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bluedalahorse · 4 days

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What would make August decide to reject the crown prince title?

Well, you know my brand! I actually think it’s possible for August to get to a place where he leaves behind the crown prince role. It’s a bit of a claw machine game, but isn’t that more fun to think about than letting him suffer forever? We love a challenge! We love growth! We like acknowledging the messiness of the character, and not always assuming the worst of every last thing he does! So let’s get into it.

I’m actually not going to talk about Sara much here. A lot of posts that talk about this crown prince situation mention how sad August is to have lost Sara, and while that’s true, I actually think there are other emotional undercurrents at work. Similarly to the way Wille is more than his relationship with Simon and has to leave the monarchy for his own self-actualization, August will leave for reasons that go beyond losing Sara.

I also want to open by agreeing with everything my esteemed colleague @heliza24 says about therapy and time and community in this post over here. What I’m going to say here is going to be long and rambly, but I think it will build on her talking points.

So let’s think about August holistically, in terms of his values. In order to get August out of the monarchy, the first step is understanding (excavating, even, because this shit works in layers) what draws him to it in the first place, and what his emotional needs are. I actually think it’s a common misconception that he’s into the whole thing for the power of it all. I actually think this is more about August’s need for belonging, particularly in terms of his wanting to be part of a family and the way he values traditions that bring people together. Monarchy runs on this idea of a sacred first family that sets the tone for the nation and leads them in following traditions. This ideal family is, in theory, the ultimate exemplar of what August desires in life. And yet the reality of the monarchy is far from the ideal. I think we sometimes assume August has a clear view of what monarchy is like, since he’s related to the royal family and all. But I also think his close proximity clouds his judgment. More details below…

The thing about being in the crown prince position is that at first it would set up opportunities for August to connect with family members, namely Kristina, which initially would meet a family-related need. August seems to hold Kristina in high regard. He’s looking forward to the possibility that she might visit during parents’ weekend in season 1, and he’s pretty afraid of facing her in season 2 when he’s called to the palace. Of course, that is about her position as queen as much as anything, but I can’t help but wondering if it’s also that Kristina was August’s father’s favorite cousin. And isn’t that a fruitful piece of information? There’s so much that can be done with that connection! For instance…

A lot of August’s trauma is rooted in grief. Some of that is complicated grief for Erik, which his reconciliation with Wille (and probably their shared sessions with Boris) has helped him start to feel and unravel. We haven’t really seen August fully grieve his father yet, but I imagine that if there were seasons 4 and 5, this would be the next step in his character arc. Grieving his father is crucial. In season 3, August has (clumsily, in front of Sara when he shouldn’t have said it, but the lines happened and I find them fascinating) just begun to idealize his father less—he says he misses his dad even though his dad was shitty, and that makes me go, okay, what else is behind that line? (A really amazing fanfic by @sflow-er is what.)

Meanwhile Kristina mentions that she and Carl Johan were really close until Carl Johan started to fall into addiction. Lots to peel back there, too! Like, what happened? What was the timeline of all this, and was it a big falling out or a slow breakdown in the relationship? Does Kristina feel any guilt related to August’s father’s suicide, like August himself does? We don’t know how she feels about Louise—is she sympathetic toward her for having to be married to a man who was potentially abusive? Or would Kristina have bought into Carl Johan’s potentially false narrative of Louise, and blamed Louise for her husband’s addiction and mental health crisis?

Whichever direction you take this, I think working with Kristina day to day would bring up opportunities for August to confront his sense of loss. Kristina probably has all kinds of stories about August’s dad, and how they got up to trouble together in their childhood and youth, and which now-deceased family members responded to their antics. August might be able to share a few stories about his dad as well. Sharing memories is an important part of the grieving process, for so many people, and I imagine at first August would feel connected to his father’s side of the family for the first time in a while, and there might be some good things that come of it.

On the other hand… those initial benefits might not last forever. And August would soon discover the fucked up aspects to that side of the family. It’s possible Kristina might try to help August mend his relationship with his mother, but in the scenario I mentioned above (Kristina buys into Carl Johan’s narrative of Louise and blames her for his death) I can see her trying to interfere when August and Louise try to repair their relationship. Wouldn’t that create some fun tension between August and Kristina? I do think August wants to repair his relationship with his mother. As mad as he is with her in season 1, we also see hints in seasons 2 and 3 that he doesn’t actually hate her and wants to feel connected to her. After graduation he goes to find her and Rickard in the graduation line where all the parents are holding photos. I could see a situation where August, a year or two after canon, decides he wants to patch things up with his mom, and keeps running into pushback from Kristina about it. Aren’t there so many ways that tension could escalate? Wouldn’t that be a fun thing to play with in fanfic?

And then there’s Wilhelm. The way I read their reconciliation, it felt like August would try to maintain a good relationship with Wilhelm in the future. What does that become if he ends up in a position where he’s always mediating between Kristina and Wilhelm now that their relationship has fractured? And then we know Kristina tried to turn Wilhelm into Replacement Erik, I can absolutely imagine a situation where she starts thinking of August as Replacement Wilhelm and behaving accordingly, and August grows to resent that. Ultimately I can see August siding with Wilhelm over Kristina in the end and they end up banding together.

All those paragraphs above basically just mean that like… I feel like being in the crown prince role might bring a lot to the surface for August, in terms of how he relates to his family. And once he sees what wounds being crown prince can’t heal, that’s going to shatter his idealism and make him question the monarchy as a representation of the family in general. And that’s an important step out the door.

Now, August also needs to see what alternatives to this “perfect ideal family model” are out there. He also needs to realize that family isn’t just about blood relatives. Which just means he needs honest friendships with people who don’t subscribe to that kind of patriarchal nonsense. I don’t mean August needs patient queer friends who will hold his hand and explain the concept of heterotemporality to him in a soft voice. I just mean that being around more people who break his mental schemas in that regard would be a good thing. Like how does his friendship with Nils develop now that Nils has come out? What if, I dunno, it turns out that Louise and Rickard are both bisexual and poly? And then of course there’s his continued relationship with Wilhelm, which I imagine he’d continue to invest in now that they’ve turned things around at the end of season 3.

Does that wrap up the family stuff for now? Probably. There’s a thousand more things I could talk about but we’ll put it aside for now.

I mentioned August valuing tradition in my opener, so I want to address that too. Surface August—aka the protective suit of armor August has constructed for himself in season 1—seems to value tradition for its own sake, and mostly defines inclusion for some as something that can only exist when there’s exclusion of others. These are all the broken things Surface August has been taught or (we now know) traumatized to believe, and they come out in his behavior, and it sucks.

At the same time, what happens over three seasons is that we see there’s this deeply buried version of August that’s struggling to get out, and in my opinion at least, that deeply buried August actually gives a shit about others feeling a sense of belonging. I feel like this part of August is influenced by his own experiences with isolation and loneliness, and we see glimmers of him from time to time. (Especially when it’s Vincent doing something exclusive and shitty, for whatever reason. See August standing up to Vincent when Vincent is shitty to Simon in 2.3.) I think for August, traditions and rituals and events are something he sees as being deeply important in creating a sense of belonging for people. And he’s not fully wrong. Traditions and events done right are how humans make sacred their bonds with one another… which is why you get a bunch of Wilmon wedding headcanons. Because we love traditions too, you know.

As much as August gets a reputation for being rigid, there are times when we’ve seen him budge from what’s expected of him and change up the rules. I think August is actually more willing to rewrite tradition than fandom gives him credit for. He’s got suggestions for the speech Jan-Olof wants him to recite verbatim. He tells Vincent to rethink the senior superlatives. And he’s one of the third years who makes a pact to remove the really homophobic part of the initiation.

I say this not to give August undue credit—these are half-steps and there’s clearly more he can do, and some of these traditions should be eliminated, not modified. But I want to point out two things. First, that imperfect half-steps (and some pretty epic backslides) were part of Wilhelm’s journey too before he made his full break with the monarchy. Second, by season 3, we can see that August is actually capable of reflecting about traditions and considering ways they could be rewritten to create more of a sense of belonging for others.

Again, this is imperfect, and we may want him to do more… and this is another place where he could potentially end up clashing with the royal court in time. One thing that I’ve thought about is that being a prefect at Hillerska is a little different—in theory if not in practice—than being the crown prince of Sweden. As a Hillerska prefect you’re just leading the elite and the few who get into your school, but as crown prince you really are supposed to be there for the nation as a whole (albeit in a “non-divisive” way) and I think August does actually recognize that distinction and would try to approach it differently than being prefect or rowing captain. Except he would continue to be a total overachiever.

Like, look. On some level August would be incredibly earnest about the idea of being the keeper of Sweden’s traditions, and earnestness is not the same as being a rubber stamp or a yes-man. The royal court may think they’ve finally got someone who will carry out whatever monarchical agenda they set without question but like… idk, do they? Do they really??? August is going to want say in the process, and August is going to have so many ideas about how to make traditions better/more awesome, and August is going to annoy the hell out of Jan-Olof and Farima. He is going to be so annoying! He is going to have slides presentations! He is going to crunch the data on how the royal family is getting bad press for their carbon footprint and come up with a plan for renewable fuel on the private jet so now they can totally show people they’re legit! Meanwhile he’s going to be annoyed when his ideas are getting blocked. And I find the slow build in conflict that would arise out of a situation like that pretty entertaining.

Okay, it’s time to wrap up. For real this time. (This would all be better in a fanfic than in an analysis post, really! I should write.) Ultimately I think August would be drawn into the monarchy because he’d see it as a way of living his values of family and tradition and hell, service to the nation and being part of something, but he’d grow frustrated and disillusioned when it didn’t, actually, allow him to do that or give him the space to do it. The answer to Rickard’s question—does the monarchy love you back?—is no. And I don’t know how long post-season-3 August is willing to put up with being unrequited like that. Maybe for a time, but not forever.

You may also wonder why I have faith that he’ll get here. And the simple answer is: after season 3, my faith in August is intertwined with my faith in Wilhelm. Wilhelm breaking with the monarchy at the end of season 3 (especially after some pretty intense backsliding moments.) shows me that it’s possible for August to do it too, someday. That is perhaps a post for another time. For now, let’s just look forward to all the opportunities for a fix-it fic.

#young royals #asks #august horn #august is a dumbass but he’s my dumbass #and i will take a seam ripper to the crown on his little crocheted frog so i can save his soul

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