Best advice for Harry going forward?

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I have all the same initial reactions as many others on MN regarding Harry i.e. whiner, grifter, stupid, entitled etc and it's easy to dole out the criticism.

However while I wouldn't say I have sympathy for him, as so much of his situation is of his own making, I actually do have some underlying feelings of concern for him and his future (and children).

He reminds me an awful lot of a relative of mine who is neurodiverse with a mild learning disability and a tendency to be self-absorbed with an overdeveloped victim complex - always lashing out, blaming others, seeing conspiracy where there is none etc.

Harry is clearly a damaged man, with childhood trauma and issues which continue to plague his mental health.
As with my relative, he has grown up with a support network which has probably quietly managed and enabled his passage through life, but when big outbursts happen (as have happened in our family too) everyone backs off and 'grey rocks' him until he has calmed down. Some people just give up, too exhausted by the constant drama of it all.

I don't think Meghan's a cult leader. I think there is a certain type of person who loves to collect and then dominate weaker acolytes, and abuse the power they have over them for their own ends.

They're called narcissists in common parlance although I'm not sure that that term fully covers the personality type.

Such people are well suited to become cult leaders, or leaders of political or extreme theocratic sects, or go into high finance. Or showbusiness.

Oh, I don't think MM is the cult leader. I think it's Oprah!

I see...

Besotted? What is it they say about the Greeks differentiating between different forms of love and ascribing different names for them? One of them is apparently more akin to addiction and burns fast and hot but then petters out...it can be destructive.

This going way back to school. We had an English teacher who loved classical roots of language.

I'll have to look it up to remind myself. I think it's Eros, but nobody quote me.

In any case it's still very odd that he could be so overcome that he had a total personality schism to this degree. Saying that about Katherine knowing it would be forever out there for the public and his nieces and nephews to hear about is truly mean. It's also not something you can ever row back on or apologise for. It's a burning bridge statement, so his attempts to be back in the fold as it were, since then are odd. But perhaps he didn't understand that at the time he wrote it and ok'd it for publication? He seems naive or is he ill? It is a bit of mystery to me.

There's something missing here. Harry was a nice person before. It's hard to understand a 360 degree turn like that.

Was Harry a nice person before? There are plenty of documented incidences and rumours that would indicate was not. Or did the Palace have great PR, and did he enjoy the reflected glow of being part of the "Fab 3" with William and Catherine?

I think there was snobbery because she was an actress, but I also think Kate simply had her number as a bit of a charlatan. We also have to bear in mind that William via the 'men in grey' will be aware of things in Meghan's past which may have made him suspicious; it was apparently after he received their report (which is done on all outsiders entering the RF of course) that he had the ill-fated conversation with Harry in which he implored him to 'slow down' because 'how much do you really know about this girl'

Another insightful comment, @GiveMeSpanakopita, especially around the in depth information the RF will certainly have and which the rest of us lack

Though Harry would doubtless present such investigations as an attack on his wife, they will - as you rightly say - be done on everyone joining the family, and frankly they'd be mad not to in light of the careful curation of their image

And whether any such information is ever divulged remains to be seen

Agree with above. If M was ‘genuine’ then she’d have won Kate & others over in time. They realised the grift & insincerity. You’re also right in that Kate is sophisticated enough to understand & recognise cross cultural & international social fit. She’s classy, in true sense of word NB: bridesmaidsdressgate. The flowers were NOT a tacit admission of wrong doing but a person of integrity being the bigger ‘man’ & smoothing things over. Diplomacy & class. How I’d have been privately livid with the ‘she owned it’ by M re: Oprah.

I do sense a slight social insecurity from Kate, despite above. Carole tried very hard to fit I hear at Marlborough poss overdoing ‘perfection’ at times. Decent people won’t care a jot but Wills’ set, or some of them, spot slight social differences & gun for some that don’t 100 per cent fit. Privately some of set talk about the Fking peasants called Gary etc & mock. As unfort I’ve witnessed. There’s more to mock re: Thomas M etc & it’s a bit of a ‘phew, out of crosshairs’ I think I saw re: Kate. Minor though & K has immunity you could argue via marriage to William.

Here you tgo, @GreenApplesRedApplesYellowApples
https://www.dictionary.com/e/greek-words-for-love/

Eros is pretty good, but I can't help thinking mania (in its original meaning) might be closer

FWIW, a lot of self-help/therapy social circles in SoCal do have a culty vibe. I don't know whether it's the weather or the history of the culture, but it's sort of aspects of 12 Step Programmes (HUGE in Cali), leftover 1960s hippydom, and some sort of weird self-actualisation/self-adoration vibe. It can come off as a bit culty. Celebs love it because it places the self as the highest entity of adoration.

And Harry's been a, shall we say, very troubled and erratic man since his teens. He was well PR'd. If the Palace calls the editor of The Sun and says such and such story should NOT run, but let's negotiate and give you an exclusive on Harry visiting a drug rehab centre instead, you can bet your bottom dollar that the editor will and always has complied.

That's why Harry's crusade against the 'men in grey' and the 'evil tabloids' is so staggeringly stupid and un self aware. The men in grey and the tabs conspired for LITERALLY DECADES to make you look like a nice bloke, son!

I think Harry thinks he could get that air cover back if his IPP status was fully restored. He can't say that, though, so instead he waffles on about 'securiddy'. (I can't be the only one who's noticed how he always pronounces 'security' with a West Coast accent these days.)

fwiw I don't think Meghan's done anything that your average struggling actor starting out has probably done. Wild parties, a few lines, a few professionally strategic carnal relations, no judgement on any of it, that's showbusiness, honey. Some personality types can hack it, others can't and that's just the way it is.

No judgement.

But what's morally neutral and unremarkable in normie land, isn't in the RF. Which is why, before the current generation, the wife to be of the heir had preferably to be a sheltered virgin. Not saying it's right or wrong, I don't care, I'm not a moral arbiter of anything. Just saying that I'm not surprised that Meghan was distrusted by the RF because of her career in showbiz. Showbiz and royalty are two very, very different beasts. And, as it's turned out, they don't mix together terribly well.

But what's morally neutral and unremarkable in normie land, isn't in the RF

Precisely, @GiveMeSpanakopita, and this would amply explain William's reported caution

We don't have to agree with what pass for the RF's morals to appreciate that's what they are, and that they're not going to change overnight - and certainly not at the behest of people like both H&M, who've shown themselves to have neither integrity nor any grasp on the truth

Yep her contrived and performative 'damsel in distress' routine (in the trenches 🙄6 months in!!) triggered his latent, unconscious 'knight in shining armour' ego / archetype (😂) to come charging in and slay anyone and everything as per her whims.

A cliched coupling and a story as old as time which many of us saw playing out from the start.

Ah yes @Puzzledandpissedoff thank you. Appreciate the link. That is a brilliant synopsis! And yes I agree Mania is a more apt description of the addictive, unstable, destructive love.

mania
Original Greek: μανία (manía)
Mania is obsessive love. Mania is the kind of “love” that a stalker feels toward their victim.
As a type of love, mania is not good, and the Greeks knew this as well as we do. Mania is excessive love that reaches the point of obsession or madness. Mania describes what a jilted lover feels when they are extremely jealous of a rival or the unhealthy obsession that can result from mental illness.
The Greek mania is the source of the English word mania and similar words like maniac and manic. It is also the source of the combining form -mania, which is often used in words that refer to obsessive behavior such as pyromania and egomania.

Nice to refresh one's memory of these things!

"Brilliantly observed. The kind of women whose alpha status means they want less attractive - as they see it - gushers to fawn socially on sidelines. Vibes in recent Jamie K Lima podcast.
The superior star & then other, lesser, females can only bask in glory. All very ‘fat friend’ & Regina George."

Just like Amanda and Anne in Motherland

Very much like Amanda and Anne, in that the latter had a stellar education and career versus the former's dropping out of school with no GCSEs and relied on looks and charm to get by. But all the time putting her successful, if unsophisticated, friend down constantly. JKL was a former news anchor, beauty queen and Baywatch star, and developed a billion dollar company really from scratch (not big, unearned leg ups via a royal connection like Meghan) and through sheer tenacity. I imagine all that means nothing to MM and her perception of herself as the fairest of them all, and inherently superior due to her title.

"Though Harry would doubtless present such investigations as an attack on his wife,"

or "an establishment stitch-up"

And I know (and have known) quite a few examples of this. Talking about it inevitable involves saying what can sound like unkind and judgmental things about women, but yes, I've known a few friendship groups where an obviously glamorous,pretty 'alpha' woman picks as her special friend someone who she clearly perceives as frumpy and less confident than herself. This friend is flattered and loyally sticks up for the (I want to say 'narcissist') despite being treated like a doormat. Such a person very carefully avoids the stronger, more confident group members who wouldn't stand for her nonsense, buy into her self-regarding image or be bothered one way or the other about having a friendship with her.

Sad but true!

I think we have all met the Amanda and Anne scenario. I certainly have, more than once.

So true!

This was a really interesting listen and quite a forensic retrospective overview. There is such a digital footprint and aligned timeline that MM's (and surprisingly Eugenie's and Beatrice's) fingerprints are all over it.

There is also another clanger where Scobie (?) refers snearingly to Catherine as 'Katy Keen' - who is a character in the 'Archie' comics which MM is public about being obsessed with as a child. The Q is how would OS know this specfic US ref if he was brought up in the UK - from the sniping of MM is my guess?

There's also a famous video of a formal occasion where the late Queen was supposed to enter a state-room first to view some commemorative medal -not sure of the detail - followed by the then PoW and Camilla and then by William and Catherine. But Meghan (who must surely have been briefed beforehand??) and Harry rush ahead and have to be specifically asked by Charles to stay back until the above people have entered in order. Despite his clear request, they still push in in front of W and C.

It's ridiculous.They were SO embarrassing. God knows what Charles and the late Queen thought.

I mean - you might say it's all a lot of Ruritanian nonsense (I don't) but even so, if you buy into the RF and want the perks, including the dress allowance etc, then you have to swallow this kind of thing.

I know that video! 😬

I would advise him to stop talking. Stop creating any content or doing any interviews. Do not speak in public or write anything in public ever again. Never ever speak to any press. We’ve heard enough.

Change your looks- dye your hair and get a tan. Buy some sunnies and a hat. Change your clothing style to “boring”. Go about your business as discreetly as possible.

Change where you live to somewhere quiet with a large, manned perimeter to escape the press. Move to a country with amazing privacy laws eg Dubai, so the press cannot legally pester you.

Invest the money you have and tailor your life to that. Seek excellent financial advice, knowing you won’t really have the ability to earn additional money.

Get intensive therapy and work out why you act the victim when you’re one of the most privileged men to have ever lived.

Enjoy your children. Enjoy nature. Get a dog! Study for an online degree. Enjoy quiet hobbies like reading, painting etc.

In a couple of years, write to your family a full and frank private apology for every wrong doing. Admit you have behaved terribly and you’d like to reform your relationship but you’ll leave it with them to contact you if they would like that too.

Walking according to hierarchial protocol in order to get a free wardrobe of designer clothing that you don't ever have to wear twice if you don't want to, sounds worth it to me.

The thing is, it's not that unusual a practice. As a junior member of staff you wouldn't push past the CEO of the company to shake hands with a client. You stand back and watch and wait.

Indeed!
and it’s also good manners that you don’t push in front of your elderly grandmother! or your father for that matter.