Knights of Guinevere Rabbithole: Finding the password
Ok so in this part of the pilot where we first see sparky there's a QR code
that takes you to a website with these three pages from a Guinevere storybook:
The first reads:
Alone in the forest, from the path she had strayed,
Princess Guinevere cried, feeling lost and afraid.
"Oh, why are you weeping?" came a voice with a squeak
Guinevere was so shocked, she replied with an eek!
scrawled over in crayon with "WALK THE PATH" spiraling. There's a caret between 'had' and 'strayed' reading "her Fault". The faces of Guinevere and the rabbit peeking on the left are crossed out, and a crown is above Guin's head with a strange symbol.
an eye crossed out? It feels important, maybe has something to do with the surveillance shots in the pilot that were specifically tracking our princess. That, as well as another crown-ish scrawling. There seems to be a lot of crown imagery throughout the show- more on that later though.
There's a bunch of words scribbled over the book's text that are hard to make out, but there's two instances of 'mine':
and the third... could also be mine, but with the weirdly emphasized 'S' I feel like it can also read "SMITE." now this could be a bit of a reach since it uses a line from the E above and ignores the little bit to the left of the T that could make it an N:
But then, what is that weird S? Why is it made of so many strokes? is it actually a 5? That, and the symbol above the crown, could give us more insight on who defaced this page. Was it a young Olivia or a Guinevere? The "MINE"s make me think it's Olivia with her possessiveness of the lost Guinevere in the show, the "WALK THE PATHS" demanding she stay on the path, but Gwen willfully strayed from the path in the story (and likely in the show as well). Clearly the writer blames the princess for getting lost by emphasizing the 'strayed' bit with 'her fault'.
The next page reads:
Then she saw that her tears had brought wondrous creatures:
Star Pups! Of all shapes, and colors, and features!
"Today is my birthday..." she said with a sigh,
And my invites received not a single reply...
is typed over by typewriter with a nonsensical block of text that reads: [double slash for line break, single slash for broken line]
Crown keep castle vassal sword scepter // pomp and on it passing plain some like // to apes dismayd (sic) and cried though many // much laughed/ and laughed and laughed // and as for you you royal tutor great // gouts of it and an huundrend (sic) thousand // swoon, and then you all well up Well // now gallop forth / on your reckless // cour3e to move these marmel legs in //pendula most plangent,,, laughing sadly // Paladins triumphant!! is that so it is // Now gems jubies and emeralds most // scarlet of hue the great pavilion with //cloth of gold aspread like unto as it // were a monumountumnal (sic) procession of a // coronation or scepters horns and blare // and now the hound has / an hind leg oh // goody Fair is your face and fine yet
There were a lot of strange spellings and typos. to spare you all of writing (sic) every time, just know that the strangeness is transposed directly. On the other half of the page this text is printed again in much lighter ink, misaligned with other bits of words that are either parts of the missing lines or from something else entirely. The only thing that is bold is "laughing sadly" which allowed me to align the text over to check.
Now, this immediately strikes me as a code. Perhaps in the typos, or in bits that seem to be missing. The whole thing seems to be out of order with itself. I don't know too much about print, but the lighter sections (and a line of ink rolling across the page) strikes me more as from a printing press and not on a typewriter. but that could mean nothing.
For some reason, I feel this page has more to do with Olivia's father, Orville with his flowery speech.
The third reads:
The Star Pups all whispered, then nodded together:
"If it's friends that are needed, we will lend a paw and feather!"
So ballads were sung, and cupcakes were nibbled,
and the Princess's tears became laughter and giggles.
This one has "MY FRIEND TILL" scrawled on it twice in ink and again, lots of crowns. My friend till... what? Till she left? Usually this phrase goes "my friend till the end" but clearly this person is lamenting their loss or trying to invoke a promise broken but can't bring themself to finish the phrase. or is there a friend named Till? It seems to be written by the same hand that wrote over the first page- so, Olivia. The use of ink makes me feel like it's done at an older age though.
So, there's plenty to analyze here alone. But I noticed the link is parkplanet.net/picnicfortheprincess, so I went to the plain URL, and...
There's a whole website here with a quiz to which Guinevere are you, merch links that are all sold out, the trailer, and 'park rules' with an ominous air. I'm sure there's plenty more here to dive into, but what I'm interested in is at the very bottom. There's a button that reads "STAFF USE ONLY" that leads to a page asking for a password.
