Roy and Jamie’s relationship is one of my favourite parts of TL, but the period between 2x10-3x04 when they’re not antagonistic anymore but also not really friends, and their interactions mostly consist of Roy threatening to kill Jamie and slapping food out of his hands, is near the top of my list of writing decisions I did not like.
It’s not that I think the two of them should have immediately started getting along post-Wembley or that I think Jamie necessarily should have found those moments triggering — it would have been a perfectly legitimate choice if the writers had gone that route, but given that James seems to be able to put on a friendly(ish) front based on what we know from the Amsterdam story, I could see how Jamie might find how upfront Roy is about his anger reassuring — but because it does a disservice to Roy as a character.
You have this man who’s so painfully aware of his flaws, who cares so deeply about the people he loves but is afraid he’ll drag them down and infect them with the worst parts of himself, who steps up to take care of his former rival — someone who embodies everything he once was and never will be again — when he’s vulnerable and terrified after being abused by his father in front of the whole team. And then a couple of episodes later he threatens to knock Jamie’s teeth down his throat.
Fundamentally, I think it’s a matter of blending comedy with serious storylines, which TL generally does well, especially in the first two seasons. But I don’t think a serious storyline and its comedy counterpart can effectively coexist in the same show. You can’t show a character being threatened and assaulted by his father and then turn around and have another character do the same but it’s a joke, this time, without undermining one of those storylines. It’s the same with Beard and Jane: one of the main character arcs is Rebecca’s difficult, painful healing process after the end of her abusive marriage, but at the same time there’s a running gag about a couple that’s written like they were playing bingo with the Wikipedia page for domestic abuse.
“He keeps asking the men in his life that he thinks are good people. He
wants to know if the reason they’re good people is because they have
good dads, and he wants to know if he can ever really be a good person if
his dad is so shit.”
A question occurred to me just now about Young Royals and the immigrant experience. Really hoping Nordic YR fans see this and can shed some light! In episode 1 of season 1, Ayub is seen eating dinner with the Erikssons in their house.
A while ago there was a huge internet controversy when someone posted on Reddit that in Sweden it is not typical to feed your childrenās friends that happen to be visiting your house around dinnertime. It blew up, there were thinkpieces, and it seems to have resonated with enough Swedish people that there is some truth to it.
My question is: is the fact that Ayub is eating dinner with the Erikssons reinforcing the fact that this family is an immigrant family thatās not exclusively culturally Swedish? Or is it not that deep and Ayubās just having some pasta (with or without ketchup)?
@a-la-minute has an excellent question to which I have no answer. Well, of course I donāt, not being a resident of the Nordics. Nor having any cultural expertise on those countries beyond what Iāve gleaned from Nordic Tumblr users who communicate in English over the past 8 months.
This question is fascinating, by the way! Hope someone who actually knows this shit sees it soon.
As a follow-up question, is the fact that Rosh and Ayub are almost certainly also from immigrant families relevant to the question by @a-la-minute ? In other words, would Ayub react differently in 1.01 to Linda feeding him dinner if he came from a culturally and ethnically Swedish background? Or is his reaction not relevant? I donāt know; thatās why Iām asking.
Also, we also see in 2.06 that Rosh and Ayub have gathered at Simonās house with him and appear to have helped themselves and Simon to a casual lunch (perhaps in an effort to take their friendās mind off his heartbreak). Is that something a ātypicalā Swedish mom (I.e. who isnāt a Latina immigrant) would find irritating?
And we see the 3 of them with pizza several times over both seasons so far. But thatās not really Linda providing dinner to her sonās friends. That appears to be Rosh, Ayub, and Simon jointly deciding to go to the pizzeria and buying pizza to share at one of their homes. Presumably using their own money to pay for it most of the time. Even if Linda gives Simon an allowance, or even if she gives him extra money for pizza sometimes, that isnāt really her providing dinner.
Short answer is that it certainly makes sure we know itās NOT an old-fashioned Swedish household. The social norms are changing so it could very well be a Swedish family too!
The fact that Ayub isnāt ethnically Swedish drives home the point of the normalcy of the hospitality of Swedes with other ethnicities than Swedish.
The familiarity makes it clear that Ayub has eaten there countless times, and not because the parents are close friends - Linda asked Ayub how his mother is doing, meaning she and his mother are just aquaintances.
Quickly adding that Rosh and Ayub are most likely 3rd generation Swedes, meaning they may pay for their pizza but their parents arenāt poor. [And they most likely have a Swedish number of siblings aka 1.]
The whole go home to eat dinner thing has never been a thing for the indigenous Saemien here! And for the ethnically Swedish Swedes, itās changing too, for many reasons:
bad personal experiences
influence from the large number of Swedes with other ethnicities
social conscience (having an open door policy allowing friends to come and go can be a positive life changer for at-risk kids)
practical reasons - both parents working outside the home is the norm (though one parent may work fewer hours, usually the mother bc gendered paygap aka structural misogyny)
Disclaimer: Iām from Norway, with an indigenous Saemien and Norwegian cultural background, but also old hag age & I have several kids of various ages. Iāve been following many Swedish activists & feminists on social media for a long time bc Sweden is generally more woke and socially progressive than Norway.
Ok Iām sorry for shoving this in your face again but like. He didnāt just say that trans men and women are real. He didnāt say there were three genders. He didnāt do that, he said there was a spectrum. He insisted it was a spectrum, and heās fucking right.
Did he do actual damn research??? I would assume that this isnāt basic common knowledge to a guy like him. He legit took the time to research this, and is still a huge piece of shit afterwards. What the fuck. What the FUCK.
IS HE GETTING A GODDAMN REDEMPTION ARC
is the brutally classist, misogynistic rapist who sex trafficked and abused women getting a redemption arc because he acknowledged trans people exist?
is the man who literally helped further the belief that women must be broken and treated as property to young boys getting a fucking redemption arc?
are you people unaware what human trafficking is? do you not care that he believes women arenāt human beings? do you ever get offline?
One of my favorite aspects of Wille and Simon’s dynamic is how they accidentally give the other exactly what they’re looking for in a romantic relationship.
Wille falls for Simon instantly - which is so special to Simon because he’s never had someone who’s love he didn’t have to earn.
Simon, on the other hand, makes Wille kind of work for it - which is so special to Wille because he’s always felt like people love him instantly because he’s a prince. He’s never had to earn someone’s love by proving himself as a person to them.
Wille’s never had to earn anyone’s love by proving he’s a good person to them before Simon. He’s also never LOST anyone’s love and trust before by hurting them. Simon dumping him in 1.06 was the ultimate proof to Wilhelm that Simon had only ever wanted him, didn’t give a shit about him being royalty. If anything, Simon fell for Wilhelm despite his royal status, rather than because of it. And Simon cut Wille loose when Wille personally betrayed his trust. So Wille failed the test.
Simon also was only 16 at the time of the video leak, and you have to be 18 for an NDA to be legally enforceable. He couldn’t have signed one, which is presumably why the royal court didn’t try. Simon was devastated by Wille’s betrayal, and he could very easily have taken all the texts, DMs, and emails he and Wille had shared over the past few months to the media. He would’ve gotten revenge, and the entire world would’ve known Wilhelm had lied like a rug in his media interview in 1.06.
Simon didn’t seek revenge. He proved himself totally trustworthy without an NDA, even after Wille himself had proven himself untrustworthy to Simon. The prince who hesitated to trust outsiders had been betrayed by insiders (his cousin and his mother), and protected by an outsider. Even after he broke that outsider’s heart and Simon wanted nothing more to do with him.
We see right from the start of 1.01 that everyone wants to hang out with Wilhelm, and it’s very difficult for him to identify who’s just being a sycophant. Makes him cynical. As we see by him testing Henry and Walter in 1.01 at the dinner scene, and them failing the test dismally. It becomes immediately apparent Henry and Walter are sucking up to the prince and matching their opinions to his. Rather than just being friendly to the new first year Wilhelm, and not having any ulterior motives. So Simon’s active truculence towards the Swedish royal family must have been so fascinating to Wille!
The only friendly Hillerska student whose motives Wilhelm doesn’t seem to find suspicious is Felice. But he’s known her since preschool and in 1.03 we see he’s on first name tames with both her parents. So presumably Felice is someone he’s run into repeatedly over the years between preschool and high school. They’re not close friends, but he likes her well enough, and seems happy to spend more time with her once he’s been forced to attend Hillerska. He is totally oblivious, though, to the fact that Felice has a massive crush on him.
Also, in the car with Minou at the very beginning of 1.01, Wilhelm protests he doesn’t want to go to boarding school because all his friends are in Stockholm. But we subsequently see him have zero contact with his friends from his old day school. You’d think if they were good friends, they’d still be texting back and forth even after he moved to Hillerska.
Suggesting that Wille’s friends at his old school might have been friends with him for his status, and dropped him once he was no longer physically present to enhance their status. Either that or it was one of his friends who filmed the fight and uploaded the footage to the internet. It had to have been someone who was physically close to Wilhelm at the time the other guy grabbed, to get that particular footage.
So maybe it was a so-called friend who uploaded the video, making him a meme and resulting in him having to grovel on national TV. And Wille dropped the whole group as a result. Or he got angry at a member of his friends group who did that, and the rest of the group closed ranks around the friend who filmed the fight, instead of siding with him. If Wilhelm was being sent away from Stockholm, his long distance friendship would be less desirable to the group.
