Prince Chulalongkorn

The young Prince is a wonderful combination of his father's self-assured leadership and his mother's careful wisdom. Prince Chulalongkorn brings to Anna's classroom a healthy skepticism and a junior version of his father's arrogance. Prince Chulalongkorn bridles at the geography lesson which reveals Siam to be smaller than he'd thought, then rebels and refuses to believe in snow, turning the classroom to pandemonium until his father orders the children to believe the schoolteacher. While the king is dying, the young prince makes his first proclamations, one of which is to abolish the established tradition of bowing low to the ground "like a toad"; instead, he wants his people to show their respect with straight backs and a confident look in their eyes. His display of command and concern for his people demonstrate his readiness to rule as well as his successful assimilation of modern Western thought.