It is the follow-up that is always the struggle. And this is the primary task, the fundamental role facing King Charles III. At 73, he is the king of old age, not so much a reflection of the future as a reminder of all the work that needs to be done in the here and now. His very presence is a complicating factor throughout the story and the turmoil and empire-building he symbolizes. He is the white male heir in a time when white male privilege at all levels was intense it is under dispute. It is the epitome of everything inherited. It is a distillation of our modern grievances. The monarch was buried next to Prince Philip in Windsor That’s not what people need to see. However, if he is to live up to his duty, he must be seen. After all. Charles follows a sovereign who reigned for 70 years, one of the most famous women in the world, confidant of a long procession of prime ministers and often the only woman with a voice in a room full of male leaders. Maybe she didn’t say enough or do enough in her life. But still, it was there. She was widely admired for stepping up to a task for which she was poorly prepared. And hold on. When she was a vacationer, President Biden said she reminded him of his mother. More than a few of her subjects considered her the grandmother of the country. These characterizations, perhaps, say more about our relationship to distinguished older women—and our need to distill them down to a warm and fuzzy stereotype—than about her maternal nature. Lawmakers pledged their allegiance to King Charles III, who was proclaimed the new monarch on 10 September. The occasion was marked by gun salutes and trumpets. (Video: Alexa Juliana Ard/The Washington Post) Popular culture, from “The Crown” to “The Queen,” has built her into a flawed but determined figure. A woman who grew both in her role and in her symbolism. If princes and princesses are the stardust of fairy tales, queens are the heroines. On social media, the label is applied to any woman at the top of her game or one who has overcome obstacles. She was awarded a series of fire emojis instead of a crown. But what is a king? What is This King? Charles is often a grandfather, but rarely is grandfatherhood considered the defining or most memorable characteristic of a man. He is not the unlikely hero of a fairy tale or the example of someone who has won a hard-won professional victory. He hasn’t challenged any stereotypes or gone where no one has gone before. He’s had a lifetime to prepare for a given role so there’s no reason to admire his preparedness, only to be disappointed by any setbacks. What we saw on Monday was a man walking solemnly in his ceremonial dress behind the Queen’s coffin. He looked pale and burdened, either from grief, or from the life of duty he had committed himself to, or from the simple physical challenge of getting through the day. Perhaps, his pained expression reflected all these things. The television cameras always found him in the crowd, but the eye did not naturally fall on him. It was easy to miss among the men in their bright red uniforms and gold braid. these Royal Navy servicemen and their precise choreography. Charles was dwarfed by his towering sons, the Prince of Wales in uniform and Prince Harry in a morning suit. And even Princess Anne, walking soberly with her brothers—back straight and eyes forward, her slender frame draped in her own polished uniform—looked older. Gray-haired Charles, his eyes hollow and his mouth in a flat, narrow line, did not add to the grandeur of the day so much as seem deflated by it. His millennial children are the stars of the current royal soap opera, which is obsessed with the siblings analyzing every interaction to see if they’re really talking or just putting on a pantomime of brotherly cordiality, which makes them worry about Prince Harry’s second place row at Westminster Abbey. All royal fans can finally breathe a sigh of relief that Charles and Camilla, the Queen’s consort, have made peace with their public. They seem like a nice old couple. Supports victims of domestic abuse. He is an environmentalist. However, without the gossip lights, the King falls into soft focus. But maybe this near-invisibility is for the best, at least for now. In the current age, Charles represents those who are now called upon to listen more than they speak, to step out of the limelight so that others may get some attention. Victims do not want to be told that mistakes were made or that the past was sad. They want accountability, but if that doesn’t happen, then a first-person apology would be at least a start. They want to be seen for who they are and what their ancestors could have been if they had been fully seen. After a lifetime of vivid symbolism, Queen Elizabeth II has turned grey The new king is the embodiment of so many traditions and injustices that Western civilization struggles to come to terms with—stolen land, stolen wealth, stolen labor, stolen hope—and among them is the concept of inevitability. Charles stands as the bridge for generations and generations of the inevitable — right down to 9-year-old Prince George, the one-time king with blond hair and boisterous energy. If the Queen has been praised for comforting her subjects with consistency, Charles comes to the throne at a time when the greatest gift to some people may be inconsistency, uncertainty and ultimately possibility. The questions facing civilization are vast and impossible for a single person to address. He may be a king, but he is not a god. However, they land at Charles’ feet. It is his to examine them. The Queen is quoted as saying: “We have to be seen to be believed.” This may well be accurate. But it is a truth not limited to the monarchy.
