cahn

LOLOLOL, MT, you missed your chance! That would have been hilarious.

The funniest part is that, leaving out the part about writing off an entire sex, Fritz actually *was* kind of proud of being able to keep it in his pants and not waste a lot of money and time getting laid, haha. The *facepalm*y part was where he decided both Louis XV's and Catherine II's politically active favorites were proof that women were unfit for ruling, because...logic fail.

Ah, yes, Wellington's quote. In his case, I think it's not only that Napoleon was safely dead, but also, if you've *beaten* the greatest military commander, it makes you look extra awesome.

Which reminds me of the exchange attributed to Hannibal and Scipio:

Scipio: So, who are the greatest generals of history?
Hannibal: Alexander, then Pyrrhus, then me.
Scipio: Hahahaha, lol forever, and where would you have ranked yourself if you'd actually managed to beat *me*?

(Now there's a set up for an epic rap battle - Fritz vs Napoleon - who'd win?)

LOL! Fritz wins! He has the flute. Check out the polls for the episode Fritz was in. On the official poll, current votes are

- Ivan the Terrible: 751
- Alexander the Great: 1021
- Frederick the Great: 5267
- Catherine the Great: 1996

Fritz by a landslide! I also found this unofficial straw poll someone put together hilarious:

- Frederick the Great: 38
- Catherine the Great: 7
- Old Fritz's flute: 6
- Ivan the Terrible: 4
- Pompey the Great: 4
- Alexander the Great: 3

Catherine's gotten one vote since the last time I checked. When I found this poll, Fritz was in first and his flute was tied for second, which made me laugh a lot.

So I say Napoleon doesn't stand a chance. (In his actual rap battle, it looks like he beat Napoleon Dynamite.)

Real life battle/war? Man, this is something I've been thinking about lately, and gotten super annoyed because I studied Napoleon's campaigns about as closely as Fritz's back in the day, but haven't looked at them in 20 years, and so I no longer remember enough detail to make informed comparisons. And for the same reasons I'm not up to doing MT research, Napoleon research is out of the question.

My impression is that Napoleon was the far superior tactician, but Fritz won his wars through a variety of other skills and personality traits, and I think he would have put up much more of a fight after his defeats than Napoleon got from the Prussians in real life. However, any time I try to do an actual "Who would win?" I run into AU world-building problems. How old and decrepit is Fritz? How long has he been king? A Fritz born in 1778 and just getting started is a world of difference from a Fritz who manages to live to 94 years old and somehow still be alive and active.

Is the oblique order new and surprising or old hat to Europe? Is Fritz in the middle of trying to hold Silesia? What does the political scene of Europe look like? I get the impression Fritz has more allies in this AU than in the Seven Years' War, because people are a wee bit more worried about Napoleon, but how well does Fritz play the political game and does he piss off all of his allies? Does he underestimate Napoleon as badly as he underestimated his real-life foes? Etc.

Someday I may have opinions rather than questions. Right now all I have is questions.

Definitely Old Fritz in the rap battle, though. He's got creative talents and battle malice. ;)