Technically, the season is called ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, so I feel fully justified to still call this post a Christmas Special even though it arrives in your stocking a tiny bit late. Feel free to rename it and put off reading it until, say, New Year’s Eve if you’re a stickler for rules, though.
I have specifically left a large chunk of the text above the paywall, so both the free and the paid subscribers among you can find something to enjoy here.
And in case you don’t celebrate Christmas and are just inundated with all the carol singing and cookie slinging in December (perhaps you’ve even been assigned to the piano for weeks on end to accompany the umpteenth rendition of ‘God rest ye merry, gentlemen’, in which case: I feel you!), then take this post as a little time-out, a peaceful moment in front of the fireplace to forget about all the hustle and bustle…
We all love ourselves a good watch-along: One gets to experience the vicarious pleasure of watching a good friend watch something for the first time that one has enjoyed watching a while ago, and it’s almost as if one were watching it for the first time again. All that fresh joy, excitement, surprise, shock and giddiness – all of it is there in the room again.
I had told you that I’d recently re-watched ‘Young Royals’ in its entirety for the first time since first watching it before the launch of this blog and that said re-watch had happened in the company of a friend who’s a literature teacher, which is why I’d been looking forward to this experience a great deal.
I had imagined it as one of those ‘vicarious joy moments’ described above and had thought I would gleefully get to watch my friend’s ‘ooh’-ing and ‘aaah’-ing, would giddily delight in watching their reactions to sudden twists and turns in the narrative.
Little did I know that I would learn a few lessons myself, get taken to task rather harshly a few times and be left ‘ooh’-ing and ‘aah’-ing at times quite loudly myself, as the proverbial penny dropped rather slowly for me here and there, too.
I had promised you to write a few more words about this re-watch/watch-along experience with my literature teacher friend, so how about you join us? How about you partake in this experience in a virtual (imaginary) manner?
Dear reader, I invite you into my home; so, make yourself comfortable on the old sofa, please. It’s actually autumn now, and one of those seasonal thunderstorms is wreaking havoc in the neighbourhood, but since you’re reading this in December, feel free to imagine snowflakes drifting by the window in the dark. The crackling fire in the fireplace is real, though, and it adds to the cosy atmosphere; you can barely feel the draught coming from the carved 19th-century door right next to the sofa. (Yes, I’ve really got one of those.)
Help yourself to a glass of the fine Portuguese wine (which the paid subscribers amongst you have sponsored; thank you again for that!). If you don’t drink alcohol for religious or personal reasons, you can stroll over to the kitchen and put the kettle on if you like. The house is packed to the rafters with tea, so you should find something suitable for your taste buds. (Please don’t microwave the tea; that’s an act of barbarism that serves only to debase our decent moral sensibilities as civilized people.) And grab some nibbles on your way back…(Please ignore anyone else in the house. I am actually an intensely private person, and not everyone who shares my life belongs on this little blog. Thank you.)
Ah, you brought the crisps (that’s ‘chips’ for you across the pond). Good. Let me warn you, though: You’ll have to refrain from eating them too loudly. If your chewing volume exceeds that of Matti Bye’s ‘Harmony’ theme, you’re banned from the living room, and you’ll have to watch the whole thing from the garden; I don’t make the rules.
Grab yourself a couch cushion. There are no pets in my household, but feel free to bring your own kitten, dog, rabbit, hamster or whatever other comfort animal you feel you might need for a little reassuring cuddle. (Don’t bring your fish bowl, for Heaven’s sake. I mean, I understand that we will be talking about ‘fish’ in a second and about how ‘fish’ should never be left out of the equation, but those are metaphorical ‘fish’, not actual fish.)
In any case…fear not, you won’t be needing any tissues this time because, in keeping with the season’s spirit, I have decided that the whole post below should ignore all of the disturbing stuff buried in this show’s subtext and should largely limit itself to the uplifting, lighthearted and lovely insights my friend is going to provide us with in a minute. So, none of the dark stuff here, just twinkling lights and cosiness. There might be a few melancholy moments – as befits a true Christmas Special – but otherwise you’re safe this time.
And now that you’re sitting comfortably…Ahem! Hang on. Will you please take your feet off the coffee table? What sort of manners do you call that?! That’s where my feet go! Thank you…So, now that we’ve made ourselves comfortable, let’s grab the remote (no, no, no, that’s mine; I’m not sharing remote duty with anyone ever, thank you very much!) and let’s get started:
Imagine this…
My literature teacher friend and I are just getting started; the first episode has literally just been running for a few minutes when the lake comes into view for the first time.
So, this is when my viewing companion turns to me and asks in an almost apathetic tone of voice, “Is there going to be a ‘water’ metaphor on this show?”
And I reply, “Yes, there is.”
“Comme toujours?”
“Yeah, same old, same old.”
“So, water is…feelings, then?”
“Yep,” I say, “feelings.”
“How unoriginal.”
“The show does some cool stuff with it, though,” I promise.
“Does it use the ‘water’ metaphor as a recurring motif throughout the whole story?”
“Yep.”
“Cool. ‘Kay.”
And we keep on watching (and chewing) in silence.
Now, let’s take a little leap in time (because what is a good story without a time leap). You see, we’re not binge-watching the whole show in one sitting; we’re all adults here with real-life responsibilities and jobs outside of this experience, so we have to exercise some self-restraint. (Plus, it takes ages to watch anything with us, anyway; I keep pressing pause every other scene to point something out or ask something.)
Anyway…So, it’s now about a fortnight later, and we have arrived at the infamous ‘fish scene’ in Bjärstad in episode five of season one. Wilhelm and Simon are just about to have sex (well, we’ve seen how the subtext suggests that things don’t really, ahem, work for Wilhelm, but anyway…). They are hugging; Simon is currently recounting the names of the fish, and, at that point, I press pause to explain that I think the ‘fish’ metaphor is just an extension of the ‘water’ metaphor.
My friend nods and says, “Yes. That’s obvious, isn’t it?”
And then I add with a good helping of blissful ignorance, “Yeah, it is. I mean, fish live underwater. It’s, like, their number one, most recognizable trait, the first characteristic that comes to mind when you think of fish. So, since fish live deep, deep underwater, that’s a reference to the depth of their feelings for each other.”
At this moment, my friend gives a little chuckle, “The first thing you think of when you hear the word ‘fish’ in a fictional context is: ‘lives underwater’? Really?”
I blink my eyes a couple of times, perplexed (feel free to blink yours as well, at this point), “Yeah. Sure. That’s my primary association with ‘fish’. Something wrong with that?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with it per se. It’s just so prosaic…lacking in poetic imagination.”
“What…why?”
Another chuckle. “Well, it’s obvious that’s not what the fish represent.”
“They live underwater. Of course, that’s what they represent,” I argue.
“Yeah, yeah, okay…That’s what they represent. But they represent far more than just that!”
I cross my arms defensively, “Okay, and what’s that?”
“Look, if this were only about the fish living underwater and the feelings being deep, you wouldn’t really get an extension of the metaphor. It would just be an amplification of the same metaphor: Fish or no fish, the lake is already pretty deep, all things considered. They could have just covered the walls of Simon’s room with photographs of the lake. Or…or posters of submarines or something. All teenage boys love themselves a good submarine…”
“I loved Jules Verne’s ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas’,” I provide.
“Yeah, something like that…They could have just thrown more watery imagery at us if their goal had been just to emphasize the depth of the metaphorical ‘water’ here. But that clearly wasn’t their only intention. An extension of a metaphor has to add a new dimension to said metaphor, to provide the viewer with a new insight. It has to extend the metaphor, not just amplify something the original metaphor already represents. Think of the ‘music’ metaphor…”
“Oookay?”
“The ‘ear’ metaphor isn’t just more of the same. It clearly extends the ‘music’=love axis into an ‘ear’=heart one. You have to think of the ‘water’ metaphor in a similar way. The ‘fish’ extend the original metaphor.”
“Okay, I concede that point,” I say, “but I still don’t see what it could be. Fish…live underwater. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind.”
“You sound like a marine biologist.”
“A mar–? Excuse me?!...You take that back!”
“Nope.” My friend is outright laughing at me now. (Feel free to join in here if you’ve solved it at this point because I’m still as obtuse as ever.)
“You have to think of fish in the way a poet would,” my friend taunts me. “Or a playwright. Or a novelist. Still nothing?”
“No…I mean, Wilhelm’s parents will force him to eat fish later on, so I thought–”
“Uhm, no spoilers, please…But that actually makes even more sense now.”
“Just tell me, okay? What’s wrong with my interpretation?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just really unpoetic…You really don’t get it, do you?”
“No!...Tell me. Tell me right now!”
Cue: a long pause during which my friend pours us some more wine, heaves a long-suffering sigh, then (I kid you not!) takes off his glasses and proceeds to wipe them quite obnoxiously for what feels like an eternity – all while smiling in faint amusement.
“Oh, just save it. I’m not one of your students.”
I will spare you the banter here about how the students are allegedly sooooo much cleverer than I am and how my IQ is barely above room temperature (because I’m still rolling my eyes at that). Suffice it to say that when the answer finally comes, I actually freeze for a moment:
“Fish are mute. They can’t talk. They’re always silent. That’s the poetic reason for why they’re used so often as metaphors in fictional contexts.”
“Oh…Oh!”
And now I’m sitting there, mouth agape, eyes wide open, stock-still and utterly silent. (I probably look like a fish myself at this point.)
“That’s…that’s…actually quite brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Yeah, why didn’t you?” Another smug sip of wine.
“So, the ‘fish’ could actually represent more than just the boys’ deep feelings for each other. They’re their deep and unspoken feelings.”
“Looks like it, huh?”
“That makes a lot of sense, actually. When Wilhelm’s parents feed him fish in episode six of season two…”
“No spoilers, please.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just thinking out loud…When they try to feed him fish, that’s not just a metaphor for him being forced to swallow down his feelings. No, what his parents are feeding him here is the idea that it’s specifically the deepest feelings in a person’s life that have to remain unspoken.”
“Well, I don’t know the context of the scene, but that sounds about right.”
“The context of the scene,” I explain, “is that his parents basically ask him, over a meal of fish, not to talk about his feelings to the public at large. They ask him to keep everything in the family. No sharing anything with any outsiders. Wilhelm’s feelings have to remain–”
“...unspoken?”
“Yeah…And it’s clearly implied in this lunch scene that the parents have been doing exactly that for ages. The father alludes to the mother’s hidden romantic past. All of that remains somewhere in that uncertain realm of things nobody is ever supposed to talk about.”
“See. Fish don’t talk.”
“Yes, and there’s a scene in season two with Wilhelm and Felice eating fish, too,” I remember excitedly.
“Now, you’re really just blurting out spoilers.”
“Felice orders sushi, no, poké bowl. Both are dishes containing raw fish. So, that’s…that’s the future Wilhelm would share with Felice if he married her: A relationship in which everything would remain unspoken. In which they’d permanently eat ‘fish’, the animals that are known for being mute. They’d have an unhappy marriage in which both of them would most likely have feelings for other people. Deep, deep feelings. Raw feelings. But those feelings would have to remain unspoken and would have to be swallowed down day after day, month after month, year after year.”
“Do I take it he’ll try it on with Felice in season two, then? It’s really the Confusion of Feelings™ with this one, isn’t it? Typical topos in a boarding school story, that. Eros and agape–”
“No. Not really. Just wait for it,” I reply distractedly. “What about this ‘fish scene’ here then? The one with Wilhelm and Simon?” I ask, pointing at the screen.
“Well, are these two known for talking about their feelings a lot? Doesn’t seem very like them at this point. Simon is clearly keeping some major things from Wilhelm. And as for Wilhelm himself…that’s most likely what his whole character arc is all about, isn’t it? He is the character who has to learn to express his emotions in spite of what he’s been told his entire life.”
“But Simon is currently in the process of naming the fish,” I argue, pointing at the screen again. “What does that mean? Is he…acknowledging those feelings or something.”
“Dunno…Could be a subtle reference to the Biblical Adam-naming-the-animals story.”
“Oh!” That’s the second time my eyes almost fall out of my head that evening. “You mean…? That whole scholastic controversy about Adam not naming the fish? The one referring to the passage in Genesis?”
“Yeah. There’s only a gazillion paintings about that in art history.”
“Why didn’t that occur to me?” I exclaim.
“Yeah, why didn’t it?” Again that none-too-subtle hint of smugness in my friend’s voice.
I will spare you the long lecture on semiotics and Umberto Eco here because I don’t want to bore you, but suffice it to say that The Book of Genesis in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible contains a passage in which God brings all the animals (that he has created) to Adam and lets Adam name them all (!).
The key element of the whole story isn’t just the naming of the animals in and of itself; it’s the context this passage is embedded in that counts: God brings the animals before Adam because ‘it’s not good that the man should be alone’.
That’s the key message here: Humans aren’t made to be alone; they long for that partner who completes them.
The passage with the naming of the animals segues directly into the realization that no suitable companion can be found for Adam, that he is all alone in the world and needs an actual partner, which is why Eve is created at that point.
I.e. the Bible passage with the naming of the animals is followed immediately by the passage about the creation of the second human being on earth.
As humans, it’s not in our nature to remain alone throughout our lives, we’re told here; we need our ‘better half’.
Now, here comes that fascinating historical factoid that my friend was alluding to. Pay close attention now, please!
This Bible passage sparked a scholastic controversy in the Middle Ages: The Bible mentions all the animals that Adam names, the birds and all the different kinds of land animals, but it crucially doesn’t say a word about the fish.
This fact, of course, didn’t escape some of the more literal-minded theologians (who tended towards sophistry and scholastic hairsplitting, I suppose). They suggested that, while Adam had named all the other animals, he actually never gave names to the fish. This way fish essentially remained these nameless, undefined, somewhat suspect entities, hidden from man’s eye, out of sight and never truly grounded in scripture.
The story about the fish not being named by biblical fiat isn’t a particularly arcane or obscure one; kids in RE class know about it and routinely make fun of it (or so my friend assures me; I wouldn’t know). It’s just this little curiosity in the text nobody can make head nor tail of, this weird little gap…
Would you turn it into a metaphor if you were a writer and knew about this gap in the Adam-naming-the-animals story?
The fish wouldn’t just be the ones who cannot talk (cf. our idea about the ‘unspoken feelings’ above); they’d also be the ones that aren’t talked about, the ones that aren’t mentioned. In essence, the fish would be both: the ones that have to remain silent themselves and that everyone keeps shtum about. Both: The unspoken and unspeakable feelings.
The absolutely unmentionable feelings. The nameless ones. The unnamable ones. The ones lacking proper definition in a traditional context (like the Bible).
Do you see what I’m driving at here?
In that scene in episode five of season one, we’ve got two characters in front of a fish tank. Both characters are of the same sex. Their feelings for each other aren’t just unspoken (metaphorically: the mute fish); no, there’s more to it: Their feelings are the ones that traditionally nobody ever mentions, the ones that haven’t been mentioned for centuries. The ones that are unspeakable. The ones that the Bible somehow ‘conveniently’ forgot to name. The ones everyone overlooks. The ones that are unmentionable and unnamable. The gap.
Every other funny little animal gets its own name (and yes, by ‘animal’ I mean all the heterosexual couples out there and all their feelings and relationships), but there’s one ‘animal’ that isn’t ever mentioned in this traditional context: the fish. The one that cannot talk itself and that is, in turn, never talked about. The one that’s so, so deep down in the metaphorical ‘water’ and yet has been cut out of the happy there’s-a-matching-lid-for-every-pot story since…forever. The one that everyone remains silent about.
And now try to recall what that Biblical story of Adam-naming-the-animals is actually all about: Its key message (as we’ve noted above) is the lesson that a human being shouldn’t remain alone, that they have to have a matching half to endure life’s hardships and share life’s joys with, that everyone deserves a partner in life, a companion, a beloved – and yet that very same story never mentions the fish. They remain unnamed.
Taking some little (potentially insignificant) curiosity and turning it into a metaphor, imbuing it with symbolic meaning, is exactly how you spin textual straw into subtextual gold.
But let’s return to our fireside chat in front of the TV…(I hope you haven’t fallen asleep on the sofa at this point, dear reader.)
“Do we know the writers know about the whole naming-the-fish thing missing from the Bible, though?” I ask.
“You don’t need to be a mediaevalist to know about it. Children in RE class know this and find it hilarious,” my friend replies with a shrug. “In my time, it was a fan favourite used for some jolly good blasphemy among teenagers, I can tell you. That…and the missing kangaroo in that Bible passage.”
“Well, they couldn’t have put a flipping kangaroo in Simon’s room,” I point out.
I will spare you the silly tangent this conversation veers off on at this point. But eventually my friend just shrugs with a smile, “The people who made this series are clearly culturally literate and well-read. A case in point would be the ‘David’ statue they tied Wilhelm to in episode one…there’s one Biblical story right there. Then there’s also the name ‘Ayub’, of course.”
(I hope you remember that we recently talked about that and discussed why the Biblical story of Job is so important for understanding what happened prior to the beginning of the story, i.e. off-screen before episode one of season one.)
“Later on, there will actually be a reference to Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’ and its white whale, too,” I say at this point, thinking out loud. “And the writers even intertwined it with the Jonah-and-the-whale story from the Old Testament.”
“Well, there you go.” My friend leans back and nods. “These writers know what they’re doing. So, the ‘fish-naming scene’ could very well be an intentional reference to that weird gap in the Bible.”
Obviously, we can’t tell you if that’s just one of those brilliant coincidences, or if this is exactly what the writers had in mind when they wrote that ‘fish-naming scene’ in episode five of season one. But to say it in the words of my friend:
“If it is intentional, then you can read Simon naming the fish as an act of defiance here – not on the surface of the text, of course, where this is just a cute little moment, but in the show’s subtext. This would be the writers’ own metatextual commentary on the fact that that particular ‘animal’, those particular feelings – same-sex love – deserve to be named, noticed, mentioned and cherished, as well.”
Simon names the fish specifically at a moment when Wilhelm practically wraps himself all around him, and they watch those particular named (!) animals like this: wrapped around each other – as though they were two halves that belong together. Because human beings shouldn’t be alone and deserve a companion in life. And that’s true even for those people whose ‘animals’ (unspoken and unspeakable feelings) were traditionally left unnamed.
When I wrote about the ‘water’ metaphor a long time ago, I had already understood that this was an important scene, but I hadn’t realized just how important it could potentially be. I had thought this was a moment reflective of the depth of their feelings for each other, but my friend added a whole new layer to it with this idea.
“Yeah…” I mutter. “Without that Biblical context, it’s actually kinda bizarre that there’s a ‘fish-naming scene’ in there in the first place. Why even write a scene like that?”
(By the way, remember how Simon refuses to share the names of the fish with Marcus? We had talked about the fact that that whole Marcus storyline in season two is actually incredibly important because it tells us something about Simon’s backstory. And here Simon specifically doesn’t give Marcus any metaphorical access to those ‘fish’. It’s almost as if the writers were telling us here that Simon’s hidden backstory is precisely not one of same-sex love. The writers refuse to give Marcus access to those ‘fish’ because that story is not about that at all. It’s something very different. Clever writing trick, that.)
“The only thing I can’t work out is why their names are Olly, Woolly and…Frisky, was it?” My friend says with an elaborate head-scratch.
“Oh, you mean, Olle, Oski and Felle?” I laugh. “Well, let me tell you about that…”
It’s actually fun (and somewhat charming) not to be the most clueless person about the actors’ and filmmakers’ shenanigans in the room for once. (And while I avoid all the interviews with the creators like the plague, you guys have all told me so much in the comment section already that I’ve learnt a few things I wouldn’t have known otherwise.)
So, that’s the point where I’m the one with the cool info for once and get to enlighten my friend about how that is the part of the scene that was improvised. (It’s actually a lot of fun to watch the show with someone who doesn’t know anything about its creators, I can tell you. My viewing companion was in awe of one of the actors and was convinced this guy must have been acting for ages. Well, and since I know that now from your comments, I could tell my friend that, no, this person had actually no prior acting experience whatsoever.)
Anyway, so this is the point where we (still on the sofa, episode still on pause) start to speculate:
“What do you think the writers will do with the ‘fish’ metaphor later on in the storyline?” I ask. “Can they even develop that any further? I mean, it’s not like they can suddenly make the fish in Simon’s room talk.”
“Well, I bet that guy could,” my friend mutters, pointing at the frozen image of Omar Rudberg on screen. “His voice is so incredible; there are probably actual, real fish who spontaneously burst into song when he opens his mouth.”
Cue: a long, silly conversation about Disney movies and how animals always burst into song when the beautiful Disney princess sings her love song – all of which I’m going to spare you now because you most likely haven’t reached the necessary level of alcohol intoxication to find this hilarious.
“Well, I dunno what they’re going to do in season three,” I finally manage to say, gasping for air, “but they could always introduce a talking cartoon fish.”
“Yeah, why not break the boundaries of the genre and combine the live-action ‘Young Royals’ show with an animation element by introducing an animated character à la Jessica Rabbit in ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit’?”
“No…idiot. I meant one of the characters could be shown to be watching TV for a fraction of a second, and you could see a talking fish on screen,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
“Simon’s ‘Spongebob’ moment…Or how about Wilhelm channelling his inner ‘Finding Nemo’ voice? Didn’t Simon wear a t-shirt with–”
“Okay, I’m officially cutting you off the liquid stuff now.”
This is also where I’m going to make another type of cut because it’s now time to let the free subscribers go, so they can enjoy their holidays. (The paid subscribers will have to endure me and my friend for a little while longer because, now that we’ve got the more melancholy (or should I say philosophical?) part out of the way, we will get to the more romantic and beautiful moments…and, of course, to a couple more completely pointless squabbles.
Since most of that is actually dependent on the character analysis series, I’m going to stick this under the cut for you kind people who have been following along with said character series for a while now. So, if you’re a paid subscriber, please remain seated on my couch and pour yourself another glass of wine or cup of tea.)
To everyone who’s leaving the room at this point: I wish you a few truly magical days with your loved ones, days filled not just with sparkling lights and heavenly scents, but with peace, hope, warmth and love! I hope you enjoy this quiet and enchanting time with your families. And when you hug your partner, remember that no love should ever be a gap, a white spot on the map or a black hole in the narrative of life, every love deserves to be named, mentioned, recognized and cherished. Every metaphorical ‘animal’ deserves a name.
To everyone who’s staying along for the ride: I’ve just put another log on the fire, dimmed the lights some more and monopolized the remote once again. So, as the fire crackles back to life, let’s get the chocolate truffles out now that my friend unearthed somewhere and see what else we can learn on this watch-along adventure…