After watching the fourth season of The Crown, I felt there were several parallels between Princess Margaret and Princess Di. However, I feel that their one key difference is what makes their stories so interesting:
I read so many reviews after season four came out that I can’t really remember where this comparison came from, but one reviewer pointed out that Margaret’s relationship to her position and family was almost like Stockholm syndrome. So much of the unhappiness in her life can be traced back to them, but, both in the show and real life, these troubles only made her cling tighter. Margaret could have been Diana, she could have married Peter Townsend and left it all behind, transformed into the royal rebel Diana became, but she couldn’t find it in herself to abandon the titles, the privilege, etcetera.
On the other hand, Diana breaks out of the trance, abandons her hope that one day she’ll wake up and be loved by Charles and accepted by her in-laws. The final shot of season four can be interpreted as portraying Diana as a broken woman, but I think it says the opposite. In her face we see a steely resolve form. It’s time for her to break away, it’s time for her to rebel. She’s going to burn the place down. She’s ready to take the step Margaret was always afraid to.
Never is Margaret’s stockholm syndrome-like attachment to her royal life exemplified more than in her opinion of Diana and Sarah Ferguson after they broke away. She resented them not because they had taken the step she never had, but because she felt they had brought shame to the BRF. She was so stuck in her miserable, poisoned existence as the queen’s sister that she completely forgot that she could have been those women, if only she had worked up the courage.
