For a post that amounted to one baby photo and a pumpkin emoji, Kate and William’s first Halloween share drew a surprisingly heated comment section on PEOPLE. Most readers just wanted to say how adorable Louis looked, but the thread kept getting pulled into older arguments: whether the Waleses are copying the Sussexes or the other way around, whether a candid family snapshot counts as calculated PR, and whether Kate can post a photo without someone bringing up the edited Mother’s Day picture. In between, a few gentler side conversations turned up, about how Halloween caught on in Britain and where the holiday came from in the first place.

The commenter Adel says Kate is copying Meghan by showing only part of the children’s faces. Adel adds that Kate also learned public affection with William and hugging people from Meghan. The comment closes on a regret: the two women could have learned from each other, and the cousins could have grown up playing together, if Meghan hadn’t been pushed out. It’s one of the most disliked comments on the page (11 up, 52 down) and drew 45 replies. The visible pushback is blunt, such as a reply saying Kate has no need to copy the Sussexes.

The background is that Harry and Meghan usually share photos of Archie and Lilibet from behind or with their faces partly hidden. The Waleses usually release full-face portraits. A candid photo of a toddler bent over a pumpkin will naturally show less of his face, which weakens the idea that it was deliberate.

Another commenter makes the opposite prediction. They say this photo will prompt Meghan to post Halloween pictures of her children with their backs to the camera, and they call them “alleged royal children.” That comment did much better (33 up, 5 down). So each side accuses the other of imitation. Adel’s thread also drifts into the Thomas Markle allegations, which shows how quickly a cute-photo article turned into a proxy fight.

The “trying too hard” view

Theo091023 says the couple is so anxious to look down to earth that they’re overdoing it. It got 8 up and 38 down. A gentler version comes from Therese, who says it can be shameless PR and an adorable photo at the same time. Even that was voted down (2 up, 9 down).

The PR theme runs through other threads too. Susannah suggests the Waleses’ strength right now is looking wholesome next to the Sussexes. Others answer in a few ways:

• It predates the Sussexes: R. argues the couple’s image was established long before Harry and Meghan married.
• The timeline doesn’t work: Kupo says sarcastically that the 2022 trick-or-treating photo couldn’t have been planned to counter a Sussex return in 2026.
• It’s just a holiday photo: LadyLeighton97 says it’s harmless, and Louis is young enough in it not to be embarrassed.
• The older kids said no: C jokes that they used a baby photo because George and Charlotte refused to be posted.

The article itself leans on the “down to earth” framing. The 2022 neighbor quote it uses opens with exactly that phrase, which may be part of why skeptics reacted.

Smaller side threads

Halloween in the UK. A commenter remembers trick-or-treating in Cambridge in the 1980s and the neighbors being horrified. That fits the history. Halloween was fairly low-key in much of Britain for decades, and Bonfire Night on November 5 was the bigger autumn event. American-style trick-or-treating spread mainly from the 1980s and 90s and is now mainstream. The article’s own examples, trick-or-treating in London and costume shopping in Norfolk, show how normal it has become.

Samhain. Another commenter traces Halloween to Samhain, the Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and the start of winter, with bonfires and costumes to keep spirits away. That’s broadly right. Samhain was observed in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, and “guising” in costume is an old Scottish and Irish custom. The specific claims about ancient costume rituals are less firmly documented than the popular version suggests. It’s one of the friendliest corners of the thread, with someone replying “Blessed Samhain!”

The Mother’s Day photo correction. This came up under a comment praising Kate as a good photographer, which almost invited a jab about the edited 2024 photo. Adel apparently said Kate apologized for it in a video. Diana2g corrected this, and the correction is accurate. In March 2024, Kensington Palace released a Mother’s Day family photo. Several photo agencies withdrew it because it had been digitally altered. Kate then posted a short written apology on social media, saying she sometimes experiments with editing as an amateur photographer. Her video about two weeks later announced her cancer diagnosis and didn’t mention the photo. It explained that she and William had waited to go public until they had told their children.