To be sad at how Charles The King looks compared to how Charles the Prince looked?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

Before anyone feels the need to point it out, yes I know he has just lost his parents in quick succession and got dropped into a role of high stress and responsibility. I get that it will affect him.

But I saddens me so much that he looks so much more careworn in such a small space of time. It struck me today when I saw the photos of him, he seems so much more stern, almost angry. I cant really describe it but in years past there was a kindness or empathy or something in his face at such events and that seems to have gone. He looks so so much older than he did just 6 months ago. I feel for him and his family and I say this as a republican, but also as a human being.

Most people work full time all their lives and cook and clean and garden.

He’s been promoted by force when he should be retired so I would expect him to look a bit older - however I strongly suspect he enjoys a whiskey of an evening, he has that flush about his face!

YANBU. I don't particularly want a monarchy either, but they are still people and experience the same emotions as the rest of us. You sound like a nice person to have picked up on how tired and serious he looks, and spare a thought for how he might be feeling. For me it's Princess Anne who gets the biggest emotional response - she always looks so fed up yet determined these days, like a woman who has a huge burden but just gets on with it. And although she works hard, she doesn't have to be in the public eye nearly as much as the King. He not only has to deal with the situation he's in, but try as far as possible to do it in a way that nobody can criticise - look how horrible people were on social media when he showed his frustration once or twice at a very difficult time. I wouldn't want to have to be "on my best behaviour" like that all the time!

You do know all of us to have to go back to work soon after a parent dies? And many people would be reprimanded at work if they looked sad. Would you be happy for your nursery worker to look sad and low?

Loads of people get a week's compassionate leave. Then back to work full-time. And few of us have our parents so well cared for as Charles's mother will be. He is bloody fortunate.

People who call themselves empaths can’t pick up any more from a photograph than any other person. They look at the photo and draw conclusions, and are so blatantly unempathetic and self assured that they convince themselves their own imaginings about how someone feels are somehow more valid than any other person’s conclusions.

In answer to your questions, in order:

1. The kind who packed him off to boarding school and kept him there when he was utterly, utterly miserable. The kind that ushered him into a marriage with little regard for much else but the bloodline. The kind that didn’t allow him to follow his heart because Camilla wasn’t good enough?
2. No. (But I think you know that, why did you ask?)
3. Behave maternally as MY mother? Was that a typo? He can mourn her any way that he wants. I gave no suggestion at all about his love or respect for her. I said the idea that he’d be reacting the way most people would, seemed odd to me. I didn’t say he was high giving the corgis after her death. What makes you think he is desperately mourning her?

As for your last sentence, I’ve not made a declaration, or decided anything about his feelings. I said, the idea of him mourning like most people (read that as ‘those of us with normal loving supportive parents’) seems odd, to me. As for my perception of her parenting, see point 1 above.

I think you need to reread your own original comment again. Because your response reads as though you have entirely forgotten what you yourself am have written. You heavily insinuated that he wouldn’t mourn his mother, as others do, because she was a shit parent.

Thisnis hugely presumptive of you. She wasn’t your mother, you aren’t him and you have no understanding of their relationship or of his feelings.

just because someone else’s relationship doesn’t look like yours doesn’t mean it is wrong. You don’t have to put his feelings for his own mother down just because you don’t understand it.

Charles publicly said the Queen was not a good mother.

LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet · Today 09:43

He’s been promoted by force when he should be retired so I would expect him to look a bit older - however I strongly suspect he enjoys a whiskey of an evening, he has that flush about his face!

Utterly ridiculous. He could have abdicated at any time and he still can. In fact, there were many polls which showed many Royalists would have preferred William. But of course, it's not a choice for the public.

Charles is there because he very much wants to be. He has a massive personal input into manipulating the laws of the land to benefit him and his family.

I find it offensive that you feel he's working hard when people of his age are struggling to heat their homes and some are forced back into minimum wage posts. Charles is privileged beyond most people's dreams.

I don’t need to re-read anything. i think plenty would agree my position is a not an unreasonable assumption, @Wheatandchaff, as opposed to KC desperately grieving - a conclusion you have come to with no more knowledge or insight than I. 🤷‍♀️

@Kanaloa Are you constipated or something, dear?
You were very mean, I hope you feel better soon.

What wonderful and intelligent debate.

And please don’t call me ‘dear.’ Using endearments to make women look small or stupid doesn’t make you look any cleverer. It’s usually a technique used by mean to make themselves appear superior. I guess that must be an ‘empath’ thing, huh?

By men, even. Generally I don’t see women trying to put people down like that. Funny how those who insist they’re ‘empaths’ so often drop to low blows when they realise they’re wrong.

You have an very strange outlook on life. But I'm leaving you to it, you're too negative for me. If you're determined to pick a fight, well, pick one with someone else. Although I'm sure an empty room would do.

Classic empath.

I really loathe the kind of responses on this thread. “If I have it shit why shouldn’t he”. Money /= privilege and I can still feel sorry for someone who had a camera thrust in his face when mourning his mum even though he may not have problems paying the bills. It’s like people delight in his rich people in distress

I find this a bit over the top, I don’t feel sorry for him. I doubt he’s in distress but really it’s not much to do with me.

I'm well off materially. Does that mean I don't grieve for my Dad, mother and brother?

Of course not. But in the case of Charles, I do not feel overwhelmed with sympathy for him for losing his mum in her nineties when he was in his seventies. We all lose our parents... hopefully. It's the natural order of things. Of course he can grieve but nothing unusual has happened. We all go through it.

I don't feel as the OP does, but they are valid feelings to have. My sadness as far as the Royal Family goes is for the death of the Queen.

Full of the milk of human kindness🙄

Do you only ever feel sorry for people you know personally?

I don’t tend to get over involved in celebs etc, I don’t feel sorry for Charles anyway. I don’t see why I would.

But if I am moved by someone I don’t know it’ll more likely be something horrible to do with children. But even then I find it too much if I can’t help them and sometimes choose to not engage.

If it’s not someone in the media yes I can - eg a child being hit in the street that type of thing will make me feel very sorry for them (and frustrated / angry).

I don’t think having elderly parents makes the grief easier. That’s not how grief works.