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missbolt · 1 year

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August and Sara seemed to fulfil a deep need in each other

August and Sara was an unexpected pairing, but once they got together, it made a lot of sense to me.

So many good points have been made about their relationship by for instance @hillerska-official, @darktwistedgenderplural, @emberc, @heartbreakprincewille, @daylightsimon and @joviefandom. I probably don't have anything all that new to add, but I wanted to put all my thoughts about their relationship in one place. In no way do I support August and Sara's actions, but I think their developing relationship was consistent with their character arcs and added depth to their characters and contributed to the story. Buckle up, this will be long!

Starting to hang out

Why did August and Sara even start hanging out in the first place? Of course, it all started with Sara agreeing to keep it a secret that August leaked the video, in return for August helping her get a scholarship and a spot at Manor House. The general consensus in the fandom seems to be that Sara made this deal as she is a social climber and wanted to be more like these upper class kids. This was likely part of the reason, but I think it ran deeper than that. Her mother had just stated her intention to take Sara and Simon out of Hillerska and reenrol them at the local school. While Sara had made friends at Hillerska, she was bullied so badly at the local school that she ended up having to redo a year there, as she missed too many classes because she was so afraid to go to school. She must have been terrified of going back to that school. Making the deal with August, who had so much power at the school, probably seemed to Sara to be her one shot at staying at Hillerska - her one shot at keeping her friends there and avoiding her bullies.

As for August, a main reason for hanging out with her was of course that Sara was the only one apart from Wille that definitely knew he leaked the video, thereby being the only person he could confide in regarding his fears about what would happen to him.

Growing closer

But even so, how could August get past the status difference between them and start hanging out with her more and even hooking up with her? August, who seems to despise the working class and put down Sara and Simon every chance he gets? Who is so preoccupied with his façade, a façade Sara certainly doesn't fit with? However, by the time they started hooking up more properly early in season 2, August was at rock bottom. He was sure that the court knew his secret and would punish him, Wille humiliated him every chance he got, and he had lost his status and power at school. At this point, August's façade was already shattering, and keeping up appearances might have started to seem impossible. In the grand scheme of things, would it really make any difference anymore if he hooked up with a working class girl? We see another indication that things he would usually be very preoccupied with didn't seem to matter to him anymore, when he after the rowing competition chastised Vincent for blaming Simon and stated that the competition wasn't important. August seemed to have given up his bid for power at school - he was past the point of caring about keeping up appearances (of course this changed right after this scene when he was informed he is next in line to the throne and thus felt like he had some power back, but by then he had already fallen for Sara).

It was probably also a relief for August that he didn't really have to keep up appearances around Sara the same way he had to around his upper class peers. We saw how extremely insecure and jealous he was when dating Felice, the most popular girl at Hillerska who he had decided would be the perfect match for him. As she fit perfectly with the successful façade he wanted to show the world, the stakes were very high for him, which brought out all his insecurities. Sara, on the other hand, was not someone the other boys showed interest in, and as she didn't matter in his world, the stakes were much lower. If he fucked it up with Sara, no one would care. Thus, he didn't feel the same need to play power games and keep up appearances around her. Since she wasn't really a part of his social circle and upper class world, he could let down his guard around her in a way he couldn't with anyone else.

As for Sara, it was clear that she was quite physically attracted to August. She was also very inexperienced with boys, and when he kissed her out of the blue in episode 3 of season 1 (which of course had everything to do with Felice and nothing to do with Sara), it seemed to make quite an impression on her - in the next episode, she caressed the picture Felice had of him in her room. It seems likely that he was her first kiss, and for Sara who wasn't used to guys liking her, it must have been very tempting to hook up with him more.

Furthermore, the fact that August started confiding in her likely had a profound effect on Sara. She, who was used to being an outsider and who stated herself that she was better with horses than with people, suddenly found herself to be be the confidante of someone who was skilled socially (just look at how he greeted the guests in the last episode of season 2), who was of high social status, and who had previously scoffed at her. Sara also seems to be used to people (especially Simon) having to take care of her, but with August, she was the one comforting him and giving him advice. By hooking up with August and becoming his confidante, she broke out of the roles she was usually confined to and took on a role she probably would have thought impossible previously. This must have felt quite liberating for her.

Falling in love

August is obsessed with keeping up appearances to the point that he has developed an eating disorder and a reliance on performance-enhancing drugs. We know that his father took his own life, and losing a parent to suicide often leaves a child with a feeling of not being loved and good enough to stick around for. August's whole life seems to be a fight to prove - to others and, most importantly, to himself - that he is good enough. He does this by grabbing all the power he can get, trying to curate a "perfect" façade, putting down people he deems to be beneath him, and lashing out at anyone threatening his status. However, none of this seems to quell his fear of not being good enough and being unlovable, as shown by the fact that he seemed to be at his most insecure when dating the "perfect girl" and having all the positions of power he possibly could at school. However, Sara knew about the worst thing he had ever done, and still seemed to love him. He also perceived her as a social climber who understood his desire for power and status. She made him feel loved and understood and seen when he was at his worst, giving him a glimmer of hope that he might be lovable and good enough even when abandoning his carefully crafted façade. How could August not fall for Sara?

The years of bullying and the difficulties with navigating social interactions seem to have left Sara starved for human connection outside of her family. Her friendship with Felice and inclusion in Felice's friend group probably satisfied some of that need, but she was still felt a bit like an outsider - due to being poorer and from a different social class than her friends, not knowing the codes and frequently being in need of an explanation of how things worked. As discussed in the last section, her usual role in social interactions of being the one others had to take care of, was reversed with August. In addition, having someone who puts up such a façade being so vulnerable with you is one helluva drug in general. For Sara, who seemed to fear not being able to forge real human connection with people outside of her family, her burgeoning relationship with August showed her that she could have a deep connection with someone, that she could be different from what she had imagined herself to be. When he gave her the validation she so sorely needed, it is no wonder that she wanted to believe that he was a good person deep down and that she could change him. And when she had managed to convince herself of this, how could Sara not fall for August?

What their relationship adds to their characters and the show

Of course, August and Sara's relationship didn't last and could never last. They were both projecting on each other - August projecting his ambitions on Sara making him believe that she understood him far better than she actually did, and Sara projecting the role of redeemed sinner which she really needed August to be onto him. This led to a disconnect between them that became very apparent in their last two conversations together in season 2. Even if it wasn't for this, August would probably start feeling like Sara was a liability to him when climbing higher socially and eventually break things off with her in favour of someone who would better fit his "perfect" façade. And August would never be accepted in Sara's family and social circle due to leaking the video and harming Simon and Wille. So what was the point of spending so much time on their relationship in this second season?

In his relationship with Sara, we got to see a different, softer side of August. We got a glimpse of how different he potentially could have been if he wasn't so deeply insecure and preoccupied with keeping up appearances. One could almost begin to hope that the relationship led to growth in August...which made it all the more heart-breaking when he reverted to his self-serving, scheming ways as soon as he had a sliver of power. Getting a peek behind August's façade made it easier to understand what is driving his actions, making him a much more three-dimensional character than in the first season, which greatly added to the tension in the story.

We also got to see a softer side of Sara. In the first season and parts of the second season, her morals appeared to be very black-and-white. She was complaining that Simon was giving people too many chances, blamed their mother for not leaving their father earlier even though it would have made them homeless, seemed to expect Simon to have the same (non-)relationship to their father as her (though her feeling of betrayal when it was revealed that he had been visiting their father probably of course also had to do with Simon not having been honest with her). After confessing to kissing Wille at the ball, Simon expected her to tell him that he is a bad person for cheating on Marcus and that Marcus is much better for him than Wille. However, as several people have noted, Sara was at that point able to empathise more with Simon and give him better advice and support by saying that he can't control his feelings and that doing bad things at times doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. Through her relationship with August, Sara seemed to start understanding that people have different sides and that things aren't always as black-and-white as they may seem. Almost up to the very end, she did not seem able to apply this new understanding to see Felice's side of the issue when her horse was sold, but Sara may still seem to have undergone some personal growth this second season. I am excited to see whether she will be able to continue this growth next season now that she has realised how severely she misjudged August, hopefully coupled with slightly less naivety (and hopefully she will learn to stop replicating the relationship her parents had, which I haven't touched on here as the post is already so long, but which @daylightsimon, @darktwistedgenderplural, and @malinthebodyguard have written so insightfully about). Her relationship with August showed us new sides of Sara's character, and might also lead Sara to understand herself better. This makes her a more interesting and three-dimensional character in my eyes, and creates a new dynamic in her sibling relationship with Simon, again increasing the tension in the story.

Thus, August and Sara's relationship adds depth to both of their characters, and contributes to the story by raising the stakes and creating new dynamics. And Malte Gårdinger and Frida Argento play these characters perfectly!

For these reasons, I think it was justified to devote as much time to their relationship as was done in season 2. In season 3, I really hope we will get to know the last secondary character - Felice - better. The fact that Young Royals shows us different sides of both the primary and secondary characters makes them seem much more real and consequently renders the story more impactful.

Aaaanyway, these were my two (or two hundred) cents on August and Sara's relationship. Let me round off with one gripe, though: how the hell has the fandom settled on Sargust as their couple's name, when Aura is right there for the taking?!?

#august horn #sara eriksson #sargust #aura #insecurity #want of human connection #validation #suicide tw #parental suicide tw #eating disorder tw #addiction tw #young royals #young royals season 2 #young royals analysis #malte gårdinger #frida argento #thoughts overflowing my fixated mind

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