This article is pay-walled because it’s part of the ‘Young Royals’ character analysis series, which will be locked in its entirety . (If you’re interested in the free content, you’re always welcome to check out the metaphor series, which starts here.)
Soooo…here they finally are the first three (of hopefully many) character-centred posts. I apologize for the slight delay; I hope they’re worth the wait. Sorry I kept you all waiting. And thank you very, very much for your unwavering support and your continued trust in me. The fact that there are actually people impatiently waiting for these posts is one of the best compliments I have ever gotten in my life. I really can’t tell you what this means to me. Thank you, guys!
Please make sure to read these three posts in order. Part 2 and 3 won’t make any sense if you don’t read Part 1 first. So, here we go:
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Have you ever been to a House of Mirrors?
Perhaps at your local town fair or an amusement park?
Maybe you strolled in with your friends after you’d already checked out everything else and had got a bit tired of all the rollercoasters, carousels and Ferris wheels and wanted to see the people around you in a slightly different light for a change.
At first it may have been a fun experience: The mirrors threw somewhat distorted reflections back at you and your friends, and you all laughed. Because all in all, everyone was still fairly easy to recognize.
Then came the part that made you all feel slightly uneasy: The mirrors were exaggerating some body parts and letting others shrink. You all suddenly felt as if you were learning some unwelcome truths about yourselves that you had so far been ignorant of and would have rather remained unaware of, too. (Did your best friend really have such large teeth? He suddenly looked threatening and ready to swallow someone alive.)
This was also the part where some of your friends decided they didn’t want to bother with being insulted by a convex or concave piece of glass any longer and left the hall of mirrors to explore the fair outside some more.
But you’re a curious person by nature (or else you wouldn’t be reading this weird blog here), and so you walked deeper into the maze: Now, the whole mirroring thing was getting decidedly dark, confusing and even frightening.
Another group of your friends decided to depart at this point, citing a need for fresh air, but being the stubborn, hardheaded explorer that you are, you kept on walking, all alone now, but determined to see this through to the end.
At this point, things were getting out of hand: The myriad of warped glass panes everywhere made you feel like you had walked into some sort of trap. It was difficult to work out what was real and what was a mirror image. There were mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting other mirrors reflecting yet other mirrors…into infinity. And suddenly, and very inexplicably, you felt like a little child again, lost and all alone and on the brink of bursting into tears. You had to valiantly fight the urge to sit down on the floor and curl up into a ball as you stared into one of those infinity mirrors, unable to discern what it was trying to tell you. And suddenly you thought, ‘Oh, so that’s what it’s like to go insane, isn’t it?’
In case you have trouble following this long-winded metaphor: The fair we’re visiting on this imaginary stroll is the show. All the other attractions outside (the rollercoasters, the merry-go-rounds, etc.) are the metaphors we’ve dissected on this blog so far…
…well, and the House of Mirrors is where we’re going to go now, you and I.
You’re now standing on the threshold of it, trying to make up your mind: Do you want to enter or don’t you?
Fair warning: You will see things that will surprise you. You might even see things you distinctly dislike.
If, at any point, you feel like it’s getting too much, please do the sensible thing and leave the House of Mirrors to breathe some fresh air outside (i.e. stop reading this article and close the browser window).
Mirroring isn’t for everyone. And that’s okay. If it’s not for you, be like your friends in the imaginary scene above: Walk away from it and don’t look back. There’s a lot of fun stuff at this carnival, and you can amuse yourself eating candy floss or riding a bumper car (i.e. exploring all those brilliant metaphors on ‘Young Royals’). There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
If however you decide to follow me on this adventure into the House of Mirrors, be prepared to read some really cool, new and some really dark and disturbing things.
Because the House of Mirrors is actually what holds this whole fair together. It might not look like it, but without it, we’d only be getting an incomplete picture of the story. It’s the heart of the whole show. The skeleton holding it all together.
Best case scenario: We will unlock a whole new layer of meaning not just underneath the text but underneath the metaphors together. A new storey in this multi-storeyed building that is ‘Young Royals’ – a storey you didn’t even know existed. You thought there was the text and the metaphorical subtext, but there’s yet another layer underneath all that: a maze of mirrors.
Worst case scenario: We will go insane together in there. We will end up curled up in a ball, crying in some corner of the maze, unable to find the exit and really frightened because what we thought was real about the world (i.e. the show) turned out to be a mirage only.
Did I say ‘best case scenario’ above?
No, no, no.
This is the best case scenario: We will unlock a whole new layer of meaning together and we will go a little bit insane together at the same time. Because what’s looking at a great text without some level of creative insanity? It can be rather freeing every once in a while, don’t you think? (And maybe we will even have a little cry together at some point. That’s okay, too, you know.)
So, that’s it then: You’ve paid for the ticket to the House of Mirrors now (and you’ve read this long introductory rant). There remains only one thing to be done now: Enter!
Après vous…