An Amateur Unicorn’s Guide to DIY Brightly Colored Hair

 Hello friends! You may have noticed that my hair changes color on a pretty regular basis. I thought it was high time for me to tell you why and how. 

Various Hair Colors I’ve had over the last year. The green and yellow hair was done by a professional hair stylist (Ruby Devine at the LABoratory in Alexandria, Virginia), I did all the other colors.
I do not remember what all these colors are named, but I could probably make an educated guess if y’all reallllyyy wanted to know?

I"m kind of a restless person (Yay ADHD!) so ever since I graduated high school and left home, I've been pretty adventurous with my hair. I rarely have kept the same hairstyle or hair color for more than a year, really. My natural hair shade is a dark blonde, of which I'm not a huge fan, so I've messed with it for years. Here's one of the last pictures of me with completely natural hair (and honestly even then, I may have had some highlights in there, I think I had some put in like, in September 2005, and this picture is from my high school graduation in May 2006, so they may have still been hanging around). 

I also really love bright colors and sparkly things, so I've honestly been moving toward having rainbow hair for a pretty long time now. However, my sensible side won out for many years; I didn't want to job opportunities because of my hair. So I changed my hair up often, but I kept it all in generally "natural" colors. When I went to law school and became an attorney, I really resigned myself to never having the unicorn hair I wanted (the legal profession is generally pretty conservative when it comes to appearances). But fortunately, my current job as a trademark examining attorney at the US Patent and Trademark Office doesn't care what color my hair is! I didn't want to mess with my hair color too much before my wedding in June 2018, as I did want my hair to look vaguely natural for that, so I held off for my first year and a half at the USPTO, but since then, I've really had fun letting loose and coloring my hair all sorts of different colors. 

 If you want to see a whole Pinterest board full of ALL the different hair cuts and colors I've had since I was 18, there's one over here.

I love saving money and DIY projects, so I've basically turned my own head into an ever changing art installation. Since June 2018, I've only had my hair professionally cut once (to add bangs) and professionally colored once (after a tire blowout totaled my car, I decided to treat myself). Generally, I cut, bleach, and dye my own hair (I'll do a future blog post on how I cut my hair at some point).

I do not remember what all these colors are named, but I could probably make an educated guess if y’all reallllyyy wanted to know?

Your average fashion color do at a hair salon can easily run you $200-300; you're paying for your stylists' experience and skill. If you want multiple colors in your hair or some sort of special effect, go to a salon. They know what they're doing and can really give you amazing results. But if you just want to play around with one overall color or only a few colors applied horizontally, doing it at home works pretty well! I make no claims that my hair looks as good as it would if I went to a salon, but I'm happy with it and I get a lot of compliments, so it's good enough for me. In the future, when I have more money and less debt, I would totally love to go to a salon every few months for unicorn hair, but it's just not in the budget right now.

Disclaimer: I am totally untrained and definitely an amateur, but I've read a LOT of advice and blog posts to prepare, and have learned a few tricks myself along the way. There's an extent to which bleach will always damage your hair, just as any chemical processing will, but you can take a lot of actions to reduce its impact and keep your hair healthy.
 My hair is naturally a dark blonde, with fine texture, but is also fairly thick. Aside from my hair coloring habits, my hair is actually pretty easy to maintain, as it is wavy and dries nicely without any heat styling. If you have pickier hair, you may need to adjust these suggestions to fit your needs. 

I'm also writing this blog post from the standpoint of someone who's had hair that's 90-100% bleached over the last year and a half and just bleaches her roots each time, so my photos will reflect that, naturally. I'm also totally an amateur and don't claim to know anything about how these products work chemically, this is really just a how-to guide.

Supplies: 
Bleach Powder
Hair Developer (Volume 10-30)
Fashion Hair Color (these are generally semi-permanent. In these photos, I used Arctic Fox’s Wrath)
White Conditioner
Tint brushes (I use two, one for bleach, one for color)
Hair Color mixing bowls (Ditto - one for bleach, one for color)
Vinyl gloves
Mirrors (I use a bathroom mirror and a standing mirror behind me)
Hair clips (optional - some people swear by these, but I've tried using them to section my hair several times and it just never seems to help me at all)
A coloring cape (optional- an old towel or t-shirt is also fine)
Some sort of stopwatch to keep track of time (I use my phone)
Old or stained towels (preferably one for covering any bath mats and another for wiping stray color off your face)Vaseline
Black shirt (optional, but very helpful)
Towel cap (optional, but so nice - really, you just need something to cover your hair while it's marinating. A bathcap works too!)

My roots before I bleached them. Yeah, they got super long. I don’t entirely remember which brands I used for the orange, but I know Ion at Home’s Sunrise Orange was the main one; I last dyed my hair orange in mid-October. I did apply Ion’s garnet to my head as well (at the beginning of november) but thought it came out too red-orange, so I let it fade before trying again with a red.

1. Preparing Your Hair: Before you touch your hair with bleach, spend around a week really pampering it; use lots of deep conditioning treatments and avoid heat styling to ensure that it's as healthy as possible before you mess with bleach. I tend to buy sulfate-free shampoo to protect my color and hair, but I've never noticed much of a difference between expensive and cheap conditioners and conditioning treatments, so I tend to pick up whatever's cheapest.

Plenty of people swear by using coconut oil as a deep conditioning treatment. I've tried it before but it doesn't work very well for me. Although I have a lot of hair, my individual stands are pretty thin and fine, so they don't seem to tolerate coconut oil too well; it ends up kind of turning my head into a greasy mess and it's really hard for me to wash out completely. But if your hair isn't as fine as mine, it may be a good idea for you! 

If you already have other fashion color in your hair, like I did, it's a good idea to fade it out as much as you can before you add another color. There are many different ways of doing this; a lot of people swear by using dish soap or making a concoction out of crushed up aspirin and water and leaving it on your hair for a while. I personally prefer to just use slightly harsher methods of washing my hair. When I'm actively trying to fade it, I wash my hair more often, use a clarifying shampoo, and use hot water (fashion colors fade so fast that generally, you'll want to wash your hair as little as possible with the coldest water you can stand, to make it last). 

2. Purchasing Supplies: Buy your bleaching and hair color products. I highly suggest getting these from a professional beauty product store like Sally's Beauty, as you can tailor your product choices to your own hair. You /could/ use a boxed bleach kit (like Beyond the Zone Radical Bleach Kit), but honestly, I prefer to have a little more control over my ingredients.

Bleach powder comes in either a little packet or a tub (which is cheaper, per volume); some bleach powders include ingredients that are supposed to reduce brassiness, but if you're not going for a pastel color from the start, I don't think that really matters (it certainly hasn't for me). I've tried bleach powders both with and without these toning ingredients and haven't really noticed a difference.

You'll need to add developer to the bleach powder. Developer comes in a few different volume levels: 10, 20, 30, and 40. I personally use Volume 20 on my dark blonde hair to lighten it up to a pale yellow. If you have darker hair then mind, Volume 30 would probably be the way to go; everything I've read online indicates that you really shouldn't use Volume 40 at home unless you're a trained professional, as you could give your skin or your hair a chemical burn.

Some of the various products I used for the coloring in these photos.

You'll also need a hair color! I've had good experiences with Ion at Home (although watch out for their blues, they NEVER wash out), Punky Color, and Arctic Fox. Manic Panic colors tend to look really good but fade super quickly and bleed a lot. I also sometimes pick up Beyond the Zone Color Jams because they're cheap, but I haven't been terribly impressed with them (some of their color descriptions are just weird? Their plum-ilicious looks more like a magenta to me); I tend to use them more to refresh hair color than as an initial dye.

I should note that I haven't done pastel colors in the past and am leery of trying them in the future, for a few reasons. First, you're going to have to use a higher volume developer to get the really white hair you need for pastel colors to really pop. Second, fashion colors are generally semi-permanent and wash out pretty easily and quickly. Pastel colors are going to wash out so quickly that I personally don't think it's worth it unless you go in knowing you have enough money and/or time to touch up your hair regularly and/or use a pastel color depositing conditioner like Overtone (which is great, but not cheap).

You definitely need some sort of white conditioner. I mix this in with my hair color and also use it after the whole process is done to help my hair recover.

I suggest having at least one hair color mixing bowl if you can afford it; they do tend to be pretty cheap, and although you could totally just use a plastic bowl instead, mixing bowls have a nice handle and teeth on the edge to remove excess color from your tint brush. I personally use one mixing bowl for bleaching and another for coloring. That way, you don't have to worry about leftover bleach sticking around in a bowl and messing up your shade.

A tint brush is pretty necessary; I guess you could theoretically color your hair entirely with your hands, but it would be really easy to miss spots. Again, I use one for bleaching and then another for coloring.

Finally, you really need gloves of some type, or your hands are going to be blue/green/orange/whatever for a few days (Learn from my mistakes, y'all). I have a pair of reusable dish gloves somewhere that I've used before, but those are pretty loose, so now I tend to use tight vinyl gloves; I purchased a big box of them at Home Depot. I do try to reuse these as much as possible though, to reduce waste. 

There’s a bath mat under this old towel that I’ve already marked with bleach once.

3. Prepping the Room and Your Body: Choose the room you'll be working in. You definitely want to be somewhere with a sink, a shower, and mirrors in front of and behind you, so a bathroom is probably best. I suggest bleach and color proofing your room before you start! I cover up my bath mat with an old towel and move any new or nice towels, linens, or clothes into another room. 

Next, prep your body! I am a messy and clumsy enough person that I don't trust myself to be wearing any clothes I care about while bleaching or dying my hair. I either wear really old/already stained clothes or I go nude (hey, it worked for Adam and Eve). I wear a hair cape at this point, as it catches a lot of the mess, but you can also use an old towel or a t-shirt if you prefer. 

I prefer to set out all the products and supplies I'm using before hand. This both puts everything exactly where I need it and serves as a checklist to make sure I actually have everything. It would be pretty terrible to be halfway through the process and only then realize you're missing some specific item!

You really need a mirror in front of you and behind you to achieve good results. I use a bathroom mirror and place a standing mirror behind me at a slight angle, so I can look in the standing mirror and see the back of my head in the bathroom mirror. It's a good idea to set this up so you can move the standing mirror to a different angle as you go to make sure you cover the entire area; so either get a mirror that won't be affected by you touching it with gloves that might have bleach on them (plastic, for example), or have two towels ready to go so you can wrap your hand before you move it.

Finally, before I actually start mixing, I pull on a pair of gloves and apply Vaseline to my face, ears, and neck along the hairline. This will help prevent a lot of color staining. It's a /little/ less important when you're applying bleach, as I'm pretty sure it won't bleach your skin, but it can be drying and irritating, so you might as well keep it as contained as possible. 

4. Bleaching: While wearing your gloves, put your bleach powder and developer into a mixing bowl and mix it with your tint brush. I don't bother with measuring it out exactly; my goal is to end up with a sort of thick gravy like texture for the mixture, as I don't want it to be so runny that it will go everywhere.

Bleach Powder and Developer: Ready for their close-ups.

The amount you need to mix together depends entirely on how much hair you have. I have a fair amount, so I try to mix up a lot. Inevitably, it isn't quite enough and I have to mix up more. But honestly, it's easy enough to add more bleach powder and developer and mix it up, that it isn't a huge deal (so relax, you don't have to get things perfect on the first time, promise!). 

Right before you start applying bleach, check to see how long your bleach and/or developer bottles say to have the product sit on your head. My bleach said 30-40 minutes. The goal is to get your roots/all of your hair pale yellow; if you reach that color on all the sections you've applied the bleach to before you hit the time on the bottle, it's okay to go wash it off then. I see the 30-40 minutes as more of a ceiling rather than a starting point. Of course, make sure to start a stop watch or timer so you can keep track of how long it's been on your head.

Now it's time to apply the bleach to your head.

I wasn't able to get photographs of this process, but I'll do my best to explain this in as much detail as possible so it all makes sense. 

As you can see in these photos, my roots are pretty long and defined here. I've bleached my entire head exactly once and now, I just bleach my roots, which reduces the damage to my hair. My goal is to cover all of that dark blonde with the bleach. I start by covering the visible roots in my part and around my face, paying particular attention to the little strands of hair that tend to fall underneath my glasses and in front of my ears (it's really easy to miss them, so now I try to do them pretty quickly). I then use the tip of my tinting brush to grab a straight line of my hair back (parallel to my part), flip that over, and then cover the roots there. I repeat until all the hair visible from the front is covered with bleach. After that, I turn around and face my standing mirror (which remember, is set at an angle to the bathroom mirror so that i can see the back of my head). I do the same thing to the back of my head, only sectioning horizontally instead of vertically. 

If you're bleaching your entire head of hair and don't have defined roots to work with like I do, just try to cover all of your natural color. Definitely cover the hair near your scalp before you move on to the rest of your hair though; bleach makes hair dry and more difficult to move, work with, or detangle, so it's better to go in sections. 

(Glasses wearer note: Bleach doesn't seem to affect my glasses at all, but mine are also all plastic. I have no idea what this could do to metal frames. If you have metal frames and are concerned, it might be better to wear contacts if you have that as an option.)

Bleaching your roots results in just super attractive photos, yeah? The timer shows how long it took for me to apply all the bleach + a few minutes to make sure it all processed enough.

Lots of people and most professionals swear by sectioning your hair with hair clips while you bleach and dye it, with the idea that it helps keep it out of the way while you're working and makes the whole process easier. I can definitely see the benefits of doing this if you're putting in different colors, but for one color all over, I just haven't found this necessary or helpful. 

Once all your roots/all your hair is covered with bleach, you wait until it all turns a pale yellow. If you have a lot of hair like I do, your roots and hairline (the first area you applied bleach to) will turn yellow a LOT faster than the rest of your hair. This is okay, just keep track of the time so you don't over-process any one section of your hair (as you can see, it took me around 34 minutes to apply all the bleach to my hair, and then I waited for a few minutes to make sure it processed completely, so the pieces exposed the longest were under the 40 minutes decreed on the bottle). If you have a few minutes to spare, this is a good time to wash your gloves, mixing bowl, and tint brush (hint, if you're having trouble removing product from either the teeth of your mixing bowl or the bristles of your tint brush, rubbing the brush against the teeth fixes both problems).

When all the sections of your hair you applied bleach to have turned pale yellow, jump in the shower and wash it all out with water (I've used both cold and hot water for this part and never noticed any difference, so I use hot because it's so much more comfortable). I wear gloves for this to avoid touching the bleach as much as possible. Once my head feels mostly clean, I'll take off my gloves so I can check for any remaining product. Finally, I'll actually use shampoo to wash out any remaining bits of bleach. Then I jump out of the shower and dry my hair off as much as I can with a towel (I use a microfiber towel, which is healthier for the hair). 

Your hair is going to feel dry as heck at this point and will tangle really easily, but don't worry, we'll fix that with the next step.

5. Coloring Time: I like to change into an old shirt or a black shirt which color won't show up on before I color (trying to put a shirt on over hair color covered hair is a pretty good way to get color...everywhere). 

Then I throw my cape and gloves back on and with my second mixing bowl and brush, I mix together hair color and white conditioner. I probably put in about a 3:1 ratio of color:conditioner. That much conditioner is enough to moisturize my hair but also isn't so much that it's going to dilute the color significantly. I then use the same method to ensure I color all of my hair that I use for the bleaching part, only this time, I'm covering ALL OF THE HAIR, starting with the hairline and the roots. Remember, use the tip of the brush  to section off and color all of your hair visible from the front, than turn around and use the mirror to color the back, sectioning off hair with the brush horizontally down. Coloring tends to go a lot quicker than bleaching, as you're adding moisture to your hair instead of taking it out, and your hair is just significantly easier to work with (as you can see in my photo below, it took me a little less than 22 minutes to apply it all). 

Arctic Fox’s Wrath + conditioner in a mixing bowl. I don’t remember where I got the towel cap at this point; it was probably like the dollar store or target or something? My rainbow glasses are from Zenni. :) The timer shows how long it took me to apply all the color to my hair.

You really want to saturate your hair with the color/conditioner mix. As you're doing all this, make sure to get out any tangles in your hair with your fingers; it'll be easier once you get a little moisture back into it. 

Then, I pile all my hair up on my head and put on my towel cap, making sure to cover all of the colored hair in the front, back, and sides. This allows me to walk around and work in the house without smearing color on all the chairs or furniture. 

Most hair color bottles say to leave it on for 30-40 minutes, but I always leave it on a lot longer, at least two to thee hours, sometimes all day if I have the time. As I mentioned earlier, fashion color fades quickly, so you might as well help it as much as you can by laying it on thick in the beginning. For these photos, the color mix was on my hair for about 2.5 hours.

After I'm done marinating, I take a shower (putting the gloves back on again to avoid smurf/bloody/cheeto hands) and use hot water to rinse out as much color as I can. The water likely isn't going to run totally clear with semi-permanent fashion colors, but once there's a significant drop of the /amount of color/, I color in the water, I use shampoo to wash my hair again, and then condition for a little while longer just for added measure. 

When I hop out of the shower, I'll dry my hair off as much as I can and put on a black shirt or old shirt underneath, as sometimes the hair color will bleed when it's still wet and you don't want to risk staining. 

Warning: Your hair color will definitely look way darker when it’s wet than when it’s dry, so let it fully dry before you decide whether you like or hate it.

Want more than one color? If you want to have a more complex color scheme, with more than one color, I suggest sticking to just painting those colors horizontally across your hair instead of vertically, that way you have a clear line to work with (like on your roots). As you can see in my hair photos at the top, I've done this a few times before with having different color roots or tips. That's pretty manageable. I personally don't feel comfortable messing about with different colors /down my hair/ on different strands; to do it correctly, you have to get into using foils and such to ensure the colors don't mix and turn brown and that's just...too much work and skill for me. If I want to do something like that, I go to a professional at a salon.

And that's pretty much it! Here are a few tips for upkeep though, just real quick (this post is already insanely long).

Upkeep Tips: 

This color is Arctic Fox’s Wrath with wet hair, dry hair, and in two different types of light.

Don't wash your hair every day; I usually wash mine every other day or every two days if I'm not working out as much that week. I'll often use dry shampoo or cornstarch to absorb oils in my hair so I can go longer between washes (cornstarch can be used as a DIY dry shampoo that doesn't require aerosol spray, which can hurt the environment. I put that on my scalp before sleep; as i toss and turn at night, it rubs in and makes my hair look awesome! 
Another option is to only wash your hair with water and conditioner; this removes some of the sweat and oil buildup without needing shampoo.

A sulfate-free shampoo is pretty much necessary when you have fashion color. I've used OGX in the past but have started switching now to solid shampoo bars to reduce my environmental impact (yes, I know dying my hair ends up requiring a lot of plastic bottles and plastic products. I'm currently working on researching brand alternatives that are more environmentally friendly).

Try to only wash your hair with cold water if you can stand it, or lukewarm at least. I hate the cold and usually use lukewarm and my hair color still manages to last a pretty long time!

You can refresh your hair with a mixture of hair color and conditioner every few days. There are a few brands of conditioner with hair color already included, like Overtone. In my experience, these work really well but are also pretty expensive (like $18 a bottle versus $7-10 for a tube or jar of hair color + an additional few bucks for some white conditioner, which again, you can just buy at the dollar store, the cheaper stuff seems to work perfectly fine). They do make life easier, so if you have the money for it and want the convenience, go for it, but I only think you really need them if you're specifically trying to maintain a specific pastel color from the start (which you could mix together with color and conditioner too, but it would probably be difficult to keep it the exact same color throughout). Brighter colors like I prefer are touched up perfectly well with home-mixed color and conditioner. My hair changes shades over  time with different touch ups, and I'm fine with that. 

I also suggest avoiding heat styling as much as possible to keep your hair healthy. I only use a hair dryer or a curling iron on my hair maybe once every two months or so, for special occasions only.

Credits:

When I do get my hair done professionally, I go to Ruby Devine at the LABoratory in Alexandria, Virginia.

I learned a LOT about hair bleaching and coloring from the Dainty Squid’s master hair posts on the subject, although I’ve added a few things and adjusted others to fit my specific needs.

For your entertainment: guest cat Martok is a total hair goblin and loves burying his face in it no matter what color it is. 🙂

The Shoes of Six the Musical

All My Six Posts!
Over-Analyzing All the Historical References in Six- “Ex Wives,” “No Way,” “Don’t Lose Your Head” “Heart of Stone” “Haus of Holbein” “Get Down”
The Tudor Crown Inspiration in Six’s Logo; The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References)
Six the Musical Wives 1-3: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations; Six the Musical Wives 4-6: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations
The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes; Details from Six Costumer Gabriella Slade’s Instagram Takeover
The Early Costumes of Six the Musical: From Edinburgh to Cambridge to London
Updated Six the Musical Costumes for Broadway!; The Shoes of Six the Musical
The Alternate Costumes of Six the Musical; How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling for Each Queen
Virtual Dance Workshops and Q&As with Different Six Cast Members!

The queens and alternates in Six all wear super amazing sparkly shoes that are custom fit to each actor! I don’t really have any analysis to give on them, but just look how lovely they are! Quick Disclaimer: I got all these shoe photos off Instagram and although I’ve matched them to the characters (based off of captions), I’m not sure which actors has actually worn what shoes (unless I’ve specifically stated otherwise).

Catherine of Aragon, portrayed by Jarneia Richard-Noel. (Idil Sukan)

Catherine of Aragon’s shoes

Anne Boleyn, portrayed by Millie O’Connell. (Photographer Unknown)

Anne Boleyn’s shoes

NEW as of January 2020

Jane Seymour, portrayed by Natalie Paris. (Photographer Unknown)

Jane Seymour’s shoes

UPDATED 02/21/2020: New boots for the U.K. tour Jane Seymour, Lauren Byrne. They look almost identical to the previous ones but the buckles and straps appear to have more crystals on them this time!

Anne of Cleves (Alexia McIntosh) in the West End production of Six, Unknown Photographer

Anne of Cleves’ shoes

NEW as of February 2020

NEW- Cleves’ BRILLIANT new bedazzled thigh high boots on Broadway! I don’t have any better photos but will keep looking out for them. These are screen caps of a video from @Zoennis on Instagram - thank you!

Katherine Howard (Aimie Atkinson), Photo by Idil Sukan.

Katherine Howard’s shoes

Catherine Parr (Maiya Quansah-Breed - West End) (Unknown photographer)

Catherine Parr’s shoes

Vicki Manser in her alternate costume (UK). Manser now plays Howard.

The shoes for the blue-wearing alternate.

Alternate Hana Stewart (West End)

Hana Stewart’s shoes

Alternates Grace Mouat and Collette Guitart (West End)

alternate shoes stripes

The History of Things: Angel Chimes

I LOVE knowing the background story behind various objects and traditions. Back in high school, when I was co-editor-in-chief of The Pony Express (our newspaper), I even started up a little occasional feature focusing on the history behind like, homecoming mums and such, just so i had an excuse to research and write about these things. I’m going to start doing that occasionally here too.

My new Angel Chimes!

A Christmas pyramid from Lillian Vernon.

Angel Chimes and Christmas Pyramids

So my mom has a set of both of these back at home and brought them out for Christmas every year. They fascinated me as a kid. When I randomly came across a German grocery store near my doctor’s office this week and found them there, I instantly bought one for myself. I actually had no idea what they were called until I googled them to find out more.

Christmas pyramids (which aren’t actually pyramids at all) are basically like tabletop carousels, full of traditional nativity scenes and Christmas figures, like animals, angels, and wise men. Candles surround the pyramid and when lit, their heat turns a propeller at the top, which spins all of the figurines around and around.

Angel chimes work on the same principle of Christmas pyramids, only they tend to be smaller, made of metal, and emit a pretty chiming sound as they spin.

A whim or horse capstan.

A giant Christmas pyramid

Both of these decorations originated in a mountain region of Germany, on the border of the old states of Saxony (which is part of Germany now) and Bohemia (the Czech Republic today). They derive from Lichtergestelle (“light stand”), which were made of four wooden poles, decorated with evergreen boughs, tied together at the top, and lit with candles. The Lichtergestelle was gradually replaced by the Christmas tree in many regions, but in the mountains, they kept them around and added the spinning motion of the similarly shaped whims/horse capstan (which were commonly used in mining to haul materials to the surface).

German immigrants brought angel chimes and Christmas pyramids to America with them in the 1700s and they’ve been around ever since! You’ll find super giant Christmas pyramids outside at some Christkindl markets in Germany and in some American towns during the holiday season, although those tend to be run electrically and feature fake candles/torches. :)

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E8 Dangling Man

All My Posts on The Crown
S3: 1 & 2: “Olding” & “Margaretology” 3: “Aberfan” 4: “Bubbikins, 5: “Coup” 6: “Tywysog Cymru” 7: “Moondust" 8: “Dangling Man” 9: “Imbroglio” 10: “Cri de Coeur”
S4: 1: “Gold Stick” 2: “The Balmoral Test” 3: “Fairytale” ( + Cinderella References) 4: “Favourites” 5: “Fagan” 6: “Terra Nullius” 7: ”The Hereditary Principle” 8: “48:1” 9: “Avalanche”
The Medals, Sashes, and Tiaras of The Crown; Tiaras/Crowns Overviews: Season 1 ; Season 2

The Duke of Windsor, the former king whose abdication had put both Queen Elizabeth and her father on the throne, develops terminal cancer. The Queen, who’s visiting France to assist with the UK joining the EU, visits him and provides him some peace before his death. Prince Charles falls in love with Camilla Shand, while Princess Anne hooks up with Camilla’s ex/possibly not ex Andrew Parker Bowles.

The real life Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1955. Photo: Frank Scherschel/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.

Alex Jennings as The Duke and Lia Williams as the Duchess were featured in Season 1 and 2 of The Crown. (This scene was set during 1953)

Geraldine Chaplin and Derek Jacobi as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Season 3. This scene was meant to take place around 1972.

• The Duke of Windsor is such a controversial character historically. Modern eyes often want to look favorably upon his abdication to marry the woman he loved, but at the same time, he and Wallis Simpson undoubtedly supported Hitler and the Nazis (as shown in S2E6 Vergangenheit, which means “past,” by the way) and engaged in treasonous acts against England. They also clearly were somewhat petty and mean toward the royal family, although it’s hard not to understand their viewpoint. Apparently, Edward/David was under the impression that he would be allowed to live in England again a few years after he abdicated; he didn’t take well to being told that he could only enter the country again at the invitation of the sovereign. They were essentially in exile the rest of their lives, although Queen Elizabeth was far kinder to him then really anyone else in the family. This is shown in The Crown when both Philip and the Queen Mother are much harsher in their judgments toward the Duke and the Duchess than Elizabeth ever is, at least aloud.

  His actions did have a very significant result on Elizabeth’s life in forcing her to become queen, and as she stated in S3E5 “Coup,” it’s not something she would have chosen. His abdication has already been seen to have a huge impact on how the Queen and the government dealt with Margaret’s relationship with Peter Townsend. It will later also impact Margaret’s divorce from Antony Armstrong-Jones, and the relationships and divorces of several of the Queen’s children. It also led to the Queen having firmly held views against abdicating under any circumstance. A very recent article quoting a spokesman from Prince Charles’s office noted, “There are no plans for any change in arrangements at the age of 95 — or any other age.”
  I do have to say, Alex Jennings, the actor who played the Duke of Windsor in the first two seasons looks SO much more like him than Derek Jacobi does, as brilliant as he is.

• The Duke and Duchess’s meeting with Emperor Hirohito and his wife, Empress Kojun, really did happen. The photos from that event show off how close The Crown can get to reality if they so choose.

  The moment where doorman Sidney (who really existed) applies rouge/blush to the Duke’s face to make him less ill is very similar to the blush that was applied to George VI’s face in S1E1. And just as the Duke jokes that “we don't want it to look like kabuki,” the King’s assistant then said that they didn’t want to overdo it.
  Emperor Hirohito grumpily says, “They promised no cameras. I don’t want people to see me to visit a man who couldn't hold on to his throne.” I also love the contrasting comments at the end of their meeting: Emperor: "imagine living in exile from his homeland. I would rather die.” Duchess: “He never leaves japan. Imagine being stuck on an island your whole life.” Duke: “An island which is home and where you reign as sovereign. I can think of worse things." There’s that same nostalgia we saw in S1E5 “Smoke and Mirrors” (when he plays the bagpipes and cries after Elizabeth’s coronation) and in S2E6 Vergangenheit, when he looks for a way to be useful to England.
  The Duke of Windsor did indeed keep his red leather dispatch box marked “The King” in his foyer in real life.

• My husband (who speaks Japanese, works in a primarily Japanese law firm, and knows just a ton about Japanese culture) tells me that I shouldn’t actually call the Emperor Emperor Hirohito, as the emperor gets a new name after death! This is from Wikipedia: “In Japan, reigning emperors are known simply as "the Emperor" and [Hirohito] is now referred to primarily by his posthumous name, Shōwa (昭和), which is the name of the era coinciding with his reign; for this reason, he is also known as the Shōwa Emperor or Emperor Shōwa.”

The actual meeting between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and the Emperor and Empress of Japan took place in October 1971 (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

The meeting between the Duke and Duchess and the Emperor and the Empress in The Crown.

• In real life, Prince Charles did correspond with his great-uncle, the Duke of Windsor. His other great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten (Uncle “Dickie”) encouraged this; he was both the Duke’s friend and keenly aware of the damage he caused with his abdication. Mountbatten was actually in charge of the Duke’s estate after his death and arranged for numerous items to be returned to the Royal Archives.
  Charles did visit the Duke and Duchess once in October 1970, but apparently they had a party going on at the time. Charles didn’t stay too long and didn’t seem too impressed by it all. After both the Duke and Duchess died, a businessman named Mohamed Al-Fayed purchased their home and estate; he took Charles on a tour of it in 1986 and said he could choose anything he wanted from the estate, but Charles wasn’t interested in any of their family albums or souvenirs. So it seems that perhaps Charles didn’t view the Duke as a mentor after all.
  I loved Olivia Colman’s line about this meeting in the crown: “One doesn't usually get the opportunity to meet a former king. Former kings are usually dead.” Also, in the show, Charles tells Mountbatten that the entire house smelled “Like joss sticks and dogs.” I had to look up what joss sticks are, but it refers to incense.

The Duke of Windsor and Prince Charles in The Crown.

Charles and Camilla in The Crown.

• If Andrew Buchan, the actor playing Andrew Parker Bowles looks as familiar to you as he did to me, you may have seen him before in his role as Mark Latimer in Broadchurch. Princess Anne and Parker Bowles did indeed date in real life, but apparently only for a short time. They have remained good friends and have been photographed together many times over the years.

• "Where's mehmsahib?" a friend asks Captain Parker Bowles, referring to Camilla. In case you were wondering, this is a leftover Indian colonialism term that means “a married white or upper-class woman (often used as a respectful form of address by nonwhites).”

• Apparently Charles’ real life first conversation with Camilla was rather hilarious. She joked “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.” I so wish they had actually shown that in The Crown; as it is, we don’t really see their first meeting, but just a bit of them checking each other out before Charles calls up Camilla to ask her out.
  At the time, Camilla was in a years-long on-again, off-again relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles. The couple only got engaged after their two fathers conspired together and published an engagement notice in The Times, which forced Andrew to finally act.

• Charles' inaccurate description of Camilla and Andrew’s relationship to Dickie (that she and Andrew fell out over ANNE, when we saw in the show that they had quite obviously fallen out before that) illustrates all the rumors and misconceptions around everyone involved. It’s also interesting that Charles’ description of his visit with the Duke of Windsor to Mountbatten doesn’t seem to quite align with the video we see of it later in the episode, while the Queen is reading Charles’ letter to the duke. This “audio says one thing, video says another” trick is a classic unreliable narrator film style which was also used when the Duke was writing to Wallis in both Season 1 and Season 2; his words often exaggerated the number of supporters meeting him, etc.

The real life Charles and Camilla (Credit: Shutterstock).

This scene was recreated in The Crown, but I don’t remember seeing it in the final cut.

• When Edward Heath disses Harold Wilson, by saying Wilson had expected the most recent election to be his coronation, the queen responds frostily, “nothing wrong with a coronation under the right circumstances,” indicating her subtle support of Harold Wilson. Wilson would end up being one of the Queen’s favorite prime ministers; he’s the only one other than Winston Churchill who hosted her and Prince Philip at a dinner at Downing Street.
  Heath is so awkward. When he’s with the Queen, he sits on the front of his chair the entire time, like he’s terrified to lean back.

• The Queen is wearing blue when she tells Philip she’ll be going to France to charm Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou, who was prime minister of France from 1962-1968 and then president from 1969-1974. The French flag, naturally, is blue, white, and red.

• Prince Philip reminds me so much of my husband, who also meets people several times and then somehow doesn’t remember them.
  "I never see the other one anymore…where's the other one… the bald one?" “He retired. Three months ago. You gave him a clock!”

• Philip-ism, on the Duke of Windsor and his visit from the Emperor and Empress of Japan: "He didn't cause them offense. He didn't abdicate the Japanese throne or kill the emperor's father. For the last time, no. That man, his shame - like the stench of livestock - it seeps into the woodwork and never goes away." What is philip doing during all of this - polishing a gun? That’s what it looks like.

• As Charles is getting everything ready for his date with Camilla, The Four Seasons’ “Beggin” plays in the background, with the curiously applicable lyrics:
  ”Ridin' high when I was king,
  Played it hard and fast cause I had everything
  Walked away, wonderin' then
  But easy come and easy go and it would end”

Princess Anne and Andrew Parker Bowles in real life.

Andrew Parker Bowles and Anne in The Crown.

• Camilla walks into Buckingham and just looks around shocked for a little bit, very in awe of the whole place, and then has to run to catch up to the footman. Charles looks pretty unhappy when Camilla keeps going on about him being prince during their date.

• Charles says something very profound about his life right before he plays a prank on Camilla; he plays it off as a joke, but I’m not so sure: “I live not so much an existence but a predicament. I am both free and imprisoned. Utterly superfluous and quite indispensable. One can never fully invest in one thing or another, because at any moment, it could all change.”
  “How can one be a good son even though [her dying] is the thing you most dread, it’s the thing you most, not desire, well yes, desire , because until she dies, I cannot be fully alive. Nor can I be the thing for which I have been born, so one is condemned to this frightful business of waiting.”

  Charles refers to “Dangling Man” by Saul Bellow and describes it as being about “existing in a timeless and slightly ridiculous abyss. … an unemployed man from Chicago waiting to be drafted to go to a war. And he actually wants to be drafted because it will give his life meaning.”

• Camilla wears a string of pearls on their date (with a really cute peach ruffled shirt, mini skirt, and black jacket). Most of her outfit doesn’t seem to have any deeper meaning, but the Queen wears a pearl necklace so often that I imagine it has to be an intentional callback to Charles’ mother, who is such a big part of their conversation.

Real life Prince Charles (Credit: Tim Graham / Getty).

Prince Charles playing polo in The Crown

• During the Duke’s interview with the BBC, his grey suit appears to be too large for him. The Duke of Windsor was known for being quite a natty dresser, so I imagine this oversized suit is meant to indicate his weight loss from cancer. The Duchess is wearing a scarf that makes her look incredibly French.
  The Crown is really good at showing the reach of media, how so many people are watching it. As the Duke talks about how he had wanted to change the role of the Prince of Wales when he was younger, the b-roll cuts to other people watching, namely, Lord Mountbatten petting his dog, the Queen Mother eating what appears to be strawberry ice cream, and the Queen and Prince Philip, before going back to Charles and Camilla.

• Some of what the Duke is saying in his interview call back to a lot of what was said S3E2 Margaretology. She referred to the black and white men, Duke of Windsor refers to the “grey men".” “I soon discovered that any attempt to make even the most trifling change was met with hostility and suspicion [by whom] by the establishment, the grey men of the court, and by my family too.”
  Just as in Margaretology, the reporters said that Margaret brought color to the black and white world for the royal family, Wallis describes David as a “colorful, dynamic”; he counters with “individualistic.”
  Philip calls them ghastly and monstrous and kisses the queen very sweetly, subtly checking her expression to see how she’s doing before he goes off to bed.

• Princess Anne shows up in the next scene wearing a kicky military style jacket and pants, with a striped shirt – all blue and white. I think this is meant to indicate both her close connection to her father and her approach to life. She knows her brother and knows he gets attached easily, so she checks in on him and warns him lightly about Camilla’s continuing attachment to Andrew.
  ”Yes. And you’re seeing her ex Andrew.
  “Not sure you can call what we’re doing seeing. Not sure you can call him an ex either.”
  “Camilla told me, he’s definitely an ex.”
  “Just make sure things remain the right way around; us playing with Camilla and Andrew, not them playing with us.”
  “What does that mean?”
  /Anne scoffs and walks out/

• I don’t see a specific color story in the Duke and Duchess’s clothing, but they do tend to match. When we see the Duke in his green and white robe after taking a turn for the worse, the Duchess is in a green dress.

• The Queen visits President Pompidou in Paris in order to support Prime Minister Heath’s push for the UK to join the European Economic Community (the precursor to the EU, which didn’t go by that name until 1993) and laying poppies on a memorial for the allied fallen in World War I. She wears two outfits for this - both light purple/lavender. This may be to emphasize her royal position in contrast to her uncle, who gave up the throne.
  She says: “Though we live through times of conflict, our two countries share an ancient relationship. Let us not forget our deeper bonds, our sense of common purpose, on which can be built a new partnership, a new entente. Joined together in this august European enterprise, a great adventure lies ahead.”

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip meeting President Georges Pompidou on their visit to Paris in 1972 (Credit: Popperfoto / Getty).

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown.

• Olivia Colman is so brilliant. Her face changes ever so slightly when Martin tells her that the Duke is dying and she needs to visit him now, just a strange falling of her expression.

• The moment the duke hears the queen is coming he struggles to get up. When his wife says “You can’t be serious,” he shouts “I’ve never been more serious!” and forces his way up and out so he can get dressed and at least sit in a wheelchair while talking with her.
  He wears lots of green and red for his meeting with the queen. Wallis is also wearing green, matching him as usual. I didn’t figure out where the red was coming from until I realized that this likely is a callback to his red dispatch box as king, which is the first thing Queen Elizabeth focuses on when she enters their house.

• In real life, the Duke was still in his bed when the Queen visited him ten days before his death, not in a wheelchair as shown on The Crown, but he still struggled to his feet to bow. In both real life and on the TV show, she seems to deeply appreciate this.
  "There was no need for that.” “If the roles were reversed, you would do exactly the same.” She smiles because she knows it’s true. “Yes.”

• In their meeting, the Duke says that he underestimated the Queen and works to reassure her about Charles’ fitness for the throne.
  “We’ve had our disagreements but you’ve always been my favorite uncle.” “Dear Lillibet.” “Shirley temple.” “I underestimated you. We all did. But the crown always finds it way to the right head. My father, my brother, you, and one day, god willing your son.”

• The Duke and Charles together have all the colors of the flag of the United Kingdom in their outfits. The Duke wears a bright coral suit, red pants, and a pink and blue tie. Charles is wearing a grey suit, light blue shirt, and dark blue tie. They’re not the same but they clearly coordinate.
  The Queen, as she reads Charles letter, is wearing the same colors as Charles - grey with black lining.
  Prince Charles’s letter to the Duke of Windsor: “I do recognize myself in you. Your progressiveness and flair, your individuality and imagination, what a king you would have made in a kinder world. What a king you were denied.” …”I will not be denied what you have been denied. The crown is not a static thing resting forever on one head. It is moving, alive, divine, the changing face of changing times, and if god willing, it has been ordained that I shall wear it, than I shall do so on my own terms, and hopefully make you proud.”

• I thought it was so dreadfully sad that the Duke’s dog ran away from his door whimpering when he died. :(

How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling For Each Queen

All My Six Posts!
Over-Analyzing All the Historical References in Six- “Ex Wives,” “No Way,” “Don’t Lose Your Head” “Heart of Stone” “Haus of Holbein” “Get Down”
The Tudor Crown Inspiration in Six’s Logo; The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References)
Six the Musical Wives 1-3: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations; Six the Musical Wives 4-6: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations
The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes; Details from Six Costumer Gabriella Slade’s Instagram Takeover
The Early Costumes of Six the Musical: From Edinburgh to Cambridge to London
Updated Six the Musical Costumes for Broadway!; The Shoes of Six the Musical
The Alternate Costumes of Six the Musical; How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling for Each Queen
Virtual Dance Workshops and Q&As with Different Six Cast Members!

As I covered in my previous post about Six the Musical, Six is unusual in that its alternates actually wear different costumes than the main queens, in different colors and styles. They indicate which queen they’re playing each night with different hair styling and makeup. I’ve tried to compile pictures of as many alternates as I can playing each role so you can get an idea of how this works!

I should note that there are a few outliers in the styling for each queen; it’s hard for me to tell whether those are due to changing standards over time or what.

Catherine of Aragon: From left to right on the top row, we’ve got Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert (US), Cassy Lee (UK Tour), and Vicki Manser (West End) and on the bottom row, we’ve got Zara McIntosh (West End), Grace Mouat (West End), and Courtney Stapleton (West End). As you can see, Aragon generally has big hair (although this is interpreted differently based on how much hair the alternate has to begin with) and big spikes worn on a headband.

Anne Boleyn: From left to right on the top line, Jennifer Caldwell (UK tour), Bryony Duncan (Cruise), and Cherelle Jay (West End), and on the bottom row, Vicki Manser (West End), Zara McIntosh (West End), and Courtney Stapleton (West End). Boleyn is portrayed with double buns, usually with half of the hair down and with adorable little spike cuffs around them. Boleyn also usually has wristbands, unless the costume already has long sleeves on it. And of course, they all wear the “B” necklace!

Jane Seymour: From left to right on the top line, Jennifer Caldwell (UK tour), Collette Guitart (West End), and Mallory Maedke (US) and on the bottom row, Courtney Stapleton (West End), Hana Stewart (West End), and Harriet Watson (UK Tour). Seymour is portrayed with her hair half back with a headband with subtle, small spikes.

Anne of Cleves From left to right on the top line, Cherelle Jay (West End), Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert (US), and Cassy Lee (UK Tour), and on the bottom row, Vicki Manser (West End), Grace Mouat (West End), and Courtney Stapleton (West End). The Cleves variation on each alternate’s outfit seems pretty standardized, as you pretty much always see her in shorts and a crop top with a fur jacket over it. Cleves’ hair changes up a bit but is generally pulled back with at least some spikes in it, sometimes very big ones, like Aragon’s, and sometimes more subtle ones.

Katherine Howard: From left to right on the top line, Jennifer Caldwell (UK tour), Collette Guitart (West End), and Mallory Maedke (US), and on the bottom row, Vicki Manser (West End), Zara McIntosh (West End), and Grace Mouat (West End). Howard is almost always portrayed with a high, long ponytail and a little spike cuff, although it looks like Vicki wears hers half down as well.

I find it really interesting that although the main Katherine Howard wears a “K'“ necklace, much like Anne Boleyn’s “B,” it doesn’t look like the alternates do! I can’t tell if they’re actually wearing black chokers or if those are part of the costumes themselves though; it looks like those tend to be standardized though, as Mallory, Grace, and Collette all appear to be wearing black chokers when they play other queens as well.

Catherine Parr: From left to right on the top line, Collette Guitart (West End), Nicole Kyoung-Mi Lambert (US), and Grace Mouat (West End), and on the bottom row, Courtney Stapleton (West End), Hana Stewart (West End), and Harriet Watson (UK Tour). Parr is generally portrayed with a spiky headband (worn more forward on the head than Seymour’s), but it looks like the alternates otherwise have some freedom as to how they style their hair.

#ShakespearesPlaylist: A Midsummer Night's Dream

This is part of the #ShakespearesPlaylist series! You can read all of those posts here!

A scene from the 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania and Kevin Kline as Nick Bottom.

So I LOVE finding songs to fit the mood of #Shakespeare plays. Basically every time I hear a song I love on the radio, I think about how I could fit it into a production. I can’t help it. My brain just does that, which is funny, because I’ve only directed one production (my own one-act) and questioned myself and my abilities the entire time, so I don’t necessarily see myself directing anything else any time soon, but I just like to dream about the music anyway.

I’ve decided to play with this habit of mine more and make full-fledged Spotify and Youtube playlists for each play by Shakespeare, under the umbrella name and hashtag #ShakespearesPlaylist .

This week we’re looking at A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of the most loved and commonly performed Shakespeare plays! And why not? It has fairies, magic, love, mistaken love, hilariously inept actors, and general shenanigans galore; it’s considered one of the most accessible and kid-friendly of the bard’s works. It’s also Shakespeare’s second shortest play at 16,511 words (the actual shortest is Comedy of Errors, which is 14,701 words), which makes it a great choice for community productions and films. You don’t have to make as many cuts to it as you would to say, Hamlet (30,557! There’s a reason it’s rarely performed in full without cuts.), to fit it into a reasonable period of time for a modern audience.

Quick Wikipedia Summary: Midsummer has three main interwoven plots and one plot which serves as a frame story for all the others. The frame story is that the Duke Theseus of Athens and Hippolyta, the Queen of Amazons, are getting married, and everyone’s coming together for the celebration.

The first plot focuses on the lovers- Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father Egeus wants her to wed Demetrius (to the extent that he threatens to kill her if she doesn’t do what he wants!). Hermia arranges to run away with Lysander and tells her best friend Helena about it, swearing her to secrecy. Helena pines after her former lover Demetrius, who broke up with her to chase after Hermia, and somehow thinks that telling Demetrius about Hermia and Lysander’s plans will endear him to her.

The second plot looks to the fairy king Oberon and fairy queen Titania, who are currently quarreling, as Titania refuses to give a child in her care to Oberon (the child’s mother was one of her worshippers). Oberon summons fairy Puck (also known as Robin Goodfellow) to fetch a flower with magical properties - when applied to a person’s eyes during sleep, that person, upon waking, falls in love with the first living thing they see. Oberon intends to use this to charm Titania so he can steal the child from her while she’s obsessed with some other being.

The third plot focuses on a group of common Athenians (“Rude Mechanicals”) who are putting together a comically inept production of Pyramus and Thisbe to perform at the Duke’s wedding. While rehearsing in the forest, Puck plays a trick on Bottom, the most arrogant member of the troupe, and gives him the head of a donkey, which frightens all his friends away.

These plots all become quickly interwoven. Oberon applies the love flower to Titania’s eyes while she is sleeping so that he can take away the child while she’s distracted; the first thing she sees upon waking is the donkey-headed Bottom. Shenanigans ensue! In addition, Oberon, after seeing Demetrius spurn the pathetic Helena, orders Puck to apply the love flower to Demetrius’s eyes. Puck mistakenly initially gives the flower to Lysander instead, who spies Helena upon waking and professes his undying love for her, abandoning Hermia in the woods in the process. Puck tries to amend this by also giving the flower to Demetrius, but all this does is result in Demetrius and Lysander fighting over Helena, who is convinced that both of them are making fun of her. Hermia flies into a rage over the whole situation and attacks Helena. Further shenanigans ensue!

In the end, Puck removes the flower from Lysander’s eyes and all the lovers end up happy and married by the end. Bottom also is returned to his prior shape as a human and Titania’s love potion is removed after Oberon steals the child; the fairy queen and the king reunite. They all gather together to celebrate Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding and watch the Rude Mechanicals’ play, poking fierce fun at the hapless actors in the process.

First up on the playlist is The Beatles’ She’s Leaving Home, referencing Hermia running away from her father’s house to be with Lysander. To be fair, he literally threatened to kill her if she didn’t marry Demetrius so…good decision.

Wednesday morning at five o'clock
As the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more

She goes downstairs to the kitchen
Clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside, she is free

She(we gave her most of our lives)
Is leaving (sacrificed most of our lives)
Home (we gave her everything money could buy)
She's leaving home, after living alone, for so many years (bye bye)

Next up is Kanye West’s Heartless, referring to how heartlessly Demetrius treats Helena. Just switch the gender in the chorus lyrics and it applies perfectly to the situation.
“In the night I hear ‘em talk” - everyone knows about what Demetrius did to Helena; Lysander uses it as an example for why Hermia should be with him, and Theseus admits that he’s heard of Demetrius’s behavior and had wanted to talk to him about it.

In the night, I hear 'em talk
The coldest story ever told
Somewhere far along this road, [she] lost [her] soul to a [man] so heartless
How could you be so heartless?
Oh, how could you be so heartless?

David Bowie’s Magic Dance, from the movie Labyrinth, is a personal favorite of mine. I’ve loved that movie since I was just a child. And fortunately, it’s all about magic, dancing and kidnapping children, all things that are very present in Midsummer!

I saw my baby, trying hard as babe could try
What could I do?
My baby's fun had gone
And left my baby blue
Nobody knew
What kind of magic spell to use
Slime and snails
Or puppy dogs tails
Thunder or lightning
Then baby said

Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)
Dance magic, dance (dance magic, dance)
Put that baby's spell on me (ooh)
Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)
Jump magic, jump (jump magic, jump)
Put that magic jump on me (ooh)
Slap that baby, make him free

Billie Holiday’s You Go to My Head stands for Helena’s feelings for Demetrius. She loves him hopelessly and desperately; even though it seems like their relationship is truly over and he’s not interested any more, she pursues him.

The thrill of the thought
That you might give a thought to my plea
Casts a spell over me
Still I say to myself "Get a hold of yourself"
Can't you see that it never can be

You go to my head
With a smile that makes my temperature rise
Like a summer with a thousand Julys
You intoxicate my soul with your eyes
Though I'm certain that this heart of mine
Hasn't a ghost of a chance in this crazy romance
You go to my head

The Chordettes’ Mr Sandman refers simultaneously to a magical figure bringing sleep and love to the singer and the titular “dream.” After the night is over, all the humans involved in the shenanigans believe they have only dreamed of falling in love with various different people and having donkey’s heads and such.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream
Make him the cutest that I've ever seen
Give him two lips like roses and clover
Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over

Mr. Sandman, I'm so alone
Don't have nobody to call my own
So, please turn on your magic beam
Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream

I actually have been really struggling to find a song that represents the Rude Mechanicals and had some trouble. Yackety Sax maybe, but I already used that for my #ShakespearesPlaylist on The Comedy of Errors. What do y’all think? In any case, here’s an old video of The Beatles performing the Pyramus and Thisbe scene of Midsummer with a few other random dudes I don’t know on a variety show they hosted in 1964!

Finally, I’m closing out this post with a video of the recent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, put on by my Shakespeare troupe The Britches and Hose! I’m not in it (I didn’t have a car at the time so I didn’t try out, no good way to get to rehearsals), but half my friends are! Also it’s the funniest version of this play I have EVER seen and you can probably hear me laughing hysterically throughout.

What suggestions do y’all have for A Midsummer Playlist? Please commen tor send them to me @RachaelDickzen on Twitter ! I’d love to hear your ideas. :)

Over-Analyzing The Crown: S3E7 Moondust

All My Posts on The Crown
S3: 1 & 2: “Olding” & “Margaretology” 3: “Aberfan” 4: “Bubbikins, 5: “Coup” 6: “Tywysog Cymru” 7: “Moondust" 8: “Dangling Man” 9: “Imbroglio” 10: “Cri de Coeur”
S4: 1: “Gold Stick” 2: “The Balmoral Test” 3: “Fairytale” ( + Cinderella References) 4: “Favourites” 5: “Fagan” 6: “Terra Nullius” 7: ”The Hereditary Principle” 8: “48:1” 9: “Avalanche”
The Medals, Sashes, and Tiaras of The Crown; Tiaras/Crowns Overviews: Season 1 ; Season 2

Prince Philip has a Very Special Episode dedicated to his midlife crisis and the moon. Also- astronauts, and corgis, and priests, oh my!

Princess Anne (Erin Doherty) and two children (probably the actors playing her brothers Prince Andrew and Edward) during the rocket launch party scene in The Crown.

Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies), enchanted by the moon in The Crown.

• This may be a particularly quote heavy blog post, as I find Philip absolutely hilarious (if sometimes ridiculously inappropriate). He’s one of my favorite characters and reminds me very much of my own husband, who often says hilariously inappropriate things and is also tall and slim like Philip.

• At the start of the episode, Prince Philip is watching the astronauts talk on television while wearing blue and dull green. The queen (also in green) comes in to join him and mentions that she’s sending a message to the moon, which will be inscribed with other messages on a disc and left on the moon along with an olive branch “for the little green men to wave about.” I haven’t noticed much of a color story in this episode, but I do love that they’re both wearing some sort of green while she’s joking about the “little green men.”
  Here’s the text of the note the Queen sent to the Moon. “On behalf of the British people, i salute the skill and courage that have brought man to the moon. May this endeavor increase the knowledge and well-being of mankind?

• I love how grumpy Philip is when he’s walking up to the church with his wife.
  Queen: “[The dean] has been with us for nearly 20 years.”
  Philip: “That may make him loyal, but it does not make him interesting.”
  “Shh.”
  This exchange starts off a theme of Philip finding people or events in his life boring throughout the entire episode.

• The queen wears a purple hat and just a ridiculously gorgeous coat to church. “They have ears, but they hear not” speech is hilariously on point for Philip. Anne, behind her father, shows a little more restraint and doesn’t cross her arms like he does, but her face still shows how annoying and boring she finds the Dean (like father, like daughter).
  Philip-ism about the old Dean of Windsor, as he says that he’s not coming back to church again: “It’s not a sermon, it’s a general anesthetic.” 

• Queen: “Is it possible, do you think, the dean, might have reached, how can i put this kindly, the moment of his own obsolescence? I noticed one or two people struggling to stay awake.” (maybe the most British way of saying this ever)
  Private Secretary Michael Adeane: “We could discreetly start the search for a replacement.”
  ”Yes, Good riddance. Someone with a bit of oomph, I think so.”
  “Zest.” “That’s it.”
  “Pep.” “Yes, thanks.”
  “Vim.” “Yes, thank you.”
  I enjoy how Michael Adeane ever so subtly pokes the driest of humor at the queen here in his use of many many synonyms to describe what she wants in the new dean. He’s been her private secretary for 16 years as of the time of this episode (which is partially why it’s so unbelievable/funny when Philip can’t remember Michael’s name in a few episodes after he retires) and they clearly known each other very well at this point.
  The practice polo cage Philip uses in one scene to outrace His Demons is so fucking ridiculous looking. 

• I was curious as to why they seem to be at Windsor for most if not all of this episode and looked it up. As this Harper’s Bazaar article on the royal residences states, “Buckingham Palace is the Queen’s working residence during the week when she and the Duke of Edinburgh are based in London. However, they go to Windsor Castle most weekends, spend each August and September at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and head off to Sandringham House in Norfolk every Christmas.” So it makes sense that they’re at Windsor most of the time, since most of this episode seems to take place on Sundays (Apollo 11 launched on a Wednesday and the moon landing took place on a Sunday).

Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth at church in The Crown

• It looks like a really amazing rocket launch party. There’s a lunar module cake and they have like astronaut helmets and space banners and rocket party hats. I wish I could find ANY screenshots of it to share here. I particularly enjoy the little quick background scene where Anne carefully places multiple party hats on her sleeping grandmother, with Margaret’s help. Charles also appears to be present, if in the background, and he looks pretty happy to be hanging out with his family, so perhaps he and the Queen have mended things up a bit since the last episode.
  Philip looks even more excited about the rocket lift off than any of the children and it’s pretty amazing.
  Philip-ism, as he looks for his wife: “If I say She and we’re in Buckingham palace, who do you think I mean?” 

•  I literally didn’t even realize Margaret and Tony came to the rocket launching party at first, because Margaret is wearing a dark brown dress that is just so damn toned down for her. We really don’t spend any time with them in this episode, but based on the Margaret and Tony episode we get at the end of the season, I’m guessing the dark brown might indicate the sad state of their marriage. It’s also barely ever mentioned in the series, but they have two children themselves, named David and Sarah. You can read all about them here.
  As was hinted at in S2E7 Matrimonium, Tony did, in fact, have an illegitimate child with Camilla Fry, the wife of his friend Jeremy Fry (The Crown portrayed Tony and the Frys as having a three-way relationship, which is alleged in the 2008 book “Snowdon: The Biography” but hasn’t been fully substantiated). His daughter, Polly, was born a few weeks after he married Princess Margaret; his paternity was confirmed by a DNA test in 2004. “Snowdon: The Biography” also alleged that Jeremy Fry was actually intended to act as Tony’s best man at the wedding, but had to drop out due to illness.

• As he sits up to watch the moon landing, there are American flags behind him and a toy astronaut in front of him. 
  I love that Philip asks the staff to wake up all the children to see the moon landing. We get a really quick montage of all the butlers and maids gently shaking Andrew and Edward awake and helping them put their robes on.
  Anne’s dress in the moon landing scene is really cute – black, with multicolored lines on a slightly offset bit. 

• The newspapers Philip is reading when he’s ignoring his private secretary not only talk about the race to the moon, but also mention a few other things that seem to emphasize other men’s achievements, such as, “Man dies saving daughter.” He’s wearing a tie that’s dark blue with little white dots on it, vaguely reminiscent of the moon. He’s also wearing his military coat here, which seems to refer to his longing for his lost career. Basically, everything in this scene emphasizes Philip’s midlife crisis.
  Philip-ism: “British Concrete Society, is that a joke?”
  Sidenote: The concept of a “midlife crisis” was first named in 1965, so the concept is still relatively new when this episode takes place. Philip does admit at the end that he’s going through a crisis, but he avoids actually calling it a midlife crisis. Wikipedia defines a midlife crisis as “a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person's growing age, inevitable mortality, and possibly shortcomings of accomplishments in life.” Plenty of people don’t have midlife crises, but of those who do, a death of a loved one is often a precipitating factor. “Moondust” almost unfolds like a mystery, in a way, as we don’t realize until the very end that Philip is experiencing these feelings primarily because of his mother’s death, which hadn’t previously been revealed.

• Philip’s private secretary gives some choice knowing glances as the new priest discusses his priest sanctuary idea, seemingly realizing that this is exactly the situation Philip is in. 
  Philip-ism: “But If one of those buildings is free and you want to fill it with hot air and thought, be my guest.”

• Tobias Menzies has the most ridiculously expressive eyes, which he uses to great effect as Philip. This is a much quieter, less dramatic role than his role as Jack Randall in Outlander, and although Philip is funny, he’s not as hapless or pathetic as Edmure Tully in Game of Thrones, but I think it may be the finest work he’s ever done.
  Philip doesn’t have the anger that he did in the first two seasons and he definitely seems more “settled” (which was pretty much the Queen’s end goal in Season 2), but there’s kind of a new hopelessness, as he stays up late every night to watch all the space and moon reports, the lone holdout among his family. He even cries a little at the sight. As he goes through his various duties, at a textile mill, at a dental prosthetic lab, he’s smiling, but he just looks a little lost. 

• It seems like Philip’s wrinkles are much more emphasized than we’ve seen previously. This may be because we’re getting tighter shots on his face as he' focuses on the space mission, but the show also definitely uses makeup to subtly age the actors throughout the season. They definitely look older and look their character’s age, which supports the decision to replace the Season 1 and 2 actors with older actors for season 3. I feel like if Claire Foy had continued to act as the Queen, you’d have an “aging” look similar to how Clare and Jamie look in Season 3 of Outlander, after supposedly 20 years have passed. They both look older then they did, but they’re also the youngest looking 40-somethings I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s just hard to make really young actors look like they’re entering middle age.
  Apparently most of the main actors also wear wigs in order to properly replicate their character’s hair color and period-accurate hair styles. Thinning hair, graying hair, and changing hairlines in the wigs also help age up the actors as the season progresses. I couldn’t find a definitive list anywhere (there’s a lot more info about Season 1-2 still than there is about 3), but the Queen, Prince Philip, and Princess Margaret definitely all wear wigs.
  If you’d like to read more about how accurate the makeup on The Crown is to real life, Harpers Bazaar Australia did a pretty great article on the makeup seen in the first two seasons.

• Then we get a shot of Philip flying for the first time this season; I’m pretty sure this is put in here not just to emphasize Philip’s discontent with his life but also to remind us of this part of his life before he later asks to meet the astronauts privately so they can talk “pilot to pilot.” I really enjoyed how the pilot frantically buckles his seatbelt back in as Philip takes over the controls and starts aiming the nose to the moon, going as high up as he can, much higher than the pilot would have taken it. When the pilot says that they need to get down from the elevation quickly, Philip replies, “But look, we’ve also lived. Just for a minute.” 

Dean Robin Woods with the Queen (Credit: Mirrorpix).

Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip with Tim McMullan as Dean Robin Woods in The Crown

Tim McMullan as Dean Robin Woods in The Crown

A scene set at St. George’s House in The Crown

• I have a theory that the queen specifically asked Dean Woods to check in on Philip and help provide him some guidance through his current crisis and feelings of loss. Right before the rocket launch party when Prince Philip asks her about the new dean, she says cagily that he’ll be a good fit “for the job I’ve asked him to do.” She then looks at her husband with a knowing smile. And then Woods is extremely persistent in engaging with Philip, even after Philip makes it very plain that he doesn’t really want to spend time with him or any of the priests.

• Dean Woods gives a sermon about exploration and space that would have been great for Philip to hear. The queen definitely seems to think this, as she looks next to her and misses him. But Philip is off trying to outrace his own demons by jogging through the grey-skied countryside because he has Feelings. As the audio of Dean Woods’ speech continues over his running though, we hear heavy breathing, like that of the astronauts' over their radios to space. Neither the scene immediately before or immediately after this one have any footage of the astronauts themselves, so this has to be Philip’s breath, intentionally laid over the audio to emulate space.
  The bit of Woods’ speech we can hear before it trails off into Philip’s overwhelming ennui goes: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. Those words by T.S. Eliot have never rung more true. We stand at the dawn of a new age of space exploration. The promise of space has never felt more real….”

• The new dean of the church at Windsor wears a red shirt and cassock sometimes. This is apparently pretty normal in the Anglican church.

  Philip-isms about Dean Woods’ spiritual retreat for priests: “Your concentration camp for spiritual defectives.” “Do I need to show symptoms of despair? Should I sigh and moan dramatically. One does like to fit in.” 
  Philip trying to pretend that he cares about the priests’ problems is pretty hilarious. They talk about their “sense of directionlessness and redundancy” and how they feel like they’re failing to connect with the people. Honestly, they’re pretty much summing up Philip’s issues and he’s just in total denial.
  I love that Philip admits that his new religious faith is basically the moon and the space race. He at least knows himself!

• Dean Woods quotes Keats in response to Philip’s observation that the space race and the moon have become some people’s religion: “What is there in thee, moon, that thou shouldst move my heart so potently?” He then continues on, “Now we know what the moon is - nothing. Just dust. Silence. Monochromatic void. We see no god beyond those rocks and space dust, simply an unknowable vastness.” Then he switches to Psalms 8:3: “When i consider the work of thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars that thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
  The Keats quote is from a poem called Endymion, which you can read in full here. I’ll admit, I often am skeptical of characters just quoting a perfect poem at the perfect time in period dramas without rehearsal, as Dean Woods does here. We also see Margaret and Tony quote poetry at each other when they first meet at a party in Season 2. But I try to remind myself that people had a lot less entertainment in the past and read and memorized more than we do now, just as plenty of us can recite various quotes from our favorite movies, TV shows, and pop songs.

• Though Philip had actually been trying to be tactful for once in his life, when Dean Woods actually asks for his opinions, he lets loose his vitriol pretty ferociously. “Me? You want my thoughts? Really. Okay, right. I’ve never heard such a load of pretentious self pitying nonsense. What you lot need to do is get off your backsides, get out into the world, and do something. That is why you are all so lost.” He then continues to wax philosophic about how action is what defines us, not suffering, and says that men need to make their mark on the world. These beliefs all hearken back to his schooling at Gordonstoun, which were examined pretty thoroughly in S2E9 Paterfamilias, and his young adulthood in the British Navy.
  He also calls them all “navel-gazing underachievers infecting each other with gaseous doom” and tells them “If you want to start with action, clean up the floor.”

• Another Philip-ism comes up when they’re eating dinner, as he jokes that he’s eating so much venison that he’s going to turn into a deer. “I’m listening, with brown furry ears.”
  THE CORGIS WANT VENISON.  Well of course they do. Good puppiessss (y’all, I want a corgi SO BADLY, you have no idea. But husband John says he’ll only agree to me having a dog when I get a New York Times bestseller).
  By the way, the dogs playing the Queen’s corgis apparently eat just a boatload of cheese on set.

The Apollo 11 astronauts meeting the royal family at Buckingham Palace. In real life, Prince Philip was right there with his family meeting the astronauts. He also didn’t have a personal meeting with them (as the episode depicted) (Credit: PA / Getty).

The actors playing the Apollo 11 astronauts and their wives at Buckingham Palace in The Crown.

• Philip is obviously delighted when the Queen tells him that the astronauts are going to come visit the royal family. The Queen says, “I thought that would cheer you up.” “Do I need cheering up?” “A little.” 
  It’s sweet how she so obviously knows him better than he knows himself. Right before his meeting with the astronauts, the queen stares at Philip with obvious concern, like she’s not quite certain how he’s going to react to anything. 

• Various stray thoughts about the astronauts’ visit to Buckingham Palace: Philip is basically a kid on Christmas morning when the astronauts come; he is absolutely way too excited. And he’s not the only one. Even the BUTLERS and the maids and footmen are excited, racing to the windows to see them, even though as staff of the royal family, they’ve obviously seen a lot.
  I laughed out loud at the background bit in which Margaret lights a cigarette and says “Please don’t tell me you want to talk about children” to one of the astronauts’ wives, who looks suitably flabbergasted.
  We really get to see Anne and her little brothers interact with each other and other family members for the first time this season. Anne at one point shoves her little brother out from behind her to meet Neil Armstrong.
  The Queen wears a blue dress with a white purse that’s very similar to what she wore in real life, but not identical. I always wonder why they made the little changes they do - like why this dress has sleeves added, but the dress Jackie Kennedy wore to Buckingham Palace in season 2 had its sleeves taken away.

Queen Elizabeth meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts at Buckingham Palace (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

Olivia Colman as the Queen meeting the Apollo 11 astronauts in The Crown.

• In the episode, the astronauts all have colds and Prince Philip runs out of handkerchiefs to give them. In real life, only Neil Armstrong is known to have had a cold at the time of their meeting, but it apparently was bad enough that he considered backing out of the meeting. However, his wife had other ideas. “She told me that if I had to be embalmed, we were going to see the palace,” Neil Armstrong said. “She wanted to see the place.” He apparently coughed on the Queen and when he tried to apologize, coughed on her again. His illness was apparently memorable enough that the Queen later asked an acquaintance about Armstrong’s health.
  Buzz Aldrin also revealed on Twitter in 2016 that "Mike Collins almost fell down the stairs trying not to turn his back on Queen Elizabeth II."

• Historically, the queen had met space travelers before this visit and continued to show interest in space afterward. She met Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, in July 1961, and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, in 1964. She also met an astronaut from Apollo 8 prior to the Apollo 11 astronauts’ visit. When Apollo 12 returned to the moon in November 1969, she woke up early to watch TV coverage of the event.

• It appears that, for their meeting with Prince Philip, the astronauts are placed in the same big room that Princess Alice was exploring when the journalist found her there in S2E4 “Bubbikins.” Is that the big, grand room they use to impress visitors? This also ties the episode back to Philip’s mother, whose name has not actually been spoken as of this point in the episode.

Neil Armstrong (Henry Pettigrew), Buzz Aldrin (Felix Scott) and Michael Collins (Andrew Lee Potts) in a scene with Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies)

Jane Lapotaire as Princess Alice in The Crown.

• Philip’s meeting with the astronauts is super awkward, with lots of long silences, and disappoints him. He tries to ask the astronauts big profound questions about how they felt up in space, e.g., what their thoughts were out there about humans’ place in the universe, but the astronauts respond that they really didn’t have time for thinking of that, as they were constantly busy performing different procedures and checking items off the list. This is exactly how he guessed it would be earlier in the episode, when he told off the priests at St. George’s house. “Action is what defines us, Action, not suffering - all this sitting around, thinking and talking. Let me ask you this, do you think those astronauts up there are catatonic like you lot. Of course not, they are too busy achieving something spectacular. And as a result, they are at one with the world. At one with their god. And happy.”
  He was terribly disappointed when the astronauts’ most profound observation to him was that their water cooler in space sucked and kept them awake with noise. They then took the opportunity to ask him lots of mundane questions about his life - how many rooms are in the palace, how long the hallways are, and how many staff they had, before the audio trails off.

• Philip later comments to the queen: “I don’t know what I was thinking. I expected them to be giants, gods. But in reality they’re just three little men, pale-faced with colds.”
  The Queen notes in response that the very qualities that make one a good astronaut (their sense of duty, reliability, modesty) and perfect in a crisis are not necessarily those that make for a really interesting person (originality or inventiveness). It almost seems like she’s talking about herself and Margaret again, hearkening back to her discussion with Philip at the end of S3E2 Margaretology about the dull, trustworthy people vs. the interesting, unreliable people of her family. “They never wanted to be public but because of one event, they will be forever.” (They must have known what they were getting into though, right?) “They delivered as astronauts but they disappointed as human beings.”
  Philip-ism: “Good job there were no little green men. They could be forgiven for thinking, ‘if that’s all planet Earth has got to offer, let’s give the place a miss.’”

• After the astronauts disappoint him terribly, he pauses by the staircase leading up to his mother’s empty room and walks up to look around at it sadly. He then goes to St. George’s again and finally admits that something’s been wrong with him lately; although he’s generally a cantankerous person, he’s been over-exercising, over-zealously following the space race. He talks about his mother’s death and his own lack of faith for the first time in the episode, says straight out that he’s desperate and lost, and asks the priests for help.
  Sidenote: He says something slightly mysterious while talking about his crisis. “Just like other people hitting that crisis, you resort to all the usual things to try to make yourself feel better. Some of which I can admit in this room and others which I probably shouldn’t.” This seems to imply that he may have committed some big sin he can’t talk about with the priests. Just like in the second season, where Philip never actually denies that he’s cheated, it’s left really ambiguous as to whether Philip has had affairs or not.

• As the end of the episode notes, St. George’s House is a real organization that Prince Philip helped found (although in real life, it was started a few years before the moon landing occurred). He also was apparently quite a bit more enthusiastic about the concept from the get-go than is portrayed here. You can find out more information about the founding of St. George’s House here.

• Wonderfully, the entire episode seems to fulfill the T.S. Eliot quote from Dean Woods’ sermon. “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” After meeting the astronauts and trying to find meaning in the space race, he finally comes back to the priests and admits that he’s been lost since his mother’s death; he is coming back to where he started and now knows himself better.

Details, Themes, and Foreshadowing in Frozen II (and some stuff about the first movie too)

I just watched Frozen II last night with some friends and it was such an incredibly powerful movie. I cried a few times, I think. So now I’m going to analyze it, as I do everything. :D Obviously this is going to be full of a shit-ton of spoilers, so don’t read this if you don’t want that.

Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Sven in Frozen II

• I should start off with a brief discussion of what the first movie meant to me. I watched Frozen with a friend in law school and Let it Go immediately spoke to me. Yeah, I know, everyone’s sick of it and it was ridiculously overdone there for a while, but the lyrics very specifically evoked my own issues with embracing my own disabilities - depression, ADHD, and chronic pain. It was all about letting go of your shame and fear, letting go of other people’s expectations, throwing away the need to be perfect, and loving yourself on your own terms. I have been that person afraid to show the world who I am before, so I identify with this song very strongly. The one ironic thing is that I actually HATE the cold with a passion (and particularly snow and ice).
  I’m not the only one either - plenty of people have called it a disability anthem, a coming out anthem, and a song about growing up and becoming an adult. My friend Michael wrote about its meaning for his own life here.
  It’s also pretty awesome that it shows Elsa transforming her outer look purely for herself, not for anyone else.
  I’ve heard some people criticize it for a nihilistic worldview, and some argue that a specific scene in Frozen II is anti-Let It Go and shows its worldview as something not to be emulated or admired (I’ll discuss that later), but I think it’s extremely empowering for what it is. It’s not a song intended to speak all situations; it’s a song about embracing yourself just as you are, in that moment. And that’s really wonderful.

Elsa singing “Let It Go” in Frozen

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I've tried
Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well, now they know

Elsa singing “Let It Go” in Frozen

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don't care what they're going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway

It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I'm free

Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You'll never see me cry
Here I stand and here I stay
Let the storm rage on

• I love that the first imagery you see in both movies (once you get past the production credits) is something from nature; in the first film, you see snowflakes, and in the second film, you see autumn leaves. The leaf seems to symbolize a big theme of the movie, namely, change. In the beginning scenes, a lot of people talk about how difficult change is, how hard growing up can be, or about how things are perfect they way they are; yet just as the leaves change color each fall, change happens in our lives and we just have to deal with it. As Olaf says, “How I wish it would stay this way forever. Though, change mocks us” And Elsa sings, “Is something coming? I'm not sure I want things to change at all These days are precious, can't let them slip away I can't freeze this moment, but I can still go out and seize this day.” This theme will come back throughout the movie, including in Olaf’s song “When I am Older.”

Honeymaren, Ryder, and Chief Yelana of the Northuldra in Frozen II

• Frozen II starts off with the same song that was used in the first movie. This gorgeous acapella song is called “Vuelie” (which translates to something like “song”) and is based off of an older song called Eatnemen Vuelie (Song Of The Earth). This song is specifically jolk, an indigenous form of music that was actually historically outlawed in Scandinavia. From what I’ve read online, the remaining “Na heya” words don’t mean anything and are lyricless sounds, like “la la” in English.
  The second movie does a LOT to try to remedy the overwhelmingly white nature of the first film, which used a song from the indigenous Sami and put blonde Kristoff in a Sami-inspired outfit, but didn’t involve any consultation with the Sami and featured no diversity whatsoever (if you’re someone who’s ranting about how there were historically no non-white peoples in Scandinavia, one, you’re wrong, the Sami have lived there for over 3,000 years and African immigrants started coming to Scandinavia in the 17th century, and two, this is a friggin’ fairy tale movie, it’s not like there was historically a woman who shot ice from her hands either).
  For starters, Disney actually partnered with representatives from Sami communities on the movie, bringing experts to their headquarters to talk to the Frozen II animators. They signed a benefits declaration with the representatives stating that the Sami would receive proper representation in the movie and a Sami language version of the film will be released.
  The Sami are represented as the fictional Northuldra in the movie, led by their chief Yelena. They have been trapped in the enchanted forest for the last 34 years. They, like the Sami, appear to be reindeer herders. We meet and know multiple of the Northuldra by name during the movie and see several of our main characters interact with them. They’re treated like actual people, not just props. It’s pretty awesome.

Iduna, Anna, and Elsa in Frozen II

Queen Iduna, Anna, Elsa, and King Agnarr in Frozen II

• Next, we get an adorable flashback, with a scene of Anna and Elsa as children with their parents, just like the first movie. This scene takes place before the earliest flashback in Frozen, as Anna still knows about Elsa’s magic and they’re playing together with ice figurines Elsa has made. The girls appear to be the same approximate size/age as they are in the first movie, and they’re wearing the same nightgowns and hair accessories, so it’s possible that this scene actually is meant to take place immediately before the events of Frozen that lead to Anna’s memories of her sister’s magic being taken away.
  When they ask their parents about enchanted forests, their father King Agnarr tells them the story of how he became king. From his viewpoint as a child, his father built a dam for the Northuldra people who lived in the Enchanted Forest and during a celebration of the dam between the two peoples, violence unexpectedly broke out. In all the hubub, he loses consciousness and someone unknown carries him to safety. The magic of the enchanted forest covers the entire area with an impassable mist.
  Their mother Queen Iduna is pretty quiet throughout all this, which makes more sense later when we find out that she was in fact, Northuldra, and was the mysterious person who saved Agnarr. They never explain /why/ she didn’t tell Agnarr about her past, and this leaves a pretty big hole for the future that could be a good jumping off point for another sequel.
  Sidenote: Has anyone else ever noticed that Anna and Elsa almost exclusively wear green, blue, and maroon/lavender shades, aka, colors we see their parents wearing? Anna wears a light creme dress for “Some Things Never Change” but other than that, this rule seems to hold true until Elsa transforms into her “snow queen white” dress.
  After the story, Queen Iduna (as portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood, who has one of the warmest and most comforting voices ever) sings “All is Found” to her daughters, about a magic river called Ahtohallan with all the answers. There is SO much foreshadowing in its lyrics, which I’ve annotated below.
  

  Where the north wind meets the sea (This tells us where Ahtohallan is, in the North across the sea)
  There's a river full of memory (this ties into the “water has memory” theme of the movie)
  Sleep, my darling, safe and sound
  For in this river all is found
  
  In her waters, deep and true
  Lie the answers and a path for you (This is where Elsa discovers her ancestors’ misdeeds and finds her and Anna’s destiny)
  Dive down deep into her sound (Elsa literally follows the sound of the voice)
  But not too far, or you'll be drowned (This happens to Elsa, when she goes too deep into the glacier and freezes)
  
  Yes, she will sing to those who hear (Elsa hears the mysterious voice calling her to go North)
  And in her song all magic flows
  But can you brave what you most fear (In “Into the Unknown” Elsa says quite frankly that she’s scared to follow the voice)
  Can you face what the river knows
  
  Where the north wind meets the sea
  There's a mother full of memory (Elsa literally sees her mother in the ice cavern and sings with her in “Show Yourself”)
  Come, my darling, homeward bound (In “Show Yourself” Elsa talks about how she feels like she’s coming home)
  When all is lost, then all is found (Elsa has to temporarily give up her life to find out the truth and find her true purpose)

Anna and Olaf during “Some Things Never Change”

• When a courtier startles her, Elsa accidentally freezes her hands to the banister. This is similar to how Elsa accidentally freezes the window sill in the “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” sequence right before her father gives her her gloves and how she accidentally freezes the fountain when she reflexively grabs the ledge while backing away from the crowd. Ledges are just…tough for Elsa, aren’t they?
  This scene also demonstrates how shy and introverted Elsa still is. Pretty much every time we see Anna, she’s interacting with lots of people, but Elsa tends more toward looking out windows and walking down halls dramatically. People still startle her easily. She’s definitely interacting with people more than she used to, but it’s not her comfort zone. This is also evident in the Charades scene, in which she looks just hideously uncomfortable at putting on a performance, even just in front of her family and closest friends.
  We also see her in a purple dress in the beginning and a dark purple nightgown during “Into the Unknown.” She seems to wear a lot of colors that her mother wore when she’s trying to act in the queen role. Once her people are safe though, she changes immediately into a light blue outfit and is light blue or white for the rest of the movie - taking on her “true colors,” if you will.

• The story proper starts off with essentially a harvest festival scene, set to “Some Things Never Change,” which continually demonstrates the false hope in Anna’s words by showing how things keep changing around her. This continues the trend from the first Frozen movie of playing with expectations and irony. In the first movie, for example, we hear a father talking to his son about how he can’t wait to see the princesses and bets they’re just beautiful, and then the film cuts to a shot of Anna sleeping very heavily, with extremely messed up hair and a very ladylike drool spot.
  There’s a lot of ironic foreshadowing in “Some Things Never Change” but it really is mostly a stage-setting song, so I’m not going to analyze all the lyrics in depth, but we definitely have some typical “Thanksgiving” style lyrics in it. “It's time to count our blessings beneath an autumn sky. We'll always live in the kingdom of plenty that stands for the good of the many.”
  And can I just say, the moment they said “And I promise you the flag of Arendelle will always fly. Our flag will always fly,” I just KNEW that flag was going down super soon. Sure enough, after “Into the Unknown,” the flag falls and the kingdom erupts in chaos, forcing its people to run away.

Elsa, Sven, Olaf, and Anna in Frozen II

• I really love that at the end of that song, Anna is carrying her heels and walking barefoot back into the castle. I feel like every woman I know has done that at some point, but it’s not something you ever see in movies really. It’s also a fun call back to the first movie. After Anna dances with the hopping Duke of Weselton, she comes back to Elsa rubbing her feet and they have this little exchange: “Well, he was sprightly.” “Especially for a man in heels.”

• Next, we get a cute Charades sequence (which seems to imply that Kristoff lives at the castle now? Although it’s a really big castle and I’m sure he and Anna have separate rooms, it still seems like the most firmly established “living together before marriage” relationship we’ve seen in a Disney movie before). This scene (which you can see here) pokes fun at many of the moments we saw in Frozen, including Elsa’s hip popping swagger at the end of “Let it Go” (she just nods “yup” when Olaf imitates her, while Anna glares at Kristoff), the villainous Hans, and the eccentric shopkeeper Hans (yoohoo!).
  Elsa hears the siren call and gets upset, Kristoff tries to propose and fails miserably, then Anna follows Elsa and notes that she can tell her sister is upset because she’s wearing Chekhov’s scarf.

Elsa singing “Into the Unknown”

• “Into the Unknown” is insanely gorgeous and another example of Idina Menzel’s inhuman singing abilities. As songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez said in one interview, “With Idina, if you’re given a Stradivarius, you write to a Stradivarius.” The song starts with a very “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” intro, as Elsa wanders through the castle looking at paintings on the wall, just as Anna did in the first movie during the snowman song. This is a classic “I want” song but more adult and mature than “Let It Go”; Elsa feels like she knows who she is now, someone who deeply loves her family and friends, and she doesn’t want to throw that away, but there’s something inside her that’s pulling her away “into the unknown.” She also talks wistfully in this song about wondering if “there’s someone else like me” out there; she clearly still wants a friend who can understand her magical powers and her struggles with them. And of course, at the end, we get that amazing moment where she just lets her magic out and ice diamonds appear magically in the sky all around Arendelle. These fall and wake up everyone, including the enchanted forest spirits her father talked about, and triggers the fire, water, wind, and earth to drive the citizens out of Arendelle.
  Elsa actually reminds me a lot of Vanellope in “Ralph Breaks the Internet” here; she knows there’s something wrong in her life but she can’t put a finger on it. The wrap up to the movie is actually VERY Ralph/Vanellope, as the sisters end up in separate places living their destinies, but they’re still obviously very close and “holding on tight” to each other, just as Ralph and Vanellope are in their movie sequel.
  Sidenote: The original is spine-chilling but the Panic at the Disco! cover of this song is also ridiculously amazing.

Baby Agnarr being adorable in Frozen II.

• Anna has some of the best, most common sense filled quotes in the entire movie. “Excuse me, I climbed the North Mountain, survived a frozen heart and saved you from my ex-boyfriend. So, you know, I’m coming.”
  “If you don’t want me to follow you into fire, then don’t run into fire!”

• The scene where they’re driving off to the Enchanted Forest and Olaf is spouting off stupid facts (most of which are…inaccurate. Although apparently some turtles really can take in oxygen through their butts, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “breathing”!) reminds me a lot of Shrek II when Donkey is harassing Shrek and Fiona on the ride to Far Far Away.

• The Enchanted Forest reveal with the four stones in front is really beautiful (and reminiscent of the funeral stones for their parents that were shown in the first movie). Although Kristoff and Olaf just bounce off the mist (really hysterically), it just takes a touch of Elsa’s hand to part it and clear the way through. This may be because of their Northuldra heritage or may be because of her greater destiny as the “fifth” spirit intended to bridge the worlds of magic and humans (did anyone else get some MAJOR Fifth Element vibes in this movie?)
  I really enjoy Olaf’s “Samantha? I don’t even know a Samantha.” then “SAMANTHA!” shouting down a mysterious hole in the earth moment. Also, his song “this will all make sense when I am older” was little and tiny but was probably the most relatable lyric in the entire movie! Who hasn’t felt that way?

• I love that Anna recognizes Lieutenant Matthias from his portrait at the castle, framing his face with her fingers to help her place him. This calls back to her “friendship” with all the portraits and paintings there, developed during her lonely childhood when Elsa kept away from her. This was also slightly foreshadowed earlier when we saw Elsa singing to various paintings during “Into the Unknown.” The frame fingers also seems to point to the end of the movie, where Matthias is reunited with his sweetheart and showing off a photograph they took together.

Elsa with Bruni

• When Elsa somehow freezes memories in the forest (which is…never quite explained - were the memories just hanging out in the fog this whole time?), the sisters discover that their mother is Northuldra by finding Chekhov’s scarf on a young girl, who’s carrying their father to safety. There’s then a really beautiful sequence where the Northuldra sing Vuelie again and form a spiral with their arms, until the chief reaches out to the girls to ceremonially welcome them to the tribe. Later, all our heroes befriend various members of the tribe, in a lovely scene that reminds us that people in cartoon are capable of having friends outside of their immediate circle. Also, Olaf is still asking the big questions about life while the kids of the tribe decorate him with various things
  So presumably their mother Iduna never told their father that she was Northuldra or that she saved him. Whyyy???? That doesn’t seem healthy for a marriage, and she probably could have helped them figure out answers for Elsa if she had ever mentioned that and told him about her background.

• A lot of Elsa’s actions in the initial sequence in the forest are explained later as “calming” the spirits. She definitely manages to calm down the adorable fire salamander by befriending him, after initially blasting all the fire with lots of ice (his name is apparently Bruni, but is never mentioned in the movie). “Gale” as Olaf names her, calms down at some point after Elsa blasts her with power, but I didn’t tie those things directly together when I watched it (will have to check for it again when I watch it a second time).
  Elsa does later “calm” the water by managing to ice power her way through the sea and lassoing a friggin water horse in one of the coolest sequences in the whole film. But I never did see a moment where Elsa calmed the earth? She just stayed away from the Earth giants and hid. Did I miss something there? I don’t think anyone ever “calmed” the Earth giants at all, Anna and Olaf stayed quiet to keep from waking them and then Anna woke them up to break the dam, but nothing ever seemed to actually get them to stop being destructive forces in the forest.

• Kristoff’s song “Lost in the Woods” is both one of the funniest songs I’ve ever seen in any cartoon ever and also deeply moving. You just don’t really see male love interests sing about their love like this these days. All the lyrics are basically designed to punch apart toxic masculinity, in the most 80s-tastic, Queen and Whitesnake referencing way possible. Having Jonathan Groff sing Kristoff and also all the reindeer chorus voices is also a really funny answer the “Why didn’t Broadway star Jonathan Groff have a full song?” complaints about the first movie.

• The scene where Anna and Elsa found their parents’ ship actually made me gasp aloud. I did not expect that. When Elsa uses her powers to see their parents at the time of their death, I just was like - nooooo whyyyyy - this is only going to upset you forever. But the sight of their ice selves holding each other as they perish is dreadfully romantic, if horrible.
  However, how did they ever find out their parents’ ship even was destroyed if the ship wasn’t anywhere near where they thought it was when it went down???

• I was nearly crying throughout all of “Show Yourself,” as it was so gorgeous and heart-rending. Elsa’s eagerness to find her destiny is so identifiable. It also is possibly the queerest song Disney has ever put out, as she appears to be singing a love song to a woman for 75% of it, until it’s revealed that she actually is the fifth spirit and “the voice was inside her all along.” MAJOR MOANA VIBES. But also seriously, these lyrics are really intimate and personal and almost sensual, just look at them!
  And then she had strong emotions and did a wardrobe and hair change because that’s just what she does. But I love it. I love it all. I love that she gets to sing with her mother again, I love that she ends up at the center of the snowflake like in the “Let it Go” sequence where she’s building the castle, and I love that at the very end of the song, she basically becomes the siren call herself.

Elsa in Frozen II

Every inch of me is trembling and not from the cold
Something is familiar like a dream I can reach but not quite hold

I can sense you there like a friend I've always known
I'm arriving and it feels like I am home

I have always been a fortress, cold secrets deep inside
You have secrets too but you don't have to hide

Show yourself - I'm dying to meet you
Show yourself -It's your turn
Are you the one I've been looking for all of my life
Show yourself - I'm ready to learn

I've never felt so certain - All my life I've been torn
But I'm here for a reason - Could it be the reason I was born

Elsa in Frozen II

I've always been so different, Normal rules did not apply
Is this the day, Are you the way, I finally find out why

Show yourself - I'm no longer trembling
Here I am - I've come so far
You are the answer I've waited for all of my life
Oh, show yourself - Let me see who you are

Come to me now; open your door
Don't make me wait one moment more
Come to me now; open your door
Don't make me wait one moment more

(Where the north wind meets the sea)
(There's a river full of memory)
Come, my darling, homeward bound
I am found

Show yourself - Step into your power
Throw yourself into something new
You are the one you've been waiting for all of your life
Show yourself - Ah, ah, ah, ah

Kristoff is feminist partner, reindeer-riding goals.

• How perfect is it that Ahtohallan is a glacier, a “river of ice”? I don’t know how we could have ever expected anything different. When you think of how it’s described really, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

• In the memories cavern in Ahtohallan, Elsa sees her younger self singing “Let it Go” and gives a chagrined look, hand over her eyes. I think that’s really an indication of her own more mature outlook on life now rather than a flat out rejection of the themes expressed in Let It Go; her priorities are different now that she’s learned to live her life without fear by loving her family and friends. This also HAS to be a little shout-out to all the parents out there who got so ridiculously sick of the song.

• Elsa also sees a scene of her mother and father interacting as young children. Her father says he’s reading a book by a Danish author (and apparently it features a picture of a mermaid on the front, although I missed seeing that at the time). This is an obvious call out to Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote The Snow Queen, which Frozen is extremely loosely based upon.
  To summarize a long, multiple-part story, in very few words, a magic mirror breaks in the sky and spreads across the land, falling into the eyes and hearts of various people and making them only see bad and evil in the world. It falls into the eye of Kai, a young boy, and makes him hate his formerly close friend Gerda. The only thing that’s beautiful to him now are snowflakes. Kai ends up running away with the magic Snow Queen to her ice castle, who kisses him twice, to numb him to the cold and to make him forget Gerda and his family (a third kiss would kill him). Gerda goes on a very long journey to find Kai and goes through many Odyssey-style adventures. She eventually finds him in the Snow Queen’s domain, trapped in the middle of a frozen lake, where he is trying to form ice chips into a word; if he figures out the word, he will be freed and given a pair of skates. Gerda weeps to see Kai and embraces him; her warm tears and love remove the mirror splinter from his eye and he remembers her and loves her again. They dance, which makes the ice chips turn into the word he needs to escape from the frozen lake. And then they leave. You can read the whole Snow Queen story here.
  There are lots of similarities in the stories, but obviously, Frozen is very very different. The mirror splinter in the original story gets into people’s hearts and freezes them, just like ice gets into Anna’s heart. The sudden break between close friends Gerda and Kai when the splinters get into Kai’s heart in the story resembles the sudden break between Elsa and Anna as children when Elsa accidentally hurts her sister while playing. Friendly reindeer and a snow queen living in an isolated ice palace live in both. Gerda goes on a journey to rescue her friend Kai when he disappears, just like Anna journeys to rescue Elsa. Her love rescues Kai, just as Anna’s love rescues Elsa.

• Okay, so Olaf’s disintegration obviously has to be a reference to the “snap” in Avengers: Infinity War, right? There’s no way that wasn’t purposeful.

• It’s incredibly heart-breaking to see such a positive character as Anna reach her lowest point, after she believes both her sister and her friend Olaf are dead. The song “The Next Right Thing” addresses suicide and depression more straightforwardly than any other kid’s movie I’ve ever seen; it’s truly impressive, particularly since Kristen Bell (who voices Anna), has been very open about her own struggles with depression and anxiety.

• The reparations plot line in this movie, in which Anna determines that the dam her grandfather built to trick the Northuldra must be destroyed to free the enchanted forest, even if it means the destruction of her own kingdom, is really deep and dark and I’m honestly wondering how many kids in the theater actually understood the ramifications of it. It’s a deeply radical idea in many ways.
  To be fair though, it had already been established that Elsa, Anna, and Co. couldn’t leave the forest either, so this was also their only way of going home, and Anna was sure that her people were out of the kingdom and safe (as one of the last orders Elsa gave before they left on their journey was “don’t let them go back into Arendelle.” Who did she order to do that, by the way? Was it Oaken? It felt familiar but now I can’t recall).

• Kristoff is feminist goals. He runs up to save Anna from the earth giants and immediately says “I’m here, how can I help?” instead of trying to stop her or take over the situation. When she later apologizes for leaving him to follow and try to protect Elsa, he simply says, “It’s okay, my love is not fragile.” I already REALLY loved Kristoff for breaking the Disney “prince” mold by being tall, broad-shouldered, and scruffy, with a big nose, but he is just such a genuinely good person that I can only love him even more now.
  The ending where he, Olaf, and Sven dress up for Anna’s coronation and he says “You get this for one hour” before Anna ruffles his hair and says “I prefer you in leather anyway” both illustrates how perfect they are together as a couple and also is possibly the most sexual double entendre ever in a Disney movie.

Anna’s new Frozen II outfit at Disney World.

• At the end of the movie, Matthias reunites with his sweetheart and they show off a photograph they’ve taken together, which Matthias specifically says he didn’t know about before he was trapped in the enchanted forest. I felt this insertion of such an obviously modern invention takes the viewer out of the fairy tale atmosphere a bit, but it does help date the movie. The earliest photographs came out in the late 1830s, so I’m guessing the events of Frozen are around the 1840s or so. This is supported by sandwiches being mentioned in the first movie, as sandwiches weren’t really around under that name until the 1760s or so and they didn’t gain popularity outside of pubs and taverns until the 1800s.
  In addition, we know Arendelle is probably in Norway or Scandinavia somewhere, not just because of all the cultural references evident in the movies, but because in “Olaf’s Frozen Adventure,” a woman literally mentions that she makes a giant cookie map of Norway every year for Christmas. That definitely seems like something you would only do if you actually lived in the country somewhere.

• There’s so much symmetry between the movie. Frozen II’s starting structure is EXTREMELY similar to Frozen. First, we get an intro flashback with the main characters as kids with their parents and some sort of heavily foreshadowing song (Frozen Heart in the first, All is Found in the second), then a stage-setting song where a lot of characters sing as they set up/celebrate some big event (For the First Time in Forever, Some Things Never Change), then some accident happens with Elsa that instigates trouble or danger for the people in Arendelle (she freezes the kingdom accidentally, she accidentally awakens the enchanted forest spirits which chase all the people out of the kingdom), then our main characters start out on a journey to solve the problem.
  Frozen’s main plot really gets underway when Elsa freezes Arendelle accidentally out of fear; Frozen II’s main plot ends with Elsa saving Arendelle with her ice powers out of love. Elsa believes Anna is dead towards the end of Frozen and Anna believes Elsa is dead towards the end of Frozen II; both of them are completely crushed by the loss of their sister.

• The post-credits scene in Frozen II features Olaf telling the story of the movie in his ridiculous abbreviated style to Marshmallow (the giant snowman from Frozen) and all the tiny snowball creatures from Frozen Fever (which for SOME REASON is not on Disney+, what the heck).

• Apparently the day Frozen II came out, the characters of Elsa and Anna at Disneyworld were immediately changed into their movie-ending outfits, Elsa’s snow queen dress and Anna’s queen garb. Seems a little silly to do it that quickly, as it probably spoiled people on vacation who hadn’t seen the films yet, but - at least the outfits are pretty?

Elsa’s new Frozen II outfit at Disney World.

• Stray Thoughts: Frozen has some deliberately obscure references in it. I had forgotten how many Arrested Development references are in it!  And I just noticed a new cultural reference I hadn’t picked up on before! While watching it over again today to help with this post, I noticed a specific exchange in which villagers in Arendelle argue over whether firewood should be stacked with the barn side up or down. I googled this, and apparently it’s a reference to a big debate in Norway from earlier in 2013 (frozen came out in November 2013) on this very topic. You can read all about it here! 

• Fun fact: Frozen II is the first official sequel to a Disney Princess movie and only the third official sequel in the Disney canon (after The Rescuers Down Under and Ralph Breaks the Internet). The many direct-to-video sequels of the 90s and early 2000s apparently were made by a slightly different arm of Disney that isn’t operating or recognized today. You could read ALL about it here.

• ADDED 11/30: I just learned from listening to an episode of “Into Frozen II” which features Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, the songwriting power couple behind both movies, that the grief in “Do the Next Right Thing” was partially inspired by the experience of co-director Chris Buck, whose son Ryder tragically died during the press junket for the first movie when he was hit by a car, and music producer Andrew Page, who lost his daughter Esmee in the years between the two movies. In addition, there’s a Northuldra character in Frozen II named Ryder (who helps Kristoff with his reindeer proposal attempt); I have to believe that’s an intentional tribute to Ryder Buck.

• ALSO, I just read in an article that the four note siren call in Frozen II is based off of the Dies Irae, a Latin hymn best known for being used in the Catholic Mass for the dead. This hymn is apparently rather famously quoted or used as inspiration in various songs, including bits of Rent, Phantom of the Opera, and Sweeney Todd! And the siren call is also based off of a Scandinavian form of singing “kulning,” which is a shepherdess’s call.

• UPDATE 12/2: Y’all, my brother made a youtube video discussing Elsa’s “Superman problem” and it’s really interesting! You can go watch it over here!

• UPDATE 12/25: I’m re-watching the first Frozen now and in retrospect, Anna’s final fate as Queen of Arendelle was foreshadowed in the costumes from the very beginning.

Elsa: In the first movie, Elsa almost always wears light blue, except on coronation day. On coronation day, her dress is green with accents of gold, blue, and pink, and she wears a long magenta cape; her blue color is still there, but it’s overwhelmed by other priorities. She’s also more covered up with more thick fabric then ever before or since; when Elsa actually is feeling comfortable with her magic, she tends to wear much lighter fabrics, likely to indicate her comfort with cold (“the cold never bothered me anyway.”). She wears a very light blue nightgown as a child until she’s told to hide her magic, at which point she still wears blue, but in heavier fabrics and layers. After her magic is exposed at her coronation ball and she runs away, she changes her dress to a light blue with sheer fabrics.

In Frozen II, she never wears anything as heavy as her coronation gown and wears light fabrics, but starts out the movie in a purple dress and a purple nightgown, which seems to indicate her trying to balance her true self (light blue) with her queen self (pink/magenta). Once she starts off on the journey “into the unknown” she wears light blue again. In the end, she’s in a light, very sheer white dress with purple diamond accents.

Anna: In the first movie, Anna ALWAYS wears shades of green and pink/magenta, although the amount of each color in her outfit varies. Green tends to be he main color, with touches of pink, but as she sets off on her adventure portion, she changes into a magenta cloak, a blue skirt, and a black bodice with just a few green and gold accents to it. The blue is an unusual color for Anna, and seems to indicate her focus on finding Elsa (who usually wears blue).
In frozen II, Anna herself wears pink/magenta throughout but doesn’t wear any green until the end of the movie when she’s crowned Queen of Arendelle, at which point she’s covered in it, indicating that she’s reached her true place.
From looking at pictures of the castle servants in Arendelle, the castle, and the banners and flags hung up at Elsa’s coronation, it appears that Arendelle’s main color is actually green, with purple accents. Thus, it was always Anna’s destiny to become Arendelle’s queen, just as it was always Elsa’s destiny to become the fifth spirit and the snow queen far up North.

Over-Analyzing the Crown: S3E6 Tywysog Cymru

All My Posts on The Crown
S3: 1 & 2: “Olding” & “Margaretology” 3: “Aberfan” 4: “Bubbikins, 5: “Coup” 6: “Tywysog Cymru” 7: “Moondust" 8: “Dangling Man” 9: “Imbroglio” 10: “Cri de Coeur”
S4: 1: “Gold Stick” 2: “The Balmoral Test” 3: “Fairytale” ( + Cinderella References) 4: “Favourites” 5: “Fagan” 6: “Terra Nullius” 7: ”The Hereditary Principle” 8: “48:1” 9: “Avalanche”
The Medals, Sashes, and Tiaras of The Crown; Tiaras/Crowns Overviews: Season 1 ; Season 2

Prince Charles learns Welsh from a Welsh nationalist and becomes a Wale himself when he’s invested as Prince of Wales. (Clearly, my summaries of these episodes are not going to be very in-depth or serious, as I’m assuming you’ve watched the episode already if you’re reading my post overanalyzing it. :D )

• The name of the episode translates to “Leader of Wales” in Welsh, or in this context, “Prince of Wales.” This ties back into the entire Prince Charles in Wales plot line and particularly, his discussion with Professor Milward about Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last Welsh Prince of Wales, who was killed in battle by Edward I in 1282. Edward’s son (also Edward because, English royals have no creativity when it comes to naming) , was invested as the first English Prince of Wales in 1301.

Prince Charles (Credit: Hulton Deutsch / Getty).

Professor Edward Millward and Prince Charles

Mark Lewis Jones as Professor Edward Millward in The Crown

• The episode starts off with the Cabinet meeting in which the investiture of the Prince of Wales is discussed. The previous investiture in 1911 was of the eventual Edward VII. We know him as David, Duke of Windsor, who abdicated within a year of becoming King in order to marry Wallis Simpson. He was invested at age 17; Charles was not invested until he was 20.
  In case you were wondering, a formal investiture ceremony is not necessary to become the Prince of Wales; the actual title is conveyed via letters patent. It is not a hereditary title, so the sovereign does have to create and bestow the title on his/her eldest living son (When Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, the then-3-years-old Charles automatically became the Duke of Cornwall).
  Edward/David was made Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, over a year before the formal investiture; Charles was actually declared Prince of Wales when he turned 9. The 1911 one was made public for political reasons; the Prime Minister at the time, David Lloyd George, thought that the event would calm down the growing swell of Welsh Nationalism and increase his own popularity. Apparently previous investitures were quite a bit more private and less ceremonial. As was mentioned in the episode in the Cabinet meeting, the 1911 investiture included a deployment of 15,000 troops, a Devonshire-class cruiser, 21 gun salutes, a battery of Royal Field Artillery, a landing party supplied by the blue jackets and the royal marines, two squadrons of cavalry of the line. During this meeting, Wilson is flanked on either side by female members of his cabinet in Orange and Green; when he’s talking to the Queen about the investiture, she herself is wearing green. You’ll see a LOT of green and pinks/oranges in this episode, which seems to signal “Wales” without coming off too Christmassy.
  Sidenote that I just love: at the 1911 investiture, Queen Mary wore several pieces given to her by a group of women who were all named “Mary.”

Prince Edward (David)’s 1911 investiture as Prince of Wales

Prince Edward (David)’s investiture as Prince of Wales

• Additional Note: Elizabeth was never given the title “Princess of Wales.” At the time, the line of succession was determined by male preference primogeniture, so she became “the heiress presumptive” when her father became King. If her father had had a legitimate son, that son would have taken precedence, and would have been the “heir apparent”; thus, named the “Prince of Wales.”
  “Princess of Wales” has only been used to refer to the Prince of Wales’ wife in the past (Though Prince Charles’ wife Diana went by the Princess of Wales, his second wife Camilla uses the title “Duchess of Cornwall” instead, due to the title’s strong association with Diana). Technically though, “Princess FIRSTNAME” is only the correct title to use when the Princess of Wales is a princess in her own right, e.g., she herself is the daughter of a sovereign of another country (so neither “Princess Diana” or “Princess Kate” are correct).
  It’s a bit unclear whether that tradition will continue now that male preference primogeniture has been abolished in the UK (the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 replace this system with absolute primogeniture, making it so the eldest child of the sovereign is always the heir to the throne, regardless of sex. This act also removed the requirement to get the sovereign’s permission to marry and changed the rules so that royals marrying Roman Catholics can still remain in the line of succession).

• Fun Fact: A whole new set of Welsh honours (coronet, rod, ring, sword, and a robe with doublet and sash) were made for Prince Edward in 1911. The rod, ring, and sword all feature the Welsh dragon. The rod, ring, and sword were reused for Prince Charles’s investiture in 1969, but a new coronet had to be made, as Edward/David had actually illegally taken his coronet with him when he went into exile. After his death, it was retrieved and taken back to the UK. This coronet is now part of the Crown Jewels, along with the 1728 coronet of Frederick, the eldest son of George II. Charles’s own coronet is part of the honours of Wales.
  This article from Town & Country talks a lot more about all the design of Charles’s coronet and is super interesting.

Prince Edward/David’s Coronet (Credit: Royal Collection Trust).

Prince Charles’ Coronet (Credit: Royal Collection Trust).

Josh O’Connor vs. Prince Charles (Credit: Tim Graham / Getty). MATCHING EARS.

• When the Queen gathers the family to tell Prince Charles that he has to go to study in Wales, the Queen is wearing green and Anne is wearing red, the colors of the Welsh flag, while everyone else is in blues and blacks. It’s a little hard to see, but Charles is actually wearing a green and orange tie and a matching pocket square.
  I know that dramatically it makes sense to have the entire family on one side and then poor Charles alone on the opposite, as it makes him look very alone as he’s feeling upset about being sent off away from everyone, but in real life, it’s a bit odd and impractical. This set up also seems to evoke a vague military feel, possibly referring to the “feudal invasion” of military members participating in the previous investiture of the prince of Wales that Prime Minister Wilson joked about earlier.

  This actor (Josh O’Connor) doesn’t look much like Charles from the front, but from the back, they’re really similar. It’s the ears!

• The prince’s safety in Wales is never discussed in the episode (although we do see his ever-present body guards), but historically, there were actual threats made against his life. Two members of a small secret group called Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (The Movement for the Defence of Wales) were actually killed in Abergele when the bomb they were carrying to a railway line (along which the royal train would run) exploded. A few days later, a bomb left in the town exploded and hurt a young boy.

• I learned while researching this episode that many supporters of Plaid Cymru actually backed the monarchy; they wanted Wales to become a dominion, like Canada or Australia. If this happened the Queen would still be the head of state. It was the younger branch of Plaid Cymru that was really anti-monarchy and against the investiture. This anti-monarchy branch was highly motivated by the destruction of Capel Celyn, one of the last Welsh-only speaking communities, which was flooded to build a reservoir to provide water to Liverpool (which is discussed later in the episode).

• The tiny little facial expressions of Milward and the students around them when Charles first attempts to pronounce Welsh and mangles it terribly tell just so much about their feelings toward Charles, the English, and their presence in Wales.

• Later, Millward righteously reams out Charles for his indifference to Welsh culture and the meaning of his role to both Wales and the university. Though this is probably deserved, Milward’s barb about how previous Prince of Wales never visited is actually misplaced when you look at the historical evidence. King George V was actually considered a very good prince of Wales while he held the title, and had taken a personal interest in Wales. In addition, Edward/David was a hugely popular Prince of Wales who definitely did visit. He served with distinction in World War One and, during the Depression years, toured the badly hit parts of Britain and the Welsh mining valleys in particular.

• When Charles comes in to show Milward that he’s been to the library and learned about Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, there’s a family tree on the chalkboard behind him that of Llewellyn’s actual family, indicating that Milward really did plan to teach him about it that day. In that embarrassing staff dinner scene, Millward had joked to everyone “we’ll go over that this week.”

• Poor Charles. His line “It’s alright, I’m incredibly used to it.” about being alone and having no friends makes me so sad.

• I hadn’t realized that Mrs. Milward is literally on the phone with someone talking about how she can’t understand how her husband can even stand to be in the same room with Charles while Charles is bringing groceries in. It’s sweet how he actually is carrying the groceries in and tries to help.  
  Milward is wearing light green at his house, is often lit with green light, and there are often paintings or decorations around him that are green, green folders. This is a WELSH man! His pregnant wife is also wearing a pink, white and green dress (with some orange too), like a pale version of the Welsh flag. Later that night, she literally wears a pink, white, and green nightgown.

• The scene where Elizabeth and Philip reminisce over the time their parents kept them apart for four months to try to get her to stop loving him is so cute (although I hate that Philip says his son shouldn’t be trusted with editing his own speech and Elizabeth just goes along with it). They seem like such a happy, healthy couple this season. This conversation will be echoed a few episodes later when Camilla Shand comes into the picture and other members of Charles’ family come up with a similar plot to separate the two.

• They don’t emphasize Charles’ security team as much as they did in the S2E9 episode Paterfamilias, probably because he’s 20 now and not a child, but they are always around, just around the corner. It’s subtle, but you do see a quick glimpse of his security team going through people’s bags and such right before the ceremony.

• The filming style of this episode really emphasize the green hills of Wales as the royal train goes through the countryside. Although the Queen, Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret all wear clothes that are almost exactly what they wore in real life, they are indeed in pink, cream, and green, which echo the Welsh flag. Anne is in blue, which also is historically accurate, but seems also to indicate her close ties to Charles. All of these hats are accurate (and some of them are just ridiculous). The queen’s hat kind of makes her look like a pearl beaded volleyball.
  Sidenote: Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Princess Margaret in Season 3, is 6 inches shorter than Vanessa Kirby, who played Princess Margaret in Season 1 and 2. However, Bonham Carter is significantly closer to Princess Margaret’s actual height; Margaret was 5’2”. Queen Elizabeth herself is 5’4”; Claire Foy (who played her in season 1 and 2) is 5’4” and Olivia Colman (who plays her in Season 3) is 5’7”.

Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, and the Queen Mother Elizabeth at Prince Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales (Credit: Anwar Hussein / Getty).

Erin Doherty as Princess Anne, Marion Bailey as the Queen Mother, and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret in The Crown.

• Prince Charles always seems to be wearing blue or grey (maybe because he’s sad?). I’m happy that this season shows Charles’s continued close connection with his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten; I loved seeing Dickie advocate for Charles in the S2 episode Paterfamilias.
  Millward wears a blue paisley tie when watching Charles’ investiture in the pub, matching Charles’s standard color scheme. I think this symbolizes their connection and friendship. He’s surrounded by lots of friends wearing various shades of green and red. Mrs. Milward and her son are in blue, plus green, showing their connection to both Charles and Welsh pride.  
  Milward looks SO PROUD when Charles pronounces atmosphere correctly-ish in Welsh.

• There are several interesting things about Charles’ investiture that aren’t mentioned in the episode. The actual ceremony of the investiture sounds very old, but was in fact only created for the 1911 occasion. Lord Snowdon (Tony Armstrong-Jones, Princess Margaret’s husband), who himself was Welsh, designed the event and the simple slate dais for the ceremony.
  A lot of the insignia used in the investiture is really symbolic and you could go down a very deep rabbit hole in learning about it all. The College of Arms has some great photographs and scans of programs explaining the meaning of all the insignia here, if you’d like to learn more.
  You can actually watch some of the 1911 ceremony on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31P5ES45fw . Prince Charles’s 1969 investiture is on YouTube in full at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7zaLuA_DGI.

• It is really wonderful that Charles actually went on a tour around Wales to meet people after his investiture. It was a really successful tour and BBC actually has a lot of footage of it up on their website.
  Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour government also built an entire year-long campaign called Croeso 69 (Welcome ‘69). They wanted to use it to show a modern Wales, promote tourism, and demonstrate British interest while Welsh nationalism was on the rise.

Queen Elizabeth, Princess Anne, and Prince Charles at Charles’ Investiture as Prince of Wales (Credit: Bettmann / Getty).

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II and Josh O’Connor as Prince Charles in The Crown.

•  The last scene between the Queen and Prince Charles, as she’s getting ready for bed, is shot to indicate the great distance between the queen and her son while they’re talking. She is barely repressing her fury at her son for changing up his speech.
  The queen refers to her grandmother telling her that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do of all. We saw that conversation in S1E4 episode Act of God, when Queen Elizabeth goes to Queen Mary for advice about whether she should talk to Winston Churchill during the Great Smog.
   We see how angry the queen is with her son in this scene, but we also saw how protective she was of him earlier, both when she advocated him for staying at Cambridge to Wilson and when she suggested he be allowed to make changes to his speech (which he ends up doing on his own). She also is wearing blue in this scene, signifying her sympathies with her son, even when they’re disagreeing most stridently with each other. Charles himself is wearing the same green and orange tie and pocket square that he wore when he was told he was going to Wales, although his suit appears to have more of a greenish tinge now. There’s a subtle checked square pattern (with each square containing a circle) in both his tie and his mother’s robe, further illustrating their bond as sovereign and heir.

• “I have a voice.” “Let me let you into a secret. No one wants to hear it.” “Are you talking about you or the country?” “No one.” This is one of the saddest moments ever to happen in The Crown.

• If you want to learn more about the Queen and Prince Philip’s approach to parenting, this article gets into it a bit.

• If we’re going off of Prince Philip’s earlier observation from S3E2 Margaretology about how the royal family tends to have a lot of dull people and sparkling people (Lillibets and Margarets), Charles seems to be a bit more the Margaret of this generation and Anne seems to be a bit more the Lillibet, resigned to her place and willing to do her duty (despite how similar her personality is to her father’s).

Prince Charles with the Dryden Society at Cambridge (Credit: PA / Getty).

Prince Charles with the Dryden Society at Cambridge (Credit: Keystone-France / Getty).

Prince Charles with the Dryden Society (Credit: Bettman / Getty).

• Though Charles did perform with a drama society while at Cambridge, it looks like they did more comedic sketches rather than Shakespearean drama. Some of the photographs of him rehearsing with the Dryden Society (as it was called) are just hilarious.

• At the very end of the episode, Charles performs the hollow crown speech from Shakespeare’s play Richard II. Both Charles and Richard II were given the title Prince of Wales at age 9, the former in 1958 and the latter in 1376. The text is specifically from Richard II Act 3, Scene II, when Richard has pretty much reached his lowest point. Most of his supporters are dead and he feels terribly alone and very vulnerable. It is a good echo for Prince Charles’s own feelings of despair about his role as heir to the throne and a dramatic, if terribly sad, way to end the episode.

For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

That Poem in Man in the High Castle

Specifically, Season 4, Episode 3. The character Bell Mallory beautifully recites this before the Black Communist Rebellion sets off on a mission. It’s absolutely gorgeous and I immediately went off to find it.

I really love Man in the High Castle and May write about it in the future, perhaps after I’m done with my work on The Crown!

If We Must Die

BY CLAUDE MCKAY

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!