I haven't been able to stop thinking about this point since I read it.
I wrote in an earlier post that I think that that aftermath of Wille's birthday party is the moment where Simon realises what their future will look like if he and Wilhelm stay together and Wilhelm remains Crown Prince. Wilhelm will keep fracturing under the weight of his role, but will convince himself that he can bear it as long as he has Simon. Simon's role will be to patch over the cracks and be Wilhelm's emotional comfort; his helpmeet but also his teddy bear and pacifier. Eventually the cracks will be too big to patch, or Simon will also be suffocated under the weight of Wilhelm's role. Or both.
And that is what they show us by way of Kristina and Ludvig in season 3.
In the very first scenes of season 3, Kristina doesn't even look at Wilhelm, she's holding herself together so tightly. Wilhelm needs reassurance, support, affection, but she's wound too tight to give it, and Ludvig can't give it either because he's totally focused on Kristina. He reassures her it won't take long, pats her hand, asks her if she took her pills; she barely responds and when she does it's just a mutter.
Wilhelm later tells Simon that people in his family don't burn out or have breakdowns, but shortly after the negotiations are concluded, Kristina has a panic attack. From Wilhelm's reaction, I don't think he's ever seen it happen before (and August certainly hasn't). We're led to wonder just how long Ludvig has been holding the Queen together behind the scenes, so privately that even their son wasn't aware of it.
And for virtually the rest of the series, Ludvig is the barrier between Kristina and everybody else, including her own son (and isn't it ironic to see Kristina ignoring Wilhelm's calls, just as he ignored hers in season 2?) Ludvig conveys little to no information to Wilhelm about what's going on, he scurries away when someone interrupts the phone call in which it's obvious that Wilhelm is struggling and needs to talk, and he stage manages Wilhelm's birthday; he makes the main speech, not the Queen who is the senior member of the royal family, and during the dinner he keeps the conversation going by asking Simon question after question so that Wilhelm has no opportunity to talk to Kristina.
And yet after Wilhelm's cake-related outburst, Ludvig has absolutely nothing to say except "I don't know". Because he doesn't know, nor is it his place to know. He has nothing to say or do for himself; he only exists in relation to the Queen. Again, he's a crutch, or a shield. As Simon sees he will be, if he stays.
I'm sick and tired of this position, hatched underneath your arm
A crutch under stress, your rudder when it's calm [1]
(Incidental side note: I listen to a podcast called Rex Factor, which reviews and ranks the Kings and Queens of England and judges whether they have the special something that makes up the "Rex Factor". Once they ran out of monarchs, they moved on to ranking the consorts, which was actually a lot more fun since the consorts generally come from different countries and have had more varied lives. They talk about the difference in ranking consorts for what they did to support their royal spouse, versus what they did as themselves prior to, or while being, consorts. Some consorts they judged as having the Rex Factor as themselves, but once they became consorts, they were diminished and no longer so 'Rexy'.)
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