A story of everyone's favorite fairy tale princess*
*Disclaimer: She was barely a princess, it wasn't a fairytale, her life went downhill and the political ramifications of emperor Franz Joseph marrying this woman may have destroyed Austria and possibly may have been a long term motive for causing World War 1.
Any time you watch a fairy tale movie you may notice that there's always an evil stepmother, this old brutish uptight kind of woman who cares not for the young beautiful princess. Maybe out of jealousy or trying to get her other sisters married or sometimes just because she is too literal inbodymint of Satan. (I'm looking at you Maleficent.) Well every time you see one of them you're probably seeing a representation of the real life Sofia The Duchess of Bavaria.
And the funny thing is I agree with Sophia! All she wants to do is keep the Empire running smoothly, to make sure her son stays in the powerful position and that the entirety of Europe doesn't come crashing down around them and given that we know what the future will be... Yeah Sophia was right!
All that said I really like the love story in this movie. It starts out as your typical Boy and Girl Meets, Boy is the Emperor doesn't know that the woman he likes is a princess only discovers later that she is (after embarrassing himself and crushing her heart.) But in this movie they don't move beyond the morring stage she's depressed and he marries her anyways because he's the emperor and he can marry whoever the hell he wants. She pretty much has to force herself to be happy even though she's not, she's lost her life, she's about to have a very difficult time, she has to take on responsibility she doesn't want, she has to deal with a mother-in-law that she hates and she'll never get to see her beloved Bavarian animals ever again.
I came to the conclusion watching this movie, there are four kinds of people in the Royal Society:
Young men who strive for power at any cost
Young women who are too foolish and naïve to know any better usually used as a pawn for everyone else's amusement and purpose.
Old women who are unable to receive their own power, there for establish it through other people and rule kind of like a puppet King.
Old men who are either already the emperor and therefore indifferent to the pleas of everyone else or have no power and therefore indifferent to everything in general.
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