Harry & Meghan 18: Faux Royals

[Coconut Flan]

4 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

Damn. Harry and Meghan really are the Wallis and David of the 21st century - at least as they were in the 1930s and 40s.  Both wanted all the glory and fun stuff and status and money without real obligation.  

I've been saying that for years now.  Four years on and the world has moved on through so many things yet Harry and Meghan remain stuck.

[viii]

David and Wallis were Nazis. Or at least Nazi sympathizers. Harry & Meghan are a lot of things but they are not David/Wallis level to me. I find that comparison rather offensive tbh. 

[Manda]

Being Nazis was only one part of their entire package.  They can have many other traits in common and do.  Being similar is not being identical. 

[viii]

You probably have traits in common with either David or Wallis. And yet I doubt you’d like to be compared to them. Being associated with the Nazi party is one of their lasting legacies, unfortunately. Plenty of people are similar, but calling them the David and Wallis of today is gross in my opinion. You’re free to disagree. 

[nelliebelle1197]

6 hours ago, viii said:

David and Wallis were Nazis. Or at least Nazi sympathizers. Harry & Meghan are a lot of things but they are not David/Wallis level to me. I find that comparison rather offensive tbh. 

Eh, not really. This is mostly a myth.   Modern biographies have found that the German ambassador to the UK tried several times for to turn them and David and Wallis both were pretty appalled when he offered David the crown back if England fell. The Nazi association comes from an ill conceived tour of German working class housing in 1938. David fancied himself then an advocate of good housing for the working classes and this was meant to part of a larger tour that included the US. The German tour was such a failure Chamberlain convinced them to cancel the rest.  In 1940, that same ambassador attempted to turn them in Operation Willi while they were exiled in Lisbon and pretty annoyed that they were about to be sent to Barbados, for David to serve as governor general. Despite their humiliation at the Barbados post, they absolutely refused the plot as unconstitutional and ridiculous. The undercover agents reported back to Hitler that the Windsors were foolish and did not understand the German plan. The Windsors were naive and rather stupid about the Nazis but they were  not sympathizers. A few Germans managed to play up to David’s wounded ego and hubris, but it was not much more than that. I am literally in the middle of a book on this - one of a few I have read.

[viii]

Well, lots of other books about them say differently, so who is to know the truth. “Traitor King” was released in 2021 I believe and it documents all the German paperwork that was found, outlying the plan and how Wallis was in constant communication with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (who was later executed). I think a lot of their ties with the Nazi party has been exaggerated, but I don’t think it’s a myth either. The truth lies muddled somewhere in between. 

[Gobsmacked]

20 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

I've been saying that for years now.  Four years on and the world has moved on through so many things yet Harry and Meghan remain stuck.

Watch the list Beyond Pluto YouTube. Pluto has done a 3/4 part series comparing the two couples. They are eerily similar in their actions and ways. 

19 hours ago, viii said:

You probably have traits in common with either David or Wallis. And yet I doubt you’d like to be compared to them. Being associated with the Nazi party is one of their lasting legacies, unfortunately. Plenty of people are similar, but calling them the David and Wallis of today is gross in my opinion. You’re free to disagree. 

I disagree. They are very similar. 

[Four is Enough]

22 hours ago, viii said:

David and Wallis were Nazis. Or at least Nazi sympathizers. Harry & Meghan are a lot of things but they are not David/Wallis level to me. I find that comparison rather offensive tbh. 

I won't go so far as to say D/W were Nazis, but socially, they did seem to want all the perks but none of the works of being royals. To me this seems H/M are very similar in their thinking.

 

[tabitha2]

Correction:They wanted to do the fun glam photog Bait work… going to premiers, hugging waifs on Caribbean, speaking on the trendy issues of the moment. Not walking on muddy English farms in boots looking at prize sheep (can you imagine Meghan doing that?) or going to Eastern Europe and “boring”  business lunches or chatting with worthy everyday folk at sedate garden parties. 

[Coconut Flan]

Yes, Meghan wanted to pick and choose her events.  She wanted the ones that recognized "her special talents."  That is the ones that fed her adulation or gave her an emotional high.  The routine and mundane she wanted to dump onto what she saw as lesser personalities..  Wanting to leave the first garden party after 15 minutes because it was "boring" really says it all about her willingness to fit in and do the work.  What she appears to really want is Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.  It's too bad Harry over sold his wealth or she seriously over estimated his access to funds.  

[Gobsmacked]

1 hour ago, Coconut Flan said:

Yes, Meghan wanted to pick and choose her events.  She wanted the ones that recognized "her special talents."  That is the ones that fed her adulation or gave her an emotional high.  The routine and mundane she wanted to dump onto what she saw as lesser personalities..  Wanting to leave the first garden party after 15 minutes because it was "boring" really says it all about her willingness to fit in and do the work.  What she appears to really want is Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.  It's too bad Harry over sold his wealth or she seriously over estimated his access to funds.  

A grown woman sticking her tongue out at the cameras. King Charles’s made the correct decision to call a car for them. 

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

I still feel like Meghan is getting all the blame/hate. It's entirely possible if they stuck it out she would have settled into doing all those less glamorous  photo ops and done a fine job. It doesn't seem very reasonable to me that a west coast LA type woman would really know anything at all about English country life. There is not really anything similar in the USA so if you're not familiar with the non-London parts of England you may not realize the importance and relevance of those types of things.

And I don't blame her for not sticking it out. It seems pretty clear that Harry was looking for ways out and thought he could choose his own adventure (which is odd since he never had been able to before). Although, I do think it's also possible/likely that getting married and having a child brought to the surface some deep trauma about security/paparazzi/his mom/celebrity life. My take is that this trauma sort of made him act in a very sped up manner and not try to rationally work through things. Maybe if they had just waited 6-9 months a lot of stuff would have quieted down - but it's like he panicked. And Covid-19 just ramped up everybody's paranoia.

For me the parallel with David and Wallis is pretty shallow. Everything I've read is that Wallis wanted to stay a hidden mistress and even just have her time with him and expected to do other things when he got tired of her and moved on. 

I think Meghan had good intentions to do volunteer work. She never got past the growing pains start to her royal life so who knows what she would have actually done. She was doing volunteer and advocacy work prior to meeting Harry so it seems reasonable to me that she planned to continue doing that.  As far as I can tell Wallis' big thing was dinner parties. I've not read a whole lot about David's life but I seem to recall that he was a big play boy type himself and wasn't interested in leadership/governing/public service.  Whereas Harry does seem to take that stuff seriously.

So who knows what they might have done.

What they're doing now though is sad and sketchy. I don't know what their long term plan is. I feel like they should get Harry into being the public face of 1 legitimate charitable organization and just focus on that. It would get them some good PR. He could come out and do the handshakes and pictures 4-6 times a year and stop looking like Andrew (with respect to the money chasing). Let people see a reason to be like "ohhhh  good old Harry. His family didn't appreciate him" 

Instead of everybody seeing him and saying "they're well rid of him"

 

 

 

[kpmom]

IIRC, Harry and Meghan originally were hoping for a sort of hybrid Royal  role, and planned to split their time between the UK and North America. 
 

Obviously that didn’t work out, but I wonder if they had any kind of plan beyond that?

[noseybutt]

6 minutes ago, kpmom said:

IIRC, Harry and Meghan originally were hoping for a sort of hybrid Royal  role, and planned to split their time between the UK and North America. 
 

Obviously that didn’t work out, but I wonder if they had any kind of plan beyond that?

Does anyone know of royalty anywhere that has managed a hybrid role? I could imagine it if the second job was very distinct and had clear boundaries with the royal role. But there aren't many jobs that fall in that category. Or, rather, in countries with an aristocracy, it would be hard for the royalty connections and influence not to be used unfairly in the second job.

The Norwegian Royal Family has a similar storyline where their Princess withdrew from royal duties because she is marrying an American "shaman" who is highly controversial because of unscientific beliefs around healing that he financially profits from. The Queen straight up said that he didn't understand that his role could never be combined with royalty even though he and the princess initially thought it could. And Norway doesn't have an aristocracy--the influence was not coming through personal relationships but through social media and other forms of advertising.

One point where I have a teeny tiny amount of empathy for Harry and Meghan is because their royal job was predetermined and unlikely to change and if they grew past it, then there really was no option but to leave. (I also have empathy for Meghan for the weirdness of representing a colonial power as a biracial women, which would have presented undercurrents and complexity and history far beyond her personal experience.)

Where it's hard to stay empathetic with Harry and Meghan is the lack of plan beyond....well, who knows. They just seem to flit from one thing to the other. So many connections and opportunities, so little ability to follow through.

 

 

[FluffySnowball]

1 hour ago, noseybutt said:

Does anyone know of royalty anywhere that has managed a hybrid role? I could imagine it if the second job was very distinct and had clear boundaries with the royal role. But there aren't many jobs that fall in that category. Or, rather, in countries with an aristocracy, it would be hard for the royalty connections and influence not to be used unfairly in the second job.

As far as I’m aware, the younger sister of the Swedish crown princess splits her time between the US and Sweden. Something along those lines might have been a good fit for Harry and Meghan. 

Also, the current king of Thailand has apparently spent more time in Germany than in his home country during the last couple of years. If I’m not misremembering, it has even gotten to the point where the German government intervened and forbade him from conducting his royal administrative duties from Germany. 

[noseybutt]

26 minutes ago, FluffySnowball said:

As far as I’m aware, the younger sister of the Swedish crown princess splits her time between the US and Sweden. Something along those lines might have been a good fit for Harry and Meghan. 

Also, the current king of Thailand has apparently spent more time in Germany than in his home country during the last couple of years. If I’m not misremembering, it has even gotten to the point where the German government intervened and forbade him from conducting his royal administrative duties from Germany. 

Ohmygoodness I have now fallen down the rabbit hole of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The BRF is ridiculously boring by comparison. Harry who?

[viii]

2 hours ago, kpmom said:

IIRC, Harry and Meghan originally were hoping for a sort of hybrid Royal  role, and planned to split their time between the UK and North America. 
 

Obviously that didn’t work out, but I wonder if they had any kind of plan beyond that?

I think their plans leaking really tanked them. They weren’t able to formulate any solid plans and had to quickly release a fast draft proposal because the knowledge was about to go public. 

That being said, they have proven in the last four years that they struggle to see anything through. 

[kpmom]

4 hours ago, viii said:

I think their plans leaking really tanked them. They weren’t able to formulate any solid plans and had to quickly release a fast draft proposal because the knowledge was about to go public. 

 

Did it leak, or did they post about it before talking to the rest of the family?

I’m asking because I thought there was some bad feelings between them and the RF about posting about leaving before discussing it with them. 
 

I might be wrong, or maybe that was just a rumor?

[louisa05]

23 minutes ago, kpmom said:

Did it leak, or did they post about it before talking to the rest of the family?

I’m asking because I thought there was some bad feelings between them and the RF about posting about leaving before discussing it with them. 
 

I might be wrong, or maybe that was just a rumor?

They announced it all on their website, with plans to be part time royals representing the Crown, without discussing any of it with the Queen or then Prince Charles. They assumed they could do whatever they wanted.  The press had been speculating for weeks that they would leave, but they were already in Canada on a leave of sorts, so that was obvious without a leak. 

[Coconut Flan]

7 hours ago, noseybutt said:

Where it's hard to stay empathetic with Harry and Meghan is the lack of plan beyond....well, who knows. They just seem to flit from one thing to the other. So many connections and opportunities, so little ability to follow through.

I'm currently reading a book that tried to make sense of the Harry/Meghan dynamic turned into mess.  As far as I can tell Harry is still one immature, mismanaged, warped individual who fell prey to the desperately loving a woman curse of some in his family and in his case probably the wrong woman for him.  Meghan has always been uber ambitious and her main goal in life was to be top dog of something.  As the brief she gave one LA agency was to make her the most well known woman on the planet with the most instagram followers, the author has gone on to show that Meghan above all loved the "finer things of life" and her real goal through it all was extreme adulation and to be as they say filthy rich.  Harry's goal became Meghan get what Meghan wants.  Sadly neither through inheritance, talent, merit, or hard work will Meghan's goals be fulfilled at least not with the current circumstances and her given skill set.  Just as Harry's behavior should have been curtailed when he was a child, so Meghan's ambition should have been tempered not full throttle encouraged.  Hindsight and all that applies.

Edited August 21 by Coconut Flan

[viii]

1 hour ago, kpmom said:

Did it leak, or did they post about it before talking to the rest of the family?

I’m asking because I thought there was some bad feelings between them and the RF about posting about leaving before discussing it with them. 
 

I might be wrong, or maybe that was just a rumor?

They were notified by a journalist that they were going to release the information, so they posted on their website quickly to try and stay ahead. I think they spoke to some of the family members, but more like “we’re leaning towards this”, rather than anything definitive. 

[noseybutt]

1 hour ago, Coconut Flan said:

I'm currently reading a book that tried to make sense of the Harry/Meghan dynamic turned into mess.  As far as I can tell Harry is still one immature, mismanaged, warped individual who fell prey to the desperately loving a woman curse of some in his family and in his case probably the wrong woman for him.  Meghan has always been uber ambitious and her main goal in life was to be top dog of something.  As the brief she gave one LA agency was to make her the most well known woman on the planet with the most instagram followers, the author has gone on to show that Meghan above all loved the "finer things of life" and her real goal through it all was extreme adulation and to be as they say filthy rich.  Harry's goal became Meghan get what Meghan wants.  Sadly neither through inheritance, talent, merit, or hard work will Meghan's goals be fulfilled at least not with the current circumstances and her given skill set.  Just as Harry's behavior should have been curtailed when he was a child, so Meghan's ambition should have been tempered not full throttle encouraged.  Hindsight and all that applies.

Interesting. Makes sense.

The context, though. Many of the adjective would also fit the BRF over the years: mismanaged, ambitious, top dog, most well-known, finer things of life, extreme adulation, filthy rich. In other words, Harry and Meghan are two minor players within a much more powerful and wealthier and popular institution that has both done more good and wrecked far more havoc than they will ever manage. 

It makes them fun to snark on though.

[louisa05]

Meghan hit all of her normal fashion marks on this trip and one new one. 

We had low cut, high slit, spaghetti strap dress at a SCHOOL event again. Because that's how you dress for an event with children. We got plenty of wrinkles (someone please tell her that you are actually allowed to pack a steamer for air travel); we got an all white outfit with whites that didn't match. We got a sequined skirt for daytime with a plain linen blouse (??). We got over priced shoes that didn't match the outfit. And new fun: a black bra under a white blouse with gaping buttons. 

She can dress like a hot mess if it makes her happy. But can various media outlets stop pretending that she's a fashion icon of some sort???? 

[tabitha2]

If only she hired and actually listened to a qualified stylist because She absolutely refuses to dress for her body type .Just Pitiful. 

[viii]

I think the thing that bothers me the most about Meghan’s wardrobe is the fact that before her marriage to Harry, she wore a lot of neutrals and solid prints. Post leaving the BRF, she continues her love for neutrals. 

But yet claims she couldn’t wear colour during her 1.5 years in the BRF?!?! Ma’am that’s not true in the slightest. Lying about the stupidest stuff is beyond me.