Why GwenDerick is the key to solving the Prez/Whitney Problem:
[This was partially inspired by @the-queen-of-ships post on how Whitney and Gwen are surprisingly similar, here. It really got my brain cogs turning.
Oh and lots of spoilers (up until ep.129). READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.]
Okay, buckle up folks, this is going to be a long one.
There are a lot, and I mean a lot of parallels between these two pairings, enough so that it’s almost impossible to just write them off as narrative accidents. And I’m not talking about the really superficial ones, like the one sided arranged marriage thing or how Frederick and Whitney come from really competitive families, as opposed to the largely supportive ones of Gwen and Calpernia— no.
I’m talking about shattering Perceptions.
Throughout the series we see multiple examples of how people’s perceptions of themselves change after being exposed to certain situations, none more obvious than Gwendolyn, of course, whose whole world turns upside down when she accidentally overhears her fiancé calling her ugly.
This one comment knots itself into a ball of unresolved feelings which eventually spirals down, down, down and manifests into a vision of a broken reflection that Gwen sees every time she looks in the mirror.
While Gwen’s is the most direct translation of the metaphor, i.e. Frederick Literally Shattered The Version of Herself She’d Known Until Now, it’s not the only time we can see it happening in the series.
Far from it, in fact— it’s a frequent theme for almost every main character.
Frederick’s Perception of himself changes when he actively tries to win over Gwen after witnessing her Kindness; not only rebelling against his overbearing father, but also relying on his brothers’ help for the first time in his life.
Blaine’s Perception of himself changes when his Father compares him to Frederick, to the point where the man almost had a villain arc (damn).
Aurelia’s Perception of herself changes when Gwen returns her necklace, that she went out of her way to mend, even though Aurelia almost got her banished from the club.
And it’s not just them either. All three of Gwen’s siblings, Maria, Lorena and Jamie all have their individual perceptions shattered, wether it be through loss of Ego, Ideals, or gain of an Expectation placed on them.
For example, Maria gets knocked down a significant amount of pegs when she confesses her troubles to Lieutenant Dandridge, who subsequently calls her a pig for her (admittedly) selfish behaviour.
Lorena’s Perception of herself changes when she asks Suzanna for advice and feels hopelessly underprepared for the very real consequences that come with sticking to her ideals of Offense before Defense.
Even Jamie panics when he realises that his Father expects him to run their military one day, when he doesn’t have a fighting bone in his body!
Sometimes the shattering of perceptions can be positive as well as negative; temporary as well as long-lasting. The point is that it changes the way that character thinks about themselves or the world around them, up until that point.
Now applying that same logic in Prez’s and Whitney’s story, it’s pretty easy to see how all the pieces start coming together. But for these two it’s a tiny bit different from the others because it happens not just once, but twice, in the course of this comic.
It’s fairly easy to pinpoint the moment in the backstory where both of their Perceptions of themselves shatter for the first time: the night of the Were-Spider Incident.
A brief summary for all of you who’ve forgotten Prez’s backstory: She was engaged to the Monochrome Prince, Whitney, but fell sick and began to lose the ability to see colour because she couldn’t express her true feelings about the marriage.
She met a nurse soon after, Asa, who helped her feel like herself again, but fell in love with her on the way. Whitney found out, tried to kill Asa, but ended up cursing Calpernia into a Were-Spider instead.
[If you thought Gwen and Fredrick’s story was all about not judging a book by its cover, this one takes that and amplifies it times 100 by having Whitney, “The Monster”, actually break away from being a byproduct of his extremely toxic environment and Calpernia, “The Good Girl”, literally lose her purpose in life, only to find it again in helping others.]
Whitney has a very on-the-nose Perception Shift, like Gwen, as his life literally flashes before his eyes when the Were-Spider nearly kills him, and there’s not one part of it that’s even the slightest bit happy.
(Honestly, with the way this is framed, I think he’d’ve been glad if Calpernia actually killed him at that point.)
This eventually spurs Whitney into reconsidering his life, nearly dying again by his brother’s hand, being saved by a monastery of male nurses; before finally embarking on the path to change and mend his very terrible and traumatised person.
Prez’s is a little more subtle though.
While the obvious answer would be to conclude that Prez’s Perceptions of herself shattered once she was banished from the polygon kingdom for her actions, I actually think that there is a more apt time, prior to this, where we really see that metaphorical glass break.
This. This is the moment.
It’s the first action that Prez takes after admitting to herself that she doesn’t want to continue living like this. This calls back heavily, and I mean heavily, to Frederick’s ENTIRE character arc. (His whole deal was breaking out of bad habits and old patterns that he’d shut himself into so he wouldn’t be hurt anymore.)
The first thing she does is sacrifice herself to protect someone she thinks is worth saving. The old Calpernia wouldn’t have done this. The old Calpernia would’ve just shut up and stood to the side like the obedient, diligent girl that she was so proud to be– but Prez was already tired of being her by then.
We can notice a few parallels here already:
For both Gwen and Calpernia, the immediate backlash is largely negative. Gwen has a violent, visceral reaction to Frederick’s comment, runs out of her palace, and passes out in the woods; while Prez, of course, turns into a Were-Spider and tries to kill everything within a five-mile radius. And then gets banished on top of all that.
But there’s still the promise of a hopeful future for these two. Gwen wakes up, is met with kindness and friendship and belonging, and Prez wakes up, finally free from the shackles of expectation that had been slowly killing her, now armed with the new dream to help others and create the CPC.
For Whitney and Frederick, it’s the opposite. While the immediate reaction is more positive; Frederick is (temporarily) braver and more open to noticing Gwen’s beauty, and Whitney seems like he’s on the right track to redemption— their futures look bleak in comparison.
Not only do we know that Whitney has no home and no one to return to, we similarly know that Frederick’s going to find out all the pain and trauma he caused Gwen at some point.
This is where things get interesting and before I start to point out more narrative coincidences, I’d like to stop and really examine what happens to certain characters when the way they view and value themselves shifts.
{Fast forward five years after the events of the backstory.}
Prez goes from being flawless, pampered and adored to forging her own path, no matter how messy, difficult and stressful it is– almost dying multiple times as she begins to recruit members into the newly formed CPC.
She deals with her new circumstances by throwing herself into every bit of ambition she can muster, and forgets to properly grieve what she lost, (as Curtis clearly points out during her confrontation with Whitney).
Meanwhile Whitney goes from behind an obnoxious, chauvinistic ass to a thoughtful, protective man-tiger-guy, clearly suffering from many, many forms of PTSD, and looking to make amends to everyone he’s hurt.
He deals with his circumstances through reflecting on his past and coming to terms with all of it; to the point where he no longer has any ambition at all and just seems to wander aimlessly from kingdom to kingdom in search of Calpernia.
As fate would have it, both Prez and Whitney separately end up becoming the First Friends and Mentors to the young and impressionable kids, Gwendolyn and Frederick respectively.
What’s intriguing here is that these two find themselves armed with the exact expertise to help one another, but this advice is passed onto Gwen and Freddie instead.
Gwen is deeply unselfish, there’s a kindness in her unmatched by any, and as a consequence of this, forgets to care for herself. Prez has the perfect solution for this: Lean on those around you instead.
This advice would work wonders for Whitney too, who also forgets to care for himself, not out of immense care for others, but because he thinks he doesn't deserve to.
He refuses to integrate himself into society, preferring to eat basically raw meat, drink rain water, and sleep on the grass, because it’s not like anything is going to attack him anyway? He won’t even sleep in the tent he carries???
[If you think about it, the man had more privileges resting in the monastery with the male nurses— at the very least, he had a roof over his head and a blanket to sleep in.]
It’s clear that Whitney is deeply uncomfortable allowing basic comforts for himself; he undoubtedly carries a lot of guilt and shame regarding everything he’s done, at least to Calpernia and Asa, and can’t really bring himself to rely on others at all.
Remember Leopold’s famous line in Episode #74?: One can only accept love from others, to the degree that they allow it in themselves. (Another parallel between Gwen and Whitney).
Gwen just genuinely couldn’t accept anything from Frederick or from anyone really, until she actively let herself do so, once she felt safe enough.
Similarly Whitney physically won’t even allow himself to develop any feelings for Calpernia, and these repressed feelings exhibit themselves in the form of his curse flaring up every time he experiences a normal or healthy emotion, like affection, gratitude, or jealousy.
While he does seem to have accepted the acts he’s committed in the past and is willing to atone for them in whatever way possible– allowing someone else to take care of him (as he would’ve been accustomed to as a prince), is out of the question.
On the other hand, Frederick and especially Calpernia have a hard time dealing with their emotions— any emotions.
Frederick prefers to shut the feelings out by hiding from them and looking down on everyone and everything first. It takes Whitney oversharing his own experiences, gruesome as they may be, for him to understand the privileges he’s been afforded as a Plaid Prince, and that by shutting out the bad aspects of life, he’s shutting out the good ones too– like how much his family cares about him.
Whitney’s advice consists of the following: Pain is not a competition. The painful emotions you feel are valid, but you get to choose when you’re ready to heal from them.
This advice would definitely help Prez too, since she has a bad habit of undervaluing her more basic feelings if she feels like someone else is suffering more than she is.
This is clearly depicted during her confrontation with Whitney, where she’s about to hit him, but breaks down and ends up punching a cake before she can admit that life sucks and she hates her curse.
And this isn’t the first time she does this either. During her initial months of illness when she first meets Asa, she says this:
Calpernia is explicitly aware of the privilege provided to her, so much so that she doesn’t see value in complaining about issues that are otherwise minor in the grand scheme of things.
Though Prez has grown from this mentality by establishing the Cursed Princess Club (which encourages its members to express their emotions), she’s just internalised the concept instead, believing that she, specifically, does not have the time to deal with minor emotions when there’s princesses out there that she could be saving.
For the most part, the advice works. Gwen relies on her friends and family for self-worth and the cracks slowly begin to reduce; and Fredrick stops feeling sorry for himself and starts actually changing his circumstances.
Here’s where the second part of the theory comes into play. The perceptions of Prez and Whitney are shattered yet again, but not the ones they have of themselves— this time, it’s the ones Gwen and Frederick have of them.
Frederick goes from thinking Whitney is this weird but Mysterious monk with a magical cure for negative thinking, to finding out that the man’s an attempted murderer and understanding that he really shouldn’t be so quick to judge.
And though Gwen doesn’t say it about Prez, in so many words, it’s clear that she feels a similar way.
In the beginning of the story, Prez was depicted as this all-knowing Wise One™️, a person Gwen assumed had all the answers because she was an Adult and also because she never talked about her own problems.
Later on, during Nell’s Premonition arc, we come to realise that she’s about as informed as everyone else, but prefers to blindly act on things, because, in her opinion, doing something is better than waiting for something to happen to them. This eventually has her focus on all the wrong things and nearly gets Renée killed in the process.
When Prez reunites with Whitney, it is the very first time Gwen has seen her vulnerable.
All the trauma she didn’t have time for suddenly resurfaces, and not only do we see her finally feel her feelings, we see how those feelings don’t suddenly disappear into the calm persona she’s maintained for so long, but instead breaks that facade to show the scared, angry girl she’s been pretending not to be.
And though we never see Gwen acknowledge it in words, it’s clear that this behaviour changes the way she sees Prez, because the next time these two have a talk, Gwen doesn’t really take her advice, or even want to.
The Second Shattering of Perceptions has once again resulted in two, extremely different reactions.
This time Fredrick is immediately wary when he learns of his Mentor's past, but changes his tune when he calls Whitney his friend during Gwen’s dinner to keep the CPC’s secret. And Whitney backs him up in front of his family, too. So we can infer that their relationship is going to be okay.
But it’s not the same for Prez and Gwen. Not only is Gwen not taking her advice; she’s actively not facing the truth because she believes Frederick loves her for who she is. Gwen is betraying her sense of self worth by not speaking to him about something that has plagued her since their very first meeting.
To top it all off, we don’t know whether or not Frederick thinks Gwen is cursed. Sure, he knows she’s part of the CPC and that the club is important to her, but we don’t know what he makes of her being there in the first place.
Now, onto the more predictive parts of the theory.
If Gwen finds out that Frederick thinks she’s cursed, it could shock and confuse her enough to tell him that she knows about what he said that fateful day they met. And this, in turn, will have a drastic impact on their relationship.
Although I do have few more predictions for where the story might go after this, I think it’s safe to assume that once Gwen and Frederick deal with their unresolved family drama in their own separate ways (from Lilyth’s diary to Leland’s blatant affection for Jack), they’re going to come back to one another, a little older, a little wiser, and give it another try.
This is where Whitney and Calpernia’s story comes into play for the last time.
The Advisors will now become the advisees, and instead of Frederick and Gwen asking for guidance, it’s likely that they’re going to be the ones giving it this time around.
Maybe not directly, not with those specific intentions in mind– but maybe they’ll end up reminding their mentors what they learned from them and each other, which will eventually spur the two into making their own decisions.
Currently, in the story, we have both Prez and Whitney facing problems they can’t immediately solve without making extreme changes to the way they’re currently living.
Calpernia is faced with a choice (multiple actually) of wether she should continue running the CPC in secret, or take Tori’s suggestion and start publicly advocating for their rights and making quantifiable changes. This requires her to choose between the comfortable life she’s lead for the past five years (the woods, CPC headquarters) and the busy, confusing life she might lead in the future (possibly travelling between Kingdoms as an official ambassador?).
Whitney’s problem is that he doesn’t trust himself not to hurt anyone anymore, like members of the CPC, especially Calpernia. He doesn’t understand that his curse flaring up is a result of repressed emotions and not some kind of omen that he needs to continue punishing himself and sleeping on grass for the rest of his life.
With the way things are going for them it almost feels like if Gwen and Frederick don’t interfere, Prez is going to put too much pressure on herself to do it all and Whitney is going to isolate himself from everyone and everything–– just like our main couple at the beginning of the comic.
Personally, I think it would bring the narrative arc to a satisfying conclusion if this indeed happens, and if it’s Frederick helping out Calpernia and Gwen saving Whitney from himself, instead of vice versa.
When Whitney first meets Frederick, the Plaid Prince had just spent half a day hauling a giant llama across state borders, on foot, to ask out a girl he was pretty sure was a witch, but was kind to him. Needless to say, Frederick’s mind is about as cluttered as Monica’s room, but luckily Whitney has the perfect solution for this.
It was Whitney’s Meditation that helped him separate his thoughts from his feelings, and ultimately helped him realise what he really wanted to do at that moment (i.e. to find Gwen).
Prez is struggling to separate her worries for Gwen and her struggles, from her own mixed feelings about Asa, and thoughts of wether or not she’s potentially coddling the CPC under the pretense of helping them, like Tori accused her of doing.
Frederick can share how, when he was just about to give up from the stress of it all, this simple trick, from Whitney, helped him prioritise what was most important to him at that moment. Meditation can keep her from pushing aside her emotions for later by laying them all out, and help Prez assign degrees of importance to her various problems, so she can figure out what she actually wants to do.
Similarly, I think it’s only fitting if Gwen is the one who finds Whitney and stops him from his self-imposed, chronic isolation.
When Gwen first confesses to Prez about her broken reflection, Prez explicitly tells her not to fixate on the shattered self-perception, because that would only lead her down a path of self-destruction.
Now, as in tune with his emotions as he is, it’s clear that Whitney is definitely headed down this particular rabbit hole.
Whitney believes he can’t help anyone after everything he’s done- especially not Prez, who, he’s spent the last five(ish?) years trying to find and apologise to.
The only healthy way he has of working through his problems is sitting down and thinking about them, but it’s hard to notice the positive aspects of yourself if you're the only one contributing to the discussion.
Whitney thinks he’s realised what’s wrong with his curse: obviously he’s someone who doesn’t deserve any form of love or comfort whatsoever or he’s at risk at turning back into an irredeemable monster– but he's wrong. Pulling away from Prez and the CPC is only going to hurt him more because it reinforces the idea that no matter how much he tries to change, he’s unfixable.
The poor guy hasn’t experienced a single positive emotion in his life, of course he’s not going to understand that leaning on others for emotional support when he doesn’t feel like himself, is a Good Thing.
[He probably only realised a major part of his old life stressful and toxic because the male nurses validated it, and since there wasn’t a single female nurse at the monastery, it’s understandable that healthy signs of affection was a topic that was never brought up.]
Gwen can help him by sharing how there were so many instances in her life where other people saw the beauty in her that she couldn't see in herself, from her family to Prez and the other members of CPC, to even a complete stranger like Leopold, and that just because it's hard for Whitney to see the goodness in himself, it doesn't mean that it's not there. It definitely doesn't mean that he's regressing back into the terrible person he used to be.
This would tie back in with the overarching themes of Self-Love in the story; not only is it in taking time to realise what is most important you, it's also relying on others when you feel at your lowest.
And it would finally make it clear why Whitney and Calpernia had to go through their individual struggles, making effort to change themselves and the people around them only to wind up helping each other, at the end of the day.
Cursed Princess Club is their tale just as much as it is Gwen's and Frederick's, and it's written so brilliantly that the characters go from archetypes to fully fleshed out people with their own personal victories, problems, and senses of self-worth.
The only problem I see with this theory, however, is that while it is heavily implied that Gwen and Frederick were always going to be endgame, that’s not really the case for Calpernia and Whitney.
While they were destined to reunite (by that one fortune cookie, we stan), their story was never really about romance, but a darker spin on the main themes of the story, and to highlight the morally grey aspects of the world it takes place in.
However, just because these ex-fiancés aren't really cut out for love, it doesn't mean they can't end up together.
But that's a theory for another day.
TLDR: GwenDerick is a Narrative Mirror to Prez/Whitney and therefore will help the latter Grow as people.
