Hillerska - Tumblr Posts

I think Young Royals got the Fancy Boarding School trope right when so, so many other stories have gotten it wrong. The rich kids aren’t evil, they’re privileged. Some of them kind of suck, and some of them are very nice. The poor kids aren’t innocent orphans who are always the victim, they’re disadvantaged. Some of their choices are good, and some are bad. The kids may do things that really hurt each other, but at the end of the day none of the kids is the villain– they’re just kids in very different difficult situations. The situation– the class system that pressures the aristocratic children to be perfect and grow up too soon and pressures the poor children to conform and backstab to succeed–is the villain. 

That’s the fucking point of the Fancy Boarding School story. The rich kids aren’t all bad. The poor kids aren’t all good. The teachers aren’t all out to ruin the students’ lives. The class system is the bad guy.