Analyzing the Symbolism of the Stag in The Crown

WARNING: This post contains spoilers from Season 4 of The Crown.

Toward the end of Season 4 Episode 2: "The Balmoral Test" of The Crown, Prince Charles picks up on the "grotesque symbolism" of the successfully hunted stag that played a central role in the episode's plot. He is completely right-- but it's not him who is being symbolized. It's Diana.

The beginning of the episode sees a tourist hunter wounding a grand stag that trespasses onto the neighboring estate, immediately clarified to be the royal family's Balmoral Castle residence in Scotland. Diana Spencer was brought up as an upper class yet relatively normal woman. Once she meets Prince Charles, she has entered unpassable royal territory like the stag. The normal world to which she belonged could never be hers again. There was no going back.

The royal family is ecstatic to hear about their opportunity to hunt the grand stag. After dating "half of Britain" (as Princess Anne cheekily notes later in the episode), the family was incredibly pleased that Charles had found his own grand stag in Diana. She was the perfect candidate: she possessed unparalleled beauty, was of the right age, and came from a noble background. The stag is a prize coveted by everyone in the family except for Charles. Anne and Prince Philip are the two family members most interested in killing the stag. They are also the only two people we see interacting with Charles showing their emphatic support of Diana as his wife.

Emma Corrin as Diana Spencer

The family wants to mount the stag's head on the dining room wall opposite the head of the last grand stag that was killed on the Balmoral property. The stags represent the past and the future of the monarchy. One stag has been there for what seems like forever, staring at a blank slate, almost waiting for its rival to come along. Now there is another grand stag to marvel at, the likes of which have not been seen in ages. This stag seems destined to be the other's enemy. It is easy to assume the first stag symbolizes Camilla Parker-Bowles, but she does not live up to its grandeur. There are two interpretations of who the first stag represents: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles.

Queen Elizabeth II was an international sensation when she ascended the throne, just as Diana would become in her role as the Princess of Wales. However, the Queen never reached Diana's level of popularity or beauty. Diana was sensitive and emotional; the Queen was stone-faced and distant. Diana was a queen of people's hearts, something Elizabeth could never be. Only the heads of the stags were mounted on the walls. The old face of the monarchy (Queen Elizabeth II) was overshadowed by the new face of the monarchy: Diana.

Prince Charles and Diana both had their fates sealed by others. Neither was in control of their own life. They were even more like sacrificial lambs than stags; they were two innocent people tossed into a hurricane of a lifestyle. Deer are known to headbutt their mates. Diana and Charles were complete opposites (exactly like how the stag heads are facing each other on opposite sides of the dining room); neither one understood the other. Consequently, they butted heads regularly in an attempt to create order through the chaos of their lives. The stag is kept as a trophy like how Diana is kept as Charles's trophy wife.

During the Thatchers' first dinner at Balmoral Castle, the Queen Mother and Denis Thatcher are discussing the yet-to-be-killed grand stag. The Queen Mother asserts that it is a "criminal offense to kill a perfectly healthy breeding stag" like the one being hunted. It was as wrong to hurt the stag as it was to hurt a young, happy Diana by marrying her into the royal family. Despite expressing her distaste for the killing of the stag, the Queen Mother justifies it by saying, "It's not business. It's conservation." Although Charles and Diana were clearly not meant for each other (as acknowledged by Princess Margaret in the following episode), their marriage was necessary to conserve the purity and integrity of the Crown's image. The Queen Mother's mindset is not surprising given the royal family's treatment of the Bowes-Lyons cousins as discussed in episode 7.

Diana and Philip go stalking together in pursuit of the grand stag early one morning after Diana's arrival at Balmoral. Once they set their sights on the stag, Philip urgently mutters, "We'll never get another chance. We have one shot at this." Royal marriages were simply not allowed to fail. There could only be one chance to arrange a marriage as crucial as that of the future king and queen. There was only one shot to select the perfect girl, and Diana was perfect. Ironically, Diana has a hand in her metaphorical death. She knew the stag would die if Philip followed her instinct that the wind was coming from the left. She saw what she was getting into (not her own tragic death years later, but rather the pressure of being a royal) and played an active role in securing that future. If Philip had decided the wind was coming from the right, he most likely would have missed the shot. Diana would have been spared years of suffering. It was Diana's own influence that led to her demise.

There are two filler scenes in this episode. The first shows the wounded stag drinking from a stream alone in the night; the second shows a deserted stream during the day. The world was kept in the dark about Diana's marital struggles and eating disorder because they seemed to be nonexistent. Charles kept Diana in the dark about his affair with Camilla; Diana did not exist to him during the day. When she was alone with herself, Diana recognized her pain and broken expectations about her life with Charles. When she was in the limelight, the true Diana no longer existed.

Diana and Philip return to the castle with the stag in tow. Charles is the only family member who is not impressed. In a subtle move by The Crown's costume department, Diana wears a sweater with deer printed on it when she leaves the estate. The next time she is seen, she is being swarmed by paparazzi in the streets of London. She is now being targeted by the public instead of the royals, tragically foreshadowing the end of her life.

When Diana joins the family Christmas party at the end of episode 10, she walks down a staircase full of stag antlers. There is an extended shot of her in front of a pair of antlers, making it look as though the antlers are growing out of her head. The Crown makes the message clear: Diana, goddess of the hunt, has become the hunted.