member.

With this in mind, I do believe that perhaps when Henry was younger, when he was a boy, he had good memories with his grandfather the way I still do make good memories with my family despite all the conflict, that once upon a time the King wasn’t the king to Henry, but just Grandpa who would let him sit on his lap and read stories to him. I can’t see the Queen from the book doing that at all.

(There’s also this incredible fic imagining King James “protecting” Henry because he too is gay, but lost his love during a far more unforgiving and cruel period of time, thus fearing for Henry, It’s absolutely magnificent, please go check it out: AO3 link)

I know I said I’m on the fence about getting a sequel (although if we do get one of course I’m watching it regardless), but this feels like something, granted unique to the movie, that would be interesting to explore. Somewhat like the conclusion of Disney’s Encanto, where the older generation needs to realize that their way of thinking is outdated and hurtful and that they need to listen to what the younger ones have to say. (the younger ones aren’t always right, but they need to at the very least, be heard and respected)

The King in the movie does truly love Henry, and that, allows space for forgiveness and reconciliation, and a chance for him to learn to love his grandson in the right way. It would be nice to see that.

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