#betrayal young royals

[raincitygirl76]

Omar Rudberg is a very attractive young man. So I find it hilarious (though somewhat sobering) that nobody at Hillerska seems to notice Simon is gorgeous. All because he’s a lowly non-resident (and a socialist to boot, who refuses to act grateful to be allowed around his social betters), they pretend Simon’s looks are nothing out of the common way. It shows the pressure of class solidarity.

Makes me wonder, though, how many Hillerska boarders secretly have crushes on Simon. Because, you know, they have eyes, even if they don’t dare admit it to their friends because it would be social suicide. Are there girls in Simon’s classes who wistfully sigh over how aesthetically appealing he is? Or fellow choristers who covertly watch him sing when they’re supposed to be watching the music teacher and/or reading their scores?

I wonder how many girls quietly cried themselves to sleep right after the video came out. And told their curious roommates they were crying because apparently the Crown Prince is unattainable. But really they were crying because apparently Simon Eriksson is gay. And therefore definitely off the market, if those girls ever got up the guts to cross class lines and acknowledge how crush worthy he is.

P.S.

Incidentally, I don’t think Simon intentionally went back in the closet when he moved to Hillerska. It’s just we know from 1.01 that hardly anyone has spoken to him since the start of the school year. It’s kind of tough to come out to people who are pretending you don’t exist and won’t talk to you.

And then Wilhelm arrived, and was obviously interested but extremely closeted himself. So Simon had a large incentive not to arouse the suspicions of their Hillerska school mates by coming out himself. I don’t think Simon was hiding in S1 so much as just not choosing to actively bring it up. I’m pretty damn sure if someone had asked him flat out, he would’ve said he’s gay. But nobody did ask, so he and Wilhelm could continue to fly under the radar as close platonic friends.

We can also infer from Saran’s comment in 1.03 “Why are you sneaking around?” That at Marieberg, Simon was out and proud. But he wasn’t a pariah at Marieberg. People actually talked to him there. And he wasn’t deeply in love with a closeted guy at Marieberg.

It could also be another reason (as if Simon needed another) that Simon feels so betrayed by Wilhelm denying the video in 1.06. Simon has already compromised his principles for Wilhelm even before the video, by making allowances for Wilhelm’s closeted status and sneaking around secretively. And Wilhelm repaid Simon having previously compromised his principles by abandoning him altogether.

It’s one thing to let people assume you’re platonic friends and not actively correct them. It’s a whole other ballgame for Wilhelm to actively lie to the press and the entire world. Assertively affirming his (nonexistent) heterosexuality and his single status.

[littlebabywille]

the turning point

though they had their kiss at the masquerade and then their night together, i think the true turning point for simon was when he found out that sara knew it was august and was protecting him.

we see how distraught simon is, on the brink of a breakdown.

then we see him coming to terms with the fact he can’t go to the police (august’s insane alex/drugs plan). he now has to protect himself and his family.

i think this is where it all hits him. the betrayal is a wake up call. in this moment he finally understands why wille had to lie about the video.

the next time we see them interact, he tells wille that he wants to be with him and is willing to keep it a secret. he’s realized nothing else matters. everything around him is crumbling and the only thing that anchors them is each other (throwing up crying).

[aledlastbestie]

Simón and Felice becoming friends in s3

Since season 1 I've wanted Simón and Felice to become friends, I always felt that they could be very good friends and that it could be a beautiful friendship.

After watching the clip that came out today and seeing how sad Felice looks (Sara's betrayal is very recent) and that her friends are talking about Wille not being at school since the Jubilee, I started thinking about her and Simón possibly becoming friends.

We don't know if Simon has been going to school alone these days when Wille was probably at the palace but, if so, Simón has no friends in Hillerska.

His only friends there are/were Sara (his sister with whom he is now on bad terms) and his boyfriend who is not at the school. But canonically we know that he and Felice get along, they're just not friends. I think that if Simón is alone at school after the speech it would make sense for him to either approach Felice or for her to approach him to support him.

Going back to Sara's betrayal, I believe that there is no other character who can understand how Simón and Felice are feeling at this moment.

Wille wasn't really hurt by the betrayal, he was hurt that she hurt Simón but he doesn't see it as a personal attack against him, he doesn't see Sara as a traitor, he sees her as another person manipulated by August.

Felice's friends don't know that August was the one who recorded the video and they believe that Felice is angry at Sara for sleeping with her ex, they have no idea how serious the situation really is.

The people most emotionally affected by the betrayal are Felice and Simón and I feel that it would be very beautiful to see them develop a friendship and support each other.

[iloveilovei]

The moment when everything seemed lost.

[young-royals-confessions]

to add on to what that one anon said about leaving simon and sara’s relationship open ended and bittersweet, i honestly seriously hope their relationship is still very much strained by the time the final credits roll. i feel like her betrayal was too big, too hurtful, and too heart wrenching for them to be able to accurately portray a timeline of their relationship healing within season 3. in my opinion, that shit is gonna take a few years before they ever get that close to being as inseparable as they were before. sara’s betrayal wasn’t a minor thing. i really hope they don’t fast forward through their healing to resolve a storyline or to appeal to fans

[ireneaesthetic]

[the99thfanboy]

Just watched Young Royals and I could not relax for a single fucking second, these kids are insane

[incorrect-youngroyals]

Felice: Sara, can I ask you a question?

Sara: Sure, anything.

Felice: Why don't you go back to your own house and leave us alone?

[kianri-ah]

ill never know how i got through young royals the first time without going through seven simultaneous explosions this series is so mentally damaging (good) and this is the third time too

[thee-problem-child]

not only did you have sex multiple times but had the audacity to fall in love with the boy who basically ruined and is still ruining your brothers life…I wish you nothing but the worst

[raincitygirl76]

I wonder how much of the Sargust fallout in 2.06 was due to August being an only child…

He clearly did not anticipate Sara reacting as badly as she did to finding out that her boyfriend had used her tipoff to blackmail her little brother. He probably figured she wouldn’t be happy. But her level of betrayal seemed to catch August off guard. But then, August doesn’t know what it’s like to be truly pissed off at your sibling, but they’re still your sibling.

I had a fight with my sister on the weekend, and we just made up via text. We’re both gone 40 and she’s married with 2 kids (who have their own sibling rivalry issues). But she’s still my little sister, and fighting with her is still not fun.

Sara in 1.06 was not happy with Simon, and I suspect that made it easier for her to cut that deal with August. Judging by 1.06, August could have assumed that Sara doesn’t like Simon very much, and won’t particularly care what August does to him. But again, August has no siblings.

Sara cut a deal with August in 1.06 when she felt betrayed by her brother and panic-stricken at the thought of her mother forcing her to return to the old school where she had been viciously bullied. But eventually Sara’s anger at her little brother cooled. And he remained her little brother.

A few months pass. Simon and Sara aren’t as close as they used to be, with Sara boarding at Hillerska this term. And Sara is preoccupied with both her secret romance and the pending sale of Rousseau. But Simon still tells her when he finds out it was August who leaked the video. And Sara tells August what Simon told her, expecting him to do the right thing. Is she naive for thinking that? Yes. But she’s also only 18 and in love.

Then August uses her information, not to confess his crime to the police “spontaneously” before Simon can turn him in. But instead to blackmail Simon with something or other (Sara doesn’t know the specifics) so Simon can’t turn him in. Sara must be doubting at this point whether she ever meant anything to August, or if he was just using her to keep her quiet about what she knew.

As it happens she’s wrong about that, but it’s not unreasonable for her to doubt August’s motives for pursuing her, given what she’s just found out about how he used the information she gave him. Note on the shooting range she says “Because I was in love with him.” Past tense. Not “Because I’m in love with him,” present tense.

Furthermore, when she tells the truth, partly because she fears Wilhelm will blow August’s head off, Simon is devastated. He trusted Sara, and she betrayed that trust. She betrayed it more than once, has had this information since December and got involved with August anyway. I don’t think it really hits Sara until this point just how badly she’s fucked up, or just how devastated Simon is.

He’s her little brother, he’s in pain, she wants to hurt the person who hurt him. But the person who hurt him is her. She did this to him. Sara is not a forgiving person, look at how she decisively cut Micke out of her life. She must be fearing that she’s ruined her relationship with her only sibling for the rest of her life, that he will never forgive her.

I personally think Simon will forgive Sara eventually. But Sara knows what it’s like to be betrayed by an immediate family member, and knows she will never forgive Micke. It’s not difficult to imagine Sara extrapolating from her own experience, and believing Simon will permanently cut her out of his life the way she has permanently cut their father out of her life.

So she’s hurt her only sibling very badly, and for what? For a guy who turned out to be a duplicitous asshole and used her tipoff to hurt her brother. Again.

And August thinks she’ll simmer down. Yeah, she walked away from him on the shooting range, but he approaches her the following morning confidently. He has an ace in the hole to get his girlfriend to stop flipping out: he’s bought Rousseau for her. August (again, an only child) assumes the gift of Rousseau will be sufficient recompense for deep-sixing Sara’s relationship with her brother.

It isn’t sufficient recompense, and August is taken aback when Sara refuses the magnificent gift. But August doesn’t understand the push-pull of sibling dynamics. That Sara is experiencing family loyalty at a very inconvenient time (from August’s point of view).

August’s father is dead, he’s clearly not close to his mother, and he hates his stepfather’s guts. And he has no siblings, nobody else who understands what it was like to grow up at Arnas with Carl Johan and Louise Horn as their parents.

He was pretty close to his second cousin Erik before Erik wrapped his Ferrrari around a tree. But it seems like that friendship didn’t really get close until a traumatized, recently bereaved 16 year old August showed up at Hillerska as a first year and Erik (then a third year) took August under his wing.

August and Erik knew each other all their lives, but they were only close for about 2 years. And given they first got close at 16 (August) and 18 (Erik), that’s not actually analogous to a sibling relationship. Erik was already old enough to drink and vote, and August only a few years off. That’s not spending your childhood together.

And we’ve seen how superficial August’s friendships with his two best friends at Hillerska are. In S1, August and Vincent trash talk Nils behind his back for being nouveau riche. In S2, given an opportunity, Vincent sells August out, and Nils helps Vincent do so. August does not have any siblings, nor any sibling-like relationships where mutual loyalty is crucial.

So August sees Sara sell Simon out in 1.06 and takes that at face value. He doesn’t realize that Sara is angry with Simon at that point, but will get over it. Because August doesn’t understand the messiness of sibling relationships. Or their importance.

I know adults who have cut siblings out of their lives because that sibling had hurt them so grievously they said enough. But I don’t know anyone who has cut a sibling out of their life without giving it serious thought beforehand. Even if they’re better off without that sibling in their life, it’s still a huge decision. Sometimes it’s a bigger decision than cutting a parent out of their life.

Matters are complicated somewhat by divorce, remarriage, half-siblings, step-siblings, etc. obviously. But generally speaking, if you spent a significant chunk of your childhood living in the same house as someone, the decision to cut them out of your life is a very serious one.

My best friend has two older half siblings she is not close to and has never been close to. But one is 20 years her senior and the other 18 years her senior. She is the only child of her father’s second marriage, and she acts like an only child. The combination of her father’s divorce from his first wife and the massive age gap means she has very few shared experiences with her half-siblings. Now, part of that is on her dad. But part of it is simply that both her half siblings are old enough they could be her parents themselves.

So yeah, August was raised as an only child. Even if it turns out Carl Johan fathered another child out of wedlock at some point, that hypothetical half-sibling didn’t grow up with Carl Johan. There might be curiosity, it might even lead to a bond eventually, but there won’t be the shared childhood experiences.

Whereas Sara and Simon are full siblings close in age. Furthermore, they grew up together, in a traumatic family situation with a father who was an addict (and possibly abusive to boot) and a mother who meant well but was struggling to cope. Even if Simon and Sara never reconnect, they will still always have those shared experiences of growing up as Micke and Linda Eriksson’s children.

So I really don’t think August saw Sara’s total disillusionment with him in 2.06 coming. Because August isn’t anyone’s brother and doesn’t really get it.

[cchaoticc]

oh dont tell me hes gonna buy her the horse,,,

[princess-oski]

Same energy!!

[heartbreakprincewille]

Astronomy by Conan Gray is such a Simon and Sara song it hurts

[temptresse]

"It was your duty to protect me," she said quietly, tears flowing down her cheeks. "And it was yours to leave," he replied, sliding the knife deeper into her stomach and holding her face in his palms as he kills the only person he'd sworn to love.

[young-royals-confessions]

tbh i would love for simon and sara's relationship to be left open ended, but also on a hopeful note. in the end, they are still siblings and they care deeply about each other. plus, knowing simon's character, his closest family and friends are the people he cherishes the most and looks to for support, including sara. i can't imagine a world where he wouldn't, eventually, try to work towards forgiving her or at least hear her out, because sara is essential to who he is as a person. that's not to say that i want them to be all happily ever after at the end, because even if sara regrets what she did and never meant to hurt simon as terribly as she did, it's still the kind of betrayal that you may never be fully able to move past. but what i would like to see is her standing by simon and them having conversations about not only august, but the tensions that have been building up since the start of the show. it would do both sara and simon wonders to hear from wille too, i feel, especially because i feel like he'd feel strongly about the possibility of simon and sara being torn apart by august, of all people, especially since wille himself lost erik and knows better than anyone how it feels. tl;dr simon and sara's relationship is one that is important to both of them, and i would love for them to be able to talk to each other and come to a HOPEFUL conclusion about their future and simon's trust in sara, where they can both be on better terms, but no actual clear ending about what will happen to them later.

.