Symbolism through Props: The Clementine Metaphor (examples: “Young Royals”, “The Godfather”, “Doctor Who”)

Anyone who’s ever watched ‘The Godfather’ knows that oranges are dangerous and can potentially kill you – at least metaphorically.

That’s because, in an infamous scene, Vito Corleone, the eponymous first ‘Godfather’ of the genre-defining trilogy, the Don of an Italian-American crime family (portrayed ingeniously by Marlon Brando), buys some oranges from a street vendor and immediately gets shot, oranges scattering all over the pavement and thus being visually likened to his spilled blood.

As viewers, we get the instant impression that those oranges are acting as a bad omen here – a metaphor that’s most likely going to be picked up again, and so we watch out for more oranges appearing on screen throughout those three films to make sure we don’t miss this important foreshadowing device. And sure enough, the motif is woven deeply into the metaphorical subtext of the second and third part of the trilogy in particular; many (if not all) of the major deaths or near-deaths are intentionally connected to the visual image of an orange.

This, dear reader, is the story of how, as a metaphor hunter (vulgo: film analysis buff), you can get turned around and end up on the wrong track: You have an image from an older movie or TV show on your mind that just doesn’t fit the metaphorical subtext of the show you’re currently analyzing. You know it doesn’t fit, but it just won’t go away no matter how often you swat at it (and your own furrowed brow) in the process.

In other words, applying the ‘orange’ metaphor from ‘The Godfather’ to the metaphorical use of clementines on ‘Young Royals’ doesn’t make any sense: Otherwise hapless Crown Prince Erik should have been surrounded by crates and crates of oranges or clementines during his last phone conversation with Wilhelm to warn us of what was to come. Also, Simon would by now be dead twice (or thrice?) over, considering how much he loves munching on the sweet juicy fruit, and in general, the body count of this show would be astronomically high, seeing as clementines show up in scene after scene.

Let’s look at another notable case of citrus fruit appearing on screen with an obvious symbolic meaning: the ‘Doctor Who’ episode ‘Last Christmas’, which features a story that’s clearly massively influenced by Christopher Nolan’s dream-inside-a-dream concept (from his movie ‘Inception’). In ‘Last Christmas’, tangerines serve as a rather heavy-handed and on-the-nose sign that what the characters are experiencing is not real, that it’s a dream.

You can probably see that once again we must have taken a wrong turn here, mentally ending up in a blind alley: Analyzing the metaphorical subtext of ‘Young Royals’ with the ‘tangerine’ metaphor from ‘Last Christmas’ in mind is not going to lead us anywhere useful because so far we have seen only one short (erotic) dream on ‘Young Royals’, and while some ungrateful cretins might call it ‘fruity’ (and I’ll concede that it’s very sweet), this dream doesn’t feature any fruit at all, citrus or otherwise. And unless ‘Young Royals’ massively breaks with its own tradition of good film-making and pulls a ‘Lost’ on us all at the last moment, creating a major commotion among the fans of this show, I don’t think we can attribute the clementines on ‘Young Royals’ to a dream metaphor either.

You see? We’ve established above that oranges are dangerous, and they are! Just not in the way one would think: They are dangerous because we can get lost just by looking at them. Before we know it, we’ve made a wrong assumption about a metaphor and it’s difficult to mentally turn back from that afterwards.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, not because I suffer from some type of visual Vitamin C deficiency resulting in some absurd attachment to film scenes with citrus fruit in them, but because I’m trying to make a broader point here. There’s an interesting lesson here to be learned about symbolism in general:

Just because a metaphor has one particular meaning in one ‘text’ (TV show, movie, play, book, etc.) doesn’t mean it represents the same thing in another one. 

This might sound trivial, but it’s actually quite important. You’d be surprised how often one encounters the following logic: “If film X or show Y has symbolically used something (music, water, you name it) in one way, this must mean that that’s a universal metaphor which is used in the exact same way in every other film or TV show on planet Earth.” 

That’s akin to claiming that there’s an unwritten universal codebook of symbolism that, once uncovered, can be applied anywhere and will unlock even the most impenetrable and mysterious source text, that once you’ve cracked the code, so to speak, you’re among the enlightened and can just apply said code to any and all media.

Obviously, reality is quite a different story.

While there are a few universally recognized metaphors (an apple signifying temptation springs to mind, for example), these are often more than just metaphors; they’re symbols – symbols whose symbolic meaning is derived from centuries upon centuries of art history and often linked to its biblical or other mythical underpinning. (Another prominent example would be the use of dogs to signify companionship/ loyalty/ friendship/ marriage. I’m sure you can come up with quite a few more yourselves: think hearts, crosses, white doves, etc.)

So, while there are plenty of universal symbols popping up everywhere from oil paintings to action movies and even a few actual metaphors whose meaning is, if not identical, then at least similar across different source media because convention dictates they are used in a certain way, most metaphors used on screen do fall into neither of those two categories. Which means that, as a viewer, you have to work out their specific meaning anew each and every single time you consume and hopefully enjoy a new ‘text’. You have to sit down with a pen and paper and meticulously analyze what you’re seeing step by step and in painstaking detail because you cannot rely on some alleged cross-textual, universal meaning. The two very different examples given above (from ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Doctor Who: Last Christmas’) with their rather divergent meanings should demonstrate that quite clearly.

So, in looking at the clementines on ‘Young Royals’, we shall try to empty our brains of all preconceived notions that might be distracting us, ridding ourselves of any associations and connotations we might over time have scooped up in our metaphorical fruit basket in years and years of film consumption.

But enough of the dry and juiceless introduction, let’s get to the sweet and succulent pulp of this article, the juicy bits, so to speak. Let’s throw open the gates and enter our metaphorical citrus orchard.

(At this point, I should probably mention that there’s a lovely tumblr person who, a while ago, linked me to the really comprehensive list of clementine references on the show ‘Young Royals’ they have compiled over time and that I’m mostly following their list – with a few added scenes I’ve recently discovered along the way.)

So, let’s examine what I would like to call the truest metaphor of the show. 

We shall use the approach I have outlined above, i.e. take a close look at every little detail we see on screen.

Well, and here’s the first detail that should really jump out at us about the clementines on ‘Young Royals’: Some of them are peeled and some are not!

I’m putting this in cursive because I think it’s really the key to understanding the whole metaphor.

The second thing that should jump out at us as viewers is that their peeled or unpeeled state is not random. There is a pattern: Namely, that it all depends on the context they’re placed in.

The clementines we get in the castle scene or in Linda and Micke Eriksson’s respective homes, for example, are all (!) unpeeled. In scenes that revolve around Wilhelm and Simon’s interactions, on the other hand, the clementines get peeled and often enough consumed.

This difference alone should already set us on the right path to deciphering this metaphor.

If we assume that the sweet, perfect fruit inside is the Self, the true authentic core of a person, then it’s most interesting that the clementines in all the parents’ homes are covered by a thick, inedible peel:

In other words, none of the relationships in these homes involve people who are truthful about themselves; these people are all hidden under a thick layer of deception.

Look no further than Wilhelm’s family:

Even his beloved brother Erik clearly didn’t share everything with Wilhelm (as Wilhelm finds out time after time in season two). Erik wasn’t his own true self – and not just in his interactions with Wilhelm; Erik wasn’t honest with anyone else in his life either. His whole identity was covered in a thick, impenetrable layer of deception (metaphorically: an ‘orange peel’, so to speak). He was one person to the public and somebody else in private. And even in private, he wasn’t truthful with the one person who most likely mattered more to him than anyone else in the universe.

Or take Wilhelm’s mother: Nothing about her is honest. The private person has almost disappeared under that metaphorical ‘peel’, that mask of royal demeanour. Wilhelm probably knows next to nothing about her life before he was born. There is straight-up dialogue, plain text in the script that tells us she was once involved in a romance that went south. We don’t know what exactly happened – and neither does Wilhelm. The public don’t even know it happened at all. In season two, her husband confirms she wasn’t always the way she is now, but what she was like exactly we are once again not told explicitly. There are layers upon layers covering and hiding her true personality. So many secrets, so many lies, so much manipulation and deception.

Let’s not even start about Wilhelm’s father, who so far is just a blank page we can project pretty much anything onto. There’s one tiny bit of subtext in season two, when he misremembers the name of the party location of the Hillerska students as ‘The Fortress’, telling us that he’s probably unhappy, that he feels trapped in his role as Prince Consort (we’ve discussed this), but that’s essentially it. That hint alone, however, tells you that behind his façade of empty joviality, there is a different person who neither the public nor we, the audience, get to see.

It’s no wonder all of the clementines shown to us in that castle scene are unpeeled: These people don’t show us their true selves. We literally don’t know what’s underneath their masks. They are all façade, all inedible peel and no sweet clementine, so to speak.

What I find most brilliant about this metaphor on ‘Young Royals’, though, is that it’s not just used to tell us something about the ‘antagonists’ (for lack of a better word); it’s applied to the characters we think of as ‘good’, as well. (But then, this show is great at showing us how even the characters we think of as ‘good’ sometimes do very bad things.)

Try to remember where exactly we see those unpeeled clementines at the castle. It’s a very specific scene.

We catch sight of them when Wilhelm is about to make his statement of denial in episode six of season one. They’re specifically sitting on the table of the room he is supposed to give the statement in; it’s where the interviewer and the cameras (and the clementines) are waiting for him.

Translation: Wilhelm won’t be showing his true identity in that statement. He will be hiding it, in fact, covering it with a thick, inedible peel, a layer of lies and deception. And the unpeeled clementines tell you all you need to know about that.

Is Wilhelm’s behaviour understandable? Yes, of course it is. He’s been manipulated into giving that statement, and he’s probably still in shock, having recently lost his beloved brother and become the victim of sexual abuse. But the clementines are an impartial metaphor: They don’t judge. They just tell you that somebody in that scene is lying, lying about their sexual identity, a core part of their personality, lying to an entire country, and on national TV, at that.

The unpeeled clementines are the last thing we see as Wilhelm enters the room where he will be giving his statement; they’re looming ominously in the foreground, telling us that, with this statement, Wilhelm is closing ranks with his family, becoming one of the ‘clementines’, so to speak, joining a group of people who hide their true selves. As hard as this may be to swallow, the clementines tell us that, at least at this point in the story, Wilhelm is becoming more like his parents. (That’s why both his mother and father are there in the anteroom talking to each other in low voices as Wilhelm walks over to the interviewer.)

Then we cut away to the Erikssons’ home. The statement itself is never shown to us, but we don’t need to see it; the clementines have already told us that it’s a pile of…well, we’ll say a pile of orange peels here, to keep this article family-friendly.

By the way, did you notice the audiovisual joke that was achieved by the editing there? 

Wilhelm shakes the interviewer’s hand, sits down, we see the clementines; then there’s a cut…and everyone in the Erikssons’ home is laughing out loud.

On the surface of the text (the literal level of the script), the sound of laughter is just there to show us the happy bubble the Eriksson family is engulfed in at that precise moment – both a contrast to the icy politeness at the castle and to Simon’s devastation a moment later when he finds out about Wilhelm’s betrayal and the bubble bursts. 

But on the subtextual level, the sound of laughter does something else:

Think about it. If the showrunners wanted to just showcase this contrast, they could have just as well shown us a smiling family in their living room, a warmly glowing window in the cold of November – all of it without the sound of laughter in the background.

The editing at that moment when we cut from the castle where the statement is about to be made to the loud and boisterous peal of laughter within a matter of seconds subtextually suggests that it’s the statement we, the audience, should be laughing at! Because the statement is just that: It’s laughable. It’s ludicrous.

We don’t see the statement; we just hear the laughter instead. The show conspicuously substitutes one for the other!

Because that’s what that statement is: a preposterous, absurd joke. Anyone who’s watched the show up to that point knows Wilhelm’s (undoubtedly PR-scripted) statement about how he doesn’t want to involve himself in any serious emotional relationships is farcical. We’ve all seen him fall in love head over heels. So the statement is something we should be darkly snorting about into our cups of coffee (or orange juice to keep the metaphor going). That’s what that cut suggests.

But back to our clementines…

Another example of ‘good’ people lying about themselves would be the ‘clementine’ scene in episode one of season one: Simon has just shown up at his dad’s house unannounced to ask his farsa to procure alcohol for him.

Who is lying to who here? Who is not their own true self? Just the ‘antagonist’ (for lack of a better word)? Or is it mutual? Are they both lying?

I mean, sure enough, Simon’s father is trying to hide things from Simon within a matter of seconds after Simon enters his apartment. This broken man, who clearly is an alcoholic, is turning his back to Simon (in and of itself a very telling visualization of what is going on in that scene) just as Simon walks in, rubbing the booze-induced sleep from his eyes and face. Moments later we see Micke trying to quickly hide the bottles and straighten up his living room while we’re getting a shot of the infamous unpeeled clementines at the same time.

The cinematography is clear here: Simon’s father, who hurt Simon both emotionally and physically in the past, is trying to hide who he is in that scene, trying to pretend that he’s better now. No wonder there are unpeeled clementines shown at exactly that point in the conversation.

But make no mistake, Simon isn’t any more honest in that scene: It’s not just the fact that he only shows up at his dad’s place when he needs something; his noncommittal grunt when they’re talking about Sara and Linda makes it really clear that he hasn’t told his dad that Sara doesn’t want to talk to Micke at all. He’s pretending that everything is fine when it’s clearly not. This entire scene is brutally honest about the way people in a broken family communicate (or rather don’t communicate) with each other, the fact that Simon is lying to both sides of that family being a case in point: He’s pretending to Micke that everything is fine with Sara, and he will lie to Sara later on, so she doesn’t find out he’s been in contact with their father.

Lies upon lies upon lies. Simon isn’t honest in that scene, and the unpeeled clementines sitting in their basket silently tell us as much.

As a matter of fact, we’re getting the shot of the unpeeled clementines on the table at the precise moment when Simon noncommittally claims that Linda and Sara are okay while Micke is trying to straighten up his room, pretending to be fine. The cinematography is crystal clear here: Both lies are happening at the same time; they’re overlapping. It’s a mutual deception. And the ‘clementine’ shot is overlapping with both lies.

What I like particularly about that whole scene is the fact that the clementines tell you quite plainly that just being truthful about your sexual orientation isn’t everything in life.

Yes, Simon doesn’t lie about being gay. Yes, Simon is casually comfortable about it (as he should be). But being gay isn’t everything he is. Not by far. None of us are just our sexual orientation. And you can be a liar in many ways (some of them very understandable). Just because you’re showing one part of your true identity doesn’t mean you’re not hiding other parts of your true self under a thick orange peel: Shame over coming from a broken home, pity for your father and his miserable life, the fact that, even with a father like that, you don’t want to hurt his feelings, but also the strong sense that you need something from him right now and so you don’t want to anger him – all of that is deeply human and very understandable. But it’s what creates the impenetrable ‘peel’ covering your true self and making you a liar.

This scene is brilliantly written. And the ‘clementine’ metaphor is just an added bonus to make us understand this mutual deception.

And you know what? This ‘clementine’ scene actually has a continuation. 

Did you notice it? In episode two of season one, Simon visits his father again. This time Micke has straightened up the place in advance. He has uncovered his keyboard (we talked about this when we discussed the fact that, on this show, ‘music’ represents love). Again, this man is pretending he has his life together when he clearly hasn’t, showing us and Simon an outward layer, a metaphorical ‘orange peel’, instead of the pain he’s usually trying to numb with alcohol and drugs.

Then Micke proceeds to suggest Simon and Sara should come and visit him together. Simon’s answer is, once again, elusive. He says Sara might not be ready for that yet instead of openly telling Micke about the extent to which Sara has rejected their father.

And just as Simon tells this half-lie, the camera does something interesting: What we’d seen first, while his father was still asking, was Simon in a medium close-up (that means basically his face and down to about the chest level). Then as Simon half-lies by omission, the camera tilts into a tilt shot: We see the whole darkened living room behind him, and the unpeeled clementines on the coffee table are suddenly in sharp focus for a second. To accentuate the tilt, Simon actually turns around and has his back to us for a moment.

It’s very subtle, but the cinematography in that scene once again links Simon’s lie to the clementines. And the clementines are, of course, unpeeled in that shot.

Immediately after that, we hear Simon play a few disjointed notes on the keyboard. Translation: Both of them are again lying to each other (the clementines), but Simon loves his dad (the music) even if that love is disjointed, all over the place, and can’t find its proper form in a real melody (we’ve discussed this).

You think things are better over in Linda Eriksson’s home? I’m afraid they’re not. 

As viewers of this show, we tend to romanticize the relationship Simon has with his mother. It’s understandable, considering who his father is. Linda Eriksson is clearly working herself into the ground to raise two teenage children as a single mother. In the words of Wilhelm, she is ‘awesome’. We admire her for the way she won’t be intimidated at the Parents’ Day luncheon. And yet, there’s a lot going on under her roof that’s the opposite of ideal.

One of the first things we ever see Simon do during an interaction with his mother (in episode one of season one) is lie to her: He tells her Sara and he have been invited to a party (which is a lie) and then omits the whole booze-smuggling condition this invitation hinges on.

I won’t go into the long list of lies Simon tells his mother (and sister) over the course of the two seasons we have seen so far, but it’s quite extensive.

Here’s one lie that the clementines draw our attention to:

In a scene in episode three of season one, we see Simon putting away his empty plate and subsequently discovering a letter with an invoice from the school. He surreptitiously opens it to make sure his mother won’t see.

Did you notice where the stack of letters is lying? Right next to the bowl of clementines on the counter/pass-through from the living room to the kitchen. All of the clementines in that bowl are unpeeled: There are lies upon lies in this household, many of them are Simon’s. Some of them will be Sara’s later on.

The one the camera is concentrating on at that precise moment is Simon trying to hide the invoice from his mother. That’s why said invoice is lying right next to the bowl of clementines, i.e. Simon is hiding something under a metaphorical ‘peel’ there.

You know where else unpeeled clementines make a sneaky little appearance? During the Santa Lucia celebration at Hillerska.

We see an establishing shot of the school glowing in the dark, then a close-up of a few plates with various seasonal treats and sweets and then we get a shot of the parents’ and students’ mingling; some of them have a clementine on their plate (all of these clementines are conspicuously unpeeled!). And literally seconds later, we hear Felice’s mother drone on about the importance of Felice having been made the Lucia this year. I probably don’t even need to explain what the unpeeled clementines symbolically represent in a context where all these parents are so proud to be upholding their traditions, traditions that often end up just suffocating their children: So many lies in these families, so many masks and façades…is what these unpeeled clementines are telling us. No truth, no authenticity anywhere to be seen. No wonder Felice feels like breaking out and rejecting the dress later on. And no wonder Wilhelm tells Simon that he’s the only one he can talk to here.

Apropos Wilhelm and Simon…

I feel we’ve talked quite a bit about the sad symbolism of the unpeeled clementines, so let’s now treat ourselves and discuss a sweet scene where a clementine is (at least partially) peeled and eaten.

Now that we know that unpeeled clementines are all about lies, secrets, deception and hiding your true self, what does it tell us that there’s a (half-peeled) clementine lying on the table between Wilhelm and Simon at ‘workies’ in episode two of season one?

It’s really sweet actually: Both characters have grown up with secrets and lies, with their parents hiding things from them and themselves behind a mask, both of them keep lying themselves too, and yet…and yet…when they’re with each other, they’re starting to peel back those layers of deception. When they’re with each other, they can be their true selves. It’s what most likely drew them to each other in the first place.

Keep in mind how early in their burgeoning relationship this scene is set: They barely know each other. They’ve talked to each other something like 3,5 times. Even in that scene during ‘workies’, they’re not talking. They’re doing their homework (well, at least Simon is; Wilhelm’s eyes are not on his textbook, that’s for sure). They haven’t kissed yet. They haven’t had their football ‘date’ yet. They’re almost strangers at this point in the story.

And yet, they’re sitting there, quietly enjoying each other’s company, and the half-peeled clementines tell us that they’re beginning to feel something they don’t feel with anyone else in their life: They can be just themselves with each other.

It’s difficult to tell if Wilhelm is chewing gum in that scene or if he’s sharing that clementine with Simon. I’m choosing to think it’s the latter because it’s only later that Vincent shows up, offering everyone gum (also because Wilhelm is seen ‘cleaning’ his teeth with his tongue while chewing – something you don’t usually do when you chew gum but might do when eating a clementine slice).

So, it really looks as if, at that early stage of their friendship, Wilhelm and Simon are already sharing a clementine, i.e. they’re ‘sharing’ figuratively speaking, as well. They’re sharing something very precious with each other: who they really are.

Then August inevitably shows up because there’s clearly no getting rid of him, and Simon flees the scene, not before grabbing the clementine (the still-unpeeled part of it!) and clenching it firmly in his fist as he leaves.

Look at the way Simon holds that clementine at that moment: You would probably never hold a clementine like that in real life, which means the actor was directed to hold it in this slightly unnatural way to make sure we, the audience, really see that it’s the still-unpeeled part of the fruit he’s holding, nay, clenching angrily in his fist.

Translation: Sharing time is over. August is here, and Simon doesn’t want to show his true identity around that jerk, he’s metaphorically ‘pocketing’ it, and Wilhelm makes a face as though his favourite toy just got broken on the playground.

(Just a brief side note here: Actors holding props in a somewhat unrealistic, even stiff way so that the audience can spot a certain detail about the prop in question is a thing. Once you know it, you’ll see it everywhere on TV, I promise. From file folders being held just so you can make out what words are printed on them to coffee mugs being held a bit unnaturally to make sure you can see a logo near the handle…it’s done frequently. And you can often spot the fact that the actor was directed to hold the item in question in that particular way. Why, look no further than Simon shoving his key into the lock of his locker in episode one somewhat slowly to make sure we, the audience, see his infamous middlefinger-keychain.)

By the way, did you notice how, in that ‘workies’ scene, two different metaphors intersect with each other? Wilhelm and Simon are peeling and sharing a metaphorical ‘clementine’, and August starts talking about ‘rowing’. Remember what we’ve established about ‘rowing’ in the ‘water’ metaphor article? ‘Rowing’ is a metaphor for a buddy-type friendship, the kind of relationship Wilhelm subtextually proposed to Simon and Simon couldn’t make head nor tail of in his metaphorical ‘balancing act’ in the boat.

So it’s actually no wonder that Simon flees the scene here: August has brought up the exact thing that has made Simon quite unhappy in that rowing scene on the lake earlier on. Now August, too, is talking about a guys-being-guys kind of friendship. And Simon has quite frankly had it with the straight-dude-posing routine at this point. He was just about to peel back some of the layers with Wilhelm; he’d had the feeling they were getting somewhere, and now the whole bro-tapping-back-clapping dudebro talk is about to start again.

While we’re on the subject of Simon trying to remove Wilhelm’s metaphorical ‘orange peel’ and then being prevented from doing so at the last minute…

Another scene that highlights the contrast between a peeled and an unpeeled metaphorical ‘clementine’ is the one we’re going to discuss next. And actually it’s this particular scene that first tipped me off about what was going on with this whole ‘clementine’ metaphor. As a matter of fact, it might be my favourite ‘clementine’ scene of the entire show so far:

Simon comes home in the evening after the football match in episode two of season one, his eyes and facial expression clearly spelling out the word, ‘Crushing hard!’ No, seriously, he looks like he’s on cloud nine when he tells Sara about showing Wilhelm Bjärstad.

Now go watch that scene and pay close attention to what Simon is doing with his hands there: He grabs a clementine and throws it playfully up in the air with his right hand, catching it and then passing it from his right hand to his left. Then, a split second later, he holds it up with his left as though he were showing it in a lesson of show-and-tell and says the sentence, “I was showing Wilhelm around Bjärstad,” the moment he says the name “Wilhelm” coinciding precisely with the moment he’s holding up the clementine.

The cinematography here is quite clear: The clementine is Wilhelm; it represents Wilhelm.

And then this message gets reinforced because Sara asks in a disbelieving voice, “Wilhelm?” and Simon hums affirmatively, “Mhm,” holding the clementine up again and examining it in a shot that I’m choosing to think is an ironic inversion of the infamous ‘Alas-Poor-Yorick’ scene from ‘Hamlet’. (Ironic because we don’t get a skull, a lament and a sad philosophical rant about human evanescence, but a happy, smitten, hopeful Simon with a clementine that represents Wilhelm. Simon is so full of hope in that scene; it’s almost hard to watch.)

This clementine is Wilhelm, the cinematography tells us none-too-subtly, and Simon is about to peel that thing and swallow it whole.

Translation: Simon is peeling back Wilhelm’s façade by inviting him on football dates and spending quality time with him; he’s peeling back Wilhelm’s princely mask and getting closer to the sweet core that is pure Wille…or so Simon thinks.

Because at that exact moment, his phone buzzes, telling him to delete the story showing Wilhelm from his instagram. Simon looks crestfallen at that, and he notably never peels and eats that clementine. The scene ends as we cut to Wilhelm, who’s reading the Hillerska handbook on ‘Etiquette’ (!).

The secret, the façade, the mask has won (for now). Wilhelm’s role as a prince prevents them from being just normal teenagers in love who post stuff about each other all over the internet. The metaphorical ‘peel’ remains in place (at least in that respect). And in a sense, the visual allusion to ‘Hamlet’ might have been a hint already, the reference to evanescence not so much being a rumination on the transience of human life as in Shakespeare’s famous play, but on the transience of hope. Simon was full of hope at that moment when he held up the clementine, but look how quickly that hope was dashed, look how transient it proved to be. If that’s not foreshadowing the further development of their relationship in season one, I don’t know what is.

And no, you don’t have to read a ‘Hamlet’ reference into the way Simon holds up that clementine if you don’t want to; that’s just me being me.

But look at it this way: The ‘Alas-Poor-Yorick’ scene from ‘Hamlet’ is a scene in which a prince is holding up the skull of the court jester (i.e. someone of a lower rank). In our scene, the set-up is inverted: It’s Simon (who, let’s face it, is a bit of a court jester personality-wise) who’s holding up a clementine that represents a prince. You see how this works? It’s an ironic inversion: In ‘Hamlet’ the prince is holding up the skull, contemplating it and thinking about a court jester. In our scene, the court jester is holding up the clementine, contemplating it and thinking about the prince.

The infamous ‘Hamlet’ monologue specifically mentions the fact that the prince kissed the court jester on the lips. (Again, where’s the difference, I ask you?) It mentions the fact that the court jester ‘bore’ the prince ‘on his back’ (although in Hamlet’s case all of that is a reference to the prince’s childhood; in our case, it might be foreshadowing the football field scene). And let’s not even go into the fact that this most iconic scene from ‘Hamlet’ is a meditation on social class, political corruption and power just as much as it is on human mortality – and that in a play whose setting is famously a Scandinavian Royal court.

The most convincing argument, however, is the fact that this particular monologue from ‘Hamlet’ is usually played in a very particular way: The skull is held up by the actor in an almost iconic gesture, which Simon clearly imitates here. It’s an instantly recognizable gesture; even people who’ve never seen ‘Hamlet’ performed on stage know what it is.

I honestly can’t tell you if all of this is just a coincidence, but personally I think it strains credulity to imagine that any director on set wouldn’t know what that gesture means when it’s performed by an actor. So I’m making a conscious choice to believe that this is exactly what it means; whether you want to follow me in that conclusion is entirely up to you.

One very interesting ‘clementine’ scene in season one is the one at the library when August tries to convince Sara to sell him her drugs. Simon is sitting in the background of the shot, first blurry (i.e. shallow depth of field) and then coming into sharp focus as the camera draws our attention to the fact that he’s listening in on the conversation between Sara and August. Here, too, we see him with a half-peeled clementine that he’s chewing on ever more furiously the more of the conversation he overhears. (By the way, any self-respecting library prohibits the consumption of food on its premises, especially food that results in sticky fingers, so we can be extra sure that this clementine is not there for the realism but for the symbolism only.)

The clementine is still half covered by a peel because Simon is reluctant for his sister to find out she wasn’t actually invited to the party and he had to contact their dad to get the booze that was a prerequisite for the invitation. Simon has once again lied by omission to his sister, and he doesn’t want her to find out (metaphorically: there is still quite a lot of peel wrapped around that clementine he’s eating.)

And yet, he has peeled back some of it. He’s eating it. That’s because Simon (while also lying and hiding something) is, at the same time, very truthful in that scene: Simon is fiercely protective of his older sister. That is a core part of his personality, and he shows it with his furrowed brow and his ever angrier facial expression. Nothing about Simon is as honest and as authentic as the protective instinct he feels towards his sister. And that’s why we see quite a bit of peeled clementine here that he’s conspicuously eating in that scene.

Let’s now talk about one of the difficult-to-watch ‘clementine’ scenes:

As August brings Wilhelm dinner in episode six of season one, what do we spy with our little metaphor-seeking eye? A clementine, half-peeled, half-eaten on Wilhelm’s table.

I said above that the ‘clementine’ is an impartial metaphor on this show. It doesn’t judge whether something is good or bad. And that’s what we see in that scene: Wilhelm has just been outed – outed not just to the entire school, but to the entire country, the whole world even.

The metaphorical ‘peel’ is off now.

But tearing it off was painful. It didn’t happen of Wilhelm’s own free will. Look at the way the clementine is lying on that table; the peel is torn and thrown all over the place – a veritable citrus fruit massacre. This outing, this shedding of the peel hurt as hell.

To add insult to injury, it all happened in a criminal context, which is why this clementine is shown to us specifically in a scene where August strolls in with a guilty face.

Why is it only half-peeled, then? Well, for one, because Wilhelm is sort of only half out of the closet, isn’t he? He hasn’t confirmed or denied anything at that point. Everything is up in the air, including his own emotions (again, very understandably). 

The whole country, the entire world got to see the true Wilhelm, arguably at the truest, most authentic moment of his entire life: his first time having sex. But it’s awful, painful and criminal that anyone got to see it in the first place, and we all suspect, at that point, that the Queen will prevail, and he will deny it, pushing himself right back into the closet. That’s one of the reasons why that clementine is only half-peeled, the other being August, obviously.

August is lying through his teeth in that scene, lying with a guilty face, at that. So part of that peel has to stay on the clementine.

You know what would have made that scene even better: If the dinner August brought Wilhelm had included at least one (unpeeled) clementine.

Why would that make the scene even better? Well, because despite August feigning sympathy (and largely feeling guilt) at that point, it would symbolically show us that August (i.e. the upper class) is pushing Wilhelm right back into the closet from which he was just dragged against his will. (Consequently, the clementines in the statement-of-denial scene at the castle are all unpeeled again because Wilhelm is stepping back into the closet, putting the mask back on, so to speak.)

That’s why August bringing him an unpeeled clementine as a dessert ‘treat’ with his dinner would have been brilliant.

But then, maybe the show wasn’t gunning for that symbolism at all. Maybe the writers really meant it when they had August say, “Erik would have wanted you to follow your heart.” Who knows.

By the way, did you notice how this scene is bookended?

It starts as we cut away from Simon. Simon has just received Wilhelm’s text that they’re ‘in this together’ and is staring at his fish tank (read: his deep, deep feelings for Wilhelm; remember the ‘water’ metaphor? ). Then we get a shot of Wilhelm on his bed, listening to music (remember the ‘music’ metaphor?) and hugging himself, Wilhelm is at his lowest point. He needs ‘music’ (love) right now, but he’s not getting the ‘music’ he wants. 

And then the scene ends with Wilhelm having a flashback: him and Simon in front of the fish tank, embracing, their hands criss-crossing over Simon’s torso (i.e. the ‘water’ metaphor again).

And in between those two ‘fish’ scenes, we get the ‘clementine’ scene with August. The script is really rather cleverly structured here.

Actually, in a call-back scene in season two, we get to see a clementine in a very similar state again: Wilhelm is forcibly being dragged out of his room by his bodyguard Malin at Jan-Olof’s (i.e. the Queen’s) behest. And what is lying there on Wilhelm’s desk? A clementine, its peel torn off and apart in much the same way as the one during the conversation with August in season one. It’s actually positioned in the exact same spot on the table, as well. So visually, we’re told right there that whatever conversation comes next will once again be all about Wilhelm coming out. And sure enough, the phone call with his mother (her high up on the plane, him downtrodden on the floor, remember?) is exactly about that: When can he finally come out? How long does he have to hide under this peel? The clementine is half-peeled, half-eaten, and it’s waiting.

Note, by the way, that there’s a half-eaten apple on that table, as well. What a nice coincidence! Didn’t we talk about apples being symbols of temptation earlier? And this one is half-eaten, too. Just like the clementine.

Wilhelm is half out of the closet. The whole school knows he slept with Simon even though everyone keeps pretending it wasn’t him in the video. They all go about their business, thinking that sooner or later Wilhelm will get over his ‘silly little gay phase’ and find himself a nice girlfriend.

So, what do you think is the question playing on Wilhelm’s mind there? Is it tempting to just scream? Is it tempting to make a scene? Tempting to cause a scandal? Tempting to come out sooner rather than later? Or is it more tempting to follow his mother’s advice? Stay in the closet for another two years? What’s the bigger temptation here?

Wilhelm is undecided. And notably, the apple remains half-eaten. Just like his clementine that shows us his current state: half in, half out of the closet.

By the way, once Wilhelm relays his mother’s words to Simon in the locker room, begging Simon to just be with him even if they have to keep it a secret for another two years, did you notice what Simon says specifically when he rejects this idea?

He says, “We can talk in school; we kinda have to during rowing practice.”

The script is looping back in on itself here: In episode two of season one, it was Wilhelm who proposed to be just superficial buddy-type friends (metaphorically: to row). In episode two of season two (note that it’s, once again, the second episode of the season), it’s now Simon who is suggesting this type of superficial relationship. Simon in season one looked uncomfortable at the suggestion, and Wilhelm in season two is downright devastated. 

A brilliant mix of the two states in which clementines are presented to us on this show (namely, peeled and unpeeled at the same time) is the following scene in the season finale of season two: Simon is at home, sitting at the table with Rosh and Ayub, discussing the whole awful situation that has unfolded over the last couple of hours. There’s one peeled and half-eaten clementine there and one completely unpeeled one.

Translation: Simon is truthful with his friends, but, boy, does he lie to his mother just a moment later. He hides virtually everything from her, even going so far as to claim that it wasn’t August who recorded and leaked the video. Notably, the half-eaten and peeled clementine is lying on Rosh’s plate while the unpeeled one is positioned near the centre of the table right on the tablecloth. Simon is showing some of his hurt and wounded self to his friends, but he’s hiding his drug-dealing side-business, Sara’s involvement in August’s lies and pretty much everything else from his mother – notably, so as not to hurt her, in turn.

There are so many lies in that moment it’s no surprise that there’s an unpeeled clementine on the table. And the fact that Simon hides underneath the hood of his hoodie shouldn’t really surprise anyone either. There are layers upon layers of metaphorical ‘peel’ around him at that point in the story.

Note how we cut away from that scene, too: We cut to the Royal family having a meal at Hillerska. While you might think this is just to highlight the contrast between a simple working-class meal and a refined aristocratic luncheon, there’s more to it than meets the eye:

The shot we get is a close-up (!) of a plate, so we know it’s important. And what’s on that plate? Why, if I’m not very much mistaken, it’s salmon rolls, in other words: fish! Fish, as we have already established, is just another way for the ‘water’ metaphor to express itself on this show.

And then we realize whose plate exactly it is that we’re seeing there: It’s Wilhelm’s. 

So, his parents want him to eat metaphorical ‘fish’ (read: his feelings). They’re metaphorically forcing him to swallow his feelings down, down, down, trying to make him as emotionally repressed as they are.

Note also how that close-up of Wilhelm’s plate is overlaid by Ludvig’s line (which we’ve already discussed): He calls the party location a ‘Fortress’, hinting at the fact how trapped he feels in his role and his marriage.

Consequently, the following conversation revolves around the question of feelings, whether it’s good to talk about them and to whom. And in the end…Wilhelm refuses to eat his metaphorical ‘fish’. Translation: Wilhelm is done swallowing his feelings.

But let’s get back from our little pescetarian interlude to the fruitarian part of this article:

If the clementines’ state (peeled or unpeeled) tells us something about the level of lies, secrets and deception a truth is wrapped in, how come, you might ask, we see a whole lot of unpeeled clementines in the therapist’s office in season two. Isn’t it literally the job description of any self-respecting therapist to help their patients peel back the layers upon layers that keep covering their own true self?

Again, pay attention to the context: The scene in which we catch a glimpse of these unpeeled clementines is Wilhelm’s first (!) therapy session – a scene in which Wilhelm notably refuses to cooperate with the therapist by just sitting around for what we are made to understand is probably a full hour of absolute silence. There’s no peeling back of any layers going on there, at least not at that early stage of their therapy sessions. Wilhelm even lies to the therapist by telling him that he’s ‘alright considering the circumstances’. That metaphorical ‘peel’ is well in place, and at that point, Boris isn’t getting under it, the clementines are telling us here.

What’s telling, though, is that once again there is one lonely apple placed among the clementines in the bowl, and I’m going to read this as Wilhelm being at least a tiny bit tempted to start the therapy process properly. The apple isn’t half-eaten or even bitten into or anything. It’s just lying there like a suggestion, so feel free to ignore it if you want, but I’d like to think that it is a tiny hint at a temptation: Deep down, Wilhelm actually wants to talk. He just can’t…yet. And fittingly, we never get any unpeeled clementines in the therapist’s office again. All other therapy sessions (the ones in which Wilhelm opens up) are conspicuously clementine-free.

You know what’s most striking about the whole therapy context, by the way?

What you would usually expect in a film, TV show or a novel is the visual or verbal image of an onion. Whenever a protagonist is placed in a psychology context where he or she has to peel back layers to get to their own true self, you get the ‘onion’ metaphor.

Now, I can see why an onion wouldn’t have made any sense on ‘Young Royals’: You can’t very well have your characters happily munch away on raw onions during ‘workies’ or at the library, for example. (“Mmm…Wilhelm, here have another bite of this smelly raw onion while we’re doing our homework. What?! You prefer to chew gum? You don’t want my onion? Whyever the hell not?”)

There might, however, be more than just practical reasons for this stylistic choice of clementines over onions.

You see, the time-proven ‘onion’ metaphor gives you the very fitting image of having to shed tears as you peel back the layers. This is great symbolism (especially in a therapy context), and I understand why it’s used so often: Peeling back the layers is hard work; it’s painful to go on a journey of self-discovery. You might have a good cry or two as you leave the lies behind. The clementine metaphor doesn’t give you that, obviously. 

It provides you with a far better image, though: The clementine inside the peel is sweet! It’s delicious. It’s something incredibly rewarding. (You can’t very well say that about the inside of an onion, can you?)

In other words, it’s a worthwhile exercise to try and penetrate that tough, inedible peel and then take it off entirely. It’s really, really worth it to get to the sweetness inside.

Prediction/Speculation:

Now, I obviously don’t know where the writers will be going with this metaphor in season three, but personally I’m always a fan of receiving some long-term pay-off for recognizing a metaphor in the first place.

So, here’s what’s at least thinkable: The peel has to come off completely! In other words, to the degree that Wilhelm and Simon have no more secrets and become a real, committed couple, the clementines should stop looming around in the shots unpeeled. (Seriously, this stuff just attracts fruit flies after a while. Just eat them, boys!)

Better still, the peel should be thrown away, obviously, conspicuously, visibly, into a nearby trash can. If we get a close-up of the trash can with the peel inside, all the better.

As for the sweet fruit itself, I don’t know what the absolute opposite of an unpeeled clementine or a half-peeled one would be, but one possible solution might probably be to peel a clementine completely, squeeze the juice out of it and drink it. Or maybe alternatively, have the two boys feed each other clementine slices? (I know which one you all prefer.) A little snack for their proposed lake date, maybe? I mean, we know they have to get into the metaphorical ‘water’ and really, really dive in. So maybe have them feed each other some Vitamin C in the sun beforehand? Just a little healthy suggestion from 

Yours sincerely,

Not-actually-a-medical-doctor-at-all 

tvmicroscope

~fin~

P.S. This article was about the Truest Metaphor on the show.

Why not check out the articles about:

• The Funniest Metaphor on the show

• The Deepest Metaphor on the show

• The Most Beautiful Metaphor on the show

Or come back next week for a new metaphor.

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