Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:5. I thought he showed quite a lack of empathy to his brother. Like, could he really not understand the reaction to the wedding beard? It's so important to Harry but silly for William to be jealous of the same thing? There were so many scenes like this scattered throughout the book - Harry's emotions are proper and well contextualized but he failed to allow the other's emotions and humanity.
This is astute. I think this lack of empathy and myopic thinking reflects immature emotional development (which I don't really 'blame' him for) and is what is leading him to make some poor choices when it comes to his family and other public actions/words.
He didn’t say William was silly for being jealous of the beard, he was mad that William tried to lord his “heir” role over Harry to force Harry to shave his beard simply because William was forced to shave his. William was being petty.
+1 There is not one instance where I feel sorry for William in this book (except for the passages about his feelings of loss on the death of his mother). William gets to be King. That's the prize he needs to keep his eye on. Let Harry the Spare have his beard, and whatever uniforms he wants to wear, and whatever woman he wants to marry. William needs to get a grip.
The book has definitely left me on team Not-William but I actually think that Harry should have some empathy for William. As much as Harry thinks he's in a gilded cage, it's much much worse for William. William never would have been able to go to war or do all of the adventure travelling Harry has done. He wouldn't have been able to marry whoever he wants. His life is very very scripted. William probably has a lot of resentment towards Harry, which shows in the beard incident and several other times in the book.
Overall, I enjoyed it although I really think it was a mistake for Harry to trash his relatives, I got a little queasy reading all of that. I would have preferred more on the "mechanics" of royal life. Did he get lessons on being a prince? How do they get about and plan for an outing? I mean there was some of that but I would have liked to know more about being a royal than what a royal pain it seems to be.