Unfortunately for all concerned, people started taking pictures. The smoke and the flames are about to overtake her. She's wearing a party dress, perhaps a birthday party dress. One is also told that it is not known where and when the picture had been taken. With a shift in the means of representation, a radical change occurs in the way the world is known.
Epic fantasy gives way to stark realism.
And now politics is everywhere and hopeless. No glory is at some future date, or plan of greatest happiness to come, can dismiss the actualities of power taking its toll.