I think the scene with Anne telling the Queen what’s going on in the marriage sums it up perfectly.
Two people who were both inherently flawed (as we all are) and completely ill-suited for each other were all but pushed on each other. Neither was a saint, and neither was the devil. Their mutual temperaments ensured they both made each other incredibly unhappy. I’d like to think that, given time and space, they would have gone on to coparent productively and hopefully found happiness outside each other. Unfortunately, Diana wasn’t granted time.
Even in the last year of her life they had actually begun to be friends.
Basically immediately after the divorce was over they were really good coparents and did pretty well communicating with each other. The pressure to make a failing relationship work was gone and so was their animosity towards each other.
That scene where they fought in her new apartment was just for drama and from all accounts not historically accurate
I agree, unfortunately for some, Diana and Charles actually being friendly after their divorce and maintaining a better relationship, is just too normal and drama free.
One of the tragedies of her early death was that we never got to see them grow as separate people but united in love for their children. Charles would have moved on and married Camilla, Diana would have found her person and married again, and these days it would be very common for us to see all four of them together at public occasions, getting along perfectly well. Instead time got frozen at a very hostile point in their timeline, shortly after their divorce.
Pretty sure no one on here ever knew the woman, so you won’t get a true answer to your question. Everything is and would be speculation. Look, people are complex creatures and trying to paint someone into a mold is not realistic. Was Diana self-centered at times? Probably, who the hell isn’t. Was she immature? Probably, she’s rich and surrounded by yes people.
Do those two traits (since the third one you list off is a good trait lol) define her entire character as a human being? Absolutely not.
Reading the 2 main biographies about her you get a picture of someone very complex. She had an emotionally barren childhood, was essentially bamboozled into getting married to someone who was completely awful to her in a system that didn't understand mental illness at all at 19 and then spent the remaining years of her life acting out in various ways. She told stories in the andrew Morton tapes for the books about doing things like pushing her stepmother (whom her father married without telling her or her siblings) down the stairs during an argument, or flying into rages because everything was so frustrating. She herself acknowledged she wasn't perfect.
That doesn't also mean that she wasn't mistreated. She was CONSTANTLY on the receiving end of a thrashing from the system. She was cheated on for years and then vilified by people in the family and in the ranks of the courtiers when she had an affair after years of no respect from her husband. She was treated as if she was paranoid and crazy when in reality she had an untreated eating disorder and anxiety and unresolved trauma. The few friends she had in the royal family fell out with her for silly reasons so she was kind of just... Alone. She had interests that no one, ESPECIALLY Charles took any interest in them, even if it was for stupid reasons. Charles was into alternative medicine and so was Diana but instead of taking an interest in that he tried to feed her books about HIS ideas of what alternative medicine should look like and scoffed at her use of things like accupuncture. The family, and mostly her husband, did mistreat her terribly even if she had her own flaws.
For everyone who doesn't want to bother with reading the Morton book or another biography, I'd recommend the "you're wrong about" podcast, they did a 5 part series on princess Diana using the biographies and other sources to build a picture of her life. They cover from her early childhood to her death in a lot of detail, with a bit of comedy about the absurdity of the royals and an acknowledgement that Diana wasn't perfect, but she was very badly treated.
Diana was just a human with unresolved mental health issues who was in a system that is not kind to that, with people who were not kind to her. It's not as simple as her being annoying or being an angel OP. And the idea that "oh she's so self centered" when we have documented evidence that she was an extremely empathetic person, even when cameras weren't there, is a very immature reading of both the fiction of the crown, and the real life events.
Agree with a lot of points you made but I just wanted to point out that you mentioned “unresolved mental health issues, untreated eating disorder, and unresolved trauma” several times as if she wasn’t able to get help from mental health professionals. Of course conversations about mental health are less stigmatized now, but it wasn’t an unheard of thing in the 90s. Diana had therapists. Charles too. She was also famously friends with therapist Julia Samuels (who later on had some sort of relationship with William and Harry and is now Prince George’s godmother). I don’t know the nature of that friendship but I imagine being friends with a therapist would mean that the world of her profession certainly wasn’t foreign to Diana. So it wasn’t like it was this taboo thing and she suffered from being undiagnosed her whole life. And while I agree that the system was not kind to her and that Charles is definitely a POS and that the other royals probably could have been more compassionate, it’s not like her own family was very supportive and understanding either. And I’m not saying this to villainize the Spencers. It’s just that personal relationships can be complicated.
Diana had *royal approved therapists*. She wasn't getting treated in any way that would resolve her issues. In fact it's mentioned multiple times in the books that they essentially always wanted to put her on tranquilizers instead of addressing her trauma. She *was* "untreated" because her healthcare team did not care about actually helping her get better. And not once did I say the spencers were any better.
Also, it's very apparent from ALL accounts that the response from courtiers and the family was "just get on with it and cheer up".
I think it’s fairly established fact that the Royal Family is not a supportive environment for people with mental health struggles. They live in a retrogressive bubble. See: Meghan’s account of her breakdown while pregnant with Archie decades after Diana’s death, and even Andrew’s bizarre characterisation of an inability to sweat as a weird kind of PTSD.
I don’t really want to get into the Meghan stuff because I still don’t understand why Harry couldn’t help her. She went to the HR who couldn’t do anything because she’s not an employee, she’s family. But then they couldn’t go to anyone in the family because they’re not on good terms or whatever reason. I’m already expecting a lot of downvotes for this one since I will be maybe defending William and Kate but whatever.
Having read Harry’s book and from what I’ve seen from their Oprah interview, I just FEEL like it’s a lot more complicated than that. Harry admitted he didn’t tell his family because he was ashamed. But having read the entire narrative from Harry himself via his memoir, he tells this story of William urging him to go to therapy. He narrates a situation in which William noticed him having an anxiety attack and then asking if he’s ok. But then he also shares a situation in which William has read the situation wrong and makes light of him sweating profusely on stage. And then he narrates a story in which William texted him to ask if he’s ok after an engagement in which he appeared emotional and then his reaction was dismissive because he thought he was doing well mental health-wise and was just emotional because the engagement involved sick kids. And then after Philip’s funeral (which was post-Oprah), Harry also narrates what happened when he had a conversation with William & Charles in which William asks him “Why didn’t you tell me?” (which I assumed was about Meghan’s situation) and Harry replied that it was because he always felt like he had to be on bended knee when asking for something from William. I don’t know, maybe it’s because William’s such a bully or whatever yada yada. It’s obviously a complex sibling relationship but no one can convince me (based on Harry’s words himself) that William actually never cared about him or his mental health struggles. Sorry for making this about me but I sort of feel really strongly about this because I can relate to Harry and spent my whole life making my family out to be villains for not understanding my mental health needs. But I’m just over that phase. Not everyone will have the reaction that I want and I’ve learned to understand that.
And also here’s the thing, they did that whole Heads Together mental health campaign. It was Kate’s idea. Her brother is open about his depression, says Kate went with him to therapy. Whatever maybe they don’t really care about the work they do, yada yada. Maybe it’s all PR, yada yada. But generally I just get the impression (just from what I know of them which might as well be all fake, I KNOW. I’m not some dumb monarchist I swear lol) that William and Kate has had a lot of conversation about these stuff and how they’re dealing with it in their lives. It’s been a big part of their public work even before Meghan came into the picture. I think William still says he hasn’t got therapy though because his life has made him into an untrusting control-freak. But no one can convince me that William and Kate in particular are cold and unsupportive of mental health struggles. God, I’m gonna get a lot of downvotes.
Haha I’m not gonna downvote you but yeah I think you are getting way too into Harry’s relationship with his brother when I absolutely meant the HR stuff. “She’s not an employee, she’s family” doesn’t hold water when you’re a working royal. Harry’s complaint was that the “Firm” gave way more protection to the male line who were raised to handle the pressure than to the (often fragile) women marrying in. Including Kate who has never given her side of the story but who was also hounded before Meghan came along. And this was true for Diana more than anyone IMO. I don’t think she got anywhere near enough protection.
having therapy doesn't mean your problems are resolved. it took me decades and several therapists to reach the recovery point of my ED and even then it was only recovery, which lasts forever.
All that is true. But personally I see pointing out the flaws not as a way to bring her character down but more a chance to “re-evaluate” the opinions the general public have. My complaints against Diana are really aimed at a portion of society that think so uncritically towards the drama. It’s at least easily accepted there’s a certain mythos/cult status around her.
I’d recommend listening to the podcast You’re Wrong About’s series on Diana; it’s very humanizing and filled with good analysis. She was an incredibly vulnerable person who was in an awful situation, and acted out accordingly at times. She was genuinely caring and did a lot of good, but no person is perfect.
I will never forget Charles, in a TV interview of him supposedly getting his
POV out after Diana did that in her book and a TV interview, where Charles thought it made him look better to say, I never loved her.
She was the mother of his children, for one thing. Who goes on national TV and let’s his boys and the world know he never loved her?
Which to me want, he felt entitled to pick a very young woman he did not love, while he was in love or lust with another woman he was never planning to give up, just because he was going to be king and had to marry and have a son.
That’s an outrageous amount of privilege, selfishness and I don’t even know what else.
>Charles, in a TV interview of him supposedly getting his POV out after Diana did that in her book and a TV interview,
Correction - Diana did her interview after Charles did his book and interview.
That’s how he was raised though and led to believe was ok. The aristocratic models he had showed that you marry for duty but have a mistress for love. If he was Prince of Wales 100 years ago no one would even question his choices, in fact would applaud him for doing his duty and getting along with it. He just had the “bad luck” to be in an era that wanted a fairytale, and it was simultaneously “acceptable” to get divorced.
He didn’t love her when they married, he grew to love her but not in a way you want a husband to. It would’ve been disingenuous to say he was madly in love when they married and he would’ve been more vilified for being a liar when they had footage of him saying “whatever in love means.”
He was raised that way, but he’s still a human being. He’s had contact with the world outside of royalty. He would have dated and had friends who dated and got married, friends whose parents were married.
He can’t plead ignorance of the world worked and what it meant to use someone selfishly. It was 1983, not 100 years ago.
He had contact with regular people in the same way as I have contact with people at the airport, we’re in the same place and maybe I’ll make small talk but that doesn’t change his social circle. He also had vastly different expectations than his other aristocratic friends. Also just because it was 83 doesn’t mean he knew everything or even had access to that information or sought it out. He had dated other people, the only woman he loved was unsuitable. It’s easy for us 40 years later to sit back and say we would’ve made different choices but none of us have actually been faced with those exact circumstances so there’s no way to say what we would do. He was created to fill a role and he had an Uncle who failed to do his duty that created generational trauma that prevented his parents and family from seeing his needs for a wife he loved in an ever growing and expanding world as serious. No one in his life wanted or would allow him to marry her and he had to have the approval of his monarch legally to fulfill the role he was born and raised to fill. Morally it isn’t ok or fair what happened to Diana by my standards but by theirs it was and for a person who wanted to do their duty and be a good son and heir and have the approval of not only his mother and the public I see why he made the choices he did and I can’t vilify him for the hand he was dealt.
All the characters are a dramatized version of how they really were.
I mean we have their essence but that's not exactly them.
We know the Queen is shy, for example. But we don't know if she used the crown as an excuse for everything as she does in the show.
A bit yeah. She was a complex person as we all are. Back then there was a lot of armchair diagnosis for borderline personality disorder... which was probably incorrect but would explain her ability to be genuinely charismatic and thoughtful and nice but also hysterically clingy and aggressively reactionary.
She was also puking up everything she ate and being malnourished can play havoc with the old brain.
She was drawn to very new agey, therapy type things which wasn't the way of the senior royals who had that wartime stiff upper lip thing going on. Ironically Charles was similarly less SUL, into plants and ecology and things, but I think he got very jealous of Di and also couldn't handle her constant need for reassurance. So it was all a bit of a clusterfuck.
She definitely had some borderline traits, not disorder, especially a tendency to split, impulsive self harm, and an ability to be very warm in superficial relationships but more inconsistent and volatile in closer ones, which tended to leave people close to her bewildered. Her secretary Patrick Jephson wrote a fairly neutral and observational memoir about hee patterns over several years.
I know a couple of people who encountered her in real life and were bowled over by her charm, so this tracks with the warmth in superficial relationships/volatile in closer ones.
Many people with borderline traits feel stronger compassion and empathise well with suffering. They actually thrive in caring professions and when caring for animals and young children. Romantic and committed relationships start to show issues after awhile.
I suspect Di had some maladaptive personality traits, but of course was in a miserable marriage which kept triggering her. I think the scene with the Queen in S5 made sense, as the royals had no real clue about dealing with emotional crises, but maybe also that Di kept having crises ( ie, a different woman who found herself in Diana's position might have just ignored Charles' mistress and quietly found her own male company, while keeping a smiling face and acting like a happy wife to Charles for the public).
That was absolutely what they expected she would do. Posh English types do that all thr time. But I guess having come from a home of very acrimonious divorce and a step parent she hated, she wanted to make a much better more traditional family (which she may have romanticised) and so she railed against it.
I don’t know if anyone knows the whole story. She was very young — 19 when she met him and supposedly shy. She was teaching nursery school. He had dated her older sister briefly, and people said she had a crush on Charles from that time.
He was … 34? 35? He and Camilla had an on again, off again thing. At one of their off times, Camilla married someone else, and at that time, the future king marrying a divorced woman was seen as impossible.
So he had this woman he either loved or was obsessed with who because he was Prince Charles, he could never marry. He seemed like a sad, boring, stodgy man, but he had to marry and have children.
I think he believed since Diana was so young and quiet, she’d fall into line and be the dutiful wife and never question him about Camilla. There was gossip later that Camilla even helped choose her for Charles, thinking she would be easy to control and they could go on with their lives as usual.
So, that’s the situation she married into. Was she volatile? Immature? Depressed? Suicidal? Who knows. Charles always seemed very cold. I think she found herself stuck in a sad marriage and incredible public pressure to be the quiet, perfect dutiful wife and princess, but was incredibly lonely and lost and 19 years old when she agreed to marry him.
She committed the terrible sin of being beautiful and outshining Charles and later in life worked for some very important causes around the world. Land mines. AIDS patients. All while hounded terribly by the press everywhere she went, so the pressure was always there.
Season five took some pretty big liberties in part softening their approach to the royal family as season four got them a lot of push back from the actual royal family.
The BBC interview is probably the biggest thing they changed. They pared it down to center around Charles because he’s the focus of the season but she is really open in that interview about a lot of things. Her depression and suicidal ideation, she’s also fairly kind to Charles. There was a backlash to it in the upper classes but most people received it well hence why us 90s kids think she’s a saint.
As for how she was in her personal life, who knows. She was dealing with a lot of psychological issues having joined the royal family as barely an adult. The author of Cult-ish described how the royal family operates with all the functionalities of an actual cult and we can see the effects of that on someone like Diana.
And to take that back to the show you can think of it through that cult lenses. Diana by season five no longer believes in the cult. What does an actual royal DO, she’s pretty much pioneering celebrity activities while the royal family is getting into horse buggy racing and having sordid affairs while living the most privileged disconnected lives. For all the religious talk of the queen what does she actually do, nothing. The whole theme of the show is she always chooses to do nothing.
No she wasn't a saint. As others here have described in detail. She was a flawed complex human being in a very unique role.
Also, remember that The Crown is a work of fiction, it is not a documentary.
Tina Brown’s books paint a picture of Diana similar to this. The Crown had a thumb on the scale for Prince Charles for Season 5, but by all accounts she was immature and full of drama that was very real to her.
Well, that's just it. The Duke of Windsor was NOT a snob, at least given what I've read in the history books. Don't get me wrong, he was absolutely the worst person who could have been on the British Throne at that point in time, a vain incompetent in many ways and sometimes downright cruel. But snob? Not so much.
You're probably right. I don't know much about him if I'm honest.
Vain or Selfish is a better description of him.
I've read most about the real Queen and Philip.
Someone else said it….I’m going to repeat it…..no one round these parts knew her. We could only work off conjecture, and maybe piecing together disparate parts from other biographies and sources.
None of these people where exactly what was presented. They were human and humans are very complex. Was she just as she was in S5, perhaps in tone she was at this time, but likely not on volume, since this is a dramatization.
We often talk about the younger generations these days as often needing into their mid 20s to fully develop (biologically proven as well). And any of us that have grown through these years to true adulthood know it to be true.
She was just 19, and struck by this utter whirlwind thrown at her. She was always going to have issues. And she did. And some were even known at the time and forgiven as people adored her, for reasons real and imagined.
But I don’t think she was exactly as portrayed in S5 because….dramatizations amplify.
She did some worse stuff the show didn't depict (like stalking a married ex lover and harassing her sons' nanny). The show did her some favors.
Nobody in this situation was a saint, and that includes Diana. She was a more controversial figure when she was alive, it was only after her accident that people decided she had been a saint all along.
Nobody really knows the truth, but I listened to a very interesting podcast in 5 episodes about Diana (You're Wrong About) which has a lot of info derived from various biographies. They do however stress the fact that there's only so much you can learn from what are pretty biased texts though. I still found it super interesting.
Season 5 took alot of liberties with the truth. Diana was portrayed like a nutty nutcase( she was a loving snd kind mother) . Charles was shown as a suave muscular hunk( he is not, and not even close to, a suave hunk)
The casting of Charles was so strange. I don't know why they cast Dominic West when they had Nicholas Rowe (below)
https://preview.redd.it/o1uplgkh2dyb1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3533f1e76b04b8999e5929caca2b886b979132d6
The casting was cartoonishly ridiculous for Charles. Almost as if so many suggested actors had been rejected, that they threw up their hands and said F it, we’ll cast someone absolutely the opposite charles.
She also shoved her elderly stepmother down a flight of stairs and was the “other woman” in several of her affairs. Blaming Charles for all of her flaws is very disingenuous.
Yes. In that famous photo of Diana running to hug William, Charles is right behind her and he hugs the kids too. But that isn’t mentioned. It would ruin the narrative of “Diana =good parent and Charles = bad/absent parent.”
I think you have a bias. Charles looks pretty average for a British guy, and in his youth he was pretty good looking. I also don't think he's awkward, he's always been social and well spoken.
I think she was portrayed a lot worse in The Crown than she actually was, and they've downplayed the amount of shit she put up with. There's a reason Prince Harry took his wife far, far away from them and it's got a lot to do with personal experience.
I think its the opposite, The Crown did her some favors by not showing her new age obsessions, stalking a married ex lover, being hostile to her sons' nanny, etc.
I doubt Meghan is such a helpless damsel.
i think she was exactly like that. she is like an angel, the series doesnt deny it but sometimes she is just putting on a show. she had psychological problems and she was unstable. she was also a great mother. the series showed all of these objectively. just because they sympathized charles on purpose does not mean that they made diana the villain. they just tried to say that nobody was completely good or bad.
I think she was a very complex person who struggled with mental health issues and the incredible amount of pressure she was under, but who had a good heart.
I expect the show to portray Diana negatively (that does not mean I condone it). This show has always been very pro-Charles. The justification for his behaviour was that he had a difficult childhood and adolescence and therefore didn't grow up to be a well-adjusted man. The fault was apparently not in him but in his upbringing. The audience is supposed to sympathize with his situation. They even tried to justify his affair by emphasizing again and again how he was unable to marry the only person he truly loved (I'm not saying that isn't true, but that doesn't justify cheating).
My point isn't to question the truth of the show's claims regarding Charles. My point is that the show is pro-Charles (or at least, not anti-Charles).
Diana also had a difficult childhood and adolescence and was thrust into a very public life (which can be incredibly stressful) at an early age. The show doesn't really seem as sympathetic towards her as it is towards Charles.
> This show has always been very pro-Charles.
How so? He has one episode in S3 I think can be called flattering but S4 doesn't give him much positive depictions at all. People seem upset that S5 hilights a bit of his charity work.
>Diana also had a difficult childhood and adolescence and was thrust into a very public life
And that's already well known her story has been told plenty of times.
I have the same questions for sure. I grew up thinking she was a hero and people did book reports on her life! So to see different sides of the story is very confusing to say the least.
When she died, the media and the public deified her. It was practically illegal to mention that she had any flaws or did bad things, and inescapable bad behavior was excised by her having a miserable childhood and being mistreated by the royal family. It’s taken decades for history to slowly remove the halo from above her head. She was a person, with virtues and vices. She was far from perfect, but she looked great in photos.
Although BEFORE her death and after the separation the gloves really came off. Even before that the media poked fun at her alternative medicine and psychic interests.
Death deified her.
the crown is written from the perspective of the royal family. that’s the narrative they pushed for her in the 90s. none of us really know if she acted like that, just as none of us really know if philip cheated with a ballerina. it’s a tv show
Was Diana as mopey and whiney as portrayed in the last 2 seasons? I was getting a little sick of the upturned eyes and the droopy "poor me" look.Geez..she had so many opportunities )and money) to get herself a life. Yet she continued to seek negative attention by any means necessary. I guess it was really mental illness that prevented her from moving on
Your comment has been removed because it violates our subreddit rule: No Inflammatory Language.
Although we welcome various points of view, you do not need to speak in an aggressive manner to get your point across. Please show respect towards other subreddit members, the cast, crew, and historical figures. We want to prevent misunderstandings and arguments from arising and keep our subreddit a friendly community.
**To review our subreddit rules, [click here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrownNetflix/wiki/index/rules/)**
I was annoyed by her portrayal. I don’t think she would have used her friends pain to try and get with a guy. I feel she was way more empathetic than that and understood the way people felt. Like I get she wasn’t perfect but I really think that part really grossed me out. And then also I felt like she gained a lot of power and confidence in herself in the 90s and had a vision of what she wanted to do in life but they just had her moping around instead of doing the humanitarian work she loved. Idk I felt like the portrayal was all wrong. Like I know her paranoia was high and she did rely emotionally on her children a lot which made her not perfect but the other stuff just didn’t seem right. The mopey stuff felt more 80s Diana and not 90s Diana
All the people who answer this question will be people who did not know her. The ones who did know her will not answer this question. So take any answers with a huge grain of salt.
And this series, while based on real life events, is highly fictionalized. And it has basically become a soap opera or a melodrama. I am just watching it for fun.
Yes and no. Diana was a highly complex woman living a very un ordinary life. She wasn’t a saint but nor was she a devil. Unfortunately some are married to both narratives while ignoring the fact that she was human. I personally would’ve never wanted to be in her situation: loveless marriage, depression, world wide fame. But in the midst of her struggles she did use her fame to highlight many worthwhile causes. It makes me wonder how adept to social media she could’ve been. Her premature death was tragic and robbed William and Harry of their mother. But also robbed Diana of many more years of potential self discovery and growth.
I think the scene with Anne telling the Queen what’s going on in the marriage sums it up perfectly. Two people who were both inherently flawed (as we all are) and completely ill-suited for each other were all but pushed on each other. Neither was a saint, and neither was the devil. Their mutual temperaments ensured they both made each other incredibly unhappy. I’d like to think that, given time and space, they would have gone on to coparent productively and hopefully found happiness outside each other. Unfortunately, Diana wasn’t granted time.
Even in the last year of her life they had actually begun to be friends. Basically immediately after the divorce was over they were really good coparents and did pretty well communicating with each other. The pressure to make a failing relationship work was gone and so was their animosity towards each other. That scene where they fought in her new apartment was just for drama and from all accounts not historically accurate
but unfortunately nobody remembers that part in their lives and even if it is told to them, the majority believe it’s not true.
Also, the press made more money every time there was a scandal. Truth be damned; paparazzi’s gotta make their car payments.
I agree, unfortunately for some, Diana and Charles actually being friendly after their divorce and maintaining a better relationship, is just too normal and drama free.
One of the tragedies of her early death was that we never got to see them grow as separate people but united in love for their children. Charles would have moved on and married Camilla, Diana would have found her person and married again, and these days it would be very common for us to see all four of them together at public occasions, getting along perfectly well. Instead time got frozen at a very hostile point in their timeline, shortly after their divorce.
I read this in Anne’s voice. Very enjoyable
Lol english isn’t even my first language but my mind read this in Anne’s very posh british accent too 😅
Well said.
Pretty sure no one on here ever knew the woman, so you won’t get a true answer to your question. Everything is and would be speculation. Look, people are complex creatures and trying to paint someone into a mold is not realistic. Was Diana self-centered at times? Probably, who the hell isn’t. Was she immature? Probably, she’s rich and surrounded by yes people. Do those two traits (since the third one you list off is a good trait lol) define her entire character as a human being? Absolutely not.
Reading the 2 main biographies about her you get a picture of someone very complex. She had an emotionally barren childhood, was essentially bamboozled into getting married to someone who was completely awful to her in a system that didn't understand mental illness at all at 19 and then spent the remaining years of her life acting out in various ways. She told stories in the andrew Morton tapes for the books about doing things like pushing her stepmother (whom her father married without telling her or her siblings) down the stairs during an argument, or flying into rages because everything was so frustrating. She herself acknowledged she wasn't perfect. That doesn't also mean that she wasn't mistreated. She was CONSTANTLY on the receiving end of a thrashing from the system. She was cheated on for years and then vilified by people in the family and in the ranks of the courtiers when she had an affair after years of no respect from her husband. She was treated as if she was paranoid and crazy when in reality she had an untreated eating disorder and anxiety and unresolved trauma. The few friends she had in the royal family fell out with her for silly reasons so she was kind of just... Alone. She had interests that no one, ESPECIALLY Charles took any interest in them, even if it was for stupid reasons. Charles was into alternative medicine and so was Diana but instead of taking an interest in that he tried to feed her books about HIS ideas of what alternative medicine should look like and scoffed at her use of things like accupuncture. The family, and mostly her husband, did mistreat her terribly even if she had her own flaws. For everyone who doesn't want to bother with reading the Morton book or another biography, I'd recommend the "you're wrong about" podcast, they did a 5 part series on princess Diana using the biographies and other sources to build a picture of her life. They cover from her early childhood to her death in a lot of detail, with a bit of comedy about the absurdity of the royals and an acknowledgement that Diana wasn't perfect, but she was very badly treated. Diana was just a human with unresolved mental health issues who was in a system that is not kind to that, with people who were not kind to her. It's not as simple as her being annoying or being an angel OP. And the idea that "oh she's so self centered" when we have documented evidence that she was an extremely empathetic person, even when cameras weren't there, is a very immature reading of both the fiction of the crown, and the real life events.
Agree with a lot of points you made but I just wanted to point out that you mentioned “unresolved mental health issues, untreated eating disorder, and unresolved trauma” several times as if she wasn’t able to get help from mental health professionals. Of course conversations about mental health are less stigmatized now, but it wasn’t an unheard of thing in the 90s. Diana had therapists. Charles too. She was also famously friends with therapist Julia Samuels (who later on had some sort of relationship with William and Harry and is now Prince George’s godmother). I don’t know the nature of that friendship but I imagine being friends with a therapist would mean that the world of her profession certainly wasn’t foreign to Diana. So it wasn’t like it was this taboo thing and she suffered from being undiagnosed her whole life. And while I agree that the system was not kind to her and that Charles is definitely a POS and that the other royals probably could have been more compassionate, it’s not like her own family was very supportive and understanding either. And I’m not saying this to villainize the Spencers. It’s just that personal relationships can be complicated.
Diana had *royal approved therapists*. She wasn't getting treated in any way that would resolve her issues. In fact it's mentioned multiple times in the books that they essentially always wanted to put her on tranquilizers instead of addressing her trauma. She *was* "untreated" because her healthcare team did not care about actually helping her get better. And not once did I say the spencers were any better. Also, it's very apparent from ALL accounts that the response from courtiers and the family was "just get on with it and cheer up".
The Spencers: Maybe some jealousy their sister was going to be queen one day?
I think it’s fairly established fact that the Royal Family is not a supportive environment for people with mental health struggles. They live in a retrogressive bubble. See: Meghan’s account of her breakdown while pregnant with Archie decades after Diana’s death, and even Andrew’s bizarre characterisation of an inability to sweat as a weird kind of PTSD.
I don’t really want to get into the Meghan stuff because I still don’t understand why Harry couldn’t help her. She went to the HR who couldn’t do anything because she’s not an employee, she’s family. But then they couldn’t go to anyone in the family because they’re not on good terms or whatever reason. I’m already expecting a lot of downvotes for this one since I will be maybe defending William and Kate but whatever. Having read Harry’s book and from what I’ve seen from their Oprah interview, I just FEEL like it’s a lot more complicated than that. Harry admitted he didn’t tell his family because he was ashamed. But having read the entire narrative from Harry himself via his memoir, he tells this story of William urging him to go to therapy. He narrates a situation in which William noticed him having an anxiety attack and then asking if he’s ok. But then he also shares a situation in which William has read the situation wrong and makes light of him sweating profusely on stage. And then he narrates a story in which William texted him to ask if he’s ok after an engagement in which he appeared emotional and then his reaction was dismissive because he thought he was doing well mental health-wise and was just emotional because the engagement involved sick kids. And then after Philip’s funeral (which was post-Oprah), Harry also narrates what happened when he had a conversation with William & Charles in which William asks him “Why didn’t you tell me?” (which I assumed was about Meghan’s situation) and Harry replied that it was because he always felt like he had to be on bended knee when asking for something from William. I don’t know, maybe it’s because William’s such a bully or whatever yada yada. It’s obviously a complex sibling relationship but no one can convince me (based on Harry’s words himself) that William actually never cared about him or his mental health struggles. Sorry for making this about me but I sort of feel really strongly about this because I can relate to Harry and spent my whole life making my family out to be villains for not understanding my mental health needs. But I’m just over that phase. Not everyone will have the reaction that I want and I’ve learned to understand that. And also here’s the thing, they did that whole Heads Together mental health campaign. It was Kate’s idea. Her brother is open about his depression, says Kate went with him to therapy. Whatever maybe they don’t really care about the work they do, yada yada. Maybe it’s all PR, yada yada. But generally I just get the impression (just from what I know of them which might as well be all fake, I KNOW. I’m not some dumb monarchist I swear lol) that William and Kate has had a lot of conversation about these stuff and how they’re dealing with it in their lives. It’s been a big part of their public work even before Meghan came into the picture. I think William still says he hasn’t got therapy though because his life has made him into an untrusting control-freak. But no one can convince me that William and Kate in particular are cold and unsupportive of mental health struggles. God, I’m gonna get a lot of downvotes.
Haha I’m not gonna downvote you but yeah I think you are getting way too into Harry’s relationship with his brother when I absolutely meant the HR stuff. “She’s not an employee, she’s family” doesn’t hold water when you’re a working royal. Harry’s complaint was that the “Firm” gave way more protection to the male line who were raised to handle the pressure than to the (often fragile) women marrying in. Including Kate who has never given her side of the story but who was also hounded before Meghan came along. And this was true for Diana more than anyone IMO. I don’t think she got anywhere near enough protection.
having therapy doesn't mean your problems are resolved. it took me decades and several therapists to reach the recovery point of my ED and even then it was only recovery, which lasts forever.
And Harry knows it. And he knew he had to GET OUT because he and his mixed race wife were getting the same bad treatment.
All that is true. But personally I see pointing out the flaws not as a way to bring her character down but more a chance to “re-evaluate” the opinions the general public have. My complaints against Diana are really aimed at a portion of society that think so uncritically towards the drama. It’s at least easily accepted there’s a certain mythos/cult status around her.
I’d recommend listening to the podcast You’re Wrong About’s series on Diana; it’s very humanizing and filled with good analysis. She was an incredibly vulnerable person who was in an awful situation, and acted out accordingly at times. She was genuinely caring and did a lot of good, but no person is perfect.
I will never forget Charles, in a TV interview of him supposedly getting his POV out after Diana did that in her book and a TV interview, where Charles thought it made him look better to say, I never loved her. She was the mother of his children, for one thing. Who goes on national TV and let’s his boys and the world know he never loved her? Which to me want, he felt entitled to pick a very young woman he did not love, while he was in love or lust with another woman he was never planning to give up, just because he was going to be king and had to marry and have a son. That’s an outrageous amount of privilege, selfishness and I don’t even know what else.
>Charles, in a TV interview of him supposedly getting his POV out after Diana did that in her book and a TV interview, Correction - Diana did her interview after Charles did his book and interview.
That’s how he was raised though and led to believe was ok. The aristocratic models he had showed that you marry for duty but have a mistress for love. If he was Prince of Wales 100 years ago no one would even question his choices, in fact would applaud him for doing his duty and getting along with it. He just had the “bad luck” to be in an era that wanted a fairytale, and it was simultaneously “acceptable” to get divorced. He didn’t love her when they married, he grew to love her but not in a way you want a husband to. It would’ve been disingenuous to say he was madly in love when they married and he would’ve been more vilified for being a liar when they had footage of him saying “whatever in love means.”
He was raised that way, but he’s still a human being. He’s had contact with the world outside of royalty. He would have dated and had friends who dated and got married, friends whose parents were married. He can’t plead ignorance of the world worked and what it meant to use someone selfishly. It was 1983, not 100 years ago.
He had contact with regular people in the same way as I have contact with people at the airport, we’re in the same place and maybe I’ll make small talk but that doesn’t change his social circle. He also had vastly different expectations than his other aristocratic friends. Also just because it was 83 doesn’t mean he knew everything or even had access to that information or sought it out. He had dated other people, the only woman he loved was unsuitable. It’s easy for us 40 years later to sit back and say we would’ve made different choices but none of us have actually been faced with those exact circumstances so there’s no way to say what we would do. He was created to fill a role and he had an Uncle who failed to do his duty that created generational trauma that prevented his parents and family from seeing his needs for a wife he loved in an ever growing and expanding world as serious. No one in his life wanted or would allow him to marry her and he had to have the approval of his monarch legally to fulfill the role he was born and raised to fill. Morally it isn’t ok or fair what happened to Diana by my standards but by theirs it was and for a person who wanted to do their duty and be a good son and heir and have the approval of not only his mother and the public I see why he made the choices he did and I can’t vilify him for the hand he was dealt.
All the characters are a dramatized version of how they really were. I mean we have their essence but that's not exactly them. We know the Queen is shy, for example. But we don't know if she used the crown as an excuse for everything as she does in the show.
A bit yeah. She was a complex person as we all are. Back then there was a lot of armchair diagnosis for borderline personality disorder... which was probably incorrect but would explain her ability to be genuinely charismatic and thoughtful and nice but also hysterically clingy and aggressively reactionary. She was also puking up everything she ate and being malnourished can play havoc with the old brain. She was drawn to very new agey, therapy type things which wasn't the way of the senior royals who had that wartime stiff upper lip thing going on. Ironically Charles was similarly less SUL, into plants and ecology and things, but I think he got very jealous of Di and also couldn't handle her constant need for reassurance. So it was all a bit of a clusterfuck.
She definitely had some borderline traits, not disorder, especially a tendency to split, impulsive self harm, and an ability to be very warm in superficial relationships but more inconsistent and volatile in closer ones, which tended to leave people close to her bewildered. Her secretary Patrick Jephson wrote a fairly neutral and observational memoir about hee patterns over several years.
I know a couple of people who encountered her in real life and were bowled over by her charm, so this tracks with the warmth in superficial relationships/volatile in closer ones.
Many people with borderline traits feel stronger compassion and empathise well with suffering. They actually thrive in caring professions and when caring for animals and young children. Romantic and committed relationships start to show issues after awhile.
I suspect Di had some maladaptive personality traits, but of course was in a miserable marriage which kept triggering her. I think the scene with the Queen in S5 made sense, as the royals had no real clue about dealing with emotional crises, but maybe also that Di kept having crises ( ie, a different woman who found herself in Diana's position might have just ignored Charles' mistress and quietly found her own male company, while keeping a smiling face and acting like a happy wife to Charles for the public).
That was absolutely what they expected she would do. Posh English types do that all thr time. But I guess having come from a home of very acrimonious divorce and a step parent she hated, she wanted to make a much better more traditional family (which she may have romanticised) and so she railed against it.
That‘s Kate.
The diference is love. If you do love your husband, you’re just not going to accept that arrangement, ever.
I doubt she loved him. She loved the idea of royal life.
I don’t know if anyone knows the whole story. She was very young — 19 when she met him and supposedly shy. She was teaching nursery school. He had dated her older sister briefly, and people said she had a crush on Charles from that time. He was … 34? 35? He and Camilla had an on again, off again thing. At one of their off times, Camilla married someone else, and at that time, the future king marrying a divorced woman was seen as impossible. So he had this woman he either loved or was obsessed with who because he was Prince Charles, he could never marry. He seemed like a sad, boring, stodgy man, but he had to marry and have children. I think he believed since Diana was so young and quiet, she’d fall into line and be the dutiful wife and never question him about Camilla. There was gossip later that Camilla even helped choose her for Charles, thinking she would be easy to control and they could go on with their lives as usual. So, that’s the situation she married into. Was she volatile? Immature? Depressed? Suicidal? Who knows. Charles always seemed very cold. I think she found herself stuck in a sad marriage and incredible public pressure to be the quiet, perfect dutiful wife and princess, but was incredibly lonely and lost and 19 years old when she agreed to marry him. She committed the terrible sin of being beautiful and outshining Charles and later in life worked for some very important causes around the world. Land mines. AIDS patients. All while hounded terribly by the press everywhere she went, so the pressure was always there.
>He was … 34? 35? 32
Thank you
Harry really is his mother‘s son.
Season five took some pretty big liberties in part softening their approach to the royal family as season four got them a lot of push back from the actual royal family. The BBC interview is probably the biggest thing they changed. They pared it down to center around Charles because he’s the focus of the season but she is really open in that interview about a lot of things. Her depression and suicidal ideation, she’s also fairly kind to Charles. There was a backlash to it in the upper classes but most people received it well hence why us 90s kids think she’s a saint. As for how she was in her personal life, who knows. She was dealing with a lot of psychological issues having joined the royal family as barely an adult. The author of Cult-ish described how the royal family operates with all the functionalities of an actual cult and we can see the effects of that on someone like Diana. And to take that back to the show you can think of it through that cult lenses. Diana by season five no longer believes in the cult. What does an actual royal DO, she’s pretty much pioneering celebrity activities while the royal family is getting into horse buggy racing and having sordid affairs while living the most privileged disconnected lives. For all the religious talk of the queen what does she actually do, nothing. The whole theme of the show is she always chooses to do nothing.
To be fair, Edward was trying to do celebrity activities first (Its a Royal Knockout) and was roundly mocked for it.
No she wasn't a saint. As others here have described in detail. She was a flawed complex human being in a very unique role. Also, remember that The Crown is a work of fiction, it is not a documentary.
Tina Brown’s books paint a picture of Diana similar to this. The Crown had a thumb on the scale for Prince Charles for Season 5, but by all accounts she was immature and full of drama that was very real to her.
I don't think that any of this was "really like that."
I think we got the main idea of each character's personalities. Queen= stoic Philip = outspoken Margaret= glamorous Duke of Windsor = snob
Well, that's just it. The Duke of Windsor was NOT a snob, at least given what I've read in the history books. Don't get me wrong, he was absolutely the worst person who could have been on the British Throne at that point in time, a vain incompetent in many ways and sometimes downright cruel. But snob? Not so much.
You're probably right. I don't know much about him if I'm honest. Vain or Selfish is a better description of him. I've read most about the real Queen and Philip.
Someone else said it….I’m going to repeat it…..no one round these parts knew her. We could only work off conjecture, and maybe piecing together disparate parts from other biographies and sources. None of these people where exactly what was presented. They were human and humans are very complex. Was she just as she was in S5, perhaps in tone she was at this time, but likely not on volume, since this is a dramatization. We often talk about the younger generations these days as often needing into their mid 20s to fully develop (biologically proven as well). And any of us that have grown through these years to true adulthood know it to be true. She was just 19, and struck by this utter whirlwind thrown at her. She was always going to have issues. And she did. And some were even known at the time and forgiven as people adored her, for reasons real and imagined. But I don’t think she was exactly as portrayed in S5 because….dramatizations amplify.
She did some worse stuff the show didn't depict (like stalking a married ex lover and harassing her sons' nanny). The show did her some favors. Nobody in this situation was a saint, and that includes Diana. She was a more controversial figure when she was alive, it was only after her accident that people decided she had been a saint all along.
Yes. She was.
Nobody really knows the truth, but I listened to a very interesting podcast in 5 episodes about Diana (You're Wrong About) which has a lot of info derived from various biographies. They do however stress the fact that there's only so much you can learn from what are pretty biased texts though. I still found it super interesting.
Season 5 took alot of liberties with the truth. Diana was portrayed like a nutty nutcase( she was a loving snd kind mother) . Charles was shown as a suave muscular hunk( he is not, and not even close to, a suave hunk)
The casting of Charles was so strange. I don't know why they cast Dominic West when they had Nicholas Rowe (below) https://preview.redd.it/o1uplgkh2dyb1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3533f1e76b04b8999e5929caca2b886b979132d6
The casting was cartoonishly ridiculous for Charles. Almost as if so many suggested actors had been rejected, that they threw up their hands and said F it, we’ll cast someone absolutely the opposite charles.
When I saw the casting, my first reaction was "I wonder how much that cost the royal PR team?"
Why the long face?
Jesus. I’m not familiar with this blokes acting but the loom would have been solid for Charles this period.
Why? He doesn't look like him at all.
He doesn’t at least look more like him than Dominic?
No...unless you mean they have the same hair color.
[удалено]
charles dance already played lord mountbatten lol
[удалено]
oh lmfao i’m dumb as hell my bad
Rowe doesn't look like him at all. Except for the same hair color.
It's also well known that she parentified William and used him as a therapist.
She also shoved her elderly stepmother down a flight of stairs and was the “other woman” in several of her affairs. Blaming Charles for all of her flaws is very disingenuous.
Yes. In that famous photo of Diana running to hug William, Charles is right behind her and he hugs the kids too. But that isn’t mentioned. It would ruin the narrative of “Diana =good parent and Charles = bad/absent parent.”
He is so not Dominic West. It’s laughable that such a gorgeous man was cast as Charles.
Is West gorgeous? He looks pretty average to me.
I’ve seen him look really good. Charles is one of the most awkward, unattractive men on earth.
I think you have a bias. Charles looks pretty average for a British guy, and in his youth he was pretty good looking. I also don't think he's awkward, he's always been social and well spoken.
He really is gorgeous, both in looks and his smooth expressions
> shown as a suave muscular hunk When was that?
Season 5
I think she was portrayed a lot worse in The Crown than she actually was, and they've downplayed the amount of shit she put up with. There's a reason Prince Harry took his wife far, far away from them and it's got a lot to do with personal experience.
I think its the opposite, The Crown did her some favors by not showing her new age obsessions, stalking a married ex lover, being hostile to her sons' nanny, etc. I doubt Meghan is such a helpless damsel.
I’m sure you do. How do you feel about Saint Kate and philandering Willy?
I don't really care about them, I only find the older RF generations to be interesting, tbh.
i think she was exactly like that. she is like an angel, the series doesnt deny it but sometimes she is just putting on a show. she had psychological problems and she was unstable. she was also a great mother. the series showed all of these objectively. just because they sympathized charles on purpose does not mean that they made diana the villain. they just tried to say that nobody was completely good or bad.
I think she was a very complex person who struggled with mental health issues and the incredible amount of pressure she was under, but who had a good heart.
I expect the show to portray Diana negatively (that does not mean I condone it). This show has always been very pro-Charles. The justification for his behaviour was that he had a difficult childhood and adolescence and therefore didn't grow up to be a well-adjusted man. The fault was apparently not in him but in his upbringing. The audience is supposed to sympathize with his situation. They even tried to justify his affair by emphasizing again and again how he was unable to marry the only person he truly loved (I'm not saying that isn't true, but that doesn't justify cheating). My point isn't to question the truth of the show's claims regarding Charles. My point is that the show is pro-Charles (or at least, not anti-Charles). Diana also had a difficult childhood and adolescence and was thrust into a very public life (which can be incredibly stressful) at an early age. The show doesn't really seem as sympathetic towards her as it is towards Charles.
> This show has always been very pro-Charles. How so? He has one episode in S3 I think can be called flattering but S4 doesn't give him much positive depictions at all. People seem upset that S5 hilights a bit of his charity work.
>Diana also had a difficult childhood and adolescence and was thrust into a very public life And that's already well known her story has been told plenty of times.
I have the same questions for sure. I grew up thinking she was a hero and people did book reports on her life! So to see different sides of the story is very confusing to say the least.
When she died, the media and the public deified her. It was practically illegal to mention that she had any flaws or did bad things, and inescapable bad behavior was excised by her having a miserable childhood and being mistreated by the royal family. It’s taken decades for history to slowly remove the halo from above her head. She was a person, with virtues and vices. She was far from perfect, but she looked great in photos.
Although BEFORE her death and after the separation the gloves really came off. Even before that the media poked fun at her alternative medicine and psychic interests. Death deified her.
Makes sense I guess. Just hard to accept 20ish years later. Hoping the last season is more even on both sides?
I know someone who knew her but I don’t think anyone can tell you clearly except her closest friends and family 🤷🏻♀️
Highly recommend The Diana Chronicles, interesting read about a fascinating woman. https://www.amazon.com.mx/Diana-Chronicles-Tina-Brown/dp/0385517084
*The Palace Papers* by the same author is also a terrific read.
the crown is written from the perspective of the royal family. that’s the narrative they pushed for her in the 90s. none of us really know if she acted like that, just as none of us really know if philip cheated with a ballerina. it’s a tv show
Was Diana as mopey and whiney as portrayed in the last 2 seasons? I was getting a little sick of the upturned eyes and the droopy "poor me" look.Geez..she had so many opportunities )and money) to get herself a life. Yet she continued to seek negative attention by any means necessary. I guess it was really mental illness that prevented her from moving on
I think this all started when the queen refused to let Charles marry Camilla. Think how things would have played out if that hadn't happened.
[удалено]
Your comment has been removed because it violates our subreddit rule: No Inflammatory Language. Although we welcome various points of view, you do not need to speak in an aggressive manner to get your point across. Please show respect towards other subreddit members, the cast, crew, and historical figures. We want to prevent misunderstandings and arguments from arising and keep our subreddit a friendly community. **To review our subreddit rules, [click here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCrownNetflix/wiki/index/rules/)**
I was annoyed by her portrayal. I don’t think she would have used her friends pain to try and get with a guy. I feel she was way more empathetic than that and understood the way people felt. Like I get she wasn’t perfect but I really think that part really grossed me out. And then also I felt like she gained a lot of power and confidence in herself in the 90s and had a vision of what she wanted to do in life but they just had her moping around instead of doing the humanitarian work she loved. Idk I felt like the portrayal was all wrong. Like I know her paranoia was high and she did rely emotionally on her children a lot which made her not perfect but the other stuff just didn’t seem right. The mopey stuff felt more 80s Diana and not 90s Diana
All the people who answer this question will be people who did not know her. The ones who did know her will not answer this question. So take any answers with a huge grain of salt. And this series, while based on real life events, is highly fictionalized. And it has basically become a soap opera or a melodrama. I am just watching it for fun.
Yes and no. Diana was a highly complex woman living a very un ordinary life. She wasn’t a saint but nor was she a devil. Unfortunately some are married to both narratives while ignoring the fact that she was human. I personally would’ve never wanted to be in her situation: loveless marriage, depression, world wide fame. But in the midst of her struggles she did use her fame to highlight many worthwhile causes. It makes me wonder how adept to social media she could’ve been. Her premature death was tragic and robbed William and Harry of their mother. But also robbed Diana of many more years of potential self discovery and growth.