Reply Girl Commentary on the news and other content
As I sit here sipping my cup of tea on a cold and rainy night, I began to read the Endgame by Omid Scobie. Hopefully, after each part I read, I can give some of my thoughts on Endgame. Please be patient as I do have a life outside of the internet.
Back in September, before Endgame was published, I had tweeted these two posts about Omid:
Something about Omid has always rubbed me the wrong way ever since I started watching Meghan and Harry. He comes off as a user. Someone who enjoys making trouble between people while profiting off of the situation. However, since I didn’t know him personally, that’s just my opinion of him and I admit I could be wrong.
A story tells as much about the author as it does about the subject or characters
I think Endgame will tell the world more about who Omid is and what he stands for rather than placing the focus solely on the subject matter which is the royal family.
Right now, I find it interesting that Omid seems mostly silent as so many places the blame for Endgame on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Some people even going so far as to say Meghan is extremely jealous of Catherine, the Princess of Wales. Was this Omid’s intention?
I have read Finding Freedom and will probably re-read it again later to post some of my thoughts and opinions here on this blog. For now, I didn’t think Omid or Carolyn came off as people who were there to help tell a story. Finding Freedom, IMO, seemed like a money grab that did well off the back of the attention the Sussexes got for their Oprah interview, Prince Philip’s death, and Prince Harry’s “Me You Can’t See” documentary.
At the time, I didn’t think much of it other than to believe that Omid along with Carolyn were helping the Sussexes’ voices be heard over the all the other voices. Now, I don’t think that way.
What changed? For one, I think Spare and the Sussexes’ docuseries made me see things differently and Omid’s part in all of this royal situation. (Spare is another book I will write about on this blog later on). While people were laughing at the “frozen todger” story and being disgusted about Prince Harry’s openness to write about his kill count, I think some people miss the hurt and pain that Prince Harry shown in Spare. My thoughts on that will come later.
The popularity of both the docuseries and the memoir did not go unnoticed. It doesn’t matter whether people were talking about the content in a positive or negative manner, it still got people to talk.
Omid, knowing how Finding Freedom became a bestseller and it probably made him a good amount of money, seem to have wanted to have a second go at riding on the popularity of the Sussexes. If, as he claimed, he was speaking to people who are friends or associates of the Sussexes, it is safe to assume someone let slip the timeline of when the docuseries and memoir were going to be published. Probably knowing this information, Omid decided to write a second book which he had hoped would be a bestseller.
For now, due to the time, I would like to settle on one quote that bothered me in Endgame’s Prologue. I may revisit the Prologue later to write more of my thoughts on it.
Quote from Endgame that stood out to me:
Parts of this book will burn my bridges for good. But to tell the full story, there’s no holding back. Not anymore. We’re in the endgame.
–Endgame by Omid Scobie
Omid is a royal reporter or at least he WAS a royal reporter. To “burn [his] bridges for good,” wouldn’t that mean that Omid was or is planning to no longer be a royal reporter? If so, did he expect Endgame to be the book that landed him millions or enough money for him to live on until he is able to move into a different line of work?
Why, if he made a career out of being a reporter who wrote about the royal family, is he willing to burn his bridges? In the process of burning his bridges down, he seem to have made things worse for the Sussexes who have already used their voices to tell their side of the situation. They have done interviews, a six part Netflix Docuseries, and Prince Harry has written a memoir.
Why did Omid seem to think he needed to put his two sense in by interviewing people about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle? People who held, what Omid wants us to believe, private information about how Prince Harry and/or Meghan felt, thought, written, said, and more.
Who are these people and why should we trust them if they are willing to so freely speak about Meghan and Prince Harry? What gives them the right to do this with someone like Omid?
I know I ask a lot of questions for such a short part of the book but these questions I do keep in mind going forward. Each paragraph, each chapter, should be able to answer these questions or leave me with more questions than answers.
