Omid Scobie Endgame PART 4

[Mymilkshakebringsallthepapstomycar]

Continuing an enjoyable and civilised discussion of Endgame, and all things relating to its contents.

Previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/4954329-omid-scobie-endgame-part-3?page=1

I really have to wonder, who buys any of that?!

What’s your take on why Endgame is doing so poorly vs how Spare sold?

Why don't you discuss it on the thread with us, rather than talk about it here on an unrelated thread? Maybe you'd find out what peoples issues with it actually are?

Oh Hai! Welcome!

I feel very sorry for the children being raised by these two

What a revolting thing to say.

All this horrible talk about their children while posters here say how pleasant these threads are really betrays the intentions of the posters participating in what is now the 5th thread supposedly about a gossip book but clearly all they are, are threads trashing Meghan and Harry about the same things over and over. Funny that the reason given for not ever wanting to discuss Prince Andrew is everyone agrees so what's the point! well 5 threads on all agreeing Meghan and Harry are the worst people in the world without much pushback hasn't stopped the conversation! So thats not the reason Andrew doesn't have threads dedicated to him, is it.

If posters were to start discussing the Wales' children in similar ways, they would be piled on. Indeed Omid Scobie has been criticised a lot on this board for tweeting about Louie. So I suggest you all stop discussing Archie and Lili in this way, pretending to feel concerned when all you're doing is weaponising their own children in your vendetta against them. Its horrible, particularly on a parenting site.

And I thought we'd done well having these threads without a sugar rush.....

Very simply, Spare was from the horse's mouth, and contained quite an unprecedented and astonishing amount of oversharing from a senior royal. It was at a time when H&M's stock was still relatively high. It's plummeted considerably since this time last year - as soon as the post-Spare piss taking started, catastrophic car chase exposed as rubbish (and a rather cruel sort of self publicity to indulge in), dropped from Spotify, court case after court case etc, they started looking like a busted flush with nothing new to offer.

Endgame is recycled gossip and opinion from someone whose opinions aren't particularly sought out or respected, and who comes across a an immature little boy blaming everyone else for his mistakes and gaslighting through word salad and sophistry. The only potentially juicy bit was leaked in advance through the Dutch volume. I don't think many people are particularly interested - not enough to spend £22.

It's only the 4th thread. The clue is in the title.

Agree, it was all said in spare, you’d have to be a bit daft to pay to read it again, it’s just the same shit. Plus who are they to decide the British monarchy is over.

What’s your take on why Endgame is doing so poorly vs how Spare sold?

I think a lot of people (not me) wanted to hear what Harry had to say. There's a lot of interest in the RF and what it's really like to live that life and he's the first one of his generation to spill the beans, so there's an audience for that.

As for Endgame, 1) I think people are sick of Meghan and Harry and all their whining and moaning and Omid Scobie has positioned himself as their mouthpiece (see Finding Freedom); 2) apart from naming the so-called racists (Dutch edition only), he doesn't seem to have told anyone anything they didn't already know; and 3) the book has had terrible reviews.

Pretty much.

Harry has been famous since quite literally the day he was born. Lots of people were interested in 'his truth', especially as it's so rare for royals to write 'tell alls'.

Scobie, however, is a 5th rate hack and we've heard it all before. Finding Freedom did OK but that was 3 years ago when the Sussexes were still 'fresh'. Since then we've had Oprah, the Netflix 'documentary', Spare and much else. They're old news now.

It's a sign of bad this book must be when it can't sell even in the Christmas run-up.

It's one thing being ordered off a thread on this board, but it's another to be ordered on to one! Discussion of William's activities (on homelessness or anything else) as Prince of Wales is directly relevant to this thread on Endgame, since much of the book is devoted to William and his suitability to be king.

Well, would YOU like to find it in your stocking on Christmas morning?

I know I wouldn't.

I think the quality of writing plays into this, too. J. R. Moehringer was a great choice. I believe Scobie is very articulate in person and have heard he can write well, but the excerpts of have seen are not easy to read.

It would be a great Secret Santa for someone you really dislike at work.

You couldn't pay me enough to read more of that badly written tripe than is in the publisher's free sample of Endgame. Dear lord. Things are 'haunting' and 'stunning', ticked off a list of adjectives. The crap history of the bagpipes and some name dropping seems to have emerged through the Mail Online and Chat GPT ... 'please make it stop' is the emotion it invoked in me.

The tone and style is ponderous, grandiose and yet quite juvenile. Style aside, the content is derivative, hackneyed, available all over the internet and, published excerpts reveal, offensively misogynistic.

So no, not worth someone's £22, in my personal view.

I've just been ordered not to respond to a comment about this book on the thread that is all about media's relationship with Royals.

He can write well? No evidence of that that I've seen.

An example of Scobie's sophisticated, erudite prose.

As the morning sun rises over Santa Barbara, bathing the steep Santa Ynez Mountains, and the Pacific Ocean sparkles with California’s trademark glow, the sprawling Sussex compound in the wealthy enclave of Montecito is already popping. With Meghan already preparing a family breakfast in the kitchen, Prince Harry is busy getting the couple’s children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, ready for nursery school and toddler playgroup, respectively.

That's the type of thing you might expect from a 14 year old at a Creative Writing workshop.

I have a long list of books I'd like to find in my stocking. Endgame doesn't even make the list, and anyone giving it to me would be an ex-friend so fast you'd see burn marks on the carpet.

Did anyone watch the review someone posted up thread from sky australia, they completely slam it, however they feel it is harry and Megan’s book, more specifically Megan, which I had thought anyway as the racist comment was her version of the story not Harry’s.

I was appalled at some of the stuff that they said he wrote, for example she was basically princess Diana, with all her strength and philathropy.

their view is it is poorly written garbage. Said they took one for the team and read it so no one else had to.

id be ashamed if any one I knew spunked money on it.

Icedpurple 😂😂what a load of tripe he was composing there.

If anyone is looking for an evil idea - there it is

There were also several factual errors. Such as claiming that King George lll abdicated. So much for an expert on the British monarchy.

Endgame is trying to pretend to be a serious analysis of the monarchy and its future. That might be an interesting book, but a former Heat magazine hack like Scobie simply isn't qualified to write such a book. So basically it's just rehashed 'grievances' and snide allegations. No wonder it flopped.

That excerpt deserves its own David Tennant voiceover à la Twenty Twelve and W1A.

If any of my classmates or me had written something like that in our English lessons, the marks would not have been very good at all. At least in the last two years of learning English as a foreign language.