swanpride

Frankly, I think if Diana had lived longer, her perfect image would have been destroyed over time by the tabloid press. But since she died young and tragically, she is still throwing her shadow on the royals.

Frankly, I think the show kind of overstates how unhappy Diana was before the marriage. Yeah, I know, that's what she claimed in hindsight but, well, our memories tend to change over time. If she had really been THAT unhappy and the royal THAT unwelcoming, I doubt that she would have went through with it, face on towels or not. Personally I think that back then she was still deep in her fantasy and if there were things she was unhappy about, she most likely assumed that they would get better once they were married and Charles would be around all the time.

Well, they have this talk where they list the various girlfriend Charles had. But I really don't think that any of them are really important.

Yes, Thatcher opposed sanctions. And yes, her son was a businessman in South Africa. She always denied that there was any relation between those two, though. Question: The top secretary or whatever it is for the Queen, is that the same character she wanted to promote too early in season 1, or is this someone else?

Honestly, there is a lot they could have addressed regarding Anne last season which would have made this season less confusing. I guess part of the problem is that they assume that people know more about Anne than they actually do. It's a good thing that the next seasons are already planned out, since it means that there is a chance that they can correct problems like this in the script early on.

Lol...not my intention to imply anything like this. I just assumed that those who actually read and watch everything related to Diana would like to see as much as possible of her, hence they tried to please the "Queen of hearts" crowd. The show runners have to keep a balance between the history buffs and the ones who are there for the family drama. I feel that the history buffs kind of got the short stick for the second season in a row.

Anne is the least awful. At least her problems are understandable, and mostly out of her hands. Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. The Brits get a little bit more of a pass because they didn't start it, but it would be the most ridiculous war they ever fought if the Cod wars weren't a thing. What isn't forgivable is not that they retaliated, it is more that they acted as if they did a second round of WWII.

Why couldn't Charles marry her early on instead of wanting to play the bachelor for longer might be a better question. And why should she wait around for him? And why should she then leave her children just to be with him?

Granted, the victory parade was partly political. The whole thing was about narrative of the UK being "back" as powerful nation thanks to the great Maggie Thatcher. To be frank, I am not sure if she had even made it to another term without this kind of nonsense. So the parade was more about preserving power and less about her own ego.

To be fair...I am not sure if I would visit if I suddenly learned something like this. If I had the money I would make sure that they are well-cared for, but, well, family isn't just about blood ties, it is mostly about actually knowing each other, about growing up together. That the queen mother never bothered, that is disturbing, but that those who suddenly had new relatives they had no emotional connection to whatsoever never did, that is kind of understandable. If it is true that most of the royals didn't know themselves, at the point they learned about it the care personal had most likely more of a connection to the two than they had, to no fault of their own.

And her children. I guess they could have somehow gotten around the marriage thing, but I don't see anyone being okay with her bringing her then still underage children into the marriage with Charles. This naturally became less of an issue once they were grown up anyway.

John standing in front of the Explosion was CGI. But the explosion itself, that was totally real if you ask me. Just a construct of wood and paper they blow up, but the way it blow up was too...well...uneven to be CGI. If it had been CGI the people who did it could have managed to make John walking through the area and standing in front of the explosion look more convincing too.

And just like Margareth he is most likely wrong. If I had to pick one of the four to succeed Elizabeth, it would be Anne any day.

Thatcher, being pretty much a self-made women herself, suffered under the delusion that success is purely based on merit, and that people who aren't successful are just too lazy to truly try. In addition she didn't believe in "propping up dying industries" like coal mining, which isn't necessarily a wrong stance, but she never really bothered to think about what closing the coal mines would do to the communities dependent on them. There was a need to create new opportunities for the people living there, but Thatcher was instead speaking of "managed decline" of those cities...which was actually halted by EU money, but that is more something for the history discussion. Basically she was a fan of neoliberalism, the notion that the state shouldn't interfere in the markets at all because they regulate themselves. Back then it was a popular theory, but it has been thoroughly disproven by now through reality.

Also, maturity isn't really a question of age. But then, we will never know how much of diana's problems were truly caused by the marriage and how many of them were already there and just made worse during the marriage. Not everyone who is in a stressful situation decides to eat and then throw up.

Neither would I. But it would still be interesting to see how the writers of the show thinks the characters would react to certain historical events. And I am not surprised that Jerkins (and nope, that is not a typo) is more bothered about the notion that Diana might be portrayed too much as a victim than about anything else. Not that the point that movies and TV shows which portray real people as fictional characters is shaping our perception of them in a questionable manner is wrong, but if you go by this, you would have to remove the majority of movies. From Braveheart to The Life of Brian to Dunkirk, any take on history, no matter if it is meant to be patriotic, satirical or realistic, is shaping our perspective on it. And that, btw, independent from the question if the featured persons are real or not. Specifically in the case of Diana we have the problem that we are looking at decades of myth building. First there was the myth around her big romance, and later on we had the myth of the suffering martyr and just when it seemed like Diana's perfect image was falling apart, she tragically died, leading to another turn of myth building.

Was he shown in a bad light? I felt that it was portrayed fairly neutral. How you feel about him basically depends how you feel about the notion of the Commonwealth, specifically about Australia being part of it. He actually came off as pretty smart...including smart enough to realise when he had lost. Plus, there were a lot of reasons to move towards more independence back then. When the Brits joined the EU (back then still the EC), their trade interests shifted, which left Australia and co in quite a lurch, forcing it to look for alternative trade partners closer to home. And yes, it was a pretty one-sided relationship from the get go.

True...I still keep forgetting about Edward, which is a good sign in this case. I think the whole thing with the pool and the tennis court was less about teasing Charles and more about pointing out that his dedication to a "natural garden" stops the moment his own convenience is impacted. Not that I mind him being so obsessed with plants and the topic in general.

I can't imagine though that Diana had no idea who to curtsy to first with her upbringing, though. Plus, she couldn't know that she was interrupting anything.

Honestly, nobody really came off well in this episode aside from Thatcher's hubby. He was the only one who somewhat tried.

Frankly, I think Anne is the lucky one of the bunch...I mean, she was free to follow her interests, and yeah, he marriage failed, but a lot of marriages do, and the press didn't really care about her material woes since Diana and Sarah were so much more interesting. Sometimes the lack of attention is a good thing. Maybe she would have been even happier if she had been even more successful at Olympia, hence reaching fame outside of her status as a princess, but overall, she got the closest to a normal (rich) life out of the bunch.

To be fair...neither REALLY tried. I mean, I guess Diana kind of did, but is it really so hard to find gifts for each other which fit the interest of your partner instead of your own?

Considering his main problem was apparently whining about Diana I don't see how this would have worked.

To be precise, it is not easy to get GOOD venison for non-hunters. Basically the hunters keep their best shots, and the not so good shots, well, they get sold and that's what the "common" people might get to taste. Hence a lot of people thinking that venison is tasting "strong" when in reality it just means that the hunter botched the shot. and I am ready to bet that the royals just ate their best shots and left everything else to the staff. Though nowadays you can actually buy frozen venison in the supermarket. That's not shot, though, but from enclosures. That's a pretty recent development, though.

And without ruining the harvest of other people.