Since today is also the national day of Sweden, when Gustavus Vasa declared independence from the Danes, I have decided to review the live action princess film remakes' newest counterpart culture, which is this time definitely counterpart Sweden - and fangirl a tad about it.
To sum up the real-life equivalences of other adjacent counterpart cultures in the Period Pieces of the Animated Canon (ps. IRL means In Real Life):
- Arendelle - (mid-nineteenth-century) Norway (IRL unified with Sweden)
- Southern Isles - (mid-nineteenth-century) Denmark
- Tirulia (Eric's kingdom) - (mid-nineteenth-century) unified Italy (having a Nordic prince and a multicultural royal castle staff -British butler and head maid, French chef- may have been the result of an adoption of a foreigner by a childless couple, Bernadotte style)
- Corona (Rapunzel's kingdom) - (eighteenth-century) Prussia and Northern Poland (IRL claimed by Prussia during the tripartition - "Frederick" is the standard name for Prussian male royals, the court dresses are Rococo-style...)
- Berk - (Viking-era/Medieval) Iceland (IRL Viking-era free republic, then claimed by Denmark from the late Middle Ages until the twentieth century)
- Skånland - Though Aladdin is set centuries before the Andersen-era (or Biedermeier-era) of the Andersen adaptations, we could try making a crossover timeline that also encompasses Eric's, Rapunzel's, and the Frozen sisters' origins as well as some more events. Adding Skånland to the table definitely leads to a lot of possibilities... <3
Upon watching the film and reading its novelisation, I have realised that this counterpart culture has far more of counterpart Sweden than Ondalina and Galagard put together. To be more precise,
Skånland is Golden-Age Sweden by another name... For starters, there's the name of this nation-state: Skåne (ie Scania) + land. Now Scania belonged to Denmark until the Treaty of Roskilde and some wars at the height of the Golden Age (halfway between Lützen and Poltava).
The friendly and handsome, though eccentric and arrogant Prince Anders of Skånland; though "Anders" was a peasant name in that era (stormaktstid-Golden Age), and his attire looks pretty Slavic (suggesting more a counterpart culture like Kievan Rus), the novelisation in particular gives me all the stormaktstid vibes...
So all we know from this counterpart culture in the film is gleaned from books as well as this prince and his boat and cannon in a foreign context. Oui, you heard it right,
cannon. Skånland has firepower, for starters. And what would the Swedish Baltic Empire be without any cannons?
The first things we get to know about Skånland is
that the word for yes is "ja" and of their shipbuilding technology: according to Anders himself, who sails himself in his own luxurious flagship made in that way ("luxurious?" like with an overly ornate transom astern?), their boats have such a good design that one nearly does not notice the waves. "It's like walking on a cloud or something like that..." Now I have been
to the Vasa Museum (which I warmly recommend - Gustavus Adolphus' flagship perfectly preserved as the largest museum object at least in Europe - I don't recall if on Earth as a whole - and all the historical context you need!) and seen
how large royal and military shipyards were (basically, complexes or compounds on the shores of Lake Mälaren that enclosed, within the palisade, villages of shipwrights and artists as well as all the vital space needed for making their crafts), as well as the fact that
oakwood was reserved for shipbuilding and protected by the Crown for that use (no peasant woodsman was allowed to fell an oak and get away with murdering the navy - the punishment being 40 crowns for first time, 80 for the second, and execution for the third time one had at least hurt an oak!; the same interdiction also encompassed the Church and bourgeoisie - but in time the restrictions loosened only to allow felling oaks only for the Crown and for the nobility, for furniture I presume!). So shipbuilding was obviously key to cross the Baltic and North Seas and thus being able to both wage war and carry out trade abroad. Ditto for Skånland, in fact! (Actually, the three-master that the Genie-Simbad, Dahlia, and family see, at the start of the film, from their modest yawl reminded me a lot of the Vasa herself; though we never got to see the flag of Skånland on any masts, it's an impressive craft with an overly ornate baroque transom as gilt and colourful and as a peacock's tail -brightly-coloured sails, sides glistening in the sun as if newly-painted, a crew wearing unsullied uniforms, and elaborate ornate carvings covering all the masts and balustrades, but the transom is what catches most eyes!- while, in real life, though all the paint and gold leaf have fallen off the Vasa while she was underwater for centuries, artists have reconstructed what she, and especially her jewel of a transom, was like! See the picture of the Vasa above!)
The next facts, when we get to see his face in the novel, are from a non-fiction book of statescraft describing Skånland as a country simple and small, that has the colours of the earth/soil/land, and with evergreen forests and snow to abound. Its hard-working people content themselves with small pleasures and equally small homes without luxuries, and they prefer to live off the land and enjoy its natural beauty, drinking it all in. But the formal attire of the appreciative-looking Prince Anders (of whom a national saying says "Why has no one spoken to me about his beauty?"), made of evidently sumptuous fabrics (various brightly coloured fabrics and otterskin), call to mind that the royal family does not lead precisely an austere life. In fact, the word about is that the King of Skånland lets his people suffer hardships in order to earn their daily bread, while the court enjoys a decadent life of excesses. Opulent palaces, enormous banquets to celebrate any special day, no matter how paltry the occasion, and a queen who enjoys jewels no matter their shape, size, or colour.
This was basically what life was like for the peasant majority and the courtly minority during the stormaktstid (especially after the Peace of Westphalia, decades post-Lützen, when the return of peace to Europe and the military victories of the 30YW led to a courtly decadence -by coming into contact with French-style Versaillesque culture- that had never been seen before in Northern latitudes).
Seen from up close, Anders himself is described as having ghostly pale skin, lifeless matted straw-blond hair, and a sense of entitlement that makes him believe he has the right to everything (see the photo on top!).
The vibes he gives me are those of either young Gustavus Adolphus (not only is he blond and blue-eyed and extroverted; his formal attire looks even
eerily similar to the wedding suit, above, which the Hero of Lützen wore as a bridegroom! Isn't there a similarity in both blond and blue-eyed Nordic royals in violet satin brocade, though Gustavus Adolphus wore, of course, a Shakespearean-looking doublet with puffy breeches to match!) or a blond, more slender Charles X. Of course the latter was dark-haired and already plump in his adolescence, but a lifetime of excesses in warfare and strong drink led to the pneumonia that took his life at the Province Governor's in Gothenburg (and oui, I've been there, and seen the tomb-plaque on the corner of that half-townhouse half-palace where he breathed his last). Moreover, of course Charles X came of age and was crowned three or four decades post-Lützen, when the return of peace to Europe and the military victories of the 30YW led to a courtly decadence -by coming into contact with French-style Versaillesque culture- that had never been seen before in Northern latitudes.
A final piece of Skånland we get is the cannon that the prince offers himself as a diplomatic gift. The story describes it as an enormous cannon whose black surface shimmers in the (Mediterranean) sun, accompanied by Anders' comment as he proudly points at the piece: "In Skånland, everything we do is like this, very elegant and... (then he was interrupted)" Looks exactly like black iron to me - one of those Swedish twelve-pounders, made by Protestant Wallonian steelworkers in steel mills (the size of that era's shipyards) whose masters would rise to nobility - that blew more than just enemy eardrums up throughout that near-century that lasted from Breitenfeld to Poltava. Seen them on warships, fortresses, and even palaces (for instance Läckö slott, of the de la Gardies, where the pic above was taken!). Firepower was, along with shipbuilding, one of the two pillars of Swedish technology that allowed for the rise of a great Baltic power - Mother Nature, or Mother Svea (Sweden personified) had given them (and still gives them) the wood and the ore; putting those resources to good use, and even harbouring persecuted strangers who supplied more advanced technologies, yielded fruit thousandfold (until a stripling leader decided to venture into the den of the Russian bear and wake it up -you know the rest: Полтава, down with the Vasas, up with the Romanovs!- A petty fortress, a dubious hand, and the crisis of defeat). When said cannon is fired, it sends the Skånlandish gunners who began to move the cannon and loaded it and lit the match (all the while Anders sat on a chair and shouted the corresponding commands)... it sends the gunners flying backwards, and fills the air with thick bluish smoke. When at last it has cleared, and the show is praised as impressive, the northern prince replies, nodding with pride: "Ja, this is a very good design."
The cannon shot, however, strikes the main mast of Anders' own warship; a flag with the symbol of Skånland (described only as such in the novels: no details describing the flag itself) is waving from the side of the flagship that is not burning.
One last remark may be made considering the Skånlanders as warmongers who prefer to fight on foreign shores (and, since the sultanate of Agrabah is counterpart Ottoman with all these Istanbul vibes, maybe Anders is also making a nod to Charles XII sans post-defeat crisis?).
When Jasmine, his intended fiancée, tells him that the gift impresses her not as much as the feeling behind it, Anders, his ego slightly deflated by this riposte, stutters and turns red as a beetroot: "W-well... this is... is... is... a sy-symbol of our..." his voice losing intensity as he keeps on looking for the right words.
"Desire for war?" she finishes his sentence.
"N-no... no..." the prince protests; his face turning a surprising shade of red, hard to say if due to awkwardness or indignation.
When he also hears that his fiancée loves to read and is well-schooled in statescraft, literature, philosophy, and the natural sciences... Anders nods and replies "A charming pastime" with a tone of paternalism.
Surely there is some innuendo, if Skånland has had a counterpart Christina Vasa!
