#yes though he’s a salmon elephant

[third-king-of-salmonids]

you sound like an elephant /pos

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS CAN I EAT IT?

[raincitygirl76]

We need to talk about the Bambi situation. Specifically, Wilhelm shooting Bambi. It was raised recently in a different post that Wilhelm has no apparent hobbies, hence fic writers latching onto the frog stuff. But I suspect there are hobbies.

We see from the shooting range scenes that Wilhelm knows how to handle a gun. He’s not especially brillant at clay pigeon shooting, but he’s clearly not a beginner, either. And in 2.06, he threatens August with the shotgun, but keeps his finger BEHIND the trigger at all times. The only time his finger is on the trigger is when he fires into the air.

I suspect the Swedish upper classes like to hunt, shoot, and fish just like the British upper classes. And someone, maybe Erik, Ludvig, or a gamekeeper, drilled into Wilhelm as a child how to handle a gun without accidentally shooting anyone with it.

As far as I know (although I don’t know much about it), fox hunting is an exclusively British pastime. Or was, since I think it’s banned now. But all other types of “country sports” seem to be mostly Europe wide. There’s lots of forest in Sweden: I suspect salmon fishing, game bird shooting, and deer stalking are probably big things for people who can afford it. I don’t mind about the salmon or the game birds, but I cringe at the thought of poor Bambi. I suspect Wilhelm was not brought up to cringe at poor Bambi, though.

A quick google search confirmed that yes, the real life Swedish royal family shoot deer.

And there are lots of other animals you can legally hunt in Sweden. Including moose, which are enormous.

Pulling back to the macro-European level, in 2012 there was a huge fuss when King Juan Carlos of Spain (since abdicated in favour of his son, partly because of this scandal) broke his hip while secretly on an elephant hunting safari in Botswana. Not a photo safari, a safari where the elephants die. Massive ructions, since nobody knew where he was, and it looked really bad when Spain’s economy was still reeling from the worldwide financial collapse of 2008.

It had already been known than Juan Carlos liked to fish, hunt, and shoot. And ordinary Spaniards were generally OK with that. They were significantly less OK with their king shooting an adorable endangered species while on a lavish top-secret trip to another continent.

Because evidently the Spanish royal family or their courtiers realized the king couldn’t be perceived as massacring elephants for fun. But rather than saying, “No, your majesty, it’s bad PR to go to Botswana and shoot Babar,” they apparently said instead, “Your maiesty, please don’t get CAUGHT shooting Babar.”

But when he broke his hip and had to be airlifted out, the secret stopped being a secret and became a scandal. Shades of Kristina of Sweden there. “Do whatever stupid shit you want, just don’t ever get caught by anyone who hasn’t already signed an NDA.”

I sincerely hope Wilhelm wouldn’t want to shoot Babar. I’m already cringing at the idea of him shooting Bambi. It’s only the longstanding connection of the upper classes with blood sports that forces me to realize it’s a distinct possibility.

I don’t much like the large land mammal idea myself. I have much less emotional attachment to pheasants and geese, so will make it my personal headcanon that Wilhelm is accustomed to shooting clay pigeons and game birds. But his nanny let him watch Bambi at a formative age.

Whenever Wilhelm was subsequently taken deer-stalking as a slightly older child, he devolved into hysterics at the idea of ANYBODY shooting the poor deer. And eventually his family gave up trying to toughen him up on the subject. Especially because him making a ruckus kept scaring off the damn deer and ruining their sport. That’s my headcanon, and I’m sticking to it. It’s probably false, but I’m happy with it.

I don’t have a problem with hunting provided it’s not an endangered species, the rules are followed, and it’s not just trophy-hunting. If the meat gets eaten, then it’s useful. If don’t want to hunt myself, but I’m not against it.

But I watched Bambi at a formative age, and the thought of a character I love getting Bambi in his sights, pulling the trigger, and killing Bambi makes me freak out. Even though I realize my headcanon about Wilhelm being too squeamish to shoot Bambi is most likely bullshit, and he probably has killed deer.

Edited to add:

@sflow-er confirms in replies that hunting is a very big thing in the Nordics. Although it’s not just an upper class thing, plenty of working class people hunt too. They just probably don’t hire an expert tracker (like the one in the People article who gets paid to help the real Swedish royal family hunt deer). Note also that in Marcus’s Instagram feed, it shows he hunts.

Consistent with Canada. Plenty of working class Canadians hunt. Mostly (but not all) people who either live in rural areas now or grew up in rural areas. But Canada also has the very expensive guided hunting expeditions available for people with more money than sense. Which sounds like the guy in the first article linked above, who has been leading the real Swedish royal family on guided hunts for 30 years.