#this is me trying to get back to my analysis roots 😩

[hillerskaroyals]

the anatomy of a hug in young royals

there’s a good chance i’m overthinking this but over my last couple rewatches i noticed something interesting about the way wille hugs and gets hugged. i’ve boiled it down to this general rule:

if the intention of the hug is to comfort wille or is for wille in some way, his arms going around the other person’s waist. if wille is hugging someone else for their sake his arms tend to go around their shoulders.

at first i thought this might just be due to height differences but in both seasons edvin is taller than most of the other actors and it does seem to stay pretty consistent across both seasons.

i did a quick rewatch and tried to capture every time wille is hugged/hugs someone and here’s what i found. (this ended up being hella long so the pictures are below the cut)

s1e1 erik is hugging wille to comfort him (arms around waist)

s1e4 felice is hugging wille to comfort him (arms around waist)

s1e4 lilja annette is hugging wille to comfort him (hard to see but i think his arms around around her waist here)

s1e4 wille is hugging simon as thanks for rescuing him (arms around shoulders)

s1e4 simon is hugging wille to comfort him (not really a hug and wille isn’t an active participant but i still think it works)

s1e5 wille is hugging simon for simon (arms around waist but above simon's)

s1e5 simon is hugging wille to comfort him (arms around waist)

s1e6 wille is hugging himself for comfort x2 :(

s1e6 wille is hugging simon for simon to show him he still cares (arms around shoulders)

s2e1 wille is hugging himself in erik’s jacket both as a way to comfort himself as well as to feel close to his brother :(

s2e1 hugging alexander to comfort him/welcome him back to the school (arms around waist)

s2e1 hugging felice bc reasons (tbh probably as thanks for being a good friend and being there for him over break)

s2e4 hugging felice in apology for kissing her (arms around shoulders)

s2e5 hugging simon to comfort him about his decision to go to the police and to comfort him if this is their last chance to be together (arms around shoulders)

s2e5 hugging simon to comfort him following sara’s betrayal (arms around shoulders)

s2e5 kristina hugging wille to comfort him since she found him crying in the stairwell (arms not pictured but assumed to be around waist)

[scribble-dribble-writes]

@ineedsomesleeptoday asked if I would be doing an analysis on Ramonda, so here I go haha!

Her character is another one of my favorites!!! She's rooted and grounded in her traditions which I find admirable. The first scene, we see Shuri absolutely restless, trying to find a way to stop it, not wanting to admit that her brother could pass, not sitting with him. But we see Ramonda at the end of that long shot, she's broken but at peace. She's accepted it, that the king is no more, her son is gone.

The UN scene was soooo powerful 😩😩 The whole world is trying to take a dig at Wakanda now because they're vulnerable, they don't have a king. But she shows up in the most gobstopping dress I've ever seen and narrates how they don't have a protector but are still well capable to handle stuff and if they strike her off she will react differently. To me, that is the common ground she and Namor shares. She's more diplomatic I'll give her that but if the other parts of the world were going to invade Wakanda, she would all out go to war with them. But she's dealing with all these by keeping an open ear and being on the look out.

Now the scene with her and Shuri I believe gives us more insight into how they differ. I love that cause is some cases the mother x daughter relationship can be quite strained too. Ramonda is a lady of the past, she believes AI will take over the world, Shuri should try to move one, I got the feeling she was hovering over Shuri's shoulder. Which I would say is the aftermath of losing her son. She's doing everything from a place of love but I reckon it's too fast for Shuri, who has now become numb to the pain, she's grieving differently. Ramonda takes her to the bush and asks if Shuri's mental construct is giving her comfort or torment? Which such a stunning question to pose to intellectuals. I often feel women get portrayed as being overtly emotional, but not all of us are like that. I grieve in a similar way to how Shuri and Katniss do, so that scene comforts me a lot.

But it takes a turn when she reveals her true intention of the ritual which we can see that Shuri isn't ok with, she needs more time and thank the heavens Namor disrupted that moment because I feel like she was on the verge of telling Shuri about Toussaint. That would have been the worst moment. Shuri is enraged, wants to burn the world, prior to that scene she does not pick up Nakiya's call, coming to know her brother had a child would have been a lot to handle while she hasn't yet let him go.

Shuri buries herself in her work, in her lab, she keeps her mind busy so she doesn't have to sit and think about her pain. Now Ramonda actually does not know how to get her to stop and feel, she trying to do so in the means and methods in which she knows but its not working. But when Okoye notices the same thing and suggest to take her out, Ramonda gets protective. She's wants Shuri to be here because she's working through her own trauma, she wants no harm to come to Shuri at all costs, I understand that. There's also a tension between Ramonda and Okoye in that scene, Okoye tells her she'll be with me, but I get the feeling that Ramonda isn't as trusting of Okoye like in the first movie, I understand that because of the whole killmonger plotline.

Shuri gets taken to Talokan and when Ramonda gets to know, all the defenses she's held up so far crumbles. She's acting out. She's not being rational. And these aren't flaws, I'm just pointing out how her actions are changing. She's a mother bear whose lost her only cub. So even as she banishes Okoye, a few of the elders feel it's unfair. She's trying to reach out to Shuri but gets a hold of Everett and tells him to keep her updated if the States were going to 'take action' on Wakanda. Now she goes back to Nakiya, who I feel like wants to be away from all this because of her situation. She says those were the days of her past, because Toussaint is playing in front of them. But Ramonda is helpless, she needs someone she can trust and comes up with the plan of Nakiya tracking Shuri down while she distracted Namor.

Now her character is fearless but sometimes fear is good. She meets alone with Namor and this man is contemplating a whole invasion. So the ideal route would have been to play into her strength of diplomacy but she doesn't. She starts strong, asking him how Shuri is and if there's anything she can exchange for her daughter. His response breaks her patience and in that moment out right threatens him of leaking his secret to his face. We see Namor's mannerisms change to, he was cool in the beginning but after that sentence, he's tense. He would have left in the thought that Shuri was going to be there and that he could have worked something out through her? I don't know. But I'm sure he's not handling it well, he would have become paranoid.

My personal take is Ramonda should not have threatened him when he has clearly told them he's got more warrior than Wakanda has blades of grass.

The other thing that goes wrong is the whole infiltration. Nakiya does it without any sensitivity. She just wants the princess back upon orders by the queen but she's not thinking about the consequences of her actions. She threading fragile ground. I feel like she could have just stunned the two guards instead of killing them. Namor would have let that slide, but instead she lethally wounds them in a way they cannot heal themselves again. The warriors Okoye stabbed got back up, so with body wounds I think they do regenerate.

This plan is a choppy disaster. But Ramonda gets Shuri back and everyone's happy only for a short time, before the invasion happens. The other scene that is strikingly scary is when Ramonda faces Namor. She's waiting for him? She's unprotected and tells Riri to run. I think she herself knew that this would have been the end. She's fearless and comes to terms with it. I don't see her panic. She faces him head on even when she knows she doesn't stand a chance. It's possible that was because she knew her threat will not be received kindly? I have to see the film again to piece it all together. But her defiance to run from Namor speaks volumes but at what cost.

She was noble, selfless, fearless, loving and diplomatic but she's absolutely human when she mixes it all up and gets it wrong.

Her death is significant, it pushes Shuri to recreate the heart shaped herb. She wasn't willing to do so till Ramonda was there. She knew that her kingdom was vulnerable but the black panther had to come back. It pushes her from girlhood to womanhood.

Quite similar to when:

Peter parker loses aunt May

Hiccup loses his dad

Katniss losing Primrose

It's a character arc for the hero to set up. That's my take on it.