The People's Princess

Well, the original plan was to follow up my post from last week about what a giant dork I not only am now but have always been with a more in-depth review of the Rings of Power show on Amazon. Do I have some strong feelings about it? By comparison really, not as strong as some, but those people tend to be motivated by things other than actual fandom. In the beginning of the show, did I say out loud as the camera panned left from Valinor to Middle-earth "Oh my god, that's the wrong map..."? Sure I did. But I'm finding with age and perspective, I'm less married to this stuff than I used to be. I'm more friends-with-benefits with it at this stage, which can be a lot of fun, but almost always gets tricky around at least one party's feelings at one point. Since one of the participants is a television show that doesn't know I exist, I will let you all surmise which one that is more likely to be.

But then my plans for today's writing got all sidetracked by the worldwide news that someone's grandma went to bed and never woke up again. I expected a fair bit of breathlessness in the media when HM Elizabeth II finally did the mortal-coil-shuffle, but I have to say I've been incredibly impressed that after the quiet passing in a very expensive bed in the main room of a castle after 96 years of opulence and world reverence, I haven't heard any lunatic try to frame it as "tragedy" yet. But let's give Charles a few days and see how we reconfigure our descriptors.

It's easy to pile on someone like Charles, with an extraordinarily long life as a time-bider, defined most publicly by his status in relation to his mother's eventual death. It's not really his fault that this makes him a ghoul by default, but we can be comforted by the fact that he's an ineffectual one as the old lady held on for near-as-makes-no-difference to a century.

It came out quickly that he's chosen as a regnal name Charles III, which is already hilarious but also traditional in the way that the monarch's name will automatically piss off the Scots. His mum did it by putting the "ER II" monogram on the royal mail boxes up that way, even though there hadn't been an ER I of Scotland by that point. Elizabeth I was queen of England while James VI was king of Scotland, who had the courtesy to renumber himself James I when he succeeded her as king of England too. Apparently that kind of thoughtfulness doesn't run both directions, but this is England we're talking about, the same country that burned down a shitload of Scotland and killed dudes by the ginger bushelful just because they wouldn't let Henry VIII's son marry a baby. It's a "united kingdom" in the same way Julia Roberts' marriage to that camera guy is an "equal marriage." Everyone understands there's a primary.

This time though it's the opposite since Scotland has had a Charles I (a dick, got beheaded) and Charles II (a gross libertine, excellent wigs though) but then fucked around and picked up a Charles III in rebellion against the English, which some Scots are still sensitive about. Which, to be fair, it's only been since 1745. Though that doesn't bode well for the grudge-holders over here who have been making very serious life decisions (sometimes for themselves, sometimes for all the rest of us as well) based on shit that happened in 1865. We've got a ways to go.

Either way, it's world-exciting in the grim way that human death can rarely be. Usually news-dominating deaths have to happen in a sufficient volume, but sometimes you have to stop and commemorate the fact that a lady who has had her picture taken more times than anyone in history won't be around to occasionally show up on the news and/or gossip pages anymore.

Fare the well, Lilibet, and all the advertiser-friendly content you will generate no more. The world may never condescendingly employ the words "quiet dignity" in quite the same way again.