By Haoran Xia
Published on: DeepFocus
December 4, 2020
We have always yearned for fairy tales.
Princes and princesses, royalty and nobility—these distant and unattainable elements are treated as precious ornaments in real life, used to inject color and fantasy into an otherwise monotonous reality. Yet fairy tales are born of reality; they are reflections of it. They gather everything ordinary people cannot possess and place it within a single narrative, constructing an illusion that is ever more distant, ever more desirable. As time moves forward, fairy tales must also evolve. The medieval fantasy of “the knight saving the princess” no longer stirs longing, and Disney’s Cinderella has been long expired. But in the 1980s, the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana - two figures blessed with intelligence, talent, status, and beauty - offered the world a modern Romeo and Juliet.
Still, a fairy tale is ultimately nothing more than a lavish shell. And in The Crown Season Four, that shell becomes the wreckage of a political game.
The story of the British royal family in The Crown begins with the reign of George V. At that time, World War II had just ended, and Britain faced the dual pressures of domestic reconstruction and the reorganization of its colonial empire. The 1950s and 60s were decades of global political turbulence: nationalism surged, anti-colonial movements swept across the globe, and the capitalist colonial order began to collapse. In the 1970s, Britain struggled to find its footing amid the Cold War. By the 1980s - a period suspended between past and modernity - the royal family once again stood at a crossroads, forced to confront the direction of its own future.
The Crown’s creator and screenwriter Peter Morgan skillfully weaves historical reality with the personal experiences of royal figures, granting these seemingly untouchable individuals an unexpected intimacy. Through moments of political upheaval, emotional entanglement, and national crisis, the series reveals their suffering and vulnerability. Only then do we realize that they are not merely symbols, but flesh-and-blood human beings. Over four seasons, as history advances toward the present, the British monarchy meets its Waterloo, retreating on multiple fronts. This shift is not accidental, but inevitable - a consequence of a nearly four-hundred-year-old constitutional monarchy colliding with modernization. In Season Four, the monarchy is shaken by two external forces: Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher.
Diana enters the royal family at just the age of eighteen. That year, the world witnessed the staging of a modern fairy tale. Global audiences offered their blessings to the young couple - the future king and queen - treating their lives as a contemporary reenactment of classical romance. But as noted earlier, fairy tales are fragile shells. With time, the perfect marriage reveals irreparable fractures. Diana embodies the ideology of a new generation: a fusion of classical British aristocracy and postmodern British culture, possessing both noble poise and human warmth. The monarchy, however, has always prioritized duty. Queen Elizabeth II perfectly exemplifies its guiding principle - inaction.
Diana’s optimism and emotional openness challenged long-standing royal conventions. Yet Diana herself was only a symbol. The true challenge came from the rise of progressivism and individualism in the 1980s. The monarchy’s worldview and methodology no longer functioned in this new era. More precisely, the gradual liberation of thought dealt an unprecedented blow to a constitutional system preserved since the seventeenth century. The royal family’s traditional restraint and composure lost their appeal, while Diana’s authenticity resonated deeply with public desire. The fairy tale of Charles and Diana was merely one more chess piece within the royal system.
Facing a crisis of trust, the monarchy repeatedly refurbished its outward image to preserve an illusion of permanence. Charles and Diana became sacrifices—trapped within false appearances, forced to prolong the fairy tale day after day, at the cost of their emotional and psychological well-being. Eventually, both were swallowed by loneliness. No one emerged unscathed.
From another direction entirely, Margaret Thatcher subjected the monarchy to a top-down interrogation. Coming from the opposite end of the class spectrum, she articulated a blunt truth: the monarchy is a decaying system. Class difference is omnipresent, following each individual like a shadow, constantly reflecting one’s true position. As class gradually lost its dominance in society, the monarchy - once revered as an elite institution - also lost its privileged status. The rising middle class questioned whether modern society still required such an archaic structure. Class, when mobilized, operates across surfaces rather than points; its destructive force is vast and far-reaching.
By the 1980s, the monarchy faced existential pressure. As Darwinian logic suggests, survival depends on adaptation. When an institution no longer meets the needs of its time, should it not be eliminated? The first three seasons of The Crown trace an upward arc, but by the 1970s in Season Three, that arc reaches its apex. In the decades that follow, the monarchy’s sacred authority and the humanity it consumes are relentlessly challenged by waves of modernist and postmodernist thought. The curve collapses, plunging into a bottomless abyss.
The visual language of The Crown mirrors its thematic ambition - grand, austere, and monumental. Whether depicting hunts in the Scottish Highlands, diplomatic visits to Canberra, or a ménage à trois luncheon, the directors favor central framing and symmetrical compositions. Characters are placed at the center of vast, empty backgrounds, creating an atmosphere of isolation and emotional coldness. This classical aesthetic uses space to externalize inner states, merging character and environment. On one hand, it establishes a unified visual tone; on the other, it generates tension, as though the characters might be swallowed by their surroundings at any moment. This visual strategy aligns directly with the emotional register of Season Four.
Here, each character’s fate slows to a crawl. They are no longer masters of their own destinies. External forces dominate, tugging relentlessly at their emotions and trajectories. At any given moment, an avalanche seems imminent. As the core figures age, their power diminishes, their futures grow uncertain. Against the vastness of the backdrop, these once-glittering figures - crowned in splendor - appear fragile and insignificant.
“We are all outsiders in this game - except her. She is the center of it. She is all of our responsibility,” Prince Philip tells Diana in the season four finale, War. The monarchy’s philosophy is fundamentally fatalistic. Every royal’s life is prewritten. In exchange for divine authority - unique yet abstract - they are stripped of ordinary human choice. This is a game of destiny played by outsiders. With the exception of the queen and her heir, all are merely participants, even the queen herself, whose predetermined fate remains vulnerable to the pressures of reality and time.
The rules are ruthless. Love, kinship, and human compassion hold no power here. Only constitutional law and inherited protocol govern the game. The inaction of monarchs past - and of Elizabeth II herself - is the strategy most aligned with this system, for any action is ultimately futile, incapable of shaking the Crown’s authority. Princess Margaret may be one of the game’s greatest casualties. In Season Four Episode Seven, The Hereditary Principle, her rights slip through her fingers like sand. “If you are not born first, if you possess individuality, if you fail to conform to royal standards, you will be discarded, crushed, even declared dead.” Her words reveal not only her personal truth, but the brutal essence of this fatalistic game. Beneath the dazzling Crown and the coveted fairy tale life, every character is ultimately a powerless, isolated figure, surviving quietly in their own corner of darkness.
In Season Four Episode Two, The Balmoral Test, the royal family hunts a wounded stag. Philip and Diana ultimately capture it and bring it back to the castle as a symbol of triumph. Notably, in Roman mythology, “Diana” is the goddess of animals and the hunt—equivalent to Artemis in Greek mythology. The stag’s fate symbolizes Diana’s future: hunted, controlled, oppressed, and ultimately destroyed. The monarchy becomes the hunter; Diana, the prey. At the same time, the stag also mirrors the monarchy’s own fate—struggling to survive in modern society, unsure when or where it will be replaced. Even the grandest destiny must eventually come to an end.
作者：夏浩然
发表于：深焦DeepFocus
二零二零 十二月四日
人们都向往童话故事。
王公贵族，王子公主，这些可望不可及的童话元素在现实生活中被人们当做珍物，试图为单调的现实添加绚丽的童话色彩。可童话来源于现实，是现实的写照，他将现实中普通人无法拥有的实物通通放置其中，构建了一个更遥远，更让人憧憬的假象。童话的特征也需要跟随时代而更新，中世纪的“骑士救公主”已不再令人向往，迪士尼的“灰姑娘”也已过时，而上世纪80年代英国王室的查尔斯王子和戴安娜王妃的联姻，这对拥有智慧、才华、地位和相貌的王子公主，则为全球民众上演了现代版的“罗密欧与朱丽叶”。但童话终究是一个华丽的躯壳，《王冠》第四季中的童话更是政治游戏的残兵败将。
《王冠》中英国王室的故事开始于乔治五世统治时期。那时，二战刚刚结束，英国面临着战后重建的内部问题和部署殖民地的国际问题。上世纪的50和60年代是全球政治动荡不安的年代，民族主义和国家主义纷纷兴起，瓦解资本主义国家殖民体系的思潮传遍第三世界；70年代，冷战背景中的英国寸步难行；而到了80年代，这个过去和现代交替的时代，英国王室再一次站在时代这个十字路口前，决定着他们的走向。
《王冠》主创兼编剧彼得·摩根巧妙地将真实的历史背景与王室成员的经历相结合，为这些大人物赋予了更触手可及的生命，展现出他们在历史变更时，在情感纠纷时，在家国同难时所经历的苦和痛，在此基础上，我们才体会到他们也是有血有肉的人，并非传统定义上的象征。四季走来，随着历史逐渐走向现代，英国王室遭遇滑铁卢，在各个方面被迫逐渐退让。这突然的转折并非偶然，而是历史的趋势，是这建立接近四百年的君主立宪制在现代化中的被迫淘汰。第四季中的王室，遭受到了来自外界两股力量 - 戴安娜王妃和撒切尔夫人的冲击。
刚入王室的戴安娜只有18岁。那年，全球人民目睹了现代童话的上演，为英国王室这对新人，未来的国王和王后献上最真挚的祝福，将他们的生活看作古典童话的重述。但正如前文所说，童话只是一个华丽的躯壳，完美的婚姻在时间的推移下，逐渐显露出无法修补的矛盾。戴安娜代表了新一代人的思想，她是古典英国贵族和后现代英国文化的结合，既有贵族的从容也有普通人的随和。而王室向来强调责任，作为女王的伊丽莎白二世则完美地体现了王室的处世态度和原则 - 无作为。戴安娜的积极和乐观则对以往王室的规则发起了挑战，但戴安娜仅仅作为一个熟知的意象，真正对王室发起挑战的，则是80年代的进步和个人主义的盛行。
王室过往对社会的认知和他们本身的方法论在新时代已不再适用，更准确地说，思想方面的逐步解放让17世纪保留下的君主立宪遭遇到了史无前例的打击，他们过往的无所作为和淡定从容的姿态似乎在新时代也不再受宠，相反，真实多面的戴安娜则真切地反映了新时代社会和民众的需求。查尔斯与戴安娜的童话故事也只是王室体系的棋子之一。面临信任危机的王室，多次在外表上添砖加瓦，以此来塑造一个经久不衰的王室形象。查尔斯和戴安娜则成为了牺牲品，他们纷纷活在虚假的表象之中，每天苟延残喘地为童话书写新的篇章，而与之消耗的，则是双方的内心情感和精神能量。最后两人都落进孤独的漩涡里，无人生还。
而另外一位女性，撒切尔夫人从另一个方面对王室进行从上至下的反思和检验。来自于阶级对立面的她，第一时间则道出了英国王室的真相 - 这是一个腐朽的体系。阶级间的差异和比较无处不在，它如影子一般，跟随着每个人，时刻反映着你的真实情况。随着阶级这个因素逐渐在社会中消退，处于上层阶级的英国王室似乎在社会中也失去了过往的爱戴，兴起的中产阶级对这传统的制度进行拷问，是否现代社会仍需要古典体系的维护？阶级的力量是以面为主，摧毁力之大，影响力之广。
80年代的王室面临着重重挑战，正如达尔文的进化论所说，优胜劣汰是社会必有的机制，当王室不再适应新时代的需求，是否也应该将它淘汰掉？前三季的《王冠》仍处于抛物线的向上趋势，但在第三季进入70年代后，这条抛物线正式达到顶点。它不可亵渎的神性和它被迫消耗的人性在80年代后被一波又一波的现代主义思潮和后现代主义思潮挑战，这条抛物线便开始向下暴跌，跌入一个深不可测的洞穴。
《王冠》的拍摄和取景如他的主题一样，磅礴且壮阔。多处取景上，无论是苏格兰高地的捕猎，澳大利亚堪培拉的访问，还是在“三人行”餐厅的（ménage à trois）午宴，《王冠》的导演均选择中心式拍摄，将人物聚焦于中央，选择大量的对称的背景留白，将故事的核心人物放置在背景之中，营造一种空旷的冷清感。这种拍摄也反映了古典美学的追求，以背景来烘托人物的内心情感，让人物与背景融为一体，一方面打造了完整的感官主调，另一方面表现了环境的张力，仿佛身处环境之中的人物随时会被背景吞噬。这种取景与第四季《王冠》的情感基调有着直接的联系。
第四季中，各个人物的命运都进入了一个缓慢的阶段，他们不再是自身命运的主导者，外在的因素占了上风，将他们的命运和情感来回拉扯，似乎分秒之间，每个人物的命运都将面临一场雪崩。随着核心角色年龄逐渐增大，他们的能力变得有限，宿命变得未知，在磅礴背景的衬托之下，这些看似如同王冠般璀璨的人物，实则变得薄弱又渺小。
“我们每个人都是这场游戏的局外人，除了她，她是这场游戏的中心，她是我们所有人的责任。”在第四季季终集《战争》（<War>）中，菲利普亲王对戴安娜说到。毕竟，王室的哲学属于宿命论，王室所有人的命运已被提前写好，在现实中，他们被剥夺了普通人选择的权利，但与之给予的，是上天独一无二却又抽象的神权。这是一场局外人的宿命论游戏，除了女王和她的王位继承人，所有人都只是这无情宿命论的玩家之一，就连女王自己也是玩家，因为她先定的命运同样会被现实和时代所冲击。
这场游戏十分残酷，爱情、亲情、甚至是人情在游戏规则前通通不再奏效，王室所继承的宪法条款和规则才是主导一切的法则。历代君王和伊丽莎白二世的无作为正是与该游戏最相契合的方法论，因为无论采取何种行动，都只是小打小闹，根本无法撼动王冠的权力。玛格丽特公主或许是该游戏最惨败的玩家之一。第四季第七集《世袭原则》（<The Hereditary Principle>）中，玛格丽特的所有权利如流沙一般从她手中流走，“如果你没有出生在第一位，如果你是一个拥有个性的个体，如果你不符合王室中的规定，那么你就会被唾弃、被碾压、甚至被宣布死亡”，玛格丽特道出了她在王室多年的真心话，同样也道出了这场宿命论游戏残酷的真相。光彩耀人的王冠，令人渴望的童话生活，而最终，童话中的所有角色都只是有心无力的孤独个体，默默地活在属于自己的黑暗角落。
第四季第二集《巴尔莫尔测试》（<The Balmoral Test>）中，王室一家人纷纷前往追捕一只受伤的雄鹿，最终，菲利普和戴安娜捕得这只雄鹿，将其带回城堡，作为胜利的装饰。有趣的是，罗马神话中，“diana”这个词代表着动物/捕猎女神，对应着希腊神话中的阿提米丝（Artemis）。这只雄鹿的命运一方面，似乎象征了戴安娜的未来，被捕猎，被控制，被压迫，最后被毁灭，王室则成为了罗马神话中的捕猎者，戴安娜成为了猎物，另一方面也象征了王室的未来，苟延残喘地在现代社会中寻找立足之地，不知何时何地会被取代，其伟大的宿命也终将迎来终点。