A few days ago, I wrote about the symbolism of the plate off which Helena eats an egg at the beginning of Season 2, Episode 9. At the time, I speculated that it might be a nod towards the theme of child labor and parental severance that the show keeps pushing us towards.
But since then, a new theory has emerged on Reddit that’s so smart, I couldn’t not amend my original one. Per eagle-eyed fans, the young boy being restrained in the painting on the plate is actually a “whipping boy” or, “a boy educated alongside a prince (or boy monarch) in early modern Europe, who supposedly received corporal punishment for the prince's transgressions in his presence,” per Wikipedia. In other words: The original innie.
Says Redditor Living-Jeweler-5600, “slicing the egg into parts represents the way they can sever someone into multiple ‘innies’…so that each one of them can be the ‘whipping boy’ for the outie. And another commentor notes, “Kinda on the nose for Helly and Helena's dynamic.”
